Art: FFXI Lady Lilith

[Tarrtarus]

Howdy guys! I just checked the forums and didn't see a specific section to post fan art so I thought I'd post a drawing here. (Even though its from XI I thought you guys would appreciate it.)

She's my favorite character from any FF game so let me know what you think!

http://tarrtarus.deviantart.com/art/Lady-Lilith-Final-Fantasy-XI-312220857

[Livioti]

Really practice your line quality. The image is there now add hard distinctive accents to the areas where it's needed.
Lines that are in shadowed spots need to be brought out. Lighting is key. Experiment with colored pencils

[Zantetsuken]

I have not had form drawing yet and this is my first attempt at drawing a person. Let me know what you think!

As this is your first attempt, you are going to have issues with things like composition, design, and anatomy. Its natural, and nobody is born with those things. If you want to develop your skills more, I'd suggest you spend several hours a week just drawing anatomy.

Try this:

• Week 1: Find some good images of the human skeletal system and practice drawing it many, many times (50 or more) -- don't go for a completed look, just quick sketches to get the shapes right.
• Week 2: Do the same, but this time with the muscle system -- Pay careful attention to how they give form to the body (25 fast drawings should be good).
• Week 3: Draw from images of sculptures to get a feeling for building form with light and shadow -- spend more time with these drawings, maybe do 5 of them for the week. (Bernini and Michelangelo sculptures are fantastic for this)

Look for high-contrast images like this:


**For every other drawing, flip your reference image upside down and draw it that way to help train your eye to see what it actually sees, and not what your brain thinks it sees.**

After all this, come back and give the Lylith drawing another attempt. You might be surprised at the results.

(Many people think that this sort of practice is useless because they want to draw anime style or w/e, but this discipline is the foundation for every type of figure drawing. The better you get at it, the better and more professional even anime-style drawing will get.)

Good Luck~

[DeadRiser]

I remember these days before I studied figures and how the face works. Not too bad, just gonna take some practice to learn how the body moves and works.

Keep up the good work

[Seif]

I smell P3 in your da name.

Also whoa at the overwhelming amount of constructive crit you've already gotten in this thread.
If drawing is something you do for fun try not to be discouraged by it and if it's something you wish to do as work in the future try to learn from it.

Good luck in either case. It's not an easy road. Zantekutsuts (jesus these fantasy names!) had really good suggestions.

[Mirage]

As a complete drawing noob, I'll just say that the upside-down drawing really does help a lot. You might think that it is completely crazy and won't work at all while doing it, but that's just your rational (you know, the one that sucks at arts) brain trying to take control over the task at hand.

Just ignore it and keep on drawing, and eventually it will give up and you'll be in that calm but focused artist-mode where you're no longer thinking in words.

[Tarrtarus]

Just got home from work and I wanted to say thank you everyone for your feedback and I'll definitely use some of your suggestions! I think I lost a -LOT- of the detail in the drawing due to the fact that I took the picture with the camera on my phone.

Thanks all!

[Rukira]

Always remember that you start off realistic THEN stylize! A good help is those wooden dolls with the movable joints. If any thing, it's fantastic for understanding proportion. You seemed to have cell shaded blocks of gray instead of trying to use a scale. For example:


That will help bring life and pop out your art instead of making it look too flat.
Also, people will probably hit me for this, but observing things and people help a lot as well. And references are fantastic!

[Duelle]

Thumbs up to all the awesome advice. I like threads like this.