Some Fallout fan art

comscar

It Wandered In From the Wastes
Don't like it. Everything is off. Your knowledge of human anatomy is seriously flawed, you need to learn how to place shadows, you need to think more about your compositions. And you need to learn how to use a pencil. Seriously: your drawings look like giant smears, it's all far too grey to look appealing. Imagine what you could achieve if you used the white of your page and varying degrees of grey -> black (pencil). In short: more contrast. If you make black & white drawings, you should make sure that your whites and blacks are equally spread, if you use greys they need a portion of the cake as well. Look at the following pencil drawings. You don't have to like them (I don't like them that much either), but they are drawn by someone who knows how to place his blacks and whites and greys. They get roughly "equal" parts of the pic, creating a natural, harmonious contrast.









You can do all that with pencils. Just keep practising.
 
Could you have wrapped that critique up with a nice bow or something to soften the blow slightly?
 
How about I wrap that up with a little... DANCE!



Look: if you post your drawings here, it means you understand some people may be critical. I don't have to say I'm sorry for giving him some useful pointers, do I?
 
Well no, the critique is fine I just thought it was little too blunt for someone new(ish) here. Guess I'm a bit of a care bear. :P

Dance is better than a bow though. :D
 
Hey, thanks for the advice, alec. I really appreciate the bluntness. It's something i don't get enough of.

I'll definately try to practice what you have pointed out.

Can you elaborate a bit with the human anatomy? I don't fully see what exactly i screwed up on (except for the Mad Max drawing, and the annorexic raider. those do look like garbage).
 
comscar....


Best. Avatar. Ever.

Anyways, if you want to be a concept artist, take an specialized art course in college. Generalize in art and have an advanced drawing class in specialty. They will teach you everything ya need to know.

And by anatomy, he means that your characters don't have muscles, a proper skeleton, tendons, ect. If you learn the human form, drawing people is very much easier. All of your characters look like plastic sheets with faces drawn on them draped over a wire-frame. Some people use those types of designs and effects for a purpose in their drawings, but your obviously going for a "as photo-realistic" as possible effect, but you mix it with other art styles that don't make sense.

Take your hard-boiled drawing. The characters face is very cartoonish, a"Idk the theme name, but lets go with heavy metal comicish" style, while the backdrop, suit, and guns are modeled in a semi-realistic, non exagerated fashion that is very unbalanced.

just think about your drawings.

Your best are the junkyard and master.


Good points though, you would be very good at storyboarding. Most hollywood storyboards i've seen look like shit compared to this.
 
Actually there was a lot of feeling in the anorexic raider. He has to be my favorite one of the loot.

I would say, that your primary concern is proportions. Everyone's is, or at least should be. Afterwards - volumes. I've been taught, that the purpose of drawing is to depict a 3D object on a 2D sheet. There isn't even a hint of that in your drawings.

These are your building blocks. Use them to 'build' the figure, as out of lego bricks.

horizon.jpg


You should end up building your figure something like this:
obemi.jpg


And these are the basic shades. I've heard them called 'the 7 levels of shading' which is bullshit. I've been taught to learn them by heart - 'halftone, lightest part, halftone, halshade, colon shade (darkest part), reflex, dark again. You use them on their corresponding places in your figure, the rest you make up.

shading-1.jpg


How much you delve into anatomy is entirely up to you, but for conceptart you really do need a shitload of it. I hope that helps.
 
comscar said:
Can you elaborate a bit with the human anatomy? I don't fully see what exactly i screwed up on (except for the Mad Max drawing, and the annorexic raider. those do look like garbage).

Contrary to what the others here say, I like the "Standing in the remains of a street" drawing best of all. The way you portray your character in that drawing, well, that actually works IMO.
Knowledge of the human anatomy will undoubtedly aid you in drawing more realistic, 3D characters, but as Dopemine Cleric pointed out: some artists do actually use your more flat, anatomically incorrect types of designs and effects for a purpose in their drawings, so it's up to you to figure out just how correct you want to depict humans in your art.
Best thing you can do is construct some sort of simple wireframe for your characters, something like patriot showed, but mayhaps less square 'cause that's his style, not yours. Then you drape the skin and clothing over that wireframe.



Another thing you should spend more time on is perspective. You already seem to understand the basics of it, but - for instance - in the "Standing in the remains of a street picture" you still make some detailed mistakes that throw the perspective completely off balance:



Perspective doesn't need to be 100% right to be convincing, crooked lines often get you better, more lively results than geometrically correct constructions, but you can NEVER be inconsistent. You are obviously constructing some of your scenery along the wrong set of lines, thus mixing perspective with something like an isometric projection method (the top lines of the door and traffic sign for instance). In short: if you draw a horizon, you need to respect it. Mistakes above the horizon catch the eye of the beholder real quickly.

Anatomy and perspective aren't hard to learn at all. I don't know about the bookshops in your country, but over here one can find simple and deadcheap books about these, specifically aimed at beginners. The nice thing about drawing is that the basics of it are actually really limited in scope (the knowledge needed to construct a picture), yet the possibilities they open are pretty much limitless.
Cheapest, most fulfilling hobby, if you ask me.

On a sidenote: you might also want to look into the concept of drawing on the right side of the brain, Betty Edwards theory of how to look at reality in a different way (well, different for most, I guess). You don't have to delve into it, just understanding the basics of it will help you a long long way. Iit's a mental change if anything else really, some do it with the blink of an eye, but others have to train at it. You obviously use your left brain way too much. That's why your drawings are so grey and sans contrast (your left brain kicks in and tells you how subtile the colours and shadows are, and it's right, but that won't help you one bit while you're drawing), that's why you make those stupid little mistakes in your perspective grid (you think about it too much, you should just see the grid in your mind's eye, like a HUD that filetrs reality before your brain gets to it) and so on.
 
Alphadrop said:
Well no, the critique is fine I just thought it was little too blunt for someone new(ish) here. Guess I'm a bit of a care bear. :P

For reference's sake: we're well aware most artists are very sensitive about their work. However, if they can't handle critique, they simply shouldn't post. We don't want flaming, and we don't want critique that isn't constructive. But the reason we have no problem with harsh critique is because it works when someone picks it up, as you can see by the rest of this thread, this forum can be pretty damned helpful if you just listen.
 
wow, some really great advice you're getting here comscar. don't put the pencil down!


shit man, maybe i need to start breaking mine back out?
 
Draw moar!

And listen to alec in this thread, for once that he's making sense.
 
thanks so much, guys!. i almost feel bad, since you helped me out so much and i haven't even contributed to the forum yet.

very good advice. i wish i knew half of this stuff before.
 
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