The bushes are overgrowing the (page right) side of the bench, which means that the bench is not being maintained properly and should show some dirt and weathering due to its proximity with nature and its neglect.
The brick wall kind of gives NYC Central Park vibes, but from the Japanese maple and lanterns, its supposed to be in Japan?
The perspective of the brick wall's lines, the bench's straight lines, and the path's lines are out of alignment. The "scale" of the lanterns seems too small and their light is too "sharp" on the edges. The scale of the planks for the bench seem to be too small and the parallel lines draw a lot of attention to the perspective issues. That's not a traditionally Japanese bench, it looks western and upper class, perhaps private (no homeless barrier).
The "slats of light" under the bench imply a strong overhead sun on a clear day, but the lamps have hard edges like night, and the "color vibe" of the background is twilight. Maybe soften the edges on the ground-shadow under the bench, add some diffuse color down there, and dim the lanterns?
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What is does well are the colors, the plants, and the top-down perspective on the character. The character looks the best and is the best placed within the environment. I feel like the lines and background perspective should draw more attention (lead the eye to) this character, who is the central focus. I feel that the crows is a great idea, but perhaps they should lead the eye to the character with a burd seated on the empty seat on the bench (a burd on the bench) -- the burds lead the eye to the top of the brick wall as currently stands, so if that is significant keep it, but consider bringing it more closer to the character.
Character is solid due to his well executed perspective, the clothing and hair would be a good place to add additional detail.
Overall solid~
A critique since you seem open to them : The bushes are overgrowing the (page right) side of the b
thanks for the critique! it's not often i get such detailed responses regarding the technical aspects of my stuff.
the location is a small corner of the fictional world my stories take place in. there's a wide variety of plant life there! the construction of this image was partially an exercise in worldbuilding.
while i don't quite see how the bench and brick wall are out of alignment (i initially constructed the scene in blender, and i made certain that those two things were aligned), i do see how the path itself is out of alignment. i'm comfortable with that!
i also agree that the lighting in places can be a bit either too sharp or too dull. the lanterns are particularly egregious in that regard. by the time i'd finished with the piece, i was a bit too fatigued to revisit em! next time i have a light source like that, i may put more thought into it.
again, thanks for the critique!! i really do appreciate it and will take it into consideration next time i make a piece like this.
thanks for the critique! it's not often i get such detailed responses regarding the technical aspect
I'd be happy to write more for ya'~! I'd love some critiques some on my own artz, too~ x3
When you used Blender, is it like a drawing/painting software like SAI or is it a 3d CAD modeled environment? If you take a photo on your phone of bending your finger up close, it might look like a ass photo in the thumbnail. Even if it's correct in a 3d CAD environment, it can give the illusion of an incorrect perspective as a 2d projected "flattened" image. Maybe it's something like that if you made a 3d CAD environment in Blender?
I feel like the vertical lines on the brick walls (the vertical lines between bricks where the mortar goes) are "clashing" with the "3d isometric view" vertical lines on the bench. It's towards (page) left in the corner of the bench visible over the character's shoulder.
I like the mix of textures too, btw~! x3 The actual wood planks themselves have such satisfying brush strokes~
I'd be happy to write more for ya'~! I'd love some critiques some on my own artz, too~ x3 When you
blender is a piece of open-source 3d software that's been around for years! im kinda surprised you haven't heard about it! it's extremely worth looking into.
the perspective might look a little funny, because it's not ACTUALLY an isometric/orthographic perspective. in blender, the camera is simply VERY far away, and we're looking on the scene as if we're using a high-grade telephoto lens.
blender is a piece of open-source 3d software that's been around for years! im kinda surprised you h
I think I tried blender once in like 2011-2012 trying to model my Batty for source mods to use in TF2/L4D x3
It was probably completely different back then, but I remember struggling so much with the keybinds (completely different from photoshop CS5 i was learning at the time) that I ended up quitting in frustration. x3
I honestly don't really know how to do 3d stuff at all unless it's being made on a CNC machine or 3d printer. I know Autodesk and AutoCAD but it's a lot different and the focus it's designed around is different. I had no idea that Blender was being used for doing backgrounds, I just heard of it as something that was used to make VR Chat models back in 2018 when I was RP'ing as Ugandan Knuckles *cluck cluck cluck* without a VR setup at all~! xD
I think I tried blender once in like 2011-2012 trying to model my Batty for source mods to use in TF
blender is an incredibly versatile tool! it can be used for a great many things. i use it all the time for composing the broad strokes of illustrations that i later complete by hand.
another free and really cool tool i like to use is MakeHuman (http://www.makehumancommunity.org/), which lets you generate entire humanoid models of most any age, size, and shape, completely rigged and ready to pose in whatever 3d software you use.
blender is an incredibly versatile tool! it can be used for a great many things. i use it all the ti
So you sorta paintover the models and the models are like the silhouette/thumbnail? Do you export it as a .psd file and open it in SAI or something like that?
I've heard of something like this in Krita, but I've never actually seen someone do it and have no idea what it would actually look like.
For practice, i used this https://www.posemaniacs.com/ on the "30 second drawing" but i set it to like 60 or 90 seconds and skip thru the ones I dont like. I usually draw "flour sacks" like the animation industry used to teach people to do. I do that for 15-20 minutes and then I only finish the good ones. I have been meaning to practice that more, but I just feel kinda rusty in general so my practice has been unfocused (except on lineart/inks).
I feel like I need to finally tackle hands and just draw a thousand of them, don't have a reference library for it yet tho
Ohhhh~! Very cool! :D So you sorta paintover the models and the models are like the silhouette/thu
my usual method of preparing a piece is to generate a humanoid in the approximate shape i wish to see in the illustration! then i'll pose it alongside any relevant props.
sometimes i'll create entire environments from scratch or near-scratch depending on how complex it needs to be (like this one).
i spend a lot of time getting the camera angle, and lighting, depending on the level of detail i intend to include in the final illustration just right. i have a lot of experience as a photographer so this is where i feel like much of the time spent pays off a ton.
i'll take the resulting render and draw directly over it. sometimes i'll leave pieces of the original render in place, but most of the time, it's all stuff i've drawn by hand.
if you have a hard time with hands, then blender and MakeHuman may come in a lot of handy for you!
my usual method of preparing a piece is to generate a humanoid in the approximate shape i wish to se
For me, I do most of it just without reference on the spot lately. However, if I want to focus on something I draw that part first. Often times, this is Squonker's big, soft scruffy pawz. I'll even draw a few sets of hefty plomperz before settling on only the finest pair. Next, I go in and add the important details, such as shines on the plump beanz or lil scruftz of pawscruff between each velvety toe~! Blunt-tipped clawsies to tip-tap on the cool linoleum floorz~ UwU
It would be neat to see ya do some "first person perspective" artwork. For those, I like to add the toony circle eyes as a sort of vignette (vinaigrette?).
I guess I should clarify that I mostly draw 3 finger handz and big ol' 3-bean pawz, I'm looking for handpawz that are expressive on their own moreso than anatomically correct. I'll probably just put a huge reference folder together of screencapz~ :3
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I come from an engineering background. I don't have any artz education. My free electives were math classes for math majors and constitutional,criminal and business law. I also like photography and want to get a mid-level DLSR, but I also have never used one.
One of the tasks I did before I got fired was making work instructions for people who spoke a variety of languages but not English. So it was a lot of photoediting and "drawing" but on a technical level. I also modeled various things like airports, hospitals, factories (especially factories). There's an art to all of that. The color coding and the organizational process. I was also educated to improve the efficiency of existing systems.
For me, I do most of it just without reference on the spot lately. However, if I want to focus on s
![[ALBUM RELEASE] Harsh Noise for Cats II](https://va.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5273/5273618_leglegleg_harsh_noise_2_cover_public_noncustom.jpg "[ALBUM RELEASE] Harsh Noise for Cats II")
