MeganMosier

Happy birthday!!

ThanXXX for the “Forgotten Battle! Fav, Megan!

This is an A3 Sepia Drawing!

It is inspired by a Battle which took place between the Scots and the English, not far from where I live!

Cheers!

Hello! Finally doing my critiques!

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to say this in the least complicated way, so bear with me:

When you draw characters with clothes on they look significantly more stiff than when you draw them without clothes on. Using your drawings of birds (excellent, by the way, you are REALLY good at drawing birds) and especially your recent art of Moon as a point of reference; it's clear you have a good grasp of anatomy and it isn't necessarily why your poses feel stiff. I think you're main weakness is clothing folds, and how fabric lies on the body.

As I am writing this, I'm looking at that one picture you did that is a spotlight on your page (The Ghost Forest). You did a very good job with the sleeves, those look perfect. There are gaps, and they don't look tight on the body (while also not being super billowy). This gives the impression that the shirt is of a lighter, looser fabric. However, as you move further down the shirt becomes very stiff looking as it perfectly contours to the character's body. As a result you loose a lot of motion in the pose, and it ends up looking very stiff.

Another example is in Larry's profile. His shorts are almost completely aligned with his skin, making it look like the fabric has no thickness to it. You can also see this in "The Ghost Forest", on the character's right (our left) arm. You can see the line of his arm that is the sleeve and the line of his arm without the sleeve are parallel. If the fabric has any thickness at all, it should not be parallel (like how you've done with the left sleeve in the same drawing). I think I know why this is happening, because it's something I used to do.

When you draw characters with their clothes on, you draw the characters with their clothes on. This sounds silly, but it makes clothes harder to draw. To get a better grasp of how much "bulk" to add to a character's clothing, it's better to draw them (or at least, briefly sketch them) naked. Once you have blocked out their body, then sketch the clothes over top. I find it easier to figure out what parts of the clothes will wrinkle, and how thick the clothes should be compared to where the body is if I already know where the body is.

I did also look at LadyLing's critique and I want to echo what she said about Senshistock! I wanted to add that they have actually rebranded as Adorkastock (here is their website: AdorkaStock | Stock Photo References for Artists, By Artists). They have a "sketch" function, where it will provide a random pose from their stock library to practice "life drawing" with. I've been messing around with it myself and it has helped a lot for me! Their models have a wide variety of body types as well which is great for art practice.

I wanted to also add, that in your art you have a very good sense of color and lighting in conveying mood. There are times (in your darker drawings) that it starts to look a bit muddled, and might benefit from using a smaller brush size when shading to help refine the shapes more. Whatever you did in your Moon art for your shading, keep doing that! That one looks really really good!

I love your characters and art and wish to see you improve! Sorry this was a bit long, I hope my advice can help in some way. Good luck in your future art!

Hi! I’m here for the critique from OC-Training.

I would Like to start by saying that I have always loved your use of lighting and shading, I think you have really done well in this aspect of art, I always enjoy looking at your backgrounds and seeing the way you portray emotions through the lighting, shading, or set up/composition of your art works. I also have seen while browsing through your gallery that you are really talented at drawing animals. This is something that I am always struggling with and don’t seem to be mastering any time soon, so I really like looking at some of your pieces, especially with horses in them. You have a great eye for these things, keep up the good work! Btw, your character expressions are also really well done😊

The poses for your people sometimes can seem a little stiff. I was browsing through your gallery and notice that you do seem to really be improving in that regard, but some joints still seem a little tight. You might want to look at some poses from real people like senshistock (I might be misspelling that) she has some really good ones that really have been helping me give my characters a more relaxed stance.

In closing, you have a lot of talent and your art is so fun and colorful. I really enjoyed browsing through your gallery and seeing everything you’ve posted. I have always loved learning about your characters through OC-Training. You’ve got some really good stories going here and I can’t wait to see them more in future rounds!