This is a just a piece I finish up earlier today. The first is the pencils, and the second I imported the same image to photoshop, did a black layer overlay to darken the lines. Sort of an ink job if you will.
Be brutally honest: did i need to work on anatomy, shading, composition, proportions. Help me out please.
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I can see that you like (the late) Michael Turner's work. Life drawing and a lot of gesture drawing from life should help you a lot. Do a Google images search on gestures by artists like Honore Daumier (a 19th century French editorial cartoonist-turned-painter) and German illustrator Heinrich Kley. If you have HOW TO DRAW THE MARVEL WAY handy, John Buscema has a page or two on gestures that is very helpful (as well as his section on construction of the figure). Remember, getting the flow of the figure in the gesture stage first, then the solidity of the major masses of the body second, are necessary before getting caught up in every little anatomical subtlety (which is important in the third stage).
Your proportions need some work (especially the eyes; if you can get realistic eyes down, then it's a lot easier to do them stylized and remain believable). Your holding lines are quite scratchy. Try drawing with the side as well as the point of the pencil (assuming the lead goes from fat to skinny, unlike a mechanical pencil) in a fluid way after your initial gestures/construction are in place.
These are isolated figures in space. If you do actual scenes, you need to compose them (in thumbnail sketches first) figuring out where you want the center of attention to be, and how the viewer's eye is to be led through the entire picture. Composing pictures is an artform in itself (even for those who don't draw, such as photographers) with many, many rules worth learning before 'bending' them. Learn what positive and negative space are, and develop a keen sensitivity to their interaction, as that is the abstract foundation of every representational picture that gives it its 'punch.'
Finally: I've seen a lot of aspiring artists choose the wrong heroes, and they learned their heroes' surface style and drawing errors. Look at the best: why does Raphael and Michelangelo draw circles around Michael Turner? (even if Turner 'rings your bell' more than those Renaissance masters---which is OK; we all have our own tastes) There's a reason that 19th century Neoclassical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres is considered one of the best pencil artists in all of western art. Have a look at his work online and see.
If you want to see breathtakingly elegant design and color, have a look at 18th century Japanese yukio-e artists like Hiroshige and Hokusai; I've yet to see any manga that can touch their work. In short, look at the best in fine art, photography, film, comic books, comic strips, etc. from all nations and cultures, past and present. We have an overwhelming amount of material at hand so no one needs to 'reinvent the wheel.' It would take a lifetime to just assimilate a fraction of what came before us, in all truth.
Bernie Krigstein (one of the great E.C. comics artists) once told me, "Strive to be an academic. If you have that artistic platform, you can always fall back on it," meaning that a stylist who's all surface has nothing when his look is considered dated.
I hope this helps.
Alec
P.S. And, of course, before, during, and after all this, pray, and see if this is indeed what the Lord would have you devote time to. For the born again Christian, worshipping our Saviour in Spirit and truth is number one, taking care of family (if married and with children) next, followed by soul-winning. The latter is the only thing we can take with us to heaven. All the earth and the works therein shall be burned up.
landonDrawOver2.jpg
Did a quick draw over your stuff. You actually have a very nice arm. On your main woman. A muscular manly arm - but not bad.
You need to do some or all of the following:
1. Watch your VOLUMES. Your making things flat. One way to remedy this: Draw balls. Soccerballs, baseballs, basketballs - and try to make them pop off the page.
2. Learn your proportions. Start with a figure that is 8 heads tall. This is the easiest to learn since everything is pretty much on even placement and once you learn it you can break it. The upper body is 4 heads, lower body is 4 heads. Head to chin, chin to nipples/bottom of chest, bottom of chest to navel, navel to crotch. crotch to half way down the thigh, halfway down thigh to kneed, and then the next two heads take you to the bottom of the feet.
3. Use a line of action to start your pose. Make sure your character is balanced accordingly.
4. Learn how people balance so you can draw them naturally. If the right shoulder is up - then the left hip will be up, right one down. On the hips - HIGH SIDE STRAIGHT, Low side bent. This means the leg on the high hip is taking the weight so it will be straight. The other leg is bent.
These rules apply except when they don't. That's where observing humans will come into play.
5. Work on your heads. Trace some from magazines or newspapers. Break them down. Eyes approximately halfway down the face, nose halfway between eyes and chin, mouth approximately halfway between nose and chin. THESE ARE APPROXIMATIONS. Once you learn them you can break them. Draw your guidelines to split the face down the "middle" and on the eye-line to start.
6. Always start with the broadest shape first and then work your way down to the details - but don't do details till you figured out the form.
7. Pose your character like a stickman first. Lay in the form after.
8. Study anatomy - learn how to draw the neck and how it attaches at the shoulders - your torso's need some work. VOLUME. VOLUME. VOLUME. Your heads need craniums!
9. Always draw a horizon line to establish your character in space. This will help in grounding their shape and form.
10. LOOK. THINK. ANALYZE. Be critical about what your putting down. Be observant. Watch body language. Copy it.
Though it's cartoon oriented the principles shown and taught here apply to all art schools:
http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/2009/01/character-design.html
http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/2009/06/hierarchy-forms-within-...
11. Keep things simple and clear until you know how the forms work.
12. Foreshortening - watch it. Practice with "pipes" or tubes. Draw them in perspective. Try drawing tubes in 1 point, 2 point and 3 point perspectives. Then bend them and see what happens. You actually did ok on the gun
on the guy on the right. The arm...yowza.
Shading and composition will come once you understand the FORM.
Hope this helps.
drawover_landon.jpg
buildCharacter.jpg
I think the art looks good, but the guy holding the gun, that arm holding the gun looks shorter than it should be? Maybe thats how it's supposed to look at that angle?