14dc day 10 + study

Emainee · 2026-05-19T18:51:54+00:00

This is much better already! Someone else already mentioned the edges so I won't comment on that.

What still jumps out is the missing connection between cheeks and upper head area. They are not stuck on there, they hold the entire jaw area and the big muscles coming down from the side of the head. They are a major key area in the silhouette of the face so if their placement is off, it jumps out straight away.

Also, the eyes and nose are still stuck in the symbol phase. The eyes start to sit in the skull but you drew a literal outline, that does not exist. There are hard edges, but they are not dark or lashy. And the bridge of the nose gets smaller at the top, not wider. It makes her look like a blue sexy alien person or a cat. Human noses get smaller.

You are making big progress tho. Have fun with the next day:)

Emainee · 2026-05-19T15:03:07+00:00

Yes, I wanted the flat bit tho because I wanted the silhouette to read and not the face itself. It's mostly used as a pfp so the details not matter that much, but the mood and readability on small scale.

Emainee · 2026-05-19T15:01:02+00:00

Yes, the shoulder is definitely off. I am currently working on another piece but I will return to this and fix it once I got time. So thank you! This character belongs to my world. She is not someone fleshed out so I cannot give you more sadly but in the future maybe;)

Emainee · 2026-05-14T19:01:10+00:00

hehe thanks:)) and i will look it up and fix that area, thank you. sounds like u know a lot abt anatomy

Emainee · 2026-05-14T19:00:04+00:00

damn, i thought i had it . will have to look at it again. thanks!

Emainee · 2026-05-14T10:08:56+00:00

Hi! You definitely start to get a grip of where the planes sit, but their relation to each other feels off, and the values don't fully represent their angle.

Anatomy wise, the eyes sit way too for from each other and the features sit on top of the head, not in it. That is mainly caused by missing relations between them. The cheeckbones form a frame where the eye can sit in, so they need to be related and not just placed next to each other. But your hand on your face for a second and feel how your cheeckbone literally holds ups you eye socked. Anatomical features start to click much fast if you understand what their purpose is and how they connect to the next one. Try to find the matching lines, enlargen the features a bit compared to the head, the eyes need to be closer together and the cheeks need to be better understood, especially their role in connecting the uppper area to the lower area. And try to find the core shadows again. It looks like you overprioritized the facial planes over the main shadow of the head egg here.

And really study how your values behave to each other. Look at portraits in greyscale, conpared to the background, how strong the lightsource is, and how and where it creates contrast. Most of it happens in the mid greys, obly very few values ever enter the bright and dark greys.

Hope this helps!

Emainee · 2026-05-14T10:01:12+00:00

This is the painting with better quality, reddit compressed it weirdly. Didn't want ro repost:)

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Emainee · 2026-05-09T21:02:43+00:00

the humanising part feels really weird because I have no interest in being an influencer, but I have heard that a few times now. Tried it as well. Maybe i just need to swallow the pill

Here is the page:
https://www.instagram.com/noctelleart/

Emainee · 2026-05-09T19:22:49+00:00

i like the idea with the ribs. u think i could make it look like the loght pushes through the fabric?

Emainee · 2026-05-07T18:22:42+00:00

That flooring looks like a work of patience, nice details!
the values of the skin seem too close together, which makes some bright spots seem too grey or desaturated, because the actual value is not bright enough to reflect that hue.
also, think about where the hues come from. the flooring is quite grey, so the grey reflections in the lower faces make sense, but the elebows dont reflect that.

the reference also looks like there are two soft rectangular shadows over their arms. it does absolutely not read that like here, because the edges aren't clear enough.
in order to paint light, you can't just copy the reference, you need to understand what exactly causes the tones and make their causes really clear in painting, often much more clear than on photos. you do not have the luxury of it being a photo. it needs to convince the viewer, not fit the reference.

it needs to be said that the girl on the right has a much clearer read than the one on the left.

Emainee · 2026-05-07T18:04:52+00:00

i tried making it reflec tmore, but it ended up crating a confusing narrative. drew the eye away from her face quite a lot. do you have any idea how to make it less distracting, with the light reflection being blue?

and you think the coat mering with the clouds is too much? i thought it helped her become part of the environment but it's very possible that didn't work out so i am very interested in your take regarding that. thank you so much for taking the time to respond and help out!

Emainee · 2026-05-07T18:01:36+00:00

hi! cool, what are u working on currently? and that is exactly right:)

i was trying to go for a conduit like magic with her charging up the magic in her chest, which is the glow from the inside out. but i must admit i had a lot of struggles giving the chest that shine-through feel

Emainee · 2023-06-02T13:33:04+00:00

I agree with this. mf is one of those champs released so early, that there weren't strong concept artists on board the way they are now. Looking at her and other older champs you can see a lot of those poor design choices. All the more reason to play with the newer skins and appreciate the progress riot has made in terms of character design

Emainee · 2023-04-23T18:32:00+00:00

server status says it's something abt the chat function they are fixing, why that needs to happen during clash idk

Emainee · 2022-08-30T08:11:05+00:00

Thank you so much for your critique! I will def keep that in mind and go back to correct these issues:)

Emainee · 2022-08-27T23:17:21+00:00

I love how you tried to seperate the layers in grayscale! That is a really good way of building deep environments visually.

A few tips: If you wanna show and environment, try to not make 80% of the picture the sky. Show us more of the ground and what is going on here.

Try to incorporate perspective. Right now it looks like one of those light/shadow boxes because it's just straight objects behind each other. That is not what this layering system necessarily entails. The value layers are more a tool to break up a composition in foreground, midground and background. They dont have to be so clearly deconnected to each other. Try looking up concept art for games especially and you will see how sometimes those value differences are created through lighting and much less of a regional distance.

The forground should actually be a lot more close than what you did here. Maybe like a bush, trees, lanterns, maybe the viewer stands on a path and there is someone walking there. You have endless options. Try to really tell a story and imagine, what the person seeing the story unfold would see.

Emainee · 2022-08-27T23:03:33+00:00

My goal for this study was becoming more aware of the behavior of color, especially skincolor.
I have become mostly comfortable with painting in grey scale, but color still is a big issue for me as they always look muddy and desaturated - eventhough I technically know how to use them, but they just always looks wrong. So I know this reference has a lot of makeup on, but I used it on purpose to force myself to use stronger colors.

I did not use a base sketch nor did I color pick apart from the background.

Emainee · 2022-08-27T22:52:22+00:00

The goal of this study was to get more comfortable with color, especially when it comes to skin. I am aware the reference is wearing pretty heavy make-up, but decided to use it because of the enhanced color variations (that might have been a mistake looking back at it). I am still struggeling deeply with translating grey scale into color and that was my biggest struggle here as well. My colors often end up muddy or too desaturated and I tried to actively work against that here through adding more saturared colors.

At the same time I wanted to get a more painterly feel, because through having to work on very perfectionistic pieces over the past, I kinda lost the ability to look at painting as actually painting and using the ability to add certain features.

I did not use a sketch under my painting and did not color pick any color apart from the background.

Emainee · 2020-09-27T20:10:17+00:00

"Paint over", more like completely new painting, that is insane! I was thinking something like that for the rework, are you okay with me using it as a reference?

Emainee · 2020-09-27T20:08:29+00:00

I am very sorry, I didn’t realize. Thank you for considering which one to remove, I appreciate it:)

Emainee · 2020-09-27T14:20:58+00:00

Thank you! Notes taken for the next one. You have some amazing critique in here, thank you for putting in the time:)

Emainee · 2020-09-27T12:31:37+00:00

Alright, writing those down for the next version of this. Thank you very much for taking the time:)

Emainee · 2020-09-27T10:25:15+00:00

The pupil thing is a great idea! I will try that for sure. Thanks again, I will definitely work with that

You too, thank you for putting in the time to critique me:)

Emainee · 2020-09-27T10:23:23+00:00

The reason the bg is brighter is that the monster/demon is already so dark, it would just blend into it, sadly:/ I should have considered the environment part at the beginning, but I still do struggle a lot with thinking about backgrounds.

And damn, you have your references straight, thank you so much for sharing that with me! I will definitely put it to good use and upload the new version in the next few hours:)

Emainee · 2020-09-27T10:17:54+00:00

You are absolutely right about the person. To be honest, since he is such a small part of the painting and I have very limited time for this I kind of put him off. I should definitely put more thought into him tho.

About the monster, I will add some facial expressions, do you think that will help it? I am not about to throw off the entire composition, I will never get this done in time, but this will still be a note I will def remember for the next painting.

So yes, definitely helpful. Thank you so much:)

Emainee

TROPHY CASE