[strata]

This is the pic I'm making for my girlfriend as a valentines thingy after recommendations from a few helpful souls =)

What's bothering me is that there's something(s) wrong with it, but I can't figure out why or what... like the iris' look HUGE to me, but proportionally and technically I can't tell why they would be smaller, unless the entire eye was smaller, which also doesn't match...

AND it looks all photoshopped plastic-y as usual...

So any and ALL crits and comments you guys have would be wonderful...

and tips for what to do as a background would be really good too =)



and the reference:
thanks!

Micke

[CyberArtist]

Here's a quick look at where things have gone off.



Quick overview -

Eyes are too big to too far apart.
Watch centerline, nose is off and hair parts too far to the right (her left).
Neck is elongated and at an akward angle.
Face generally too wide, pull in some.
Missing the back of the head below the ear (well, not the head, but her hair should show there).
Left shoulder too straight, gives the impression of being mid-shrug. With neck pulled back to normal length, curve looks more normal.

Hope that helps, though I just added a bunch of work.

[melted petal]

I think Cyber nailed it. As for the background and composition. I think you should just crop it down a bit and put you two lovebirds more towards the center unless you are thinking of writing something up in the corner.

You could go all cutesy and put little cupids getting tangled in ribbon around it in a heart shape and make it fit one of those heart shaped frames.

Or maybe add in something she really digs, like sunflowers scatterred across it or lady bugs or .45mm rounds. Whatever your particular lady likes.

Don't be afraid to make those brushes a bit harder and just blend out with more colors where needed to soften it up instead of the airbrush. Should help get rid of the plasticy look.

Hope that helps mate. Cheers.

[strata]

thanks a lot both of you, very good points...

I'm really having trouble with using too soft brushes... I just haven't figured out how to make it look nice when using harder edged ones... just can't come to terms with it... so I use the soft one, so's you can't see a single brush stroke in my working resolution... it gets annoying, caus I know how much better it looks when you show the strokes...

anyhow, I've written your comments down and will be making the changes when I get home =) thanks again guys!

[melted petal]

Anytime. I just recently started using harder brushes myself. I had the same problem you did. A certain aprehension at using them. Then one day I just forced myself to use nothing but them and after several painful hours it started getting easier.

[strata]

umm cyber, btw, I can't see your pic... our firewall thinks your site is porn... =/

mind mailing it to [email protected]?

thanks

[strata]

Allrighty, here's the updated version...



cyber, I can't thank you enough for that overpaint, it really helped me to no end!
And I'm a lot happier with it now, even though it's still not as good as I would want...

melted, I took your advice, and I didn't use a single soft brush!! I finally figured out how to do it! Though I was painting with an opacity setting of 3 at times, but anyways! =D

So, any new crits and comments are as usual extremely welcome!

And thanks again to the both of you!