INTRO
First off, great post. Welcome to the critique section.
I will try to mainly focus on the things that you need to improve the most, and
what kind of study would benefit you the most at the end.
--Seinen Manga Style (berserk) and Faces-- a quick disclaimer and statement.
DISCLAIMER - REMEMBER that these are tips and suggestions that might help you. NOT how it is supposed to LOOK, or HOW you do it. It should help you see your work in a new light. I hope....My critique is subjective and based on my experience and knowledge gained from over the years.
I am not a manga reader myself – but I learned upon starting this research that Berserk is a Seinen Manga. Geared towards older male audiences – dealing with more mature and emotional situations. Characters have a range of realistic depth. Meaning no cartoonish like expression. So their faces are more detailed and less simple. That allows them to make the range of human emotion we can relate to as readers. Their characters are complicated, and we as older readers desire complex content.
It is hard to be accurate with faces all of the time. Artists skills change with characters over time. And if you get them wrong for fans of established characters - things will start to look weird immediately. And so - with Seinen style manga (berserk) we have to stick with a face that can have a range subtle expression. There is no room to create an emoji style reaction like Shonen or Shojo style manga.
Then, when there are characters that are stressed, or in a rage and wild or evil - compared to the subtle aspect of their expression throughout the story – those moments of intensity seem even MORE intense because of the relative nature of the overall style of the story and manga itself. (Think big eyeballs, scars and lots of teeth)
Manga style facial structure has a lot more design to it than realism – When you look at characters you can tell who is the heavy slow one, the quick witted but ignorant one, the sly devious one, the hero...on and on. So with that in mind lets move on.
"what you think I need to improve to most,"
So for this first piece – We have a very stiff and static pose with limbs that are also very stiff. Gesture drawing, – in the way that I mean it – by creating a more unified and dynamic shape with motion as the intent, will reflect more natural stances. I recommend for everyone starting out – to at least try the pose themselves. What is the pose in this first piece actually saying?
What was your intent of expression? Probably just a muscular pose, but it is so awkward that we are distracted from the physique showing off – to the strange rotation of the limbs themselves.
Start out by practicing your simplified mannequin – like in the sample below – in positions that have the action you want to describe – then...see if you can push the action further. Stretch that action line, push the boundaries a bit. Although Berserk is more realistic
– it doesn't mean that figure drawing is stiff. Everything is a shape. If I could just type that a thousand times to get it into peoples heads I would. But it would make for a boring critique.
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GESTURE STATEMENT
I will say what only Steve Huston put best by his drawing book. I have used this book to teach this theory to people for a couple of years now.
I have lots of other posts on it with other people asking what it is, or how to do it. Because I
think it is elusive and confusing for self taught artists with access to the infinite internet. Here are some tips from me on your subject and style needs that I can recognize.
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I think that you would benefit from these Proko rhythm drawings exorcises, and then practicing the study of all of the reference pictures he provides. After one or two sessions figures come very quickly, and you will find yourself using stylistic choices of your own.
DRAWING FIGURES FROM ANY ANGLE - PROKO
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DRAWING LIMBS FROM ANY ANGLE - PROKO
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DRAWING HARD POSES FROM ANY ANGLE - PROKO
Free PDF and reference pictures. Its worth having to build your library - so just make an account - there is so much free content.
https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/ebook-rhythms/downloads
DRAWING STATEMENT
I want to say this before you read into the tips on this page really quick, you are already a good drawer. You can make clean lines and know anatomy really well. Your skill with construction and anatomy is good, and you just need some of step 1 here and step 6 for some artistic development. I started making this before I saw your second post with sketches and I wanted to make sure that you know -- you already do most of this really well, you just need the gesture stage and some line art consistency. Or illustrative punch.
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Final Statement
You are already doing some great things. You know some anatomy, and some construction, and even some drapery.
Your drapery can be more designed with shapes and with tension points - areas that cause bunching and stretching. I'm sure you can find a video explaining that better than I could. But what I want you to know is that you can also design CLOTHING FOLDS with interesting shapes that work well with the figure, and only add detail where you want the viewer to look. Not every where the same amount of detail. Have a focal point/s. Think about how proko designs the shape of these people abstractly, you can do the same with drapery and clothing. Use the same pattern of construction for your imaginative figures.
Your anatomy is good - but it is not connected the way the human body is connected with figure drawings - with the energy of rhythm flowing from the head to the foot, or extremities. The human body is connected like a puzzle. It all fits together so perfectly from any angle so consistently. And it takes some time to study. So study from life OR MASTERS, and then try without.
Your teeth and mouths are WAY too small. They look like they eat at the restaurant "Little Bits" from Rick and Morty Cartoon. And your skull, like your feet and hands - needs some perspective work and construction help regarding the features being placed properly on the skull. I tried to illustrate a way to solve that in the pictures above. It looks like you are missing the center line of the outside contour shapes of the features, and just using the center line of the skull construction - like it was drawn on a balloon.
Some bones and joints would be broken and unnaturally turned. Your ankle bone in-consistency sticks out, and your feet and hands need some desperate practice in their construction, and some serious work on their perspective. Your anatomy is good but not everything is flexed all the time everywhere to the extreme. Adding so much detail everywhere makes it less important.
I think to remedy this you should practice these ideas using reference first - THEN do them from imagination okay? That is the best that any art school will make you do.
This ethan becker video helped me a lot to draw hands for the first time when I was stuck for a long time.
What I didn't Cover.
NOTAN, notan, notan. Group the shadows, use a singular main light source. I have not touched on this at all but I go over it in depth in other critiques. Notan is the clear separation of light and dark shapes - and yours' are scattered a lot and make the image busy. Masters group the shadows - even if they are cross hatched - see how they group them. Look up NOTAN from proko - and Ron Lemen. It makes thinking about organizing your rendering stages a breeze. Your style makes your light source and its direction look inconsistent - or like there are multiple angles of lights. Be consistent in this.
Thanks for this opportunity.
I haven't had anyone ask for a critique in a while and it has been nice to brush off some stuff over the past few days. I hope you come back and keep knocking it out of the park. You are doing some good stuff, and I can tell that you will soon be great. Just keep putting that road behind you.
Later Tater.
Feb 20
