Blique

Trying out a new animal and new digital painting style based on MLP type proportions. It's an aardwolf!

Top right as first choice. Bottom right as second choice, I'm not too fond of the brown overalls and the yellow gloves, but they could work with the right tweaks if you end up going with them..

http://www.amazon.com/Sakura-30067-8-Piece-Micron-Graphic/dp/B004QHI43S/ I've used micron pens for years, and they're great. They come in a bunch of sizes, so you can change the lineart width as you like so it looks more natural. The above set includes one of my favorites, the brush pen - it makes some awesome lineart once you get used to it!

A tad belated, but in the assumption that you might log back in and still want critiques: I recommend making Luna's hoof angled towards Nightmare Moon rather than flat. Currently, it gives the impression of a flat "stop" handshape rather than a pointing/gesturing one.

I like your style, dark things are always a favorite of mine. Is there anything in particular you want a critique of? For now, I would recommend studying/practicing anatomy since it's very useful for the style you seem to be going for. In particular, the deltoid and head of the humerus should push the shoulders outwards a bit more, and in bony/starving bodies, in addition to the other ribs, you should see the bottom edge of the ribcage very defined (it looks like a W). Something like this: You might find it useful to draw a skeleton and then just put skin/muscle on top of it. Of course, no need to make it super realistic, just simplify things as you go

Any problems people would point out would be due to them looking at a reference and telling you that it is inaccurate compared to the reference. Ask any halfway-decent artist at all. Anyway, I will just state that the issue you are concerned about in your first post is indeed that your art is not good enough. Improve it and you will get more people interested. You'll eventually figure it out for yourself, may the odds be ever in your favor.

First off I'd like to mention how awesome the suit looks. You seem to be using white and black (or something close to it) to shade your picture, and I think it'd look much better if you use color instead. For example, check this out: Things look much better the more color you add into your shading. Here's a good guide for using color: http://glitchedpuppet.deviantart.com/art/How-I-See-Color-A-Tutorial-184642625

Here's my DA if you want to check my art level and knowledge on the subject: http://blique.deviantart.com/gallery/ References are very important to use. Your art has mistakes that could be fixed if you used references, including your last four pieces (if you're referring to the last four on DA). The wings in particular in your Lightning Dust and Pony Arcade images could be improved by using bird wing references, or even just references to other cartoon wings. The anatomy/joints, proportions, and perspective in Breaking the 4th Wall are inconsistent within the piece, and could use a closer comparison to the Pinkie Pie version. The Shadow Strike image has an eyepatch too small for the eye, and the ears are not very pony-like. These are just some basic pointers. Yes, you can draw without a reference - art can be whatever you want it to be - but if you have a goal in mind for your art, which you do, then there are limited paths you are able to take to get there. You are still early in the development of your art skills, and it is extremely important during the learning process to use references. In fact, it's important to use references even once you've mastered a style. Yes, you personally prefer to not use them, but your work will continue having errors until you do. Every beginner prefers not to use references, it's just easier. But it's not a matter of personal preference if you want to advance your drawings skills. It is how you learn art. So to answer your main post, I think the issue is mainly that your skill level is not high enough. Usually, if people have work that is less skilled than yours yet receives a lot of praise, it is because they have a lot of friends who are posting comments. If you want more comments on your work and don't have a huge personal social network, you need to start using references so that your art can improve. References don't have an effect on your style by the way - it doesn't change your style, it just raises the quality of it.

A critiquer has appeared, hello. The character anatomy is great, the only thing I'd might question would be that one of the pony's eyes is larger than the other height-wise. While it's true things get smaller as they recede into the distance, eyes are located so close together that there shouldn't be a noticeable difference in height. For colors, I think I read once that your darkest darks and your lightest lights should all be on your characters, not your backgrounds (unless your background is your main focus). Contrast draws attention, and you typically want attention to be on your characters. So, I suggest making your background lighter and making the shading on your characters darker; not everywhere, just in places where there would be particularly dark shadows, like in the dark areas where feathers overlap, or under the pony's jaw near where the hair would block out most light. A lighter background would also help showcase your background details, as they look vague currently due to everything being too dark. This color tutorial thing is nice and may be useful: http://glitchedpuppet.deviantart.com/art/How-I-See-Color-A-Tutorial-184642625 You have a pretty good grasp of anatomy, and color/value balance isn't too difficult to figure out, so I'd say you're doing quite well so far. Overall great job with accurate shading and anatomy. Humans can be a huge pain to draw right. The only things I find slightly off would be the forehead is a little too protruding and round, and his left hand doesn't quite go into his pocket. Maybe add a shadow near the hand too, where it's blocking light from hitting the suit. I think the main thing you should try focusing on is anatomy. If you're going for the show's kind of style, this anatomy and proportions study is very helpful: Here's an example of the MLP anatomy applied to your first image: The head should be a circle, while the nose and mouth jut out a bit. The top line of the nose also curves up and becomes the line for the eye, but that's largely a stylistic thing, and can be changed up a bit if you don't want to stick 100% to the MLP style. I also highlighted one of the legs, which is forming a tangent with the leg in front of it, giving a slight illusion that it's an extension of that leg rather than a separate leg altogether. It can easily be fixed by just moving the leg back or forward a little until it's clear that it's a separate leg rather than something connected to the leg in front. Your shading is also a little off in places, and you're overemphasizing what I think is supposed to be reflected light (that kinda halo of light around shadows on objects, made from light bouncing off surfaces and onto other stuff). Reflected light should always be darker than direct light, and should only be slightly lighter than the shadow it's near. Also, make sure to draw cast shadows, like the torso casting a shadow onto the legs, the same way the head casts a shadow onto the neck. This color tutorial has nice advice on shading (check the "Light Sources" and "Making Colors Work" sections): http://glitchedpuppet.deviantart.com/art/How-I-See-Color-A-Tutorial-184642625 The circle base is the main thing to pay attention to. The eye also goes closer to the front of the face, but that's another stylistic sort of thing; MLP gives ponies slightly more of a flat face like humans rather than a face like a horse's, which has the eyes kinda on the side of the head instead of the front, so it's up to you what you think looks best. Your Rarity is cute, I have no criticism for her. :grin2: The background is a little detracting though, I'd make it either a solid color background, a subtle linear gradient, some kind of drawn background, or just have no background at all. I'm not sure why they'd say your line work would need improvement, it looks fine to me. I guess at most, Jupiter Dream's hair could use some improvement to look more like hair; it currently looks kinda like a wig, as it's hard to tell where any of the strands originate from. And in the picture with him holding Starlet up, her hind legs are a little too short. But yeah, you're using the MLP style, and thus you have an end goal of "perfectly emulating the style", and I think you're pretty much there. Are you drawing everything using pixel/raster software, as opposed to vector? Maybe that's what they find a problem with, though I feel like it shouldn't matter... Your art's really good, you have a nice handle on your own style, anatomy, shading, and composition. I think your art could benefit from a round or two of refining, like cleaning up messy areas, smoothing out irregular sections of lineart, etc. I noticed it's a really common thing for animators to do, and even if they're just little things here and there, the little things can add up to create an "unfinished" sort of feeling to the piece. It only takes a few minutes, maybe half an hour tops to fix them all up though, so it's not a big inconvenience at least. Alternatively, you could just figure out a different style that lets you draw fast while still having the end result look good. Block shading or gradients might work, or you could draw on a really big canvas, and then any messy details would disappear when you shrink it down to the final size. Your avatar for example, looks like it has perfect lineart and no leftover smudges near the top. The only thing other than that is that I'd avoid using grey when drawing, as it has a tendency to make art look dusty and dull. I'd recommend a "colored grey" instead, like a desaturated green or blue. There's not much else I can recommend, it looks like you're doing well with your art.

I don't know how much time you spend on it, but make sure you pay yourself minimum wage at least. You should include the time you spend discussing it with the client, thinking up the concept, looking up reference images, in addition to the time you spend actually drawing it. For example, if you spend 6 hours on a drawing you get $20 out of, it might seem good until you consider you could get $60 if you had spent that time washing dishes or sweeping floors instead. The art industry on the whole is extremely underpaid, so avoid using other artists' prices as an estimation of value, because they're typically less than what they should really be asking. Underpricing is a huge issue in the art community, as low prices make people think art in general is worth less than it actually is, so just keep in mind that prices create impressions of value in the eyes of others, and that can have wide-reaching effects. It also depends on how desperate you are for money. It's true that you won't get many offers if you sell at minimum wage or higher, so if you have bills to pay and things to buy that you don't mind overworking yourself over, low prices are an option. Just always remember to value your work and all the time you spent to acquire your level of skills.

I'll just simplify some stuff: "Drawings"/rasters are made with pixels. Vectors are made with math. Pixels are squares that can only contain one color. Raster art is made when you arrange a bunch of pixels to form a larger image. The process of making a raster is very similar to traditional drawings, and is very "intuitive". Swipe the brush tool across an area, and that area's pixels change color as if it was a brush of paint. Photos and scanned drawings are all automatically raster. The process of making a vector is not as "intuitive". To make something, you have to go through a series of steps. Place a dot. Place another dot. Pull a handle on one dot. Voilà, you have a curve. As mentioned above, vectors also have the special ability to stay "sharp" even when you resize it. As for visual differences, vector art tends to look smooth and flat (MLP is vector), while raster art tends to look like traditional drawings/paintings. There are exceptions in styles, of course, but that's the general idea. My personal style, seen in my avatar, is "vexel" - raster/pixel art made to look like vector.

The characters/dialogue/script of Gravity Falls. I appreciate the animation and the action/mystery-based parts of the plot, but the character and their interactions are just so bad most of the time.