critique wanted Completed OC vector - First time Background / shading.

[Jest (Inactive) 875]

This is a completed OC Raster using a base for the basic shape. I have never done shading <before yesterday> in my life and this is my first ever attempt at doing any form of background. I put the leaves / her feather falling off her wing to show the strength and direction of the wind, the sun to show the direction of the light and justify the shading. 

 

 

Any advice? I know there are still some white clipping edges around the outsides, I can fix that tomorrow 

 

Base used : http://sh0stakovltch...table-405513329

 

 

EDIT: Used a more powerful tool, this is now the finished product.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Jestwinged

[Makazi 317]

Anatomy is good, head is fine though the eye seems slightly off; it might be too round. The mane could come forward a little bit, as right now it looks like it's a whit too far back on the head. The eye reflections should be opaque white and not transparent, and I'd get rid of the little crescent part of the reflection.

 

The background unfortunately isn't too good; there's no depth to the scene with just the one hill and no visible horizon, and the dark grey outlines look unnatural; you'll notice in all MLP art, there's no outlines on the background. Even outside of MLP art, it's not something you generally see--but if you're going to put an outline on a background, make it a darker shade of whatever you're outlining. So the ground would have a green outline instead of the current grey one. It's also not good that the sky is one solid colour; you'll want to have it be a gradient of some sort.

 

Also, is this vector art? It looks like raster to me.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Makazi

[Jest (Inactive) 875]

I don't know the terms, it was done on a web program called Pixlr, thanks for the advice though, I will try to implement some of the things you said on it.  And about the background, I was going to try and get some depth but I had no idea how x( 

 

 

just changed the outline of the grass, it looks better yeh, obviously still needs touching up though

Edited February 6, 2016 by Jestwinged

[Makazi 317]

I don't know the terms, it was done on a web program called Pixlr, thanks for the advice though, I will try to implement some of the things you said on it.  And about the background, I was going to try and get some depth but I had no idea how x(

No problem. You can acquire depth simply by adding more layers to the scene behind your current background. Example time!

 

Scene with one layer of background (other than the sky):

 

Scene with multiple background layers, getting lighter as they proceed further towards the horizon which adds the illusion of 3d depth:

[Jest (Inactive) 875]

Okay finished for the time being, thanks for the advice! 

 

Edited February 6, 2016 by Jestwinged

[Makazi 317]

Okay finished for the time being, thanks for the advice! 

 

Much better. It's looking good.

[Jest (Inactive) 875]

Much better. It's looking good.

 

Thanks, couldn' have done it without your advice  

[Jokuc 8,172]

It looks pretty good! I kind of like the little bandage around the leg there, it makes the design a little bit more unique Also I want to ask the same thing as @@Makazi, it kind of looks like a raster image to me, do you know what a "vector" is?

[Jest (Inactive) 875]

It looks pretty good! I kind of like the little bandage around the leg there, it makes the design a little bit more unique Also I want to ask the same thing as @@Makazi, it kind of looks like a raster image to me, do you know what a "vector" is?

 

I have no idea what Raster or vector is, I just heard the term before x)  Okay actually just googled it yeah I see the difference now. 

Edited February 6, 2016 by Jestwinged

[Jest (Inactive) 875]

Just updated with my final version