MagiStream

I have seen the pic you did for Cassiopeia and it is just jaw-droppingly amazing. So I am not sure I can tell you anything too helpful beside a few general bits of advice.
The only thing you can do is keep practicing. Just draw/paint whatever you feel like painting. Find projects that keep you busy and challenge you in order not to stagnate in one particular style. Practice those things you like least...if it is hands/feet/backgrounds you like to do least and that take you longest, that´s what you should work on until they are just as familiar and easy to do as what you like doing best. Try unusual perspectives and light settings, try a completely different style now and then, find someone to do a collab with...that all helps you to develop further and add to your own unique style.

I hope at least some of those random bits of advice help you.

You are totally right!! I should learn to love to draw things that I hate to draw or I'll stagnate just like you said.. that must be what has been happening. I just have to get over my fear of producing terrible results... I'm epically worst at backgrounds so I'm going to start working on that starting now. Thanks Munin!! You helped a lot!!

Never fear to produce bad results while practicing. That´s what practice is for! Keep the bad results, never delete them or throw them away. And after a while when you have practiced some more look back at them and only then will you realise how much you have actually improved.

Munin! I redid the egg, and I LOVED the tutorial =P Does it look better?




EDIT- I already started on the hatchling. =P How does the body look? Im not yet finshed with the head yet, but I wanted some help before I went too far into it =P oh, btw, the scribble is my 'light scource'

The egg is still awefully close to the Magistream base as you mainly just removed the outline =/ The colouring is a lot better though but I´d add a slightly darker outline. If that is the hatchling I would go for larger eggs anyway I think...try to imagine that chick crammed into that egg

The colouring of the chick and the egg do not really match as the egg has a much darker and contrast rich shading. On DC the golden rule is "eggs are always done last" and that really does make things easier. The anatomy of your hatchie is a bit wonky...baby birds are usually mostly "fluffy" so I would not separate the wings from the body that harshly. It is generally recommendable to avoid "internal" lines (meaning any lines that are not the outline and outlines for things like eyes and the mouth) anyway and instead use shading to create the shapes. The head is a bit too long I think...I´d move the beak down a bit so that it is more part of the head. If you look at photos of baby birds it often looks like their heads are almost "split in two" when they open their beaks.

I'll try the shading that way, but I think I should practice on something else first just to be sure I have it right. :/ This is far more difficult then I thought it would be.

Okay thanks! I'll fix the hatchling, but the egg is completely my own... I flipped a heart in MS and added an oval at the bottom then cleaned up the lines =P oh well it's storming here, so I have plenty of time to work on it! =D

lenalee96 wrote:Okay thanks! I'll fix the hatchling, but the egg is completely my own... I flipped a heart in MS and added an oval at the bottom then cleaned up the lines =P oh well it's storming here, so I have plenty of time to work on it! =D

If you put your new egg over the old MS one it fits the colour minus the outline exactly. As I said, I´d go for a bigger egg anyway.

ML1201 wrote:I'll try the shading that way, but I think I should practice on something else first just to be sure I have it right. :/ This is far more difficult then I thought it would be.

I would suggest that, too. You know, getting the real shading of fur right is hard in itself, reducing it to a slightly abstract way of depicting it before one knows what the importang features of light and shadows would be in the real thing is harder still. Look at some images and practice a bit and then return to this piece, otherwise you´ll just get frustrated.

Okay, Ill fix the egg later then =P is this better?



EDIT-
I colored the head and outside of the beak

Thank you for critiquing my piece ^^ I'll go back and add more darker tones when I work on it again. And I'll try try to fix the head so it shows a little more bone structure...
Actually, the white background isn't a part of the picture. The single layer is transparent, but for some reason, SAI won't save a transparent background for me. =/
Painting an example of water would be absolutely amazing and very appreciated I don't want to cause much trouble though, so whenever you have the time/in the mood would be wonderful. Thank you so much