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Ally's Scribblings

So, I picked up this nice hardcover black sketchbook about a month or two ago. I'm finally breaking it in. I'm hoping to fill it with pretties, and I thought people might like to see my mindless doodles.

I may also post things from my junk folder, that aren't good enough for posting anywhere, but I kinda like them anyhow.

I'm always open to constructive criticism! I am aware of many of the flaws in my art, but sometimes others have a different angle of seeing things that I may not have noticed before.

But, for the moment, my sketchbook cover! It's so not finished. :V

First doodle in the new sketchbook. I hadn't done any art for myself in awhile and I hadn't done any art of my main character in FOREVER. So here she (I?) is looking cute.

Her glasses are totally optional. I usually never draw them, but I wear glasses iRL, so sometimes she get them.

This is one of my main characters, Phoenix. Or Phe, for short. Through some horrible act of fate, her hair got all chopped off by her younger sibling. It's a little weird to draw her with this new hairstyle, as I'm so used to putting down certain strokes for her old one. She used to have a lot of bangs and a loooong braid. I kept a small braid for her, because she'd feel naked without it.

I'm really happy with how her body came out here. She's actually a touch thinner, but that's okay. Her face and arms are all weird, but it was drawn at, like, 6AM at a local diner. So that's my excuse!

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your art is boring when it really doesn't need to be. You've got a nice flair and a solid sense of anatomy, but you keep drawing the same heads/faces over and over again - 3/4 turn, with no emotion other than mildly happy. Your charcters never seem to really be doing anything either.

Since you've opened a sketchbook thread, and challenges are really the name of the game here, I suggest you work on more dynamic poses and a wider range of emotion. :) If you are offended by my frank assessment, I offer my apologies in advance.

Hey Ally! Yay sketchbooks!

I'm gonna offer you a good critique, and I know you've heard some of this endlessly (probably partly from me!) but you are my friend and I know you love me, and won't kill me. ;) Plus, I do adore your art, and I totally want to see you getting better at it.

I find that overall, your stuff appears really flat. It seems as though the space you're trying to create in your pictures is flawed by a lack of understanding of depth and perspective. I myself have a huge problem with this; it's one of the things I'm currently working on, so I'm with you on this one! Here's what I'm doing to help it, as recommended by some artist pals:

- drawing from life. I know this is the most basic advice anyone can give, but I'm drawing scenes and interactions more than just plain figure drawings right now, and I'm finding that it's helping me pinpoint my issues with perspective/depth. I can see where my flaws exist specifically, and I can ask people in #artspots or other places for critique on the pieces as well (I also opened a sketchbook thread and am way overdue on posting on it).

- Checking out a few perspective tutorials. There's a few good ones online that I found by Google, and even though I've read about perspective before, I tried to read them this time with a focus-fire to my own art.

Other than that, I definitely second trying out dynamic, interesting poses! They might not always look great, but they're different, and can really portray a character's personality traits!

Hope this helps! And more art, plz!

Something that's not just a character standing around! Very rough, unfinished sketch. I'm not sure what all I'm doing with it yet.

I'm sure this is safe enough to post here. I think it still falls under PG-13.

I always have trouble with characters laying down. And the sheets and such are undetailed for now, it's not something I've forgotten. X3 I have a hard time with fabrics and the like, too, so I may find some references to make them look a little more realistic with the folds, since it's a large part of the image.

Trying to redesign my ringtail lemur girl. She doesn't have traditional lemur markings. I created her in high school and designed her to be a Sonic the Hedgehog universe character (back when Sonic was cool, yo), so she's very...not lemur looking.

Playing around with standing poses that aren't so stagnant. This one has a little more life to it, but it's still pretty plain.

I totally forgot to, y'know, draw her hands before I scanned this. Go figure.

Nice sketches. I like the fact that you draw average body types. I think a good way to learn how to draw figures in different positions, is to go on deviantart and look up mjranum stocks. He has some of the best nude stocks, and in really interesting positions. But he usually sticks to thinner women, which can be a good thing if you like to see muscles. :D