Kyubi Kitsune Says: Hi Sarah! I must say, that is a cute rendition of Rinoa! ^_^ For starters, that's a pretty good shot at Photoshop. The coloring is pretty solid and you sort of have the basic idea of where the light is coming from. I checked out some of your other works on your homepage and find that a lot of the problems that you had in this particular piece have sort of evened out over time.

In this case, the most prominent problem I see is in your proportions. Rinoa's head is rather large for the rest of her body. I think most of the problem lies in the hair. The way you draw the face looks pretty good and stylistically, it fits. However, the hair is piled high on her head, making it seem extraordinarily large. When you sketch, it may help to draw the schematic lines of the figure before actually drawing the final lines. It will help to keep things in proportion. What I mean by schematic lines is the sketching of the underlying body structure. Break the body down into basic shapes. If you really want to work at this, you may want to borrow some books from the library to give you some reference.

In looking at your CGing techniques, you have clean, solid areas of color. (Which is a very good start! :D) However, because you airbrush over the entire figure, the lines have sort of blurred or washed out because of the white. To keep the black lines black, you need to work in multiple layers. (Check online tutorials like Keiiii or Khanh, for example for tips on how to do this! ^_^) Things like shading are learned by observing. Look at pictures or objects and try and look for the direction of the light. The body is organic, so shading is never clear cut. Also, try to be bold in your colors when coloring in shadow and highlights! It will give your figures depth! ^_^ Gambare~! Keep up the good work!

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Juno Says: Hallooooo, Sarah! :D It's wonderful when there's a force pushing your desire to draw :D

Rinoa's pose is great, and it seems as if you've really captured her essence and personality through the light colors and "cloudy" effect ^_^ If you would like to improve with body proportions and the like, use guidelines. For example, draw a quick, sketchy circle to get the face shape you want, and use horizontal lines to get the eyes aligned with the other facial features.

Great job with the hair; it seems that you already understand that hair falls in "clumps," not as single hairs. Great job, Sarah! Never give up, you're always improving :D Ciao~~! XD

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Ryuuzaki Says: Hiyas! Hehe, so you had the urge to draw Rinoa after playing FF8 too huh? =) Welcome to the club. ^o^ Welp, since you're a beginning artist, I'll give you the general things you need to work on. Don't worry about all the fine details yet. ^_^

First of all, anatomy. Everybody has problems with this. Her head is a bit uh... big. Mouth is a lil too far to the left. Your lines are also a bit jaggedy, try to smooth them out. Her cheek is kinda protruding out. ^^ If you're going for an anime/manga style, I suggest finding your favorite artist and tracing or copying pictures first. Once you get the hang of the general shapes and proportions, you can start making up poses to practice.

Second big thing, shading. It's what gives pictures depth, without shading, pictures look flat. Um...I don't really see any shading...it looks to me like you just used the "fill" option and gave her solid colors. Shading is a big thing in art, even anime style. It's also an easy thing to practice. Put a simple object under a direct light source (ie, a lamp) and draw it. Try moving the light source around or switching objects. Once you've gotten to pretty complicated objects, you can start to shade people. Look at pictures and drawings, and you'll notice where there are deep shadows and highlights on the human body. It takes a lot of time and practice, but I'm sure you'll get it. Good luck!