RavingRabbid - Hey, I can tell you really took my advice!
The face looks a lot better now, a lot less flat and 2-d. Great job with that! C:
My suggestion is to really try and experiment with different angles! Try different poses and points-of-view. Rather than simply holding his arms at his sides, what if he was getting ready to cast that fireball-spell-thing (cranking his arm back like a baseball pitcher)? What if he was summoning it from the sky or ground? Etc...? And don't be afraid to turn him further toward or away from the camera, either.
I'd also like to suggest maybe giving him a more complex body shape, and working from the skeleton up. There's nothing wrong with this creature design at all -- but in the context of this lesson, I'd love to see you stretch your limits a bit more and try a more complex figure.
Anyway, keep up the hard work! C: Great job, RR.
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Gl1tch - And the robot space boxer lives on!
More detail is definitely okay, in this case. It seems that with this lesson, it's difficult to find a balance between too much detail and too little. And that's just not really somehing we can teach you, it's something you have to feel out for yourself. Obviously, you can't skip ahead and start detailing every little thing before you even have the basic foundations properly set, but at the same time giving too little detail to an image can be equally as detrimental for a piece. But I think I'm preaching to the choir -- you already mentioned more detail here and in chat, so I know you've got it.
I think the problem you're having with the details is that you used such a soft brush. Now if you go in and make little details, it's going to look really odd because the rest of your character looks blurry and out of focus. It's okay to use hard-edged brushes even for the big basic strokes. You can blend everything in and make it look nice and smooth later. (:
Very nice with the highlights, though... I like that you didn't put the highlights right on the edge, which is a big mistake a lot of people make, as it makes things look just flat. I also like that you picked a clear light source (left side) and stuck to it. Impressive! C:
Well done, Gl1tch!
And RIP robot space astronaut boxer #1.
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Krava - I have to say... I'm really impressed! This is a
really excellent speedpaint, especially with a mouse. I don't really have much to critique, in regards to the actual speedpaint itself. You did a really great job. (:
Now, I do want to say something about the painting itself, since the speedpaint looks spot-on. Be careful about balance in your image -- right now, your creature looks like he might fall over to the left a bit. Do you know about 'center of balance' and things like that? I can give a quick run-down on it, if need be. Otherwise, it looks like it's probably just a matter of making sure you flip the canvas now and then (just like holding a traditional drawing up to a mirror) to try and catch those asymmetrical errors and correct them as needed.
Again, excellent job!
PS - vrt says, don't crop at the knees!
It can create a sense of real discomfort and awkwardness to the viewer, and you should especially avoid cropping at any joint points of the body (i.e. knees, elbows, ankles...). That's something we'll cover later on with our 'compositioning' lesson.
