Lorelai Says: Mwah! Cool picture, it's got a style all its own. There's something wrong with the balance in the picture, and it's also done really roughly. The torso is pretty good, but that area where the guy's 6-pack is kinda turned out funny...it looks like that the lower abs are facing the audience while the guy himself is facing more like 1/4 turn away. The muscle structure is coming along nicely though, I applaud you for not drawing stick-arms and legs! You just need to observe more guys, see how thier muscles attach and their joints work, I have little doubt that you will have any problems learning since it's obvious that you've picked up a lot already! Keep up the good work!

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Meriko Says: Okie, let's see...shading technique, proportions, and structure. Ooh, yum~ Shirtless furry! *^^* As far as shading goes, it's all pretty monochrome. It's hard when you're going with plain old pencil to work in enough shading without making the entire thing one big graphite puddle. ^^;;; My advice is to leave the character un-shaded-in, and then begin with the most shadowed parts. Don't color him in just to give him a tan or anything. Start with the parts that will be shaded the most, and these, of course, will be different depending on where your light source is. After you've got in your major shadows, blend/expand on them a bit so that you have a more natural, gradual shading look. Leave white space here and there, wherever you feel that highlights are necessary. Proportions look pretty good at first glance...it's a teeny picture, though! ^^ His right (viewer's left) leg seems a bit unnatural where it attaches to the hip. Studying anatomy books, especially the bone and muscle structure sections, is a good way to learn body proportions. I think he needs a bit more...hip type area, which will lengthen his thigh a bit, making it more proportionate to the other leg. With the small size of the picture, it's a little hard to see the hands, but I think the fingers should be longer, with more defined joints/bend-points. Anyhoo, wonderful piccie~ Keep up the great pencil work, and I look forward to seeing more of your schtuffs!

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Audra Furuichi Says: Hi Leaf~! A furry cat guy~! :D Okay, this is a cute picture and at first glance, things are in the right places. However.. my first suggestion to you is loosen up your wrist and draw larger. This drawing seems awfully tight and small. I'm a firm believer in working large to get the details best worked out until you are comfortable with them, THEN work smaller. Loosen up your wrist and lightly work the entire image as a whole. This catguy is in pretty good proportion, really. There are a few problem areas, like his arm is a little too long and his hand is too small.. and the turn of his legs kinda make his posture seem a bit awkward. My best suggestion is to not worry too much about the shading. Get your linework done first. Use sharp pencils and make it as clean as you can. Once you get a hang of how to work the pencil to your advantage, shading is just a matter of drawing in gradations in the right places... and truthfully, that is gained from observing shadows on all sorts of objects and documenting them in your memory. To better you own drawing of hands and feet, try and drawing your own. (I do this myself all the time... and for references of other people, I watch and draw people around me like... when I'm riding the bus to school...or use the mirror ^^;) It helps a lot.. and trust me. It's one of the best ways I've found...(besides, if you take a drawing class, they'll make you do the same thing too.) Just break things down into basic shapes and things will be a lot easier to visualize. ^_^ Good luck~! Keep drawing~!!

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GlassShard Says: Heh heh, I can tell you don't like hands and feet ^_^ There seems to be a lot of confidence in the arms, legs, and body but things kinda fizzle out at the hands and feet. Weeeell... the best way to get better at those is just sit down and draw your own over and over in different poses. You gotta understand the basic structure of hands and feet, the way they look as shapes and not as nails, knuckles, wrinkles and skin. Your hand is a fat wedge shape with tube-like fingers sticking off, don't worry about the details, just the main stuff. Kay? Your shading seems pretty grey and general, you just need some highlights and darker shadows ie. push the contrast. The face is a little hard to make out, I'm not quite sure where his features are, his one eye is kinda funky. Try and work on making his expression clearer since the face is the most important part of a figure, that's where your eye automatically looks first. Anyway, not a bad drawing, keep practicing ^_^