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Juno Says: HOIIIII ALAELIA~~ :D

Before anything else, I have to say that the background is beautiful, and you've chosen a wonderful font for the text~ :D I love the blue tinge, too XD Lessee... shading, huh? Well, before anything else, don't leave it out! The more you do it, the more you'll get it. ^^ Shading, or depth, rather, is something you have to constantly exercise with... you need to teach yourself to see depth in different parts, particulary as "shadow" and "highlight" (or, even more simply, light and dark.) There is virtually no shading in this picture of Leen... don't be afraid to stab at it! If you don't, then we won't know how well you do it, or where you are, and thus, we don't know what to critique or what to help you with ^^;; but it's all good. Here are some basic steps:

1) Color the picture. Don't worry about highlights and shadows and stuff right now.. it's always possible to change.
2) Designate a light source. The light has to be coming from somewhere, right? :D In this case, let's say that the light source is on the RIGHT of Leen (your right.) You have to keep that in mind while coloring/shading, because it automatically designates where your shadows and highlights are going to go. For example, if the light source is on the right, the edges of everything that is EXPOSED to that light will be LIGHTER than the edges that are NOT facing the light. (gawd, I hope that makes sense o_O)
3) Add highlights to those places by either lightening the color there or putting lighter color on top (in the case of CG.)
4) Add shadows (or DARKEN) the areas that are not exposed to the light source. When this touch is added, your picture will have depth and an overall "3D" look.

Your linework is very neat, and this is a good thing... it implies that you've spent a lot of time with your art, and that's even better~ :D You seem to have a natural grasp with proportion as well, which is a plus too :D Anyway, I hope this helped. Remember: don't leave things out, attack them with all you've got!! If you don't practice, how are you going to get better? :D It's been a pleasure critiquing your art. Ciao for now!

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Laine Says: waheyy cool character yer got there =D i like the mood youre evoking here , so pweetyyy ;_;

okay get down to nitty picky ... first thing i notice about her is her eyes .. they seem a little hm..dead ? O_O i dont know what the word for this is but i see this trait in almost every beginner ( i made that same mistake too XP ) all i can say about improving on this is to look at your picture and then look at a proffesional pic and ask yourself what differs your pic from the pro...eyes are very important as that's the first place people will look at in a picture or photo ! =D

moving on..yet ye need some shading alright *_* i can suggest adding some on her chest , sleeves and beneath the cheekbones. First step to all this is like Juno said , determine the light source and then darken shadows and stuff .

I would like to add here that observation is very helpful here ! Anytime you're bored or waiting for the bus or something , observe the shadings around you ! When drooling over your favourite bishounen picture , observe what shadings are inside =D usually anime styles have a more or less definate shading pattern...one side of the forearm , under the cheekbones , under the nose , under the hairline , space between eyes and eyebrows etc . and if you ever have trouble when beginning to learn how to shade , dont worry about looking up references or asking people to pose for you !

For clothing , observation helps a lot too ^^ Even when you are sitting in front of the computer or something , just glancing and making note of how the folds on your shirt are helps ! If you can , doodle out the drawing . It'd be crappy at first to be honset but keep going , everyone starts out somewhere ne ! For Clothing , folds are very important to give credibility and depth *_* Basically , folds happen where cloth is being pulled or streched..note that folds happen around elbows , kness and abdomen if the character is twisting his/her waist .

Welp...hope that helps ... you have a good sense of proportion and anatomy and your lines are pretty neat =D Gambare ne !

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Setsuna Says: Though this is a nice picture as it is, the only way I can think to improve it would be to heighten the contrast a bit, so that the figure isn't quite the same shade as the background (make the bg darker than the figure?) You have the beginnings of some shading here - I'd say just run with it, and increase what you already have. A good way to figure out how to place the highlights and shading on the face and hair is to base it off of professionally done cel art. Usually, in drawing anime, there are some basic characteristics in the shading that doesn't change - for instance, in the most commonly done lighting, the shading would always be placed in a 'triangle' shape near the nose, the contour of the cheeks would always be shown in a bold shadow extending from eye to chin. The indentation below the lower lip would usually be in shadow; and on the upper section of the neck, there would always be a shadow cast by the chin.

You have already a slight shadow near the bustline - continue it. Just think of where the places are in the body that would normally be rounded outwards, or jutting out. For instance, the shoulder pads would cast a shadow on the sleeves, and the chain closure would also cast a shadow on the tunic worn below it. In general, the body follows the same rules as bodies in real life - you can grab some photo sources or magazines to observe shadow on the models/people.

Keep working at it! Hope this helped. :)

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