Welcome to Gaia! ::

The first thing that struck me was " BAM! Kimono". You obviously paid a lot of attention to the detail of the Kimono- the shapes and design of the flowers are consistent through out the outfit, and does well to illustrate your talent in designing.

HOWEVER. You've got some major form issues you have to work on. Let me explain:

The head

1) Why is her chin melting into her neck? I know some anime artists insist on leaving the face unfinished and calling it their "style" but it really just ends up looking unprofessional. You should have finished her face FIRST, THEN scanned the picture.

2) You placed her eyes way to far apart. Although the shape of them is beautiful, the eyes themselves are almost touching the edges of her face. Think before you place the eyes. Look at your own face, see where your eyes are positioned..get a general idea of where they should be.


3) What happened to her nose o.o? That could be one of the reasons why her eyes are so far apart. You had no guideline to direct you to where the eyes should have been. The nose is important because it pretty much dictates where things will be on the face..being between the eyes ( which are about half of the face down) and the lips (which are in the last quarter of the face). Also, in not drawing the nose, it furthers the unprofessional feel of it..since..her face almost looks blank.

4) The hair is absolutely beautiful. Nothing more to say about that, though the head itself looks too small. In fact, because of the position and largeness of the eyes, her head just looks to be the size of a...forehead. When you look up from her cheeks to the top of her head, you will see how her cranium is much to small, and even a little lopsided.


The Body

1) She almost doesn't have one. Her midsection is way to short, as you put her legs less than a head's length from her breasts. BIG no-no. The average human body's midsection should be at least three head lengths long. Her hips start almost at the bend in her midsection ( You know, the "middle of the hourglass" in women. Its called "the waist" but I didn't want to confuse you). With that body, she'd have a very hard time bending over.

2) Because of her severely shortened midsection, it brings to attention the fact that the legs are too long. See how everything is thrown out of balance?

I love the right arm ( viewer's left) because of how the design of the kimono flows so smoothly over it. However, what's up with her left hand? ( viewer's right), two fingers seem to be stuck together. I've seen in in anime drawings before, and have tried having my hand in such a position irl, and the bottom line is- you can only have your hands that way semi-comfortabley if you took out the muscles of your palm and glued together the two fingers xD. So, in short, when artists do that, it pretty much looks like they were either lazy and didn't want to draw the hand normally, or just didn't know how.


Another major thing that I noticed is that the neck looks like it's folded on the right side ( viewer's left). I know you were trying to indicate tendons, but creating a crease in the neck is not the way to do it xD. Think of tendons like a ridge...a hill..and clothing simply rolls over them. NOT folds into them, eh? It's not like a waving flag where the wrinkles go behind eachother..but like a sheet of silk falling over a cylindrical object, you see?



In short, you pretty much overdeveloped the kimono and underdeveloped everything else. Just pay more attention to proportion! You obviously have talent, and I enjoyed critiquing your work ^^

me likes..... reminds me of tenjo tenge. just the body proportions and the hair....

It looks like everyone else has beaten me to he critique, so I have nothing to add. But I wanted to say I really love the kimono and hair, especially in the colored version. Good job. heart

It has a very good anime look to it, but her hip-waist area comes up short and then suddenly juts out to the side. The choker kind of...scares me. I didn't think necks could plummit like that so suddenly. The hair looks beautiful. Even given the things off with it, it would still be very nice to look at when it's colored. ^-^