[Sofa]

I can't say I'm quite on-par with most of this community; I'm fresh blood to the digital art community, having just started art school and having spent most of my days on DeviantArt (thus never receiving any constructive comments, leaving me without a foundation to build upon). Most of my work up until a while ago has generally not been very serious- mostly (animu) character concepts for stories, RPs and whatnot (it's not something I ever plan to discard, I just feel I need to leave my comfort zone and broaden my horizons).

To get started on the right foot, here's a few random concepts on which I could use some critique, that I may improve my work in the future.

[CB3]

Sofa, I think your futuristic concepts here are really sound, and interesting to look at because they have a nice grounding against some of today's machinery.

It would be beneficial for you to push them more out of the "sketch" stage tho, by tightening up more of your linework. Are you working these all digitally? If so, there are ways to use, or set up a default brush which will aid in keeping your lines in order. If not, just hit the 'ol ruler before scanning them in, although there are some disciplined "freaks" working today who can do this quite well, and at many size-scales using only their arm, and keeping their wrist straight during the drawing motion lol

From a coloring standpoint, most of your work here is dealing primarily with "flat-color" techniques. So, when working color in this way, and to add some more punch to your concepts, it's essential for you to use any current understanding of how light/shadow affect the surface planes of an object, so that you can push more depth out of your base linework; otherwise you're work will come across as bland, or unfinished regardless of any colors used throughout.

Again, I really like your concepts, and I'm hoping you will stick around and start up a sketchbook as soon as you have more to show us.

[Sofa]

Originally Posted by CB3

Sofa, I think...

Thanks for the advice.

I suppose my major issue, at least when it comes to the colors, is the fact that I lack the knowledge of any effective shading or texturing techniques, though I've been experimenting a bit with that (though kinda cheating at the same time, lol). As for the lines, I suppose that's all just due to laziness, and the fact that the finished product never quite looks right, as the lines end up looking a bit too thick and blurry.

Again, thanks for the support- I look forward to working with this community in the future.

[CB3]

Thanks Sofa, I'm glad to hear it, and yeah, your right; there are a variety of ways to approach both elements of rendering, and it's really kind of difficult to discover what will work best until there's been a decent amount of time spent breaking down/experimenting with the tools (layer and brush settings to begin with primarily) that are at your disposal in any software you happen to be using.

[Mull]

Hi Sofa and firstly welcome to CGPAD, I hope you find plenty of advice to help you in your first steps in digital art.
You have some interesting concepts and like CB mentioned really worthwhile exploring, dont get overly concerned with your final finished look, the finely tuned rendered images which inspire us all will come with time and experience.

On another note, when posting images could you please use the attachment manager rather than using a third party host, really appreciate it

[Sofa]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. :)