EASEL OF Lexie Sue

Hey Lexie,
This came out pretty good. From what I see, I will guess this was a simple “Imaginative portrait?” Mostly from the general shapes of the face, and features. I chose to critique the underdrawing since here is where all the defining work needs to take place in order for the next step to improve the piece. So here, I am seeing you are trying to solve your drawing and rendering before introducing color. This is the stage where your drawing MUST be solid in all that you want to achieve in the final, so after this stage the only thing left to figure out is color. So I would suggest spending more time in this stage rather than the final painting, because you have divided most of the work into the underdrawing stage (if that is what you wanted) and this will carry the piece farther than simple color will. I would focus on the “construction” of the features such as eyes, and lips. They are at a general placement and shape at the moment, but there are smaller shapes which help us the viewer to understand the forms better as “this character’s lips and eyes” rather than a pair of whatever eyes,and lips. This of a cartoon eye, next to your functional real eye, pretty different looking no?

Lighting will help a lot too. Try and take this pose yourself, and use a handheld lamp to get the lighting the way you want it. This will help the forms read better for sure. As of now, the lighting is kinda ambiguous and not clear, maybe top down lighting or a soft frontal light? We must always make our visuals clear to our viewers if they are to put any effort into engaging our work.

Keep it up and keep the work coming 😀