this oen seems to be building into something very nice. other than the lines which im sure you're going to get to, it seems like a very good foundation to work on.

Hey Luke-

Good to see ya pumping out all the assignments. I have a few comments on the two enviro pieces posted above (the bat one, and the mage lookin guy).

The biggest issue i have with them is that there's no clear perspective or direction in them. Everything reads extremely flat from left-to-right. Try pushing objects from the foreground to the midground or background this will help fight the flatness. Even if something is just a rock wall, like in a cave, there's still tons of plane changes along with an overall form that need to be described.

I'd not worry so much about trying to get crazy brushstrokes, or use crazy brushes at this point. The important part now is creating clear readable forms, establishing depth, and creating an overall clarity to your images. People get all caught up in trying to mimic crazy brushstrokes rather than just create a solid object or design or just simple rendering. The brushstrokes should come naturally to the image, not with a mindset of 'hey i need some brushstrokes here'.

I'd recommend working more with just straight value at this point, black to white, figuring out how to descripe forms. What you learn from this can easily be integrated into full color paintings.

Thanks again for working hard and let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks-

Levi

here is another knight guy wip I started....

Im liking the character concept.

Alot of the parts however are reading 'flat'.
Its good how you're incorporating textures to define materials also. Try adding your own touch to these textures.
Another thing you should look at, is pushing parts into the background just like Kekai showed us in his video.

what i mean by flat is that... you've 'suggested' form in the characters armor and such but they still feel like flat 2d panels layered ontop of the character. The best examples of this would be his leather armor straps on the sides of his thighs and shoulders.

not really a big issue but those were my first impressions.

Luke,

You've imrpoved quite a bit, which is awesome, even between the figures alone I can tell which ones came more recently. I feel like a minor problem that might be hurting your art is that some of the pieces of armor don't necessarily feel convincing. Try to focus a little more on how a piece of armor would go on in the first place - how the character would move in that armor, and why they would wear it. I know it sounds a little restricting considering one of the main points of fantasy is to get away from realism, but it still needs to read well.

For example, the helmet in the bottom right looks kind of reminiscent of a Stechhelm: http://www.metmuseum.org...ges/h2/h2_29.156.67a.jpg

However, it's rounded, and fluted around the back for protection. Also, there are fasteners around the back so you can unhinge the face-mask  part, and take the helmt off. In comparison, the helmet you drew seems rectangular in nature, and that you just slide it onto the top of your head like a sock.

here is another guy I started...

gonna put armor on him laters...

Hey Luke!

Your new character is looking pretty strong, but I saw some things that you might want to keep in mind. You have a lot of high contrast on this guy with some bright highlights and then your shadows are almost a 10 on the value scale. I think you could brighten some of the shadow areas up. Also, think about where your light source is. It looks like it's top lit, some places look like they are getting with separate light sources. I hope you don’t mind, but I tried to do a quick paint over for you because I have a hard time explaining this stuff haha. Also his nipple seemed a bit to far over by his shoulder so I pulled it back toward his centerline. I hope this stuff helps!!

Nevermind the connection point I did with the horns, they make no sense!!