Remember, if you don’t have anything nice to say - which in today’s world means nothing positive to say - then you shouldn’t say anything at all. That way the artist will never learn to accept criticism or be motivated to improve, but at least they’ll be happy. Ignorantly happy.
If you can’t tell by comparison that your art is bad, how can you improve? Hopefully one day they’ll look back on this and say the same things we are now.
When I read about devastatingly negative comments on the TV Tropes thread, I was expecting racist comments or something. Instead, I see some of the tamest “negative comments” I’ve ever seen. The artist really needs thicker skin. Or make better designs and have a more interesting drawing style, one of the two.
Alright, the main thing that makes this feel uncanny is the posture. Almost none of them have center of mass over their feet, i.e., everyone in front of Spike would fall over forward. For any static posture, taking the average of the body mass HAS to fall somewhere on the line connecting points just in front of the heels. As a good rule of thumb for standing positions, the shoulders are aligned with the hips.
Another huge thing is the hand position. That’s a natural resting position for the fingers from the knuckles down, but not for the hand from the knuckles up to the elbow. Resting position is palms inward and at a slight forward angle – picture holding a basketball at 4 and 8 o’clock, then lower those hands to the hips. By curling the wrist in and turning to have the palms face back, you echo early primate knuckle-walking.
Next, the faces. For cartoon representation, you have to give a little on jawbone and chin definition, and that goes double for female characters. This isn’t necessarily a physical property, so much as a consequence of having less shading to work with, and any line drawn will be automatically visualized by your audience as deeply pronounced. This is mostly only a problem with Dash and Applejack, who currently look like Gregory House and Batman because their jaws and chins are way too pronounced. It works for the “sleeker” characters because it separates the jawbone from an unusually thin neck – but on the frames of our athletes and their thicker necks, those facial features start becoming more defined lower along the chin.
Fluttershy is just way too tall. It only takes about 6 inches or so – half a head – to show someone as unusually tall. 7 feet is very rare even for men, and bordering on 7’6’’ just looks downright uncanny. She’s almost taller than Yao Meng.
The arms’ overall shape varies wildly. The bigger characters look about right on that, but Rarity looks beyond anorexic, and Spike looks like something that just left Amigara Fault (especially compared to the heavy frame of his legs).
You’re doing a decent job of trying to differentiate body type. Most of the issues were either internal consistency, being too unsubtle with key features, or posing.
Okay, I’m going to try to be as constructive as possible here. There are a few issues I can see, and I’m going to try to split them up into objective technical issues vs. personal preference:
Technical problems
fingers look rather clawlike
Pinkie is the only one with knees
Everyone but Spike seems to be leaning forward
Personal preferences:
Fluttershy looks freakishly tall; I think you were going for “lanky”, but it’s so exaggerated that it goes into Uncanny Valley territory. She almost looks like Slenderman
Not going to mince words: RD looks REALLY manly. If I wasn’t familiar with the show and saw this picture, I’d think that she was a guy. Also, the dark skin/rainbow hair combo just looks weird to me.
On the positive side, Spike, Rarity, Pinkie, Twilight, and AJ all look pretty good; they’re rather interesting interpretations of the characters. I certainly appreciate your desire to differentiate their body styles, even if I think you overdo it a bit in some areas. I think part of the problem is that this is sort of an unnatural pose; looking at your other artwork where they’re actually doing things it seems a lot more dynamic and captures the feel of the show better.
Case in point, I think >>71128 pretty much nails the feel of the show. In any case, this picture is nowhere near bad enough to deserve all the downvotes; it has a few issues, but nothing that some minor tweaks wouldn’t fix.
that looks weird. Their faces are to masculine.
But somehow it reminds me of Ross Irving. The fat Pinkie, the tall Fluttershy. And a black Rainbow Dash? That’s new.
Normally I would comment about Political correctness gone cray cray, but instead I’ll comment on how their apelike arm position make them look like the goddamn darwin chart.
A couple of critiques coming from a fellow artist. (yes, I realize I don’t have any ACTUAL ART uploaded. I don’t have a scanner yet.) You should really work on your arms. Arms have always been really killer for me. They can’t just be noodles, or lumps unless it fits with the art style. Try adding a little knobbly bit to the elbows, and knees, even when they’re completely straight. Also, the human body is a bit more straight up and down than you have it here. If that’s a style choice, more power to you. But as they are, they all look like they’re leaning forward. And from a personal preference standpoint, the mouths could stand to be a tad smaller. They’re kinda creeping me out. And Pinkie’s pants could use a little more room. As they are, skin-tight, they just look a little uncomfortable and awkward. Otherwise, really good, it just needs a little touch up!
