Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

Yeah. The teleport station girl has a giraffe neck and I know that. I'm out of things to say, as usual. Expect to see more, if not the rest, of the PS2 chars from me.

Oh well, comments appreciated.

The drawings in general are nice. Beside the whole neck business, you have the general idea down. Like me, you should start working on making your characters seem more 3-dimensional.

Very nice!

I caught your shoutbox stuff so let me just chime in. Or at least try and do something helpful.

Making a drawing come over as 3D is really a matter of shading and highlighting and adding the extra little details to your drawing such as folds in the clothing.

It's hard to explain, but when adding shading try to think of where the light source is and the areas where less light will be hitting the character as a result, such as the side of the nose, inside of an ear or anywhere like that. Take a look in a mirror and see for yourself. Or take a look at someone else's drawings and see how they've done it. Or both work just as well together.
The same idea can be applied to highlighting but instead you're adding light to the raised areas or those more exposed to the light source.

See what I mean? No? Yeah I figured I'd be bad at this. Not having any examples makes it hard. Mkay then, here's a useful link that should hopefully provide you with some hints and tips, thouhg it probably doesn't quite cover everything.

I'd also recommend finding scans of the Phantasy Star Compendium. Seeing how you're drawing characters from PS II just now the compendium has plenty of pictures that make great references both for drawing characters and learning how it all goes together in terms of the highlights and shading. I'd say go buy some books but the lat time I bought some books to help out I was disappointed with the quantity of info on certain areas. >< But if you have the chance to take classes then do it. Odds are those will help more so.

And of course, practice, practice, practice! You are doing well Solar. This sort of thing just takes time and practice. The good thing is that it's all up to you whether you keep at it or not. Just remember, these are people you are drawing here. Not exactly the easiest thing to draw now, manga or not. Don't push yourself too hard but always be willing to try and up your game a bit.
You will have your good days and bad ones too. I did today. I tried to create an original Amy piece only to get the anatomy on her legs screwed up. I'll need to try again later now. A couple of hours later and I started on a portrait of Flynn which went more smoothly.

oh and one more thing. I recently tried my hand at drawing the Data Memory girl. Though I intend to draw her again and get it right, the one you've got here turned out a LOT better than mine did. So there's a couple of points to you.

Yes, I acknowledge that my shading is unnoticeable to light, which makes the characters look flat. As for details - well, I've always tried to add some. Anyway, I'll certainly try doing what you said. Thanks for the advice and criticism, and btw, the Data Memory girl is my favorite in this piece as well so glad you like her. ^^

Nice work, Solar

Bumping up this excellent artwork done by Solar!

Solar, again : congratulations !

Bumping up again this wonderful artwork submitted by Solar of some favorite Phantasy Star characters! Terrific!!

Solar at its best again !