How can I make these illustrations look more professional?

[MoOrphyne]

Hey everyone, first time posting here. Hoping tu have some constructive critiques and comments on creating real moods for my illustrations. When I see my art compared to other artists I always think I am an enormous step behind on my evolution.

[agentnerobe122]

I'm no professional (i'm still learning many of the fundamentals) so I wont be able to tell you exactly what to do but I can give my two cents. What make these hard to read for me are the colors/lighting. It looks like there's not enough contrast which makes the arms blend in with the body. This also applies to the colors, the values look the same all around the character making your eye wander and not really settle anywhere. To fix that you could maybe tone the colors down in parts around the illustration to focus the eye on the middle of the frame or the face. You can try Overwatch concept art for reference.

Besides that I think these designs are super cool and interesting. The shapes you use seem consistent through out the character which helps pull the design together.

I wish you good luck and I can't wait to see you improve.

[frozen.sol.wolf]

Your pictures are still outstanding and far exceed my skill level! I'm no professional artist, so my advice may overlook niche areas that could be improved. But my first impression is that there isn't proper value in your pictures. This is mostly in your latter two pictures (the girls in tech suits). The darkest part of their suits blends in with the dark grey background you used and almost gives the impression that her whitish armor is floating. This can be easily fixed by adding contrast between the characters and the background. In other words, make either the background or suit lighter than the other.

It's a similar story with the witch in your first picture (although not so much). The orange/reds add a nice contrast that helps the girl stand out. But (in my personal opinion) the blues blend in with the background too much. Adding rim lighting is a good way to fix this, and I see you have already done this to some extent.

As for mood, your first picture captures it best. As for the second, I'd personally illustrate her floating (instead of standing) for that final whimsical touch. I cannot comment too much on the latter, because she has more of a blank expression and I don't really know what her intentions are. Additionally, the foreshortening of her left hand is slightly off and makes her hand appear to connect directly to her shoulder.

Your pictures are still outstanding and appear close to professional! (to me at least). I really like the flow you created in the first picture (from the witch towards the moon)! I hope my tips help to some extent.

[gui]

I fully agree with the previous comments.

My main gripe is about the posings themselves, and particularly the neck. All of this looks pretty stiff/rigid and lacks of "life" –in other words, the human body doesn't act this way, it is way smoother. For example, in the second piece, the body of the lady looks like it was bent as a whole instead of having only its spine bent and the limbs (particularly the left arm) following it as an element made of two straight other elements.

As for the necks, it seems your characters have their head attached to the top of a rigid part and turned around, when the neck actually is a set of vertebraes which all move in conjonction, forming a smooth curve. Right now, those characters look more like some sort of action figures than living beings... Also, the right shoulder of the witch looks to be slightly wider than the left one. Be careful with the perspective of her face too, as her left eye should be closer to the line of the nose, leaving a small space between the eye itself and the side of the face.

My advice would be to find some references of the human body in various poses, preferably as photographies, and study them. If you feel like it, you could also install the free app Daz Studio and use its various provided figures as templates once posed how you want them. You could screencap the view, or make a rough render that you import in your drawing software as a basis to work from.

Keep up the good work!