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Deviousness `ChewedKandi has certainly gone out of her way to keep the vector community on the right path. Always making sure that her talents are infinitely scalable, Sharon has put her bezier curves to excellent use, and firmly anchored herself as an inspirational leader. We're absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for June 2013 to `ChewedKandi. Congratulations, Sharon! Read More
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Sta.sh
I've already told you how much I appreciate you drawing Heidrich, even if I missed the chance to say it's great to see all these other awesome characters being depicted. I also had a longer comment going at-length about that, though it's been lost to some unsteady clicking, goddommot.
Anyway, to the more valuable point:
I noticed from your recent piece (will get a comment later) and from your past work with women that you do seem to do weird shit when drawing ladies. I suppose it's what happens to people when they draw sausage fests for the most part.
Anyway, the thing is that you seem to draw women not with soft features, but with dulled-down versions of male features - dulled as in an non-sharp edge. The dark eldar - Cath, if I remember right - looks like a really scary old skinny asian woman who runs a laundromat. I know she's something of an exception, since she's a xeno and you were probably trying to go with the thinner-sharper look that eldar are described as having, but I think the fundamental, universal issue is the mouth-placement. Their mouths are placed too close to their chins, and oft-times their mouths are huge, making them vaguely resemble our fine cousins, the chimpanzees.
So that proportion is a wee-bit shot.
The other thing is, though, I think you put too much space between the eyes. Just that - simple, yet sort of... out there. I mean, it's really obvious in [link] as old as that is, but with Cath (as I'm going to keep calling her until I can determine her name) it's harder to tell, mainly because her eyes are so long that they practically hit her cheekbones.
All that aside, great sketches, man.
You are absolutely right - I've serious problems in drawing feminine faces. The handicap consists of two points - I know how to draw the faceless and regurgitated western-comicchick look, with extremely simplistic facial features, but personality cannot be channeled with that and it looks too slutty. Second point, is that from this arises another problems: women faces generally have LESS texture/detail/crevices, are more smooth and rounded, and for someone like me who feels compelled to jam a ton of details it doesn't work. I can't find the balance between facial structure detail and that simplicity that gives femininity.
That's why you get the "dulled masculine face". With bodies, it's easier, but indeed, face is such an important structure that any deviation from what our brains are hardwired to percieve is looking wrong. Plus with art, it's double tricky. In reality there are women that look very masculine, but in drawings that doesn't look to good, so we revert to a more idealized media standard.
None the less, you're right. And especially on the mouth/chin height ratio, I CONSTANTLY catch it in my works, cut and redraw, but not 100% great result. In one of the latest pieces (Enjoy the Abuse),
As for Aseryths - the DE wych's - eyes/features though (not counting the mouth, you're spot on there), it's deliberate. I'm trying to well, UN-PRETTIFY the Eldar. If you noticed in other arts, I give them animalistic/flat/pointed noses too, not very human at all, and greatly slanted eyes. I'm constantly experimenting with that design, so yeah.
Anyway, much thanks for reminding me I've a long way to go with drawing an ideal woman and shit. Sometimes I do follow a simplistic formula of "bigger eyes/lips" to achieve that feminine look, and need to delve more into the underlying structure as well.