Some old pictures of fantasy characters

Well, this is my first thread in the concept art forum. I used to like to draw a lot but other distractions (teh internets) have kept me away from that for years now, so I didn't feel comfortable posting my old work here, between all you great and dedicated artists. Well, I finaly gathered the courage to do so. :)

These are some (well, only the best two, don't really want to show the rest) old pictures from the times when I still used to draw for fun, over five years ago when I was still in high school. They're early concepts of some characters from a fantasy world that I started developing back then. Simple pencil and paper... oh, and eraser, lots of eraser. :)

Comments and critique are welcome.

I really like how cleanly shaded you keep your work, very neat and tidy.

I'll let the other artists talk about anatomy issues and such, the only error I really see is in the heads, they seem too flat. And that one arm of the male.

hey, i didnt know you drew! :D

They are quite nice. I'm not the one to judge anatomy, the only thing i can say that allthough they are nicely sharp and clean, they kind of lack in character.

Ill be the a$$hole then. I like them, but the knees are way too low down the leg aswell as the elbow on the first one. Her arms are a bit chubby aswell. Other than that they are really nice :)

I'm glad you like it, even if I'm not too proud of it. I mean, it looks good, but it's just patiently moving the pencil left and right with very little pressure. I wish I had the artistic feeling that would allow me to go over the lines wth an uneven hatch and still make it look good if not better while requireing a lot less time to do it.
As far as flat faces go, perhaps it's the lack of shading on the skin? I didn't shade it to preserve the contrast between the skin and clothes, I figured that the skin was so much brighter that even it's shaded parts would be white. It seems loosing contrast on the face itself this way wasn't the best idea, though.


Can you explain that more? Do you mean the image itself and it's black&white style or the character design? As far as the later goes, I always try to make my pictures more "realistic", so that may make the clothing and hair styles seem dull, if that's what you mean.


You fail at being an a$$hole. :P The knees do seem to be a bit too low, although the upper part of the leg of a human body is longer than the lower one, I suppose that when drawing that fact I exaggerated it a bit. Now that I look at it, his left elbow really seems too low, and badly so, especialy if you compare with the right hand.
As for her arms, they don't seem that chubby to me, perhaps you need to use someone other than an anorexic model as a reference. I think what's more bothersome is that her hands are a bit too small, as are her ears.


Thanks for the encouraging comments, everyone. Here's another, more recent picture that I found. I drew it the last time I got nostalgic about drawing, must have been less than a year ago. It isn't as finished as the older pieces, though, I only did the outline, but didn't shade it.

Nah flatness has got nothing to do with shading. You can suggest perpective with lines alone. Its harder, i guess, but it damn well can be done.

Its cool that you are taking the realistic approach, but when i suppose i mean to say is that they kind of lack orgiginality in some ways, and expressiveness, its hard to explain really. They are really really tidy, perhaps too tidy. Especially in this new one, all the clothing and everything, its just so smooth, never a crack or a fold... Perhaps a bit unnatural.

Ah, thanks, I see what you mean now. Well, of course they would tidy themselves up when they had their picture taken. :) I'll try to keep that in mind in the future though, and draw them doing something more than just standing there.

Wow, someone that actually draws oldschool fantasy characters, without lots of fuss around them. I'm really getting sick of how for example D&D, the Warcraft universe and lots of other stuff keep making outfits way too complicated. This has a very clean look about it, and is pretty realistic. I think erwt is right when it comes to them lacking a wee bit of character though :) Could try doing another one where they're standing in some pose and have a facial expression. Just my two cents.

Not to mention absurdly revealing (in case of the females, mostly) even when it's supposed to be protective armour. Those are precisely the things I try to avoid. Thanks, Domi, I couldn't have explained it better.

As for character, I'll try to work more on that in my future works.

Dont take revealing female armor from me, barbarians!

Anitarf not bad ! the last one looks "to correct" like some 3D model...
in whole if you will continue drawing maybe some day you will be really good ;) !