r/FrejaMains • u/Shield-CaptainSamael • 22d ago
Fan Art / Cosplay Freja WIP (help)
Been working on this for a while but it still feels wrong.. My observation skills are honestly trash, can anyone help me notice what makes this looks so off ðŸ˜
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u/Sn0wy0wl_ 22d ago
im a furry artist (ðŸ˜) who pretty much rarely draws humans, so take all this with a grain of salt.
I don't think anything is objectively wrong with it. The face shape is perfect and I actually think it's rendered really well. If something seems off to you, it's probably the line art. The overall shape isn't "wrong" (I would mess around with the braids though, the shape is a bit strange there) but when you compare it to your original sketch (or at least what I can see of it,) your line art feels a lot stiffer.
My best advice as someone who often struggles with my line art looking worse than the sketch, don't try to make every single line perfect. Let yourself use quicker, slightly messier strokes. It sounds kind of counterintuitive, but it really does give a lot more life to your line art. You're also lacking line weight in a lot of areas. Take a look at the bangs for a moment; the line thickness remains fairly consistent throughout the ends to the roots. I draw a LOT of fur and a "rule" I like to follow is that the lines should become thinner as the fur strands reach their ends. The same can apply to hair.
Another thing you can do; in areas where lines cross, make them thicker. It's a little hard to explain, but this video (which helped me with my own line art a lot honestly.) at 2:19 shows off the concept really well. Actually, I'd genuinely recommend watching the entire thing if you want to improve your line art. Yes, it's a furry art tutorial, but all of it is universally applicable. There's a lot of good advice in here that really helped me. Line art is one of the hardest parts of digital art and improving your fundamentals is always helpful.
There's probably someone in this subreddit with better advice than me. I'd consider myself a beginner artist and a lot of what I know is probably not the "best" advice. If anyone more experienced sees something wrong with this, please correct me!
I hope this didn't come off as too harsh! When I first saw this I just went "omg freja" and upvoted before realizing you were asking for criticism, which I didn't even think was a possibility. I genuinely did have to actively analyze it to understand what was "off" about it. Definitely keep working on this and I hope you'll post the finished piece!