Half-done pic needs help!

[on:]

I figure there are a lot of experienced critiquers around here, so I thought I'd try my luck and ask for the benefit of their wisdom. By which I mean beg for help like a hungry child wearing oven gloves trying to get the last pringles out the tube... 

I've sketched in most of the main character of a pic, but now I'm stuck. The thing is, I've tried to really concentrate on perspective, and it's proving very tricky to finish it off while maintaining that perspective (the idea is that while character is sitting, 'camera' is at a standing eye-level, angled down. I explain because perspective adjustments are probably only obivous to me...). Pic is starting to go skew-whiff, and it's had such a promising beginning I don't want to screw it up now!

Problem areas that I can see include:
1. 'spine line'. From neck to waist, it goes at one angle, from waist to end of torso another. As character is sitting, no worries, but I can't think of how to adjust boobs, place nipples (if ends up nude), curve of stomach, and place belly-button (if nude) to compensate for this.
2. left arm. It's _OK_, but you can see the construction lines of forearm 'through' the left breast at the moment. When that's filled in, it's going to look very iffy. Any ideas for a fix, or will it just need careful shading? (N.B. left hand is just a placeholder, it'll be adjusted to be holding something).
3. Right hand. I've tried to 'shrink' it to keep the perspective, but that's made it go at weird angle. I think. edit: are knuckle-lines overlapping in the wrong direction? Is it just too small, or should it be redrawn? If so, how?
4. Lower legs/feet.  Ain't working! What am I doing wrong?

What other difficulties am I missing? What could be improved? Th'hell's going on? All help very gratefully recieved, from everyone, draw-ers and viewers, passersby and lurkers, on-topic and off! I'm highly pleased with the way this pic's started, want it to end in the same way!

[Reply #1 on:]

If you're posting it on PEEL, then you're missing clothing. Or at least underwear.

Very nice, nontheless.

[Reply #2 on:]

a quick tip.

It looks like you're going for foreshortening. Try and reduce the key components to circles and then stock them on top of each other. The example I've done isn't brilliant but it should give you an idea.

[Reply #3 on:]

Certainly a nice start to the pic and foreshortening is a bitch to get right.

Things I would change. To me the right shoulder looks to high and to large, only slightly though a bit of scaling would help on that one.

Second is the right hand. Relativly speaking her left hand seems to scale at about half the size of her face while the (even through perspective) is scaling to half the size of that.

On the arm front, unfortuantly I try to figure the way the body looks by using myself and double unfortunatly I don't have much sweater meat to give me a clear idea of how it would curve. I can take an infromed guess and that it to say it would squish the breast but that would also be dependent on how much tension she is holding in the arm (more deformation depending on how strongly she is holding...well what ever she is holding or not as the case may be).

I'm sure those comments are as clear slurm and Archonix has give soeme decent advice but I hope it does help.

[Reply #4 on:]

I borrowed Bender's X-Ray specs and it seemed that it was the rib cage area that needed the most tweeking:

[Reply #5 on:]

Wish I could help out but my perspectivenesnessses are utterly crap, so I don't know what to suggest
I think everyone else's hints look good though. Although personally I think I see what you're trying and what they're suggesting and they don't seem to gel - but that's me, not really being able to comprehend perception in artwork

Anyway, otherwise it's certainly an...erm...interesting pic!
I take it her clothing is too tight and she's adjusting it...?

[Reply #6 on:]

Hmm, let's see... I think what Futz did looks pretty nice. Shoulders and left hand a bit too big, right hand a bit too small. I would sharpen up her left elbow a little more, too. As for her chest - for the angle I think you're trying, try making her breasts less round. Consider how gravity would make them fall. And how about a rib line or two?

As for her feet - well, she's kneeling ON her feet. Try doing that - it hurts, especially with them crossed over like that. Perhaps if you tucked her calves under her thighs, you wouldn't have to draw them. This is a high angle, after all.

If you're really really really stuck, ask a friend to model the pose (yes, I know, not naked), but it would help you figure out the right views.

[Reply #7 on:]

This is awesome, many thanks guys - this was exactly what I needed. I learned new words (foreshortening; sweater meat), future tips (construction lines; mirror posing; drugging a friend and posing their limp bodies into helpful positions using coathangers and string. Actually I already do one of these. No, it's mirror posing; hands are hard), as well as help on this one.

@ Archonix/Futz: double thanks both, re-lining was exactly what I was after, but didn't like to ask for - hate to sound fussy I agree with both of your renderings - the torso is the crux of the problem, get that right and the head/shoulders will fit in with rest of pic much more readily.

@ Wu/ El: cheers guys Aye, the hands/shoulders need work, as is. I started with the head, and the shoulders were a great fit for what I had in mind, but then the 'camera' seemed to move, and the torso/legs weren't drawn from such a high angle, or as close to Leela, so... Left arm/hand definately need work as you say (and right hand embiggening), but I'm torn between adjusting shoulders to fit torso and torso to fit shoulders. Lower legs/feet were just lazy, drawn on automatic; cheers for ideas to fix 'em, between those and Archonix's, I'll come up with something!

Zed - I'm as/more confused as you with perspective, hence a begging thread! No, I know what you mean - because bits of the pic are drawn from different camera angles, suggested fixes will vary one from the other as helpful folk latch on to the angle that predominates their viewing of the pic. I dun a sketch to illustrate:

A, B, and C are (I think) roughly the main angles I buffooned into drawing from, and everyone's picking one to use as the 'baseline' to fix the rest of the pic from. I was going for 'A', but got lost...! Will use sketches and advice to try to fix to that.

And obviously, you nailed it - Leela is fixing some manner of wardrobe malfunction. That's way more plausible than any explanation I could make up... No - if pic was much more progressed, I wouldn't have posted it on PEEL (as nerduk posits, it already looks a bit rude), but as it's still quite sketchy, I don't think it's too explicit

I'll be fixing pic soon and sending it away to suitable site(s); if anyone wants to see a copy in advance of it being put up on sites, just send me an email - thatenglishguy @ hotmail.com is me.

[Reply #8 on:]

She could be holding a rifle...

[Reply #9 on:]

Reckon? I thought a pickaxe. Could be a miner, they grab their junk all the time - I know these things. I'm half-Welsh.

[Reply #10 on:]

She could be holding a rifle...

Hot AND deadly. Winning combination. Pics containing scantily clad women can usually be improved with the addition of firearms.

Really cant wait to see the finished pic, last one was epic!

[Reply #11 on:]

Reckon? I thought a pickaxe. Could be a miner, they grab their junk all the time - I know these things. I'm half-Welsh.

This explains much.