Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

Once again I've decided to draw another Mau drawing. This one shows her in more of a fighting stance with her featured weapon, a scythe!
As you can see I'm still developing a drawing style, but I think I've got one now that I really like, hopefully I can stick with it.
I'm pretty happy with this pencial sketch so far, let's just hope I don't mess up the coloring. Of course, I'm coloring on photoshop, and the nice thing about photoshop is that photoshop has a back butten! You just can't get too far into it though.
This is just the pencial sketch for now, as I put in the title it's a work in progress. Feel free to share your thoughts and constructive criticisms.

There are a few things I'd like to point out, if you're interested.... I'd like to do some of this graphically, but I'd like to make those graphics at home where I can use my drawing tablet.

So, contextually the first (and most repeated critique in the art world) that I'll give is that your anatomy needs a little work. I wouldn't worry-- I still get comments on this from the pro's. I can point out the major things, but you'll have to get a professional to point out the minor nuances-- or refer to an anatomy book.

Major Anatomy Things-
* I don't know what her hand with the knife(?) is doing... but the bend looks a little unnatural. Can you describe what you were going for?

* Mau's body is facing the left, but one of her feet is facing right. Feet are tricky to draw-- especially in action poses. In this pose, it'd either be facing left (like the other foot/leg) or front-facing.

* The leg/foot anatomy is a little off. The way you've drawn them makes them appear longer than I believe you intended. I'd like to show you graphically how feet look more like triangles... but that will have to wait.

You were really bold drawing an action shot. Those are tricky because of the funky angles... but I think you really pulled it off well. I really get the sense of motion in your drawing. That's really great! Not a lot of people can get that element when they draw action poses.

I also notice you chose a 3/4 angle. That's fantastic! A lot of newer artists only draw front or side views. 3/4 is a lot trickier to tackle, so it's great to see you making the attempt! (This isn't to say you shouldn't ever draw side-views or front-views... but in a single character drawing like this, it's really fabulous to see a 3/4 view!)

Great job. I hope to see more! =)

Is there a way, when you post, you could down-size your image to something say... 400-pixles wide? I hate scrolling to view images... If you don't have image editing software, I recommend downloading gimp-- it's free. You can also do a lot of "photoshoppy" things with it.

Here's the graphical version of my critique (for the 3 things I pointed out)
I can't rotate my tablet like I can rotate a piece of paper, so the hand crits are upside-down.

Thanks for the critique and review Jadewik, I am glad you liked it.
It's actually a scythe that Mau has on her hand, and her other hand is charging up an "energy" blast, more than likely it's a holy or ice elemental blast in her other hand. She's a death angel kitty, which is why her signature weapon is a scythe, it explains her holy elemental power...her ice elemental power well...it's kind of funny how she got it.
In her world there's magical gems called "phoenix gems" and they come in different elements. And when she was just a toddler (in this world angels are born just like we are) she swallowed one thinking it was mint flavored candy! The ice elemental power is a little unstable, so often times when she uses it, it can have some funky effects, like turning her fur ice blue!
I'll try and work on my anatomy some more. Feet ARE difficult to draw and I think my most challenging things to draw are feet and hands.
It's also really difficult to draw one of those poses that show a fist flying forward, kind of like in one of those comic books where the super hero is punching out the bad guys, and usually there's a little action window that goes "kapow!" or something to that likeness.

Anyway thanks again for the critiques, I'll keep them in mind for future drawings. Maybe I should practice actiony poses, but one other thing that's really challenging for me...is backgrounds. I absolutely can't draw backgrounds! Well...I CAN....but they're really tricky for me.