Hello everyone.
Once I had finished with the drawing, I guess it was all the little imperfections that were so jarring to me. As was already mentioned, the bark lines seemed off, I noticed that I hadn't coloured in Cera's eyes nearly as well as I could have. And more generally, imo, it just didn't fully capture the mysterious and creepy atmosphere that I had in my mind's eye. I had planned on adding more detail around the sides; some leaves and branches to show that she was hiding out in a jungle, and/or I was going to draw a dark, ominous cloudy sky above her. Eventually I settled on just Cera and the log, but it left the drawing feeling more bare-bones than I'd originally intended, which may have contributed to my dissatisfaction.
But as I said, I need to remember that this is only my first time, and I may have been stacking myself up against unrealistic expectations. You guys are probably right in that, yeah, I was being too hard on myself. Probably just my inner 'you are your own worst critic' voice talking. That, and I've often struggled with being able to appreciate my own work in general; it's something I've experienced with my fiction writing as well.
Cera I find is one of the harder characters to draw when it comes to the face so awesome job on that!
I would like to mention that her face wasn't drawn entirely from scratch. I was using an image still from one of the movies as reference. But I didn't want it to be an
exact copy of the scene from the movie, so I did tweak some of the details, including changing the setting to what was planned to be a jungle (as the log was a new detail not in the original image I was using as reference).
Also more of a personal opinion to me is the fact that Cera doesn't normally have eyelashes so I always find it strange to see them on her but I am aware that there are some scenes in which she has them.
As it happens, she does in fact have eyelashes in the reference image I was using. I'm aware that she usually doesn't have eyelashes in other cases. For my own personal preference, in any future drawings I do of Cera, I probably will give her eyelashes just because it makes sense to me. As in, how come Littlefoot often has eyelashes but she doesn't? Shouldn't they all have eyelashes?
This was intended as a monochrome drawing when I started out. Partway into it was when I got the inspiration to colour only Cera's eyes and nothing else. That's one thing I was happy with.
I'll try not to be so down on myself in the future. Admittedly, because it was my first time ever sharing a drawing I made, I was rather nervous and squeamish about it. But ultimately I am happy I did it, and I would like to do more of these. I already have a couple of fully-formed ideas for the humanization prompt.
And lastly, I really appreciate the feedback and encouragement. You guys are all awesome.
<3(I totally made a Halo quip in my feedback. Can you spot it?)
@Anagnos: I don't have much familiarity with Halo, so you'll have to enlighten me.
Edit: Was it this quote?
"After all, it is the personal experience and interest in the task that ultimately bring about a great change, if one will allow that to happen as it isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world, but with enough practice, I believe anyone can become a good artist."Edit II: Anagnos tells me it's the "great journey" quote, which was going to be my second guess.
