I've been spending my money lately on some comicbook art books to help refine my cartoonistry, since at some point I'd like to realise my idea for an online webcomic at some point. I've had the idea for a while but only now am I starting to produce art I'm actually happy with. Here's my latest attempt at drawing my protagonist, one Victoria Apple, in Photoshop:



Much better than previous attempts and I'm starting to establish a definite style at last: opting for solid colours over Marvel-style gradient craziness and putting circular highlights in the eyes.

Rather nice, don'tcha think?

Maybe it's just that particular character, but she seems to have an extremely manly face :( Maybe that's your thing, but it's a bit of a turnoff for me. The coloring style is great though, and overall it's a nice image.

I like it, Interference. :)

As for Troupe's alleging that she is mannish, I think what's throwing him is the neck. Here neck is a tad thick unless she is supposed to be fairly muscular. I'm not saying that it's bad, really; heroines do not have to be overtly sexy and feminine. Also, on top of the neck, her head miiight be a bit too long... but that's probably just my anime-influence talking.

Also, I like the sneer, it gives her a personality. I'd suggest (if you have any desire to play around with this particular picture) maybe squinting her left (our right) eye a tiny bit to accompany the sneer. It'll bring the expression to more of her face and it'll look a bit more natural.

By the way, what is she a protagonist for? For a webcomic idea, or a game that you're working on? Forgive me if you've actually said this somewhere; I've been making it a habit recently to miss plain English entirely.

Kildorf, I've just noticed you're probably right about the neck: should be a little thinner to give her a touch more femininity.

She's for a general idea I've had bouncing around for a while now. I've been honing my cartooning skills since my age was in single figures with the hope of one day doing a webcomic, but only recently am I genuinely happy with how the style has developed.

This 'general idea' carrys the name Dark Elysium and is my attempt to interfuse western popular culture with outer space to create a sci-fi setting with explainable references to human culture by aliens and an analysis of us as a species.

It's main character is a girl who is accidentally abducted by a planetary survey team and involves such themes as a planet with a mind (the Dark Elysium of the title), a group of beings from the Universe prior to ours bent on the total destruction of everything and a washed-up hero with no knowledge of how he came to be who's sick of his way of life.

Aside from turning it into a webcomic, my RPG-in-progress is in the same setting.

Quick paintover, moved the nose down, narrowed the neck and tapered the headband.

Like the character, reminds me of Brody from The Distillers.

You could push the expression further by moving the left side of the nose into the sneer, darkening the lines of the mouth and squinting the eyes.

-Falth

Yup that looks super sexy now. Sweet action, more pix plz.

The length of the hair is thing that makes me feel as if she's 'manly'. Though, a full image, and not just a portrait will likely remove some of it, too. But, it's an impressive drawing, nonetheless, just not the most attractive female character art I've seen before.

It's good art, but have you ever seen those illusions in geometry class that can look like two different pictures depending on what you focus on?

That mouth is like that...one second she looks really cute, the next second I think she hates me...