Nice, Aggie. I think I'll start my critique by responding to the others' comments first.
King Arceus said:
I'd highly recommend making the background transparent instead of white.
I
highly disagree. Making the background transparent is not a good suggestion for this. This piece purposely uses a limited palette and use of organic shapes to make the composition. The palette choices are great, they are all low-value colors and the background is an absolutely wonderful off-white. It literally
IS the negative space in this artwork. If you make it transparent, it does a few things. First of all, it opens up the negative space onto whatever the background is (a forum post, a display wall, etc) and that is a bad choice composition wise for this piece because it throws off the negative space, which is real what shows the space in the image. Secondly, the point of transparency is so that you can either add stuff behind the image, or so that you can have an irregular shaped image sticking off of the main scene (such as in banners where one Pokemon or render sticks off the main banner.) Another reason that transparency is a bad idea is because it takes away that color that I mentioned. The light tan is a great balanced color for the composition. In addition to that, it is the same color as the skin of the girl. Taking the background away would leave her as the only part that is that color. Now I realize that she is the focus of the image, but I fear that leaving her with an individual color will draw too much focus to her and will leave the composition unbalanced. My final reason for saying no to transparency has to do with color theory. I already mentioned a bit about how the color is nice and how it balances things, but to explain that a bit more, let's talk about the color wheel. Complementary colors are colors that are opposites on the color wheel. Being opposites, they are used to... well, complement each other. They balance out each other while next to each other, and while mixed, they actually negate each other and create lower value colors (kind of like the colors seen in this piece). It turns out that yellow and purple are complementary. (and I would imagine that Aggie knows this already, from seeing her art a lot) The yellows in the tan and the purple work well together, and deleting it for transparency does nothing but hurt this artwork. Please keep it, Aggs.
King Arceus said:
Try doing some lighting effects because it will make it appear more realistic. Right now it is just such a simple design for my taste. More details would make it better.
Once again I must disagree. Not only is 'lighting effects' a very broad term, but I think it is a comment that comes purely from opinion. I can see ways that shadow and detail can be added to make this piece really good, but that isn't the way this was intended. I think it could be a style to be explored, but the simple, shape-driven design of this artwork is beautiful because of it's simplicity. Simplicity of fluid shape, simplicity of colors, and simplicity of the subject itself. I think it would be fun to experiment with simple texture inside the flower petals or something, to add interest, but adding a ton of detail doesn't really fix any problems, it just changes the style, which isn't always better.
King Arceus said:
It looks like you missed a couple pixels by her hair that are white. I'd suggest using the zoom feature to help avoid doing that.
Yes, the bottom of her hair on the right side where it meets the petals has a few white pixels that need to be touched up. Also, something I noticed that is distracting - look on the left said of the hair. The dark purple of the hair is separated by the same dark purple of the inside of the flower by the thin light purple of the petal. I understand that the point is to separate them, but the thin line is so thin (more than any other line) that my eye keeps noticing it. I like the idea of using another shape to go in and separate things though, so I think that if you want to try that, you should be bold about it and make it thicker. You could even try this with the negative space. I would love to see the background color intrude into the petals to separate them. Play around with it.
Ice Arceus said:
There were a few things that I would like to point out. First of all, the shapes are composed of rigid lines and create an imbalanced transition to a soft and smooth curvature. The stems for the plants, petals, and the girl's hair are all portraying this type problem. This might be the first thing that I would recommend fixing.
I think this is mainly because of either the brush she used, or just the way her tablet responds to her drawing. It's probably just her brush or something. I do see what you are saying about the inconsistency of the stroke, but it really doesn't bother me too much. I really like the lips and swirl, but the shape on her other cheek doesn't flow as well, it's just too close to the nose and looks like it should be connected.
So.
I have two last things for ya. My eyes are constantly following the shapes around, which they should be. However, there are places where my eyes go and stop, where they should be continuing on. I would like to see your line-like shapes continue more. The big diagonal dark purple shape keeps drawing my eye and then stopping. I think it would be better if it went off the page. Take your hand and cover the left side of the image so that it runs off. How do you feel? It seems to release the tension from that shape ending suddenly. I think the same thing can be said for the bottom stem of the right flower. Cover your hand over the bottom of the image so that you can't see where it ends. I think it would do wonders to make it go off the page. Also, the two dark purple lines in the petals might be able to go all the way to the bottom of the petals for a better effect.
Finally, I don't think I like how the green/yellow stem of the right flower disappears into the green/yellow hill. This is a REAL hard problem to solve though because the hill looks GREAT with the green flower. The position and shape of it is perfect. Man... this is a hard one because I dislike it and love it all at once. If I make up my mind, I'll respond again haha.
