Art feedback - SickScid

[SickScid]

Hi there, SickScid here
I’m new to this site and it’s my first topic on this forum.

I wanted to ask for a feedback and critique of my artworks.

While I received some comments I don’t really get specific feedback regards to my art style or an overall image.
If you could share with me your thoughts/critique that would be great.

As you can see I draw mostly fanart of existing characters (Fortnite).
I feel like drawing fan art is way easier for me than drawing my OC.
Should I continue drawing fan art to the point I feel confident enough to try drawing my own characters?

-SickScid

[KnightleyPaine]

You're very talented or put quite some work into things. The issue with Critiquing this kind of work is that it is clearly both already competent and also stylized so that a lay person probably can't find an angle of approach because the line between the style and actual artistic weakness is too blurred for them, this should be considered high praise, of course.

For me, the main angle of attack would be around qualitative consistency, like if someone did everything hyper realistic but like one hand is really fucked up and fails at proportions, it'll detract more than if the entire thing was just done with a cartoonish style, but in turn consistent overall. I think in your case the faces and sometimes hands start to fall a little into these qualitative dissonances.

To specify, overall, your models have a good showing of understanding of anatomy and perspective which are the two big grails for any artist, so when something drops out of that zone it becomes more noticeable:

Topmost image: (guy hugging belly)
-The way you did the line on the nose relative to the mouth makes it look like her nose is either further left on her face (her right) than her mouth, or her mouth exists in a very concave lower face, since the rest of the image has no issues with perspective, this part becomes jarring because the nose and mouth are very close to each other and faces are areas where an observer's vision for detail is at its strongest.
-The hands of the left character are in a consistent level of detail and drawn out to interact realistically with the bulges, which makes the hand of the right character on the same bulge seem off, it's more detailed, but either interacts less realistically, or is just scrunched there with nothing to do, it doesn't feel natural or join with the rest of her body language.

Second image: (alien with man inside)
-The upper lip on the pred's face. The mouths on all your other characters, including the guy in the same picture show some respect towards anatomy and perspective (the guy does it through his teeth angles, it makes it more dynamic) which makes some combination of the pred woman's mouth, nose and eyes look like you tagged in blackrain to draw them.
-Compare the pred's hands, one clearly shows finger joints while the other turns into this miniature low effort fingerblob with increasingly stunted fingers.

Thrid image: (bunny onesie)
-The hand holding the phone is interacting, which makes the other hand being scrunched like that lazy. This is a nitpick, it actually looks fine.

Fourth image: (pizza)
-Everything is consistent enough.

Fifth image: (on the pier)
-The image is fine, but as it's evidently porn, go all the way. Don't imply a vagina or an anus when you have an angle that can show a vagina or anus when you're not going softcore. The image doesn't have coy energy, so either being coy instead of pornographic is leading to missed potential, or you need to learn coy energy.

Final image: (independence bear)
-Pay attention to the shoulders, the left one (her right shoulder) is a simple slope. So given she is shown not to have super square shoulder bulges, the right side shoulder is thus implied to angle the arm back a little, but when the upper arm appears, it's going in a completely different direction. Not only that, despite her shoulders and breasts implying the left arm would be closer and the right one further away from her tilt, the right lower arm and hand are both noticeably bigger.

Last detail where I don't know if it's style or not: The third image (bunny onesie) almost looks like you're showing the anatomy of the prey via the bulge, but almost all other characters just show a mess of lumps which is fine given digestion, but the second image (alien with man inside) shows the man intact, but you can't make out anything coherent compared to the bulge. Last image (independence bear) outright has just a ball belly with no bulges.

I don't know any of the characters, so if anything I said is actually a feature of the character rather than art discrepancy, that's why.

I don't know how your OCs would look like, but you draw great and it's not like you traced Fortnight or anything, Fortnight is merely the character design and not related to artistic acumen. So I don't see why making an OC would be a problem save for character design competence, which isn't something people can judge without seeing how you do it.

[SickScid]

Hi,
First of I wanted to thank you very much for your time in writing in-depth critique of my drawings.
I appreciate it very much!

While I may not be new to drawing. (I’m self thought btw)
I think my major issue is that I’m new to NSFW art and I can’t really find my “place”. My drawings are either coy or extreme. There is no balance which is noticeable.
I can’t decide whether or not it fits me or if I should stay into sfw instead. I like drawing vore but I feel like it won’t teach me much about anatomy (which in vore pieces goes really extreme and unnatural).

Other thing is that I don’t know how to grow an audience and build any community around my nsfw art and how to interact with others. It’s tough to share it to others. (I think it is visible in my artworks it’s this coy energy)
It is also a bit sad that you put all your work into the artwork. Then you realise you can’t really share it to anyone besides Vore community.

[KnightleyPaine]

(I’m self thought btw)

That makes a lot of sense. Well, either that or laziness was the likely explanation if you can produce two hands with different skeletons, hahaha. An easy way to fix that is to take a moment and practice the fundamentals of anatomy and perspective, which are roughly the same no matter what so even simple online tutorials will get the job done. There's a difference between repeating familiar strokes that tide you through a technical weakness and evolving from a position of technical strength into a style which you more or less have. What you did seem to learn is a strong grasp of using the tools involved, since your images have an amazing amount of polish. Personally, I feel a lot of amateur artists put polish before fundamentals too often, but honestly as long as you eventually have both you're golden.

I think my major issue is that I’m new to NSFW art and I can’t really find my “place”. My drawings are either coy or extreme. There is no balance which is noticeable.
I can’t decide whether or not it fits me or if I should stay into sfw instead.

It's possible to do both. Fred Perry is both a publishing comic artist and a porn artist. Satoshi Urushihara is both the creator of the Hentai Front Innocent and the artist for the 1991 Sega Megadrive game Langrisser. Plenty of people who work professionally in anime started by drawing NSFW doujinshi. The entire FATE anime started as an overwritten adult VN.

Of course, Vore is a bit of a whacky thing and you should take care to try and not look like you're mainstreaming it. The trick is to keep all the vore in the vore places, on separate NSFW accounts, etc.

I like drawing vore but I feel like it won’t teach me much about anatomy (which in vore pieces goes really extreme and unnatural).

I disagree here, because even distended bodies should conform to an anatomy to feel authentic. Even in your current images, the belly is more of an attachment to the existing humanoid model. There's a difference between using the circle tool to just blob the lower half of a face around a vore victim and working on how the jaw would distend as well. It's possible to practice both.

Other thing is that I don’t know how to grow an audience and build any community around my nsfw art and how to interact with others. It’s tough to share it to others. (I think it is visible in my artworks it’s this coy energy)
It is also a bit sad that you put all your work into the artwork. Then you realise you can’t really share it to anyone besides Vore community.

You don't have coy energy, you have gratuitous energy, and that can work with coy themes like implied vore. Pizza image is a good example of this, you're not showing it graphically, but there's emphasis on what has happened and that is its own dynamic. I was specifically referring to the one on the pier because that's not an implied shot, it's actually happening, and you have gratuitous energy, so at that point not showing its just 'SFW artist depicting the NSFW thing' which is pointless if the image was never meant to be SFW. That's why I said not showing the genitals is if anything 'squandering the porn', it's a bit subjective.

Ultimately, the decision of whether you want SFW or NSFW isn't something other people can make for you. It's your time and your effort. The audience you foster will differ for either of these aspects. Just don't put both on the same accounts. If you have no idea what its like to have an audience, here's a few basic rules

1.) Choose the level of separation between your artist self and your person self.
2.) Choose the level of visibility of your public persona and keep it steady.
3.) Manage through what channels your public persona can be interacted with, because in all likelihood there will be more people than you have time for.
4.) Choose an area to publish your work in question, the combination of the published sites and people of these sites drawn to your stuff are your audiences. Your audience is not exclusive to you, and only cultists consolidate to you only spaces exclusively or even want to bother with such an area.
5.) Create an amount of signature content. It's perfectly fine if said content itself is varied, but avoid whiplash from constantly doing one thing and suddenly swapping to constantly doing another.
6.) Observe your audience, strategize your artist life from there. Make changes in planned, informed ways.
7.) Only interact with drama for which you hold responsibility.