Before I start inking...

I'm trying to do up a sketch of a friend's character, and here's the sketch I drew up tonight. I'm pretty happy with it after resizing the head in GIMP, but is there anything else that looks 'off' before I start inking? (I know I need to connect the head to his shoulders. )

Thanks in advance!

Well his legs need to be switched around, the way it is now it seems unnatural...
Course that is just my opinion...

Other wise it looks pretty good.

Hmm, I'm looking for pictures of people sprinting in which the arm and leg on the same side are forward, but I don't see any. They're all like this, with the left arm and right leg forward, and vice versa...

The more I look at it, I think I'll nudge his legs a bit to the right, as it does seem a little unbalanced.

Eh your right.

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Hmm, I'm looking for pictures of people sprinting in which the arm and leg on the same side are forward, but I don't see any. They're all like this, with the left arm and right leg forward, and vice versa...

The more I look at it, I think I'll nudge his legs a bit to the right, as it does seem a little unbalanced.

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Give his legs more space. Looks like he is running to the bathroom. Looks great so far tho.

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Hmm, I'm looking for pictures of people sprinting in which the arm and leg on the same side are forward, but I don't see any. They're all like this, with the left arm and right leg forward, and vice versa...

The more I look at it, I think I'll nudge his legs a bit to the right, as it does seem a little unbalanced.

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Give his legs more space. Looks like he is running to the bathroom. Looks great so far tho.

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Thanks! Do you mean that I should lower the legs down to show more of the hips? For reference, what I'm looking for is an extreme forward lean, like this picture.

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Hmm, I'm looking for pictures of people sprinting in which the arm and leg on the same side are forward, but I don't see any. They're all like this, with the left arm and right leg forward, and vice versa...

The more I look at it, I think I'll nudge his legs a bit to the right, as it does seem a little unbalanced.

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Give his legs more space. Looks like he is running to the bathroom. Looks great so far tho.

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Thanks! Do you mean that I should lower the legs down to show more of the hips? For reference, what I'm looking for is an extreme forward lean, like this picture.

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I guess more like this. You can see how when he starts off theres space between his legs.

Edit.Sorry actually like this.

Here's my side by side, with some quick photoshopping... hope it helps.

LJ

Ah, I see. Thanks, LJ, I'll resketch his legs to look less bulky and more centered to his upper body.

And Senips, that Flash cover is exactly how I want this character's front leg to appear, as if he's just about to plant his foot. Thanks!

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Here's my side by side, with some quick photoshopping... hope it helps.


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There does seem to be some small proportionality discrepancies here and there. To some degree they can be argued as an artistic effect but they can possibly be softened without sacrificing much of the effect.

The one example that catches my eye is the leading arm's hand, the planted foot, and the costume buckles next to each. Assuming the buckle on the ankle is roughly the same size as the buckle on the wrist, that would suggest the feet (being proportionally only slightly bigger than the buckle) are tiny compared to the hand (being proportionally significantly bigger than the buckle).

In LJ's version she has upped the size of the foot, (and deemphasized the foreleg costuming) which I might argue gives a more natural illusion to this proportioning without losing much in the dynamic foreshortening effect.

Another area would be the tiny hand of the trailing arm. It's supposed to be exaggeratedly smaller of course, but it's so extreme in this case it gives more of an illusion that this runner has a bit of Elongated Man in him, and is stretching his arm across several yards behind him. Upping the size of that hand a bit should reduce this effect.

Finally I'd (reluctantly) like to point out the pelvic area appears slightly out of natural position. The upper torso is rotated towards his left arm, but his pelvic area appears rotated the other way towards his right leg, while both his legs appear to be oriented straight onto the audience viewpoint (LJ's version is quite straight on, while the original's trailing leg was slightly off center towards the pelvic position).

This contortion is possible in the human body, but it is somewhat unnatural, and commonly expresses that the pelvis is a bit disjointed from the torso and legs (which themselves seem to be cooperating).

Ideally, you'd want to try to convey not a rotation of the pelvis, but an unusual division of placement between each half of the pelvis. The buttock on the planted leg would generally be taut and pushing up against the top of the leg bones, while the buttock on the relaxed leg would be dropped more and curved over a larger area to support the way that leg is trying to collapse for counterbalance.

However, it's very hard from this pose and viewpoint to convey this information properly. About the most you can try to do is attempt to rotate the lead leg slightly towards the runner's left, and show off a bit more of the inseam of that leg, and taper the top of the inseam of the lead leg more to allow for more room for the crotch (similar to LJ's treatment, although I prefer the original treatment of the trailing leg to LJ's reduced-size version).

In the end, you probably won't be able to overcome this pelvic disjointedness facade. And if you labor over the detailing of such a small canvas space you risk having a relatively-trivial part of the piece start overwhelming the whole. The discrepancy as it stands isn't that bad, so I imagine one could live with it fine.

Anyway, I hope that helped.

Thanks for the critiques, everyone. I sketched the figure over keeping what was said in mind, plus I wanted to have a little more twist to his upper torso and to foreshortes him left upper arm a bit more. Here's the result with my original and LJ's sketch.

The outside part of his upper left leg might need to be slimmed down a bit, but I'm happier with this one than I was. I decided that having his lead foot up in the air still like that Flash cover didn't look quite right after all.

Terrific change, my only caveat is the longer leg which I think shows a kind of rushed anatomy, no offense...

Here it is with a side by side again... version 2, hope that helps.

LJ

Agreed, that upper leg was a little wide. I also tweaked his right shoulder piece so the point wasn't as close to his head. I think it helps to accentuate the twist in his upper torso. Here is the final working sketch. Anything else I think I can do in inks now. Thanks so much! I am really pleased with how this looks!

Okay, I continued tweaking with the pencils and finally delved into inking it. Here's where I am with it at the moment. I'm not sure if I want to shade it in inks, try to cell shade it, or go for a more digital painting approach.

Also, he's a Fire/Ice tanker, so I plan on having his forearms covered in ice, his legs and shoulders wreathed in flame somewhat, and to have a few fiery/smoking footprints behind him. I think that if I were to go with a more comic-book feel I could make the ice on his arms opaque, but if I wanted a more 'realistic' look the ice should be translucent. Any tips on that? Or any critiques at all?