Coloring Practice- Lael

NICE SHADING AND EVERTHING! I MEAN IT! ^^

Thanks a bunch! ^^

Oooh, darling. I know; I can see some of the shades showing through. ;_; Well, I know it's awesome. And jeez, I'm still so flattered by your kindness~ As long as the tutorials help, then I'm infinitely glad to have put them up. ;)

I do have to say though, I really love those highlights on Lael-baby's hair. :3 How did you do those, btw?? XD; I don't think I have that kind of shade, hahaha. It looks beautiful. ♥ And I can see you've worked in some purple into his hair~ very nice~ it's rather sharp here though, but I'm guessing that's attributed to that scanner of yours. Forgiven. :)

And whoo, Lael has a beautiful face. Hahaha, really. I am in love with those lips. ♥ Umm my memory is terribly faulty concerning stories... (I'm awful slow at getting down characters, to the point of embaressment) but~ Lael was the one with only one eye, right? Is that why the other one has no pupil or highlight? Well, the case with different eyes is usually a closed eye~ blind people that don't use one eye just usually close them, y'know. But if it's a (as in, not scarred, torn out, etc) fine eye, but one that they can't see through, it's usually another color (white), or~...
Hm, it's a bit of a dilemma. :/ I'm not sure whether or not there'd be a pupil, haha, but usually, you can still keep highlights; Perhaps a smaller one to emphasize lifelessness~ also, a gradient from the top to the bottom. I think that seems to work well in anime. :>
But then again, I forget the details, so don't mind my babbling... sigh...

Anyway~ Ooh, also, did I mention how much I love the BG? The yellow feathery effect is beautiful; and also, it's a nice compliment to the blue. Very nicely done there.
My only tip here is... for the hair highlights... don't make them too stiff. They're rather 'chunky' and slightly rectangular. It's hard to do in thin bangs of hair, but try for more of a zig-zag pattern. I think that works out better for most people, at least usually in traditional work. For example...um, quickly dashing through my gallery, hahaha, I think the Nocturna pic showed this well~
http://www.fanart-central.net/pic-616331.html
It's usually this or a much more 'smooth line' highlighting style that's easier with more 'solid' forms of coloring, like painting or CG. Example:
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8954/lubg6.png (haha, shamelessly plugging my Luke addiction, lol)
But this is, again, best for solid coloring usually found in CG art, etc.
I think that as you go along, you'll build up your own style for highlights, shading, this type of stuff. :) But I'm hoping that that's a nice brief idea for how to do. :)

Anyway~ there I do again~ TT_TT; But I really do love your pics~ they're getting so darn amazing, and they were already so good to start with!! D: You'll be exceeding me in no time, hahaha. (This knowledge I have here, see? Took me years to find, hahaha.)
Good luck, and keep drawing. :) You're amazing. ♥

Those tutorials of yours really did help! ^^ Thankies so much. As for Lael-darling's highlights, I'm not entirely sure how those came about. o.O Kinda random, I guess. =3 That purple is actually a navy blue, and MUCH sublter in the actual picture as the normal hair is much darker; it looks light blue here when it's actually more like a dark blue. Damn scanner. >.>

Thankies so much! ^^ Lael's a bish. XD But jah, Lael-darling's missing sight in his left eye, and since I don't really know how to draw that I just did the 'dazed' look in that eye with the shading. Lael keeps that eye open 'cause he doesn't want people to know he's blind, and covers it with his bangs. I also wansn't entirely sure whether to keep it that color or not, so next time I'll probably make it white or something. =3 Thankies!

I've tried the zigzag look before, but got a mess. ^^;; But I'll try that next time, and take those references home with me. =3 My style's pretty different from yours, but hopefully I can improve from your tips. ^^;;

Blegh, it's okay! I love your comments, and the crits really help! I'm glad that you're commenting all ze time. =3 Thanks so much for the praise, which I don't feel I deserve, and I luve you! <333

If you think about the streaks/highlights in hair, it's mostly just a huge amount of thin 'bars' or mild 'curves' in hair that are highlighted, all bunched up together. Since not every hair is tilted at the same angle/bunched the same way, this leads to the somewhat 'zigzag' effect.
In fact, some artists just color the hair in lines, but that's usually kinda hard to do.
Oh well; I trust you to find your way. ;) I'm sure it's no problem, haha.
Anyway~ glad you 'preciate the help. Few large art communities like this are big on crits, so I usually don't speak up~ >>;
But glad you don't mind. ♥ (mutual happy!hug) :3

Well, we'll see what happens. ^^;; Since I'm doing this new style of coloring, I'll probably develope a new way of doing the highlights as well. And of course I love the highlights! See what you've done! XDDD

*loves* <333