Sometimes the problem comes with choosing the shadow and highlight color, you can remedy this by eyedropping a professional's work (To an extent). There are some artists that also use pure white and black when spray painting and some to a lesser extent that primarily use burn and dodge (Or layer blends), but I find my best results when using all three techs depending on the material being colored. Of course... there are a magnitude of other problems that might cause your work to suffer... Sometimes though, it's just self devaluation and if you stick with it, your work will ultimately look good in the end.

Oh right, rendering skill is basically based on natural instinct and experience, (You can technically boil it down to a science and numbers, but eh, that's what 3DCG is for) above all, knowing the effects that light has on a three dimensional object and the materials they are made of. Most beginners start off using a single light source, but some of the advanced artists can use three or more in a drawing. There are also artists that use more selective area shading (Anime style) and those who cover a more warm and suble style, which I myself prefer. At some point for an artist, these things become natural, so if that is the problem, don't worry too much and just keep at the grind, it'll come eventually.

[ 17-01-2005: Message edited by: Zephos ]

[ 17-01-2005: Message edited by: Zephos ]

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www.xynthica.com

[ 19-01-2005: Message edited by: Cloud ]

If the problem is picking the right colors, eye dropping a professionals work will give you fool proof results everytime, very handy for skin tones. However, to tell you the truth, the colors you picked in your example didn't seem to be that far off the hilt.

Hmm... let's see in a nutshell... well, you might want to try adding a highlight color along with you shadow color for contrast and a more dynamic "Shiny" look that anime is apparently famous for. Some artists use this more than others though, depending on the material... needless to say though, stuff like hair, wet skin, leather, gems, swords and other reflective materials look great with highlights. The basic rule is that the closer you put the shadow and highlight next together, the shinier the object is, just like the obligatory halo of light around anime character's heads. Just a dab of white on the right spot can make a world of difference. Oh, and of course, now with the wonders of layers in graphapps, take full advantage of them to minimize the sheer amount of hair you may rip out from unevitable frustration.

Another important ability is the knowing of the roundness of the human body (Fun with anatomy! Some western artists go postal with it). When you are an early artist, you tend to shade around the contours of everything, because it works pretty much on any primary shape, but when you start shading something like the human body, you have to start taking into acount where bone stretches flesh to form angles and where flesh layers upon bone to form curves. A good example of this would be your hand. If you can draw good hands from any angle, you can draw pretty much anything, seriously

Well, that's all that I can think of right off the bat for now. Much of the learning process in drawing and coloring can be vaguely explained, but is impossible to be taught on word alone... the secret of course is to screw up lots and lots of times

On a unrelated note, if the limits of that 50Meg host of your site starts getting tiresome, try out:
www.sitesled.com

As far as free hosting goes, they're the best I've seen. Also, when naming files on your website, although it may seem unpretty, don't use spaces in names, instead use underscores like "hello_there", or else it'll show up with a weird name in the actual link like "Gun%20Gal%20Web%20Version.JPG".

Anyway, keep up the good work! When you advance your skill in shadow and light placement (The rock that all rendering is based on), you'll see your work take leaps and bounds in no time! A great deal can be learned from studying professonal artist's work and as you most likely already know, you begin to see things as you advance that you never saw as an artist before. So keep at the grind and good things will happen

(LOL, I'm starting to feel guilty these days about writing this much... it hurts the eyes, my apologies

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www.xynthica.com