G.I: Be Strong

Hi! I come from 's Comment Tag game! My tag word was determination, so I chose this piece because that's what the boy's attitude transmits me.  

The first thing that catches my attention is the light. I LOVE how you use light! I've seen you using it with some other pieces from your gallery and it always looks great. You really know how it works and how to take advantage of it as a strong point. It's amazing how you create an atmosphere and let it talk by itself, you make light communicate emotions and settle the mood of the picture. All the shades and dark spots are well placed and that can be very difficult, as light angles are one of the hardest things to understand when you make art, so good job on that!  

I like his expression too. He looks serious and resolute, but not angry, he looks like he's got a strong idea, a purpose. In short, determinated. I see you put a lot of detail on his hair too, I like that! I suggest you making it a bit darker in the hair roots and keep playing with different shades like you do, it gives depth and texture. Clothes and folds are really well drawn here too.

Now, there are only a few things that bother me. One of them is the pose. Though the anatomy is good and nothing feels so out of place, there's something about his posture that feels a bit forced. He looks a bit rigid and the separated arm seems tense and straight, as well as the shoulders. It might be intentional, regarding the meaning of this piece, but I needed to tell you. If that's the case, I'd suggest you bending his elbow a bit and defining more the muscles when you want to avoid a relaxed feeling, (or maybe making some kind of gesture). It will still look tense but less forced, like you did with the other arm.  

The other thing that I want to point out are the outlines. Again, I don't know if it's intentional and part of your style, but it's quite sketchy and it gives me a messy and careless feeling at some points. You can still see some of the traditional pencil lines and they look good in some places but weird in some other ones. If you don't want to make thin and sharp linearts and want to keep the sketchy sensation, it would be nice if you used some stronger colors for the outlines, creating contrast. I like the shiny hightlights, but you might like to try making the lines more uniform and blend them a bit with the rest of the colors.

Overall, great artwork! As I said earlier, I love the mood of the picture and I think that your style and skills have a lot of potential, so keep drawing and showing us your talent!