MycosynthWellspring's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[August 2016 Challenge of the Month]

Had this been in color it would've been a really good contenter!
The only problem that throws me off is the lack of tonal contrast. Your darks arn't dark enough, that's about it. The composition and the structural understanding of things is very impressive here.

Cheers m8

Gwyneria responds:

Thank you very much for your critique! I have a very bad tendancy to go too light as I'm always afraid if it's too dark I won't be able to fix it. As for the color aspect I am primarily a pencil artist so black and white it my focus and fortay. But I think you are correct in that it would have been better in color. I mostly do animals (think Robert Bateman sketches) so this was already outside my comfort zone/level. But thank your for the compliment on composition and structural understanding. As I've had no formal training I always feel very inadequate in those areas so it's a relief to know I got something right ^^

[Chris Metzen Taleteller]

Here's some constructive criticism for you: This looks really dark, I mean REALLY dark. Feels like you multiplied the completed thing with a monochrome black layer with 50% opacity for some reason. Not sure if it has something to do with you setup's brightness, but the lack of tonal contrast hurts the piece quite bad. Try checking your levels to see what I'm talking about.

Composition is fine, I'm ok with it. I would've at least tried concealing character's bottom halves with something instead of just "stopping drawing" them though. That flaw becomes more apperent when you look at how Kerrigan's ribcage is suspended above Illidans wing tip and Arthas' cape and then the rest of her body just vanishes from existence, even though the right part of her torso should still be visible in the gap between the two objects right bellow.

Those are the two most obvious things that crossed my eye.
The quest marker is a nice touch.
Cheers m8. and gl.

OttoSkogman responds:

Thank you for the great criticism, this is maybe the last place where I thought I would find it :p
The flaws you are talking about are just poor time-management and overlooked with a tired brain.
But the other part about it being very dark got me thinking, I tend to paint my stuff a bit on the dark side but it seems to enhance when submitted vs what i actually see on PS. The lack of contrast is also an issue that I´m working on... Next time maybe it will be better hopefully :D Thanks for the great crit and good luck to you too!

[Hayao Miyazaki and the Tales He Told]

You have a pretty nicely developed technique and painting style.

I like the composition and all contrasts. Forms you depicted here are pretty convincing. And you did a really good job with Hayao's face - I have to give you that.

However, upon closer inspection I find the anatomy kinda wanky. Both Satsuki's and Hayao's legs are way shorter than they are supposed to be. It felt like you just ran into the bottom of the canvas when initially planning the composition and instead of extending it or moving the lines up, just forced the legs to end at the bottom of the screen. By that same error Satsuki's shoulders feel too wide in comparison as well.

Wolf's legs also feel like two stumps protruding from where his chest is supposed to be - there's a third leg in the background behind them as well as supposedly his tail, but the fourth is nowhere to be found :s

The robit's left hand also feels out of place just poking through some random crack between characters - you didn't ahve to stuff it in the painting just because the character has two of them :p Also: the princess' mouth looks like a lipless slit that was cut through her face with a knife as if through a mask. That one confused me the most since you did quite a decent job with other characters faces.

Anyway Cheers m8 and gl.

SamJV responds:

Thank you for your comments I really appreciate them. Pointing out the faults in the image will help me in the future to make something that is more polished. it was very helpful to me, thank you. ;)

[COTM Terry Pratchett]

This piece is really up there for me in the August challenge.
I have no idea how people are able to attain this kind of flow using traditional medium - That's just mind boggling to me. I wish I could see this A2 sized magnificence in person though. Gotta look pretty crispy.

"Terry Pratchett" doesn't actually ring a bell for me (for better or worse I dunno), so none of the imagery tickle my nostalgic bone or whatever, but dam, this piece deserves at least a runner up from what I can grasp with my limited understanding; very respectable work.

I may be overhyping it, but I can't help it since it's non-digital and yet looks so solid and well-composed.

Cheers m8 and GL in the competition!

8th-day responds:

Hey, thanks for your feedback and kind words! I appreciate it.
Yeah, it was a challenge and it actually took me around ten days to complete the picture, so I'm pretty happy that it turned out nice. I'm glad you like it.

Maybe you'll like to check out his books....the Death wearing that hat, for example, is a reference to a story where Santa Claus is "killed" and Death takes up his role to ensure that things go as planned...resulting in him dressing up as Santa, giving out presents and practicing his "ho ho ho"...one very funny story among many

[A master of his craft (Hidetaka Miyazaki)]

The Black smoke/Blur around the edge looks kind of pointless, distracting and unfocusing. About one third of your painting is just black space that is not occupied by anything and is not even the part of the drawing. Try avoiding that for better composition's sake.

As another adivice - look into shapes more.
You indicaed a lot of individual shadows from creases and folds, and they sort of look acceptable to the eye, but then the overall form of the guy's body is percieved as flat and two dimentional sheet.
Try to experiment with more tonal contrast or look into cel shading tutorials to improve on that front.

You could find yourself quickly improving in the near future depending on how much time you devote to simply drawing.

Cheers m8.

TheSoeren responds:

Thank you very much for spending time 'analysing' my Picture. I added the black blur just because I really didn't know how to do that much background and I was out of ideas.
I will definetly watch a few tutorials for shading, composing and cel shading.

And I'm really, really thankful for your comment. I didn't expect anyone caring enought for my Picture. Cheers

[Stan Lee - Tale Teller]

Very crispy style. I like the lines and shading.
Something feels fishy about how you depict all of the character's pelvic regions, or straight up obscure and leave them out of the composition.
I have my eye on you! o_-

Cheers m8.

[J.R.R. Tolkien's World]

All in all a nice painting.

I like how you strayed away from depicting the main cast.
I mostly like the composition except for Gandalf on the foreground. He's sticking out unnaturally to me like "Hey there! I'm Gandalf! Derpedy-derp!"
I'd honestly put a Silmarill or maybe Narsil's broken blade there instead of him or something.

Also the shape behind the John's head didn't click as a Hobbiton doorway to me for quite some time - seemed like an open pocket watch until I thoroughly explored it.
It could've benefited a lot by the means of an infamous headbanging candelabre of doom hanging from the ceiling, or some other interior decor IMO, or by straight up putting a discernable silhouette outside the door too - like a Nazgûl rider in the moonlight for instance.

Cheers m8.

Tsitskhvaia responds:

Thank you for advices mate. Your comment was really helpful.

[Monty Oum]

It looks like you are very timid with your values, especially when shadows are concerned. Sketches from your wip looked very promissing, nothing quite wrong with them as far as I could see (I'm not an expert tbh), but when you color them the characters start looking VERY flat and formless.

Here's a friendly advice: look into "cel shading" - it's going to help you improve dramatically. It's basically a "backwards shading" technique that can help you understand forms a lot better.

Cheers m8.

DarkSpartan38 responds:

Thank you very much for the advice. I know I still have a lot to learn when it comes to digital art there are so many tutorials for Photoshop, but I simply can't afford it so I use SketchBook Express 2010 and there are not very many videos that can help me with it so spent most time doing trial and error seeing what works and what doesn't.

[Bulgy-eyed murderer in Green Clean Park floating in space.]

Salting the slug-aliens is definitely the most unorthodox way to approach the bulging eye murderer theme that I've seen so far.

Not sure if grayscaling was a deliberate choice, but I feel like this kind of cartoony piece would benefit a lot from using living colors.

Good job anyway m8.

SollyArt responds:

Thanks for the feedback and the complement man! This is my best work so far and yes the salting the slug-alien is a bit odd lol. I wonder if the Morton salt pose my villain is in is at all noticeable. I definitely see your point about the color as I had considered that aspect myself. I would like to play around with painting it at some point to see what it does, but feel the b&w gives it a bit more mystery than I could probably pull off using color. I grew up enjoying the old b&w Alfred Hitchcock films and feel they would loose a lot their intrigue and mystery were they shot in color. It is cartoony, but a diabolical murder mystery unfolding too, so this is my Dr. Seuss meets Alfred Hitchcock haha. All in all the b&w was intentional, but I may one day get around to re-posting it in color. Again thanks for the feedback and complement!

[Demons Relic]

This looks pretty cool.
I dig the boar and the spirit-gourd thingie.
Nice design and soft airy feel throughout the piece.

Well done and cheers m8.