Step's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Biodome]

Alright, I think it's about time I pay my respects to this excellent artwork. You make THIS in a few days for a competition? Pure brilliance. I think the other one is more aesthetically pleasing but this one feels more atmospheric and fits more with the track I've made for the contest myself, so I'll leave this one a review!

Right, first off, the colours are so tastefully chosen. You managed to nail such a beautiful contrast between the brown of the landscape and the pale blue of the dome that truly highlights the fact that the humans are outsiders to this planet. The sky looks gorgeous by the way.

There truly is a sense of majesty from that dome which one would expect from a beautiful nature landscape and not from a man-made structure. One of my favourite things about this artwork is that shine you put on the dome's surface. What an excellent idea. I'd assume it's coming from the sun but whatever the case you cleverly gave it a colder shine rather than the warm light rays I'd imagine coming from the sun, which fits flawlessly.

AND THE RESOLUTION, SWEET JESUS. This is MASSIVE. It looks great no matter how far you zoom in, making it such a great desktop background (literally the only reason why I don't have it as a desktop background myself is the fact that I pretty much exclusively use music-related desktop backgrounds). The amount of work and detail you put into it really shines through.

Despite all that detail and blend of colours, you still manage to keep it looking incredibly artistic and inspiring, rather than being too realistic. Now, this might be hard to explain, but I love how the somehow two-dimensional overviews of the barren rocks and flora sort of separate the picture into different and visibly-separated layers of depth; in this sense it reminds me a bit of Okami's art style, although not as exaggerated as Okami's (if you played the game you might know what I mean). I also like how when you zoom in you can actually recognise the brush strokes, giving this art piece a unique artistic flair over some super-realistic computer-generated interpretation of a hostile planet.

Overall, you've set out with a goal to inspire the contestants and your approach to this goal is stellar. At least, it definitely inspired me, and I'm pretty sure the track Echo and I collaborated on for this contest wouldn't have been nearly as good if it wasn't for such a great art submission being the foundation of it. Perhaps this review ended up being too bloated with praise but at this point I don't really care, you've certainly done the contest justice!

10/10
5/5
Favourited.

Scottr5680 responds:

Thank you so much for your kind words, my friend! I really appreciate it ^_^

[Room 1]

Is that it?

There definitely isn't much to see over here. Apologies if this review ends up being too harsh but I wasn't impressed.

Probably the best thing about this would be that the proportions were alright. The way you drew it did give a sense of 3D and in that aspect I think you did a good enough job.

Having said that, there's so little content to see over here that I couldn't give a higher score. It's a room with a door. That's all it is. No textures on the walls, no shading, no details such as lights, switches, wall decay, or even a character or two to spice things up. I can understand that perhaps you just made this to exercise your skills in proportion and 3D, but as an Art submission this barely holds a finger to other stuff on the Art Portal.

There are some technical issues too. Some of the lines are too long and indicate that you rushed it, the door isn't exactly in the middle, there's more wall showing on one side opening than on the other, one opening is wider than the other, and there are unexplained white lines at the top and bottom of the picture.

Moreover, the quality is poor - I can see JPEG compression artifacts quite clearly around the edges of the room and the door. I know these may just sound like unnecessary nitpicks, but they all indicate that you rushed this, and rushing rarely yields good results.

There are some bigger problems too. The picture is far too bland and simple. As I already said, there are no intricacies or details that I want to see in an Art submission. Additionally, you drew the side openings wrongly. At the bottom of each opening there's a vertical line which shouldn't be there. There should be one horizontal line like at the top.

In general there certainly isn't much to this submission. Not only does this lack in content, but the content that is already there isn't drawn too well either. 3D proportion was alright, but other than that I can't really find any other good aspects of this submission.
3/10

-Review Request Club-

[Ross Fenton and the Explosion]

Distant explosion or nearby glowing yellow tree?

Here's another pretty bad picture. Harsh review incoming. D:

Right then, the main problems with this are similar to the main problems of the other Art submission of yours which I reviewed, 'Nice job, Ross Fenton!'. It doesn't seem to have much work and dedication put into it. There are still no ears, the fingers of each hand were probably rushed, there isn't any decent background, one leg looks far too wide, the left arm looks almost twice as long as the right one, the explosion's glow isn't reflecting on the sunglasses and the explosion looks ridiculously fake.

First thing I would fix is that explosion. If you didn't write 'Boom' in it and didn't mention anything about an explosion in the title/Author's Comments then I probably wouldn't have guessed it was one. I'm sure drawing explosions won't be easy but you could've put a bit more work to it. Also, Fenton seems to be leaning on something, and the explosion's glow is drawn in front of it. It doesn't make the explosion look that distant now, does it?

But hey, on the bright side the shading was an improvement and Fenton's pose looks quite natural, so good work over there. This picture is a bit more interesting to see than the other one, too.

Overall, it's a bit of an improvement from the other one, but it still requires a lot more work before I can call it good.
5/10

-Review Request Club-

MisterTig responds:

lol, yeah I know. Anyway, thanks for reviewing. :)

[Nice job, Ross Fenton!]

Nothing special.

Sorry, but I'm afraid this didn't really impress me that much. It's not terrible, but certainly not interesting or well-drawn.

Right then, I'll be blunt with you: The drawing looks amateur. You put little to no detail in the characters, the blood looks incredibly unrealistic, the head of the guy on the ground seemed very hastily drawn, the head shapes aren't relevant to each other, the characters lack ears, there is very very little shading, and to top it all off, for a background you just slapped on a purple to black gradient.

All of these problems make the picture look very bland and MS Paint-esque. First thing I would work on is laying down the outline of the characters properly. I've never drawn before and I suck at it a LOT, but if there's one thing I know about drawing, it's that you should start by drawing sketches of your picture until you've nailed the outline. Right now, the way it's all drawn looks bad.

If I were you I'd also work on the shading. You didn't add much shading, save for some shading on Fenton's head and a slight bit on the head of the other character. The shading on Fenton's head doesn't look right, some stuff such as the gun and the clothes of the guy on the ground need shading too, etc...

You should also work on your details. The clothing in particular lacks details, except perhaps Fenton's jacket which is the only thing in the whole picture with an adequate texture (making it stand out unnaturally). On the topic of details, the background certainly didn't catch my interest. I'm sure it looks better than just leaving a white background or something, but I think that if you worked on a background so that we'd know about the surroundings of the two characters, it'd be much appreciated.

Sorry for the harsh review but I'm afraid I wasn't so impressed. Still, practice makes perfect. Good luck in your future art pieces!
4/10

-Review Request Club-

MisterTig responds:

That's ok. And I understand you totally. I'm really going to start praticing with my art and such. Thanks for the review. :)

[The Tone Fulps]

Really good!

This is my favourite submission from the Art Requests you posted in the RRC this week. It's got a lot more detail put into it, and everything looks great. The only issues I have with it are very minor nitpicks.

I like the detail, especially the details you put into the characters' clothing. The guitars also look cool and I like how each guitar has something to do with the character playing it (Nene's cleaver, Pico's gun, etc...). The background works very well over here - it looks good but doesn't interfere or contrast with the foreground.

I had a hard time finding anything wrong with this. Nene's pose did strike me as oddly unnatural, and as VividGrim pointed out there is a lack of shading on Pico's face. Also, the smoke coming out of Pico's gun guitar looks a tad bit weird, but as you can see these are just minor issues that can take all of a few minutes to fix.

All in all, this is my favourite piece of artwork I've seen from you so far. Keep up the good work.
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

[Dead of Winter]

A bit too simple for my tastes...

I don't really like this one as much as your other submissions. The only thing with sufficient detail would be Nene and the blood dripping from her cleaver.

I like the designs on the clothing, and the way she's walking was drawn pretty well too. The blood was quite realistic as well so no complaints there.

However, there isn't much to see over here, unfortunately. There's no background at all, the snow was just a section of white (and it's not even snowing anymore) and like Ejit said there aren't any footprints.

This lack of attention to detail is probably purposeful (alliteration unintended) but I can't really give a higher score when the only things that catch the eye cover about 15% of the whole picture. That said, what you DID put detail in looks great!
7/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

[Nightwolves]

Ooh, nice work!

Pretty cool picture. I don't have that much to say about it since art is far from my expertise, but it doesn't take an art genius to realise this is well-drawn.

What strikes me the most here would be how you set the whole thing up. The whole picture is composed out of different shades of grey except the main characters who are composed out of all sorts of different colours. This creates a gloomy sort of atmosphere but somehow indicates a glimmer of hope coming from the main characters. And that's a cool effect :D.

The characters are drawn nicely too. I like your drawing style, it works very well for a comic. The shading is simple but very effective, too. Really, I can't find that many things to complain about here. If anything, the background was somewhat bland and I would've appreciated some more detail there, but that might've been intentional.

All in all, this picture is pretty darn good. Love the drawing style, the shading, and the general atmosphere. Background was nothing too special, although that might just be me nitpicking. Good work.
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

[Jeo flys]

Textures need work...

...But it's an otherwise pretty cool picture, nice work! :D

So, what I liked the most about this would be how well-drawn it is. The proportions are spot-on (except perhaps the right arm which looks a bit weird), the background is superb and the facial expression of the green dude was done very well. You seem to have quite a bit of experience in drawing in this style.

Now for my main complaint: this picture seems to be lacking in textures. I mean, you clearly show the veins and muscles of the character, but then his clothes don't have many creases and look plain and the metal of the ship's controls has a very bland texture too. I would've liked to see more details texture-wise.

But still other than that this is drawn particularly well. The lighting effects on the controls, the space background, etc... all look good. Also, looking at the controls makes me increasingly curious about what that red button in front of the character's left hand does. Do tell :D.

Keep up the good work.
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

Rennis5 responds:

you'r spot on about the texture, that is something that i really need to learn, the right arm looks kinda wack because i was trying to make it look like his elbow was resting on the window sill but yeah it doesn't look right.
so the big red button i originally put in there as an eject button that would shoot the glass windows off the cabin letting the pilot escape but i might change that.
I wanted to draw a glass case over the top of it, i tryed a few different designs but i think it looks better without one
thank you for the review

[Telepathy]

Really cool to look at!

I'm no artist and my knowledge of art is very limited, so my review is going to be heavily biased on whether I like this or not, and I can safely say that I indeed did like this :P. Like I said it's a really cool picture.

The shading is spot on. I love the mix of light and dark colours, and the way you did the shading made the bright white light in the middle the centre of attraction, illuminating everything around it, and then slowly everything fades out into darkness as it goes further away from the white light. Looks good. Also, the colour scheme is superb. It's mostly vibrant blue and green but I'm seeing a slight shade of red in there which surprisingly added to the picture, despite it being completely different from the colours which surround it.

The detail you incorporated in this picture is stunning. Just looking at the full size version of the picture gives a good representation of all of these details. The stars, the tightly packed background circles with a touch of transparency, the twists and turns of that blue/green stuff. It all just looks so detailed and would make a great wallpaper like SCTE3 said.

If I had anything to point out, it'd be that this picture doesn't seem to have much of a meaning to it. It looks as if you only made it to make it look cool, and the only distinguishing feature of this and the other cool-looking computerised art is the white light in the middle and the way it brightens its surroundings. As far as I know abstract art pieces are supposed to have some sort of meaning to them, but I just don't see any meaning to this (or how it can be associated to its title either). So that's something I think you should work on.

Anyway, I'll give this a solid 9/10. Looks really awesome, has a vibrant and great colour scheme, and the shading/special effects are done to perfection, but I don't see how I could describe this other than just cool-looking. Give us something to remember, something to define the picture.
9/10
Recommended for the Art Portal.

-Review Request Club-

Marsupial responds:

nice reviews cheers :)

[Eastern Rosella]

This is actually really well-drawn!

Let me start by saying that I'm no artist. If there's one thing I can't do, it's draw. Still, it doesn't take a genius to recognise that this is really well-drawn. I compared it with the original picture that you redrew (I'm assuming it's this one: http://velofille.com/old/parrot_pics/Eastern%20rosella3.jpg) and they really match in terms of colours and proportion. Nice work!

The colours you used were pretty good. Maybe you could've used a richer shade of red, like in the original picture, and made the tail a bit more appealing to the eyes in terms of colours (you only used two shades of blue for the tail). Also, compared to the original, some of the colours aren't as bright as they could be, which leads to a bit of a dull presentation colour-wise. Still, you mixed in the colours very well, especially in the top part of the bird. Shading could use a bit more work, namely on the branch that the bird is perched on, but other than a few quirks the colour scheme and shading were done right.

What I probably liked the most about the picture is that the proportion was just right. The angle of the bird's head was perfect and the branch was particularly well-drawn, especially the part behind the bird. Regarding the background, it is a bit minimal I guess, so I would've liked a few subtleties in the background such as leaves, but maybe the minimalistic background was intentional to give more attention to the bird.

Now to nitpick - on the whole it looks like you paid attention to detail, but when viewing it full size, I can see a few loose ends you can tie up, like one of the bird's claws, which is supposed to be behind the twig but it is actually going through it. There's a bit of colour jotting out of the tip of the tail too. Still, these are just minor problems, nothing much to worry about.

So yeah, this is very well-drawn, especially in terms of proportion, and the colour scheme is good too. There are just a few minor problems here and there which need fixing. Keep it up.
8/10

-Review Request Club-

rubyninja responds:

Thanks for your review :) Well, no usually i do search for pictures on the internet, but i happened to come across this one on a book, which actually does look a lot like the image in the link you mentioned.
Also, since i have unfortunately not taken art, i hadn't bothered buying a good set of pencil colours, so i had to do with a limited set, and had to use two colours in certain spaces because i didn't have the right colours :(
The claw was a big defect in the picture, mostly because in the begining i had decided to draw only a bird, and added the branch later on after i had already shaded in the bird.
And, although it seems off, thankyou for pin-pointing my errors in the picture, for in my next pictures, i would be able to keep them in mind and try to avoid them :)
So, thanks :)