Luxembourg's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ascension]

Wow!

Oh, my gog. I'm about to geek out over this. I never give things 10s, but I like this. A lot.
This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to make following the EOA. I tried making fanart of all the kids in God Tier, and hated how it was coming along, so I scrapped it. You, however, have done an excellent job with it! This is lovely. My favorite aspect is how the symbols for Light and Time are appearing on Rose and Dave's chests, and how their new clothes are enveloping the Derse dream self clothing. Very cool effects. The level of detail is impressive, as well, one detail that stood out to me being that Jade's knee creates a bulge in the dress, which I quite like considering you could easily bullshit that away in a flowing dress like that.
There is one little flaw that occurred to me in this piece, and that's the lighting. Your ability to lay out shades is good, but where the light source is here is kind of confusing me. The most obvious idea would be that it's the green sun (which, ideally, would probably be casting a green glow on all the kids), but there seems to be light hitting them from a variety of different directions (underneath Jade's feet, in front of Dave's hands, underneath Rose, etc). This is a really minor issue considering it only really occurred to me upon close inspection and the piece isn't really meant to depict a believable setting. Otherwise, this is great. I love it. Good fanart. Keep it up!

Brakkenimation responds:

Hey, thanks so much for your review!

RE: The lighting - Yeah, it's a little all over the place, haha. At first I tried to have it coming from the Green Sun, but the green tint gave the characters a sickly look and Jade's face was all in shadow. I changed it to be almost like Jade is giving off the light herself, or the planets she's floating. I created each character separately and then merged them, though, so it's not very accurate :P
Drawing this was a good learning curve for me, and I'll make sure to keep lighting in mind with future work. Thanks!

Glad you like it!

[Chibi Nyariko]

Not bad.

Don't pay attention what the commenter below me says. You can draw whatever you damn well want to draw.
I personally am not much a fan of the anime art style, but I can respect it when it's well done (and this is pretty well done.) Anyways, onto an actual review.

This is a cute little drawing, though the pose of the girl makes me feel kind of mixed towards that thought. Your anatomy is pretty good; I'm especially fond of how you did her feet, considering that feet can be a bit of a bitch to draw. You've got an excellent sense of detail going here, from the folds in the clothing to the hair to the general shading. Your lighting is pretty well done, but it also doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The body and the clothing keep a consistent light source (from the left), but her hair and eyes have highlights that indicate a light source from the right as well, which kind of conflicts. On the end of her hair, there's even a highlight that would indicate a light source on her lower back. While that issue isn't exactly a glaring problem, consistency is something you may want to pay more attention to in the future.
I'd also like to point out that certain elements of the background don't look so good. The shadow that's underneath her is somewhat strange looking- pay attention to real life shadows cast by people and objects and you'll probably notice that they're usually one solid shade of grey, with no textures. The bubbles that occupy the background are also kind of corny looking, though that's more a matter of personal preference than anything.
Overall, I'd say it's a very solid drawing. Good coloring, good lineart, mostly good lighting and shading. I hope the constructive criticisms I gave can help in some way.

draneas responds:

Thank you very much! I really didn't expect a detailed critique here. ^^
You're absolutely right about the feet, they can be a bitch! But like I pointed out in my comment, the whole pose isn't really self-drawn. I just have a basic understanding of anatomy but if it comes to poses where you have to think about 3-dimensional stuff I really suck. I read somewhere that copying can be the key for some people to understand poses and angles, so I'll bear with myself for a bit longer copying stuff.
For the background and shadow: yes both is lame. I first thought about doing no shadow at all, but the pic would have been so empty, so I tested some brushes and doodled a really crappy shadow. xD In the future I'll stick with non-textured dark greys and I'll look up pictures with shadows on it or take some photos outside.
So, thanks again!

[all of the trolls]

Hard to critique, but I'll try anyways!

I really quite like this piece. My favorites of the characters here (trolls? They don't look it...) are the red-eyed girl in the top row and the blue-hatted girl to the right in the second row.
First thing I notice about this is that I wish the characters were more coherently compiled- a pattern or some kind of balance would make the whole group look better as a whole (though I can see what looks like some purposeful placement).
I like your choices for background colors, but when you have separated pieces of a whole like this, you usually want to keep them looking separated with different colors- the two guys in the middle in the bottom two rows have backgrounds that are a little too similar in shade, which looks a little odd.
My last little complaint is an anatomical one- a few of these characters' (really, the four in the lower right corner) heads look a little too small in comparison with the length of their necks. While that looks like it could be more of a stylistic choice than anything, I still feel like I should point out that it makes the characters look a little babyish, in a strange way.
Oh, and my last-last complaint is tiny: It seems to me that the girl to the left in the second row should have a glare on her glasses.
Most of these issues are pretty minor. For the most part, I love this. I like the character designs, especially those two I mentioned before. I really like the style, with the slightly grainy (yet pleasant) quality and the neat cel-shading you've got going on. It seems to be a variation on anime, but you've made it your own. Even though the noses are a little odd-looking, I quite like them, as they add an extra element of cute to the characters. I quite like your sense of colors, as well.
Anyways, I hope you don't mind my leaving you a sizable wall of text. Good work with this.

dreamalgia responds:

yes, they're trolls.
and thank you, especially for going into detail about what you think of certain parts of the picture ! i'll keep that in mind next time i do another like this.

[Best Way to Travel]

Sorry.

Here come some negative comments- I hope you don't mind.
I hate to tell you this, but, like binkyboy said, this style isn't "completely original". That's fine, though, and so long as you're trying, your style will become more of your own, and will develop. There isn't any such thing as an "original" style; I've been trying for years to make my style distinct, and it still gets compared to Tim Burton, for instance. The style of this piece in particular reminds me a little bit of the anime Lucky * Star.
I have some little critiques to drop on it. The first thing that popped out to me was the strange look of the feet, especially those of the girl, which have a potato-like shape. The hands are somewhat odd in appearance as well. The girl's breasts are lumpy looking and a little uneven, and a valuable lesson you should learn should you be drawing well-endowed women is that breasts will never look good unless they're smooth, round, and symmetric (that applies to all sizes, but the larger the breasts, the more they're noticeable). The legs just have a strange thickness to them and look blocky. For the characters in general, I'd suggest you study and practice with anatomy. Even in cartoon styles, anatomy is a very valuable concept to understand, and you could benefit greatly from working with it.
The next thing that pops out about the piece is the strange appearance of the portal thingy behind the characters. It looks like you took some doodled lines and filtered raped them, and that causes it to look out-of-sync and ill-fitted with the rest of the style. An effect should be consistent with the rest of the piece, and here I think it would have been a good idea had you drawn an equally cartoony-looking wormhole behind the characters. Photoshop effects generally do not look good unless in the hands of an expert.
While the main subjects of the piece are quite flawed, I have to admit that I like what's going on around them. The perspective is a little wonky, sure, but I like colors and aesthetic of the background- some people don't pull off simplistic backgrounds well (myself included), but I think you've done a decent job with that here.
I hope some of this stuff helps. Keep practicing and you'll improve, and maybe you'll develop a more personalized and original style along the way. The best way to go about that is to stop trying to draw a specific way and draw in the manner that feels the most natural to you. Good luck and keep working at it!

AnDrew19787 responds:

I think this is funny. You are telling me this can't possibly be a "completely original" style, correct me on anatomy issues even though most American cartoons are far from being anatomically correct, tell me that the focus of the picture (the portal) is "out-of-sync and ill-fitted" with the rest of this not-completely-original style, then tell me I should draw something that feels most natural to me.

First off, I consider chibi to be part of anime. So in other words it also resembles chibis but not quite.

Of course there is no "completely original" style these days. Every person's style is somehow influenced by others'. However, my style is a combination of chibi and cartoon. That includes backgrounds, concepts, anatomy, and what ever else anyone may criticize. This style was MEANT for me to draw what feels natural to me. Of course it's going to look a little wonky, I'm working on that. Anything else that looks strange like the portal is because this was the cartoony part of the style. That's the "completely" part. Cartoons themselves are supposed to be very flexible in these regards, but I understand that they still have some limits.
Also, my style was influenced a bit by Scott Pilgrim. I recently saw an illustration made by the creator depicting Ramona having round boobs similar to those of the girl in my picture (plus she looked a bit chibi-like as well).

And well, this was all done in Flash. I took careful consideration with the glowy effects, the bg colours, and perspective.

But thanks for your thoughts, I'll try to work harder on making my drawings look better than ever. This started out as a doodle so you can imagine what I can accomplish if I work harder!

[Friday Flood #5]

God, Turkey...

I don't even know what to say. It's pretty obvious that you're one of the best artists in the forum. I don't really know how to critique your pieces, because I can't find much wrong with them.
Most obviously, it's really well painted and has great details and lighting. Great choice in color scheme, though I suppose that and a red version of that are the only really appropriate color schemes to fit your subject.
Only real problem I can see it is that the location of his body and legs is pretty hard to make out.
Wonderful work, man. Keep it up.

TurkeyOnAStick responds:

Nah, you know how to crit.

Imo, the cold, icy blue seems more apt than a raging red.
Yeah the body's screwy cos the bike design's screwy. I just had to work with it in the end.

Cheers for the the review, Lux.

[The Rabbit and the Heart]

Simple

It's not a bad piece. It's fairly simple, and still a little interesting. Pixel art can be pretty tough, so I won't be too harsh on it.
Firstly, I'm glad you made an effort to shade it, instead of leaving it in simple blocky colors as many would do. I also like the way the rabbit looks, too, strange as it is.
It has some noteworthy flaws, though. Shading has to be consistent with a light source, and in this case would usually be located on the underside of the rabbit, because the sun would be shining on the back of the rabbit. For some odd reason, however, most of the shading is on the rabbit's back, instead. You may want to do some work practicing with shades, best done with a pencil to get the concepts developed mentally. The heart looks somewhat lopsided, as well, and I feel you could have done a better job integrating the flood icon into the image, perhaps by moving it up and drawing a heart around it instead of above it. Yes, I know that it's considered okay to dump it in the corner, but in a smaller piece like this, it takes up a considerably larger portion of the image and is much more noticeable.
Keep practicing and you'll get better with pixel art. It would be great if you could find a way to show the forum some non-mouse-drawn work, as well. Hope this helps in some way.

EventHorizon responds:

Thank you for your vote, I appreciate your review, I'm not a real artist and to be able to draw my piece took me so long, honestly shadows I've done a bit haphazardly trying to be the rabbit more nice and you're right about the heart.
however, this took me to draw all my efforts, thanks for your review!

[Bunbun]

The great original.

For the record, this made about the best icon for any of the floods thus far. Of course, your work is always fantastic, Qb. I love the color scheme and the feeling of motion. The grass looks wonderful, and I especially love the blurred blades placed in front of the rabbit. You did a great job with the fur texture, though it all seems a little too smooth. A few tufts sticking out here or there would have really sealed in the whole furry look. The largest problem I notice with this is somewhat irritating, and that's the perspective on the ears. They don't seem to be evenly placed. Whereas the head is obviously facing dead forwards, the ears seem to be pointing to the right, and so just look funky in conjunction with the rest of the head.

Good work, man. Love your stuff, and I think it's awesome of you to lead the flood this month.

J-qb responds:

Thanks, to be fair though, its a less iconic than the other flood thumbnails were. The fur is too smooth, it didnt matter in the small version and I didnt want to put too much effort into redrawing the big one ;).
Thanks

[Give It Up]

Odd and awesome.

I rather like it, Knoc.
It's been good trading with you, and I certainly feel this does my drawing justice. You managed to change the character a great deal without actually really changing much at all. It's amazing how painty it looks, and your color choices are pretty cool. The hand is a bit odd (in shape and in how its middle kind of darkens), but besides that, it's excellent. Like Pierrot fits my style, this character (who I haven't named) fits your style really well.
Thanks, man. I'd say this was a fair trade.

Knocturne responds:

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. The hand thing was pure laziness, I could have fixed the positioning to make sense but I'm soooooooooooooo lazy. The darkness thing with the hand was part of the half done concept that instead of melting, the character was pulling out of darkness towards the person seeing the picture with the gesture being a peaceful sign of guidance through the dark.