SourCherryJack 2015-09-29 23:26:36

Alright, I've looked through all of your stuff, right off the bat the thing that sticks out that you could fix easily is all of the hands posts. For one they're all huge, 4000 pixels X 4000 is absurdly large for anything much less things drawn in such a cartoony-straightforward style; in fact them being that size harms them a bit since if the audience sees them full scale they see all the imperfections in the linework and it breaks the smooth look you got for them (you should merge the lines or fills to get rid of that). I'd say the best thing to do with the hands is make them into a single compilation post, scale them down to like 500 X 500 if not smaller and just do maybe two posts with all of them, make one more and do six and six. As it is right now nobody wants to flip through eleven posts of essentially the same thing regardless of how good it may be.
Your tentacloid series has the same problem of each piece being very similar in terms composition and color, I think you should shoot for different poses and angles to get some more interest out of the concepts as they are right now they look like test images rather than final pieces. The floor and background on them being rendered in 3D does not do much to compliment the figures, I would recommend drawing it in in the same method you drew the creatures to give better unity within the pieces - this applies to the Carmine blob drawings as well. The second Carmine Blob is a cool design and concept, I think the armor bits could do with some better rendering though, right now they read as being the same material as the pink bits but a different color.
The old man broadcasting is probably my favorite of your pieces, its a very cool design and can do with some more love and refinement, right now the linework is transparent and really messy, messy is fine, but maybe go over it with some darker, more opaque lines to better define his form. Also his left hand appears to be backwards (our right). The linework issues apply to the mech worm as well, right now the worm and the background are very similar colors and values, making one or the other darker/lighter will help to differentiate them and give an over all better more clear image of what's going on.
Men are not gods is a cool creature design and I think the color choice is very well done as is the shading style, it definitely is a good sign of improvement from your earlier stuff, so keep on that track and you'll be good.
As for The Last Man and probably Cell Shaded Titan, you should get rid of those two. The Last Man is mostly a filtered image with some minor actual work from you, the art portal doesn't allow that and its lazy, make your own backgrounds. Taking inspiration from the photo is fine, but using it is very much frowned upon and against the rules. I couldn't find what the Titan was based off of but I definitely have suspicions that its a trace so if that's the case get rid of it, you won't get scouted if its in your gallery.
In closing you've got a lot of potential showing in bits and pieces in your art, I'd say work more on your fundamentals with regard to anatomy and color Art101.newgrounds.com has some tutorials and links that are helpful for that kind of stuff.
Beyond that I very much get the feeling that you using a digital medium is hindering some of your pieces, particularly your backgrounds having such a massive discrepancy with the figures in many of these. You appear to be using a vector program which is very difficult to start with especially with the kind of work you appear to want to be doing. I'm not saying its impossible, but its definitely much more difficult since you don't appear to be shooting fro a graphic style. Try photoshop, paintool SAI, gimp or some other raster program, you'll probably find them much more cooperative and get better results. Or pen and paper, that's cheap.
Hope this all helps in some way, its a lot to read, but that's what happens when you ask for a review of everything. If you want me to go indepth on ONE piece in particular let me know.

SourCherryJack 2015-10-02 03:19:02

Alright well overall your work is quite good in a lot of places, I particularly like how dynamic and willing to experiment with perspective, angles and composition you are. It all definitely pays off in making everything interesting. you've got a good grasp on anatomy and work with a lot of poses. I don't really know what to do with anime though so I can't go too in depth on my much else. If there's a single piece you want me to do a full critique of link it because a general review at your level would take too much time for me to do.

SourCherryJack 2015-12-07 16:14:35

Done.
Work on your manners.

SourCherryJack 2016-01-03 20:15:40

Okay, since you didn't link to one specific piece I'm just going to do a more general review here.
Your two strongest drawings in my opinion are Shootout and Stoner Dude, the cartoony style in both of the characters is well executed and with some refining in the linework and for the stoner dude a background could do well as concept drawings for an actual show. I like the simple shading you're doing on them across the board. It's subtle but really adds a lot of character to them so definitely keep that up.
Across a few of the posted drawings you have the issue of characters floating in an empty void, particularly the stoner, Harry Tipper and the French lady, this is makes them look unfinished, luckily it doesn't take much to fix that issue. Just use some sort of framing device in a complimentary color in some solid shape behind them, or put a shadow underneath them to indicate a surface. Check out thepsychosheep's art he's one of the bests at making character drawings feel like full compositions.
With your drawings that are less cartoony some issues begin to pop up in anatomy and poses, the best way to practice is through quick studies from multiple references in a range of poses, sites like posemaniacs and pixelovely are great for this kind of practice. Also your communication of depth and dimension in your characters and the props they're holding could be improved through doing still life excersizes with random objects around your house as well as looking up perspective tutorials (art101.newgrounds.com).
Your coloring technique in your traditional works can use some refinement, right now the stroke marks are very apparent, and while that can definitely work in some cases and be used to create interesting textures, the way it is right now isn't communicating that. I'd recommend working in circles when doing fills rather than up and down, working faster with the strokes so the marker doesn't set and create the lines and/or doing longer strokes so you don't get the horizontal lines as well, work with it, experiment.
With your digital art I'd say if your looking to improve purely your drawing abilities maybe avoid vector based drawing programs. They kind of have their own set of rules and complicate the process because of the tools you're working with when using them. Raster is more the way to go for learning drawing digitally, but if you want to learn the program's that's great and by all means do it.
The biggest issue seems to be linework, the important thing to remember is longer confident strokes move your arm from the shoulder rather than the wrist and work faster your line will be much cleaner. That goes for traditional and digital.
Your drawing Harry Tipper needs the most work. The lines are sketch and all over the place, the shading on the pants is really soft around the edges and the blue is a bit too intense so it creates a pretty unpleasant effect. The bright green glow aura thing is really weird and detracts an otherwise pretty harmonious color pallet between the blues, brown, white and grey of the background, I'd recommend a big desaturated orange circle floating behind him to compliment his blue jacket and push him forward. Look up the basic color theory over at art101.newgrounds.com, colors are a whole wild world in their own right definitely check it out once you really start learning color doors open.
Overall you're in a good place, dude; while there's a lot to be worked on for sure you look to have a pretty good foundation and with some good practice and work you're work could really kick some ass. Make an art thread in the art forum to get some critiques and reviews from more of the community.

SourCherryJack 2016-01-30 19:02:18

So since you didn't link me to a specific submission I went through the four you have up and all i can really say is that it's all very basic. The best one is the portraits of a bunch of cats, but even on that there's not much to talk about, the colors are all nice as are the silhouettes, the picture could be way better though, that angle mixed with the cropping isn't doing you any favors, especially weird since it appears to be a digital drawing.
I'm fairly certain that Minecraft thing doesn't follow the art portal rules so you're best off deleting it. Anything made using assets or editing software from videogames, including Minecraft, Roblox, second life etc isn't allowed in the art portal.
The colorful colors drawing is pretty interesting, it's got a lot of potential, but right now looks unfinished, maybe filling in that white background with a gray or other neutral color tone could make it feel more complete. Also in the future try going for more solidity in your coloring, there are a lot of white gaps right now in some of the fills that bring down the overal quality. Also again the phot isn't as good as it could be, the top edges of the paper cutoff and make the table or whatever visible, getting an image perfectly lined up when using a camera is very difficult I am very aware, but you just gotta take a bunch and eventually one will line up fairly well.
For contrasting circles many of the same problems are present, including the solidity of the coloring and framing, the way the circle cuts off along the edges should be fixed. Circle/compostions rely heavily on balance and everything being in focus, having it cut off like that does the drawing a disservice. Again there's a lot of blank space in this one that could be filled to make a more complete look as well.
You're very clearly just starting out, so don't let any of the above get to you too much, as long as you stick with drawing and continually push yourself to improve you will get better. You're work right now in terms of actual content is all over the place and doesn't really have any direction as far as what you want to learn how to draw (ie characters, landscapes, etc) that I can discern. My advice would be to make an art thread in the art forum and tell us what your goals are then the community can better tailor critiques to steer you in the right direction.

SourCherryJack 2016-04-21 17:47:32

Are there any specific one's you'd like me to critique, or are you looking for a more general across the board sort of critique?

SourCherryJack 2018-12-06 14:05:17

Being that you didn't request any specific submission to be reviewed I'm just going to respond here to a general overlook of your work. So far in your posted works that I've seen there isn't too much focus on pushing your colors.
Right now as is, the posts that are fully colored are perfectly functional, but are using very standard color choices - which really isn't a problem. They're easily readable and represent what the colors of each object is.
The ones like "Plank" and "Lyle Wraths" shade and highlight using what look to be darker and lighter versions of the base color respectively. Mixing a lighter yellow or a darker violet (Or any colors) with the bases to achieve a highlight or shadow can add interest and drama to a piece and create a greater sense of visual cohesion throughout the piece than just going for a darker green or darker red for shading.
For your piece "Witchhunt" I would say the same thing applies. The heavy blacks of the forest create a very strong style that the brightness of the characters' colors clash with in a bad way. This is more an issue with the saturation though, not the fact that they are colored. Toning down the saturation just will help them to feel more like a part of the scene, but still stand out. Also the guy hugging the tree is really good, having the foreground elements obscure characters a bit goes a long way to making them feel in the scene rather than 'on' the scene. I would say put some vines or brambles in the bottom right to obscure the other character.

There's a lot that goes into using color that I really cannot breakdown effectively in this review. but art101 has a pretty solid introduction to harmonies Here: https://art101.newgrounds.com/news/post/925448
Color theory is a massive can of worms to open, just keep diving in and experimenting, because each drawing/illustration/painting is a new lesson learned especially when it doesn't turn out great. If you have any further questions about color theory feel free to pm me or ask the art forum.
Hope this helped in some capacity!

SourCherryJack 2020-03-22 21:32:27

Alright, so looking at all of your art I've got a lot of information, so this will be long and probably a bit all over the place.
So first place I'll start is your compositions. For the most part your work consists of characters standing in a featureless void of one or two colors. This isn't necessarily bad, but it is simplistic and not really full fledged artwork. By all means continue to do it, but maybe work in more anatomical studies with them as well, or have them be doing something that ties int who or what they are. Back to composition: your drawing "Man Made Object" has a lot of potential. In cases like those look into proper perspective drawing; the composition is largely a straight forward single object 3-point perspective composition so there are a lot of available references for that, setting up the proper vanishing points isn't too difficult and will add a lot of drama and realism to the piece. Another note for this drawing, the trees are still a saturated green and they're not really well drawn either, you're relying very heavily on 'symbols' of trees rather than what trees would look like. in drawings like that look more into 'suggesting' trees rather than explicitly drawing in trees. Bob Ross's videos actually do a very good job on displaying how easy it is to suggest a tree, I would recommend watching his videos, they're all over the internet, Netflix, Twitch, Youtube, there's no reason notr to learn from him.

Also the drawing "etg fanart" is your most daring composition and there is a lot of good there that you should expand on and take further with. The angle is good, as is the number of characters and their interactions between each other. However its very messy and hard to read what exactly is going on. The main protagonist bullet guy blends in with the yellow flood a lot, and his arms not being attached to him creates a an issue with readability as does the general busyness of all the lines going everywhere on the floor and flying around. Spacing him farther from the big enemies would probably help this as would toning down the saturation and colorfulness of the floor.

For the one where the skeleton appears to be falling to earth in a fireball, the reading of speed is poorly suggested by the simple idea of the fireball's tail facing a certain way from the skeleton. Making the skeleton smaller (farther away from the "camera" and having the tail larger going off the screen, maybe even curving more to suggest further movement and read better.
For the horror themed art always use references to ground the drawings more in reality and increase the horror. "Abyssal Wretch" can be improved a lot if you made the pieced of it lifted from reality look more like it. The sharp triangle teeth would look better if they were more rendered out and were individual teeth that went into the gums and looked. The hands would work better as well if they were more like human hands but slightly elongated rather than the long salad fingers looking hands. Same situation with "Exposed Brain Brian, if you were to have some of the skull showing around the rim and shrink down the brain it would be more realistic and add to the horror. Also the way the skin stretches around the exposed brain could be better rendered and it would look more real and more spooky right now the way the skin kind of just spikes up doesn't really look right.

Also the background on that is too saturated from bright red to pitch black, its better to go more neutral for backgrounds. A toned down green would make the bright red of the Wretch pop more. A background should serve to emphasize a character rather than distract. Some of your more recent works are much better at this, but at the same time they use brushes that add busy textures that distract a bit as well. It's balance to walk for sure, but look out for it.
Going further with your textures and color use.

The drawing "INFcraft" has a lot of issues in the consistency of how the character is drawn and colored. There are four different methods being used that are all at odds with each other. His skin and vest are each colored in a very cellshaded and primary colored with one shadow shading the edges. His shirt is colored in with a textured brush that creates a disconnected look from the skin and vest as well as background. His hair and beard are at odds as well, the hair is a solid clump with three tones (at odds with the two tones of the rest) his beard however is a mess of squiggly lines. All these things are small but stylistically when against each other create a lack of stylistic cohesion that goes through some of your other pieces in small ways like the background in "Dino!" as well as the grass in "Rabbit King" The grass may be a result of rushing through a background to finish the piece, but its important to finish pieces all the way through when submitting. I will Say I do like the trees in the background of that piece and they work quite well as a technique for backgrounds, you should explore them further.
Some further notes: for your technique in shading, as opposed to using darker colors of the base (red and darker shade of red) use browns, or violets, or even greens(this will neutralized the red when blending and create a greyish brown) Look up and explore color theory, it will have you explore more interesting color combinations and rely less on elementary use of colors like solid hues mixed with black or white.

Another issue is your linework, there should be varying lineweights in your characters to denote things like depth, and, detail, and guide the eye and distinguish things like foreshortening better. Also your lines are shaky work faster, use your elbow and shoulder to draw stronger more confident lines. If they look wrong, ctrl-Z it and do it again until its right. This will have your work looking smoother, nicer, and overall more mature and professional.

Beyond the above dissection, always work to improve anatomy, perspective, understanding of values and 3D space. It may be worthwhile to delve into 'painting more with values than with linework. experiment with it, shake things up as much as possibly. Look at art and approach art from as many angles as possible.
Hope that helps in some capacity.