Critique/Tip Examples

[Ice Arceus]

Ever wanted to look at a few well-developed critiques/tips to give you a better understanding of what we are looking for? Well, this thread will provide you with a few very good examples of that.

Impressive, I respect people that work with wood. Especially reclaimed materials. It's always great when something old can find a new use. It's really cool that you used a Pokemon card for your inspiration too, even if it is Ken Sugimori's art, Pokémon cards are great reference material to use for artwork. Even if you're just figuring out a pose.

The paint looks good as well, did you use acrylic, oils? I like how you can faintly see the brushstroke in the final piece, it gives some nice roundness and form to Poliwag you wouldn't see if those strokes weren't there. The only fault I can really find is that the left eye and nose looks a bit off compared to the actual card art, and the belly circle could open up some. But I think you did a good job translating this into a 3-dimensional piece.

Overall, I give it an 8/10. Thanks for posting your work for us to see!

Nice job, Grumpig! I have to give you credit for being able to copy art off of a card. I find copying art to be too tedious for my taste, but if it is something you enjoy, that's awesome! That is such a good skill to have, especially since you were able to copy it with paint, which turned out to look fantastic.

SR mentioned some proportions off on the left eye, and I can see it too. Scaling & proportions is something you have to deal with since your art is usually enlarged onto wood, which is a medium that I am a HUGE fan of, so I'm glad to see a good bit of your art on wood.

The composition is nice. You've matched the colors really well, good job mixing those. The only thing that I would like to see more of is a wider variety of values. It would be nice to see blacker blacks and whiter whites. It might just be the photo that is throwing me off, but I think the tail could be lighter and where the spiral is, the difference between the whites and the black could be more contrasted, after all, the spiral is what draws the eye in on this piece. It should have some stark contrasts to keep it interesting.

Overall, some great Pokemon fan-art, keep it up!

Wow, magnificent job on the painting. I've got to say that I wasn't expecting the end product to look like that when I viewed the first image. This clearly shows that you have experience in this field.

I would like to say firstly, that your shading on various parts of the piece really impressed me. Because of the shading, the entire piece comes alive and makes the overall quality very dynamic. What I also liked about this piece was that the shading had created emphasis on various areas on the artwork and made the surrounding colors come into unity.

The values of the colors, size of the overall board, harmony of shades, and slight traces of gradients help keep the piece balanced. That is what truly caught my attention.

One thing that I would recommend, however, would be using more color values in the eyes. This will cause more attention to be diverted there and give the entire piece more dynamic characteristics. Also, make sure that the eyes are proportional to one another. There is a slight difference if you look very closely.

Using the Pokemon card as a reference can really be helpful when doing this type of activity for the first time. I hope to see you continue creating more of these beautiful pieces and hopefully more people will try this out!

Great job!

I really like how you used the texture from actual photos. Overall, very interesting design. Complementary colors are obviously working in your favor here too. My suggestions are be to look at how the letters along the sides are placed. Near the edge of the "E", the apple is turning. The "E" and "D" don't look that bad, but the Y needs to turn a bit. Tweaking those things and the other side of your design would give a nice roundness to it. You might also consider opening up the bite mark on the right side to just a bit. It almost looks like the bite mark was taken from the side of the apple facing you the way you have it now. I don't know if that was intentional. Last bit, consider an overall boarder to go around all of your apple and letters. A thin black, white, or neutral boarder. I think the piece could benefit from it.

Overall, I give it an 8.5/10.

Aha, that's actually quite cool! I'm curious about the colouring filling the holes in the a, o, R, d and g though, as this colour is different from the rest of the background?

I find the random transitions between capital and lower case letters a smidge jarring, but that might just be me.

u earn bacon mark of:

b+ / 10

When I took a quick glance at it, the one thing I noticed that you need to work on is the background. The one that you chose doesn't seem to synergize with the image perfectly, considering that your Eeveelution is composed mostly of soft colors, while the background seems to emit a rather fiery and serious atmosphere. A perfect one that you can attempt at is by painting in a forest scene, or anything that is composed of soft colors. In order to clear up much confusion, a few examples are light green, dark green and yellow green. But, any of the monochromatic versions of blue, green and purple can work just as well to improve your background. If you are interested in looking for another background to replace the one you have, one obvious suggestion that I can make is just search up a few things on Google. If you find something suitable, then feel free to replicate it or modify it as you see fit. But for something easy, you can just stick with the forest scenery for now.

On another note, there really isn't much to point out with Luckieon, other than that you probably need to work on getting some highlights on him/her. Looking at it, I don't see any highlights on any parts of the head and the neck, considering I'm only seeing shadings in a few areas. If you want to put on some highlights on Luckieon, a few obvious areas are the top of the head, the top of the right ear, the nose bridge and the lower bend of the mane. If you can successfully add this in, then the whole picture should look great and appealing. In the meantime, one thing that I can highly recommend is practice fleshing out your shading and highlighting techniques on both digital and traditional art. Eager to know more, feel free to hit me a message and I'll continue discussing it with you there.

With all of those aside, I'm going to have to say that it's not bad for starters. Summing it up, background needs more working and Luckieon a little more tweaking, but speaking of the concept, I honestly do like it and I await patiently to see more artwork come from you! Hopefully, I gave out helpful bits of advice and practical solutions to the problems, but overall, keep up the great work as always and remember to never give up! Additionally, if you find yourself having difficulties with anything, let me know through PM. Have fun!

Peace out.

The overall drawing isn't all that bad (looks pretty cute), however, I can see a few things that you can improve. The very first thing I noticed (which doesn't stand as a major issue) would be the nose. You could have added a small curved or horizontal line diagonal from the corner of the eye to give the face more features instead of having just an eye and a few shades by the side of the face.The eye is directed way too upward for my liking. I would have rather preferred it if it was slightly down. Again, this isn't a major issue.

Now another thing I noticed was the black line curved almost 90° under the scarf. What is that exactly? I can't seem to make it out. You might also want to also clean up a few lines, since some go from thin to thick (i.e. Glaceon's back). Having some lines transition from thin to thick does give it more depth (especially when a body part is directed towards the viewer), but in this case, this drawing is pretty much static and don't seem much of anything directed towards the screen.

Let's see.... Oh yeah. Another problem I found was the small white or light blue lines located throughout the circumference of the drawing. I would recommend you staying consistent with the color.

Last issue that I found, and, which was one of the biggest one was indeed the background. I mentioned this before, but you should try to find a background that shares a sense of unity with the drawing. Here, you have a drawing using nice, light colors and a background consisting of black, gray, and yellow lights. As this may help emphasize the Glaceon drawing, it does; however, lack unity and doesn't compliment the drawing. Try creating background that work equally with your drawing. This will significantly improve the overall quality!

As Dark-Giratina mentioned, you might want to tone down on the saturation level, as it is quite high and doesn't work nicely to come into unity with the eyes. Due to the colors of the eyes being at an equivalent level of saturation, the body must be either darker or lighter in tone or possibly be a different color all together to make the eyes truly stand out.

Really do like the RGB tribute; however, you have two of nearly the same types of artworks on the cards (Blastoise and Charizard being both 3D, except Blastoise having more sharper edges). It would look nice if they were all completely different or all the same type. Besides that, I really do thing you did a fabulous job with cards.

That is actually an excellent painting! I love how you used the crimson color on the fish's body and the mixture of colors on the tail and fins really give it a nice look to it. There is nothing worth noting about it that you should improve on, so it is safe for me to state that you have gradually improved your technique since the last few ones. However, all of them were amazing and I find them quite entertaining to glance at, so don't get me wrong.

You're doing a great job! Keep rolling out more stuff!

The pink cat looks a tad bit more improved than the previous ones you did. I can see that you decided to apply a little of shading right near the top of the hat, the ears and the left side of the face. The background appears excellent, so no need to worry about it.

Although, I noticed there was only a few areas of the picture containing highlights, in contrast to the magnificent shades you integrated. If you just add in a tad bit more highlights on the nose bridge and the cheeks of the right side, everything should look great.

Besides that, keep it up! You're doing a great job with practicing!

Time to critique.

Let's start with Sharpedo first, shall we? I would like to mention firstly, that the overall color choices picked are quite admirable. I tend to analyze closely to see if there are any problems located throughout the body of the piece. Now, the only problem that is visible would be the gray color on its dorsal fin. Was this some sort of design you were heading for or what is just some sort of shading you were trying to create?

Next is Mienshao.... One thing that stood out was the color choice. The main fuchsia color and the purple you chose are way too strong for my liking. Try applying a darker tone or possibly a lighter one (depending on what you rather prefer). This will improve the overall quality of the work.

I would like to skip the upward trend and jump to Reshiram.

In all honesty, the effect you were trying to reach for Reshiram isn't impressive. I would like to point of, first of all, its left wing. There is, what seems to be a transparent area or an area where you decided to keep its original color. This spot that I pointed out, tends to break the overall trend of the effect you are trying to reach. You might want to fill in that spot to give the overall sprite a sense of completeness.

Let's move on to Rayquaza. Now, I am happy to actually declare this sprite's recoloring impressive. The colors that you used to give a sense of a metallic look truly stands out in this piece. The turquoise color to light up the signs work in unity with the overall body color and also gives the signs more emphasis. Good job with the recoloring!

Looking forward to seeing more.

Your sprites are one of the best I have seen for a while now. I would like to point out a few things first.

First sprite set:

Spoiler

The first thing that I would like to point out on the first sprite would be the whip-like facial features. You might want to add the right whip-like feature more behind the left one mainly because it seems as if it is overlapping the left one (if you look very closely). The clump at the end should be more hidden away.

The only minor problem I found with the second sprite was that I believe you should show a minimal part of the right eye. You have space to actually make that part of the face visible. Another thing I noticed was that the right arm seems to be facing more downward, instead of actually being more dynamic and facing towards the screen (like the other arms & hands). Besides those two things, the sprite looks impressive.

Let's move on to the third one. Out of all the sprites, I believe this one is the one that needs most work. The main body needs to have more dynamic characteristics instead of being static and plain. One way you could improve that is by adding a range of colors to the main body. A few may disagree with this, but for some reason, I believe it just looks plain.

Time to head downward and talk about the fire bird. Well, since I don't have much to say about this piece, I would like to ask you if fire particles are actually present on it's head or if it is some type of spriting error? If it isn't an error, I would recommend you making it more noticeable and adding more fire.

The next few sprites have little to no problems, so I will just go through this quickly.

Make sure you make the make the light ball on it's antenna more circular.

Fire bird #2: Work on the feet a bit. They are quite difficult to make out.

The right hand on the metallic sprite needs to be curved more and you might want to make it more visible by extending out it's arm.

I can't seem to find anything wrong with the last sprite.

Again, you did an amazing job on this sprite set. There were only minimal errors, but the overall job was magnificent; however, make sure the shadow of the sprites are darker. This will give the overall piece more emphasis.

Second sprite set:

Spoiler

I'll go through this recent sprite set pretty quickly, because, again I only found a few minor errors.

You might want to fix the thigh on it's left leg to make it more complimentary to it's right.

Second sprite is fine, couldn't find anything wrong with it. I was a bit confused when I first saw it, because I thought it was a transparent tail, instead of two tentacle-like structures.

Now for the third sprite, I would like to mention that the front and back legs in the background need to be shaped slightly better. They seem a bit too thick to me.

Couldn't find anything wrong with the fourth sprite.

The only thing I would recommend you for the fifth sprite would be to work on its hind foot more by making it slightly more circular.

You might want to make the eye somewhat larger for the last sprite.

Definitely looking forward to seeing more sprite work from you. These were all amazing.

Nice Giratina banner. However, I did find a few things that you should work on. First thing being would be the words. "Dark Giratina" can be quite difficult to read, so you might want to find a more of an appropriate area to paste those words in or you might want to play with more colors and fonts. Make sure that all letters are clear to read. Second (which isn't a real big problem), would be trying to lighten some areas up around the banner. Besides that, great job!

That's an impressive doll pic. What I like about it is the emphasis of the colors that make the entire doll stand out and gives it an overall dynamic view.

The only minor problem I see would be the pink smudge next to the eye. Besides that, you did a great job!

Another nice drawing, Dark Giratina. However, it is time to provide some feedback about the piece. There are two things that stand out pretty clearly in this drawing. The first thing is that I am not a big fan of adding the green throughout the face. In some areas, it seems to be all right, but it doesn't quite look right near the nose area. Another thing that I couldn't help noticing was the sharp colored pencil marks - especially near the nose. Try to hold the pencils lighter and color softly throughout the drawing instead of applying pressure, which gives us the impression of the piece being rushed.

Those are the main two issues I found with the picture, but everything else looks great. Keep it up and I look forward to seeing more work from you!

Drawing from life is what I (and my art teachers) consider the best way to improve on pretty much anything. Buildings and plants stay still so you can draw them from multiple angles as often as you want, whenever you want. Living things move around so unless it's a sleeping animal it may be hard to draw, but even just a couple of very quick rough sketches can help you improve on overall body shape (like how an animal sits, stands, or walks). Going from photos / images is fine, but I suggest drawing from life as much as possible since you can see so much more if it's actually in front of you versus an image that doesn't change.

As far as "what's happening" to you, it may just be a slump. I go through some pretty bad slumps from time to time, where I just can't get motivated to draw anything and when I do nothing turns out right. It happens to most (if not all) artists (and I guess pretty much any profession).

The various types of art styles just amaze me! What stands out most about the dragon is the shading and the eye. You have done a fabulous job with it by using different tones of colors and the eye looks realistic by lighting some areas up. As for the second artwork, I really do like how you made the main outlines stand out by having the lighting produced from above the bat and the shadow below the wing. Both of these coincide in the artwork, producing a realistic feel to the overall piece. The Lucario and Absol artwork uses thicker outlines and shadows, which makes both of these Pokémon stand out. The only thing I would work on would be making, what seems to be aura, darker or possibly larger. The fourth and fifth pieces of artwork consist of wide arrays of shades, making the overall artwork impressive.

Really do like all the PokéArt and Photos, LoveDanielColin. You've done a great job.

Let's talk about all your various styles of artwork.

Venomoth: What I like about this piece is that everything you incorporated into this art comes in unity. A small problem I noticed with this artwork is that Venomoth stands out a bit too much. Take HolyMackerel's advice, and you should be fine.

Space: Very unique piece of work. You incorporated both a drawing and a picture of your friends. The only thing I would recommend you doing is darkening the color of the different shapes in the background.

Backseat: Nice.

Embrace: When I was viewing the picture, I was a bit confused of why you made the entire picture blurry, only then I noticed that the small area in the background standing out, which I think you did a nice job with. You also defined the word nicely using that picture.

Pokéfear: This type of piece reminds me of the episode when Ash & Co. getting into a lot of trouble due to an evil Togepi. The colors red and black and also the sharp teeth are both incorporated showing the dark nature of this Togepi. Great job on this piece of artwork.

Spring Cleaning: Really do like the leaves and flowers, but they are a bit difficult to see due to the brightness being a bit too high.

Deep Space: What I really like about this picture is the transition from being blurry to sharp with the addition of various colors.

Gold: Another photo I enjoyed viewing. The type of texture, dark background, and the flash of the camera really made the piece stand out.

Baby Mantis: A nice capture of a mantis walking on a leaf. The picture really does show the mantis being main specimen in this beautiful piece.

I enjoyed viewing each and one of these pieces of artworks and will continue to follow this thread.

Oh wow, I must say that I'm extremely impressed with your human anatomy, especially since it's one of the first I've seen from you. However, I do have some suggestions.

In the top left picture you did very well, but the man was a little thin when in proportion with his pecs. To be honest I think that the right line covering the outer shape of the stomach causes more problems than the left. It's in the excellent shape and expresses the muscles well, but it just curves in a bit too much. Again, maybe it's just me being nitpicky. Also in this one there is the raised harm with the hand crunched in the fist. I won't talk about hands since it's a common subject that almost every artist struggles with. But I do intend on talking about the muscle on the arm. It's a little big and exaggerated. Again, just take away the curve of both sides a little bit, and it should be fine.

The top right one has excellent points. I think you did very well on the head and neck. However, with the torso and arms I have some suggestions. The torso in men is very tough, since the slightest exaggeration can make them appear to have curves, which men generally don't have. I run into this constantly, which is why you don't see many men coming out of my gallery. XD

But again, the lines on a man is he is more muscular are easier to express if they are more sharpened and less exaggerated. Something that helped me and that I see you're already beginning is that I always begin the structure of a man with boxes. It just makes it easier to receive the curveless results when you start without curves.

The others have similar problems, and there's no real need to repeat myself. You've done really well so far, and I'm surprised at your steadfast improvement. Well done my good sir, I shall tip my hat to you on the way out.

*UPDATE*

The paper you used works with this piece. The purple plays off the yellow. (complementary color) which makes it pretty visually interesting. You also did a good job on the arrangement of the tapes, because it goes in order with the color wheel. The frame around the piece does a pretty good job of leading the eye through it as well, because it touches the cassette tapes in two spots. If I had any suggestions, a diagonal placement of the cassettes might have been a good alternative to this. I also should say that turning the cassettes upside down looks pretty good, more interesting than right side up. For the medium, spray paint is hard to get right on plastic, but it doesn't look too bad. You can see the texture, not sure if it was intentional or not. If you wanted more of a smooth look, might consider layers of primer + sanding next time to smooth it out when working with a texture. 

Overall, I give it a 7/10.

His right leg looks a little weird (pointed?), but I only noticed after staring a while X3 . Pretty cool, although some contrast would be nice! Darker darks and lighter lights c: . Then again, this is a photo, maybe when you scan it, it will be more clear~.

I have two last things for ya. My eyes are constantly following the shapes around, which they should be. However, there are places where my eyes go and stop, where they should be continuing on. I would like to see your line-like shapes continue more. The big diagonal dark purple shape keeps drawing my eye and then stopping. I think it would be better if it went off the page. Take your hand and cover the left side of the image so that it runs off. How do you feel? It seems to release the tension from that shape ending suddenly. I think the same thing can be said for the bottom stem of the right flower. Cover your hand over the bottom of the image so that you can't see where it ends. I think it would do wonders to make it go off the page. Also, the two dark purple lines in the petals might be able to go all the way to the bottom of the petals for a better effect.

Finally, I don't think I like how the green/yellow stem of the right flower disappears into the green/yellow hill. This is a REAL hard problem to solve though because the hill looks GREAT with the green flower. The position and shape of it is perfect. Man... this is a hard one because I dislike it and love it all at once. If I make up my mind, I'll respond again haha.

A nice and unique piece of artwork, HolyMackerel. You've displayed a series of design elements and methods that makes this artwork nice and simple. What I liked about this piece is the simple colors used to express the overall idea. You also decided not to use too many objects in this piece, which keeps it general and static.

Another thing that I found interesting and took a liking too was the background shapes and color. You used the colors that all compliment each other and unique shapes to give this piece more emphasis. All of these work in unity, creating a peaceful piece, which is easy on the eyes.

There were a few things that I would like to point out. First of all, the shapes are composed of rigid lines and create an imbalanced transition to a soft and smooth curvature. The stems for the plants, petals, and the girl's hair are all portraying this type problem. This might be the first thing that I would recommend fixing. Lastly, as King Arceus already mentioned this, you have missed a few pixels near the bottom of her hair. You might want to take the time and look over the piece after completing the main components and fix any small errors you might find.

Overall, I think you did a pretty good job. However, there were a few places where I would pay more close attention to next time if you decide to draw this type of artwork again.

Magnificent piece of artwork. I am truly impressed by this piece (even though I'm not a fan of Rainbow Dash or whatever those ponies are called =P)

There are a few things that I found highly interesting and wanted to talk about, and a couple of places that could have had a few slight modifications.

First of all, I would like to say that the overall lighting created by the sun and the smudging of the buildings in the background really did help emphasize Latios, Latias, and Rainbow Dash. Not only that, but the perspective points and the directions of the buildings really did bring out the true beauty and creativeness in this piece. The two different view points you used for the buildings and the speed at which the Pokemon and the Pony were traveling at really provided us with several dynamic characteristics.

There is something about one of the buildings that I want to talk about, but that I'll save that for later. Let's move on to the lightness created on the characters. The lightness is one of the most prominent elements in this piece that stands out the most and gives the overall piece uniqueness and power. The sun on the background radiates it's wonderful rays upon these characters and lights up the surrounding area around them.

Now, let's move on to the areas where I found a few errors. First of all, the sun is all the way in the back, and on Latios we see that his side is one of the most brightest areas. The sun is angled slightly away from Latios's side and should be directing it's rays more towards Latios's lower back the most, and on to it's wings (which you already portrayed perfectly). The neck, eyes, and the side should all be slightly darker due to the angle of the sun being more powerful on Latias, instead. Not only did this occur with Latios, but it also affected Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash's face is bright, while it should actually have a darker tone. It there is an object refracting the light away from it's surface and on to the characters, then the lighting you applied makes sense, but we don't actually know that. The lightest areas on Rainbow Dash should be the feet, back, and wings.

The lighting on Latias is fine and doesn't really need any modifications. =)

Lastly, I want to talk about the the brown building that stands in the background next to Latias. I looked very closely and observed the angle carefully at which it was tilted. To me, I find it tilted slightly off and doesn't exactly match the sky and the ground. It could just be me, but it has been bothering me for quite some time.

Overall, I am truly impressed with the work you put into this piece. You are definetely one of the best artists I have seen around the Beach. I will give you a 9/10 on the artwork and I hope to see more from you!

Great job!

This is cool! Your proportions are looking good. I'd love to see an update with a wider range of values like sarydactl mentioned, and maybe some more detail on the fingers and toes. When you go back to add darker values, try to not just press harder with the pencil. Instead, try to just find a darker pencil, it will look better that way. I'm guessing you are using an HB pencil, so -if possible- see if you can find a B2 or B4 pencil to get some darker tones.

Fun safari-fact: I've actually seen a thinker statue. It isn't cast from the original, it's a smaller sculpture, but it is a copy made by the original artist.

Thanks to all the artists that took the time to type up their critiques/tips on various artworks. If you have a either a tip or a critique that I may have missed, then feel free to send it by PM.

Thank you for reading and we hope to see you guys posting around the Artist's Gallery!

 

[Ice Arceus]

More examples have been added. Look under the *UPDATE* for the new critiques/tips.