EvilRaccoon's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Brawl]

A fantastic cinematic art piece. Brilliant cover! The contrast in visuals with the use of accented visuals and staging is awesome!

[Armored Rider]

Superb! :)

[DC Trinity]

As an artist who enjoys comic art, you've created a good piece of work but you have the skill though to pull away from duplicating Jim Lee's art. This, your Wolverine, Green Lantern, Batman v Superman, etc. Many won't spot the copied works, but those familiar with them will.

So use him to help you understand ground rules, techniques, inspiration, etc but I suggest you don't directly copy his art. Especially to then just to put your signature on it without giving any credit to Jim Lee, because it comes across as somewhat deceptive.

[Concept Maelstrom 2]

It's an interesting concept, but there's some lines in it that don't quite flow to continue it's elegance. Vehicles have faces, and you should keep this in mind when designing. The Line up around the front of the light coming around to the body of the car is really harsh and rigid and would have been better working into the body work. The back of the car is also looking a bit off around the rear wheel arch, it would benefit from a beefier shape around the arch of the wheel.

I also suggest watching your topology, and push yourself for smoother creation in your arcs for consistency of the model. Constantly test render, look at the car from multiple angles and importantly keep your panel gaps tight and close, don't let the geometry smooth down into them like the front of the bonnet here. Panel gaps should be a slick line down the car which doesn't impose on the flow of the shape.

My suggestion is find a high quality model of a vehicle, and look at the topology on it. Learn how we create vehicle flow and detailing and how we continue a smooth surface while having panel gaps, doors, structures etc. Then after studying the poly flow, create another vehicle, but do one that actually exists. One that will challenge your modelling talent, not your concepting talent. They're two very different skillsets, so before you start concepting more, do something which allows you to fully focus on harnessing your clean modelling ability. That means when it comes to creating a concept vehicle, it'll look slicker and much more professional.

And with every new creation, make it your intention to make a jump in quality and attention to detail. Ignore the surfacing, materials etc at this point. Get the topology spot on.

[Father and dughter]

Hi, HMD. I've recently taken a look at your art, and you have some good ideas. You have a few areas I would suggest looking at to give yourself a bit of a boost. Here are some crits to help you on your way. PM me if you're wanting any more advice.

When creating a piece of art, have some form of inspiration beside you. This can be your fav anime show, or a great piece of art that is close to you. At first when you put pencil to paper, or use Sketchbook Pro think composition. Never go straight into detail. Block out the body and a pose first. Many people start with the head. But my advice to you is not to. The problem with starting with the head is that a body then becomes an appendage, when realistically the head is appendage to the body. So give that a try.

As for techniques there's a lot I could go into.. But before I start to bombard you, I want you to take a look at this website. When I started creating digital art,a nd anime especially for the first time it was an excellent resource. You have a japan edge to your art, and I know this guy is american but the techniques are there for you to use all the same. So check out polykarbon it's a good website which will help you break into new areas and gain potential.

http://www.polykarbon.com/tutorials/

Stay away from bold colors. if you sample colors from other pieces of art etc you'll see that when they select colors it's never a full saturated color. At times there's more desaturation in it which gives impressions of light and darks. Once you are familiar with Polykarbon, and have done a bunch of new drawings hit me up again, and we'll see how you are progressing, and I'll point you in a direction of new materials to push you into new unknown territory which will enhance your ability. Good luck! You have potential, it's just a matter of unlocking it.

HMD224 responds:

thanks for the advice. in fact those drawings are old, i have new one that are improved. the reason i didn't upload them here is because nobody notices them. and what do you mean by PM?

[Cathode Raybits]

Totally getting down to this! Awesome!!!!

SinclairStrange responds:

Yay! Hopefully it'll play awesome too >.<

[Mario: The Bruiser]

Glad to see you come off Busts and into full characters, keep it up.

[RX-7]

Keyshot is an excellent program, I haven't had time to experiment with it myself, but it looks really simple to use.

I do think you have lighting and surfacing issues though. The car is stronger lit that the environment and some of the shaders are picking up crisp reflections which look unrealistic. The car's slightly too reflective imo, so you're killing alot of the realism in it by making some of the dark blacks completely gone. As a car artist within the games industry I suggest baking out an AO pass, and using that to maintain your natural darkness. A reflection fall off on your shader should also be looked at, cars don't have perfect reflection like an HDR reflection ball. Reflections should be nice and clean, not stretched.

Also watch your geometry, some of it is quite wavey which causes the distortion you will see in your reflections, another reason why you may want to dial down the reflection. Keep it up, you've progressed well from looking at your other works.

BlazingEclipse responds:

I've never worked with an AO pass before, I'll have to experiment with it on my next model. Thanks for the feedback!

[Muna Adu_Follower of Set]

Yeah no stars, because anyone can pose a precreated model in 10mins. It's a shame your viewers don't know how easily this stuff is to do, as really all the work is done for you.
>_<

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]

Ehhh, Turtles or Green guys with body armour?

It's okay, im not a fan of the colouring, its like the background is amazing but the foreground is smudged colour. The background looks like its from something else too as the perspective is really off comparing to the "turtles", i can actually see where the cut outs are which illustrates it not yours. Also proportions...these turtles would be huge comparing the size of a standard brick work in a building. The pose is really rather dull too as the composition just doesnt say anything to us. I also dont get why all their weapons are glowing. It' just doesnt make sense.

The anatomy of a TMNT is very different to a human being. What it looks like here is that you have taken 4 guys, and put body shaped armour on it, and made them green. They just DONT look like turtles at all - dont even get me started on the noses.

As an old school TMNT fan.. you need to make sure you capture the turtle side of it. They were never humans.