sumguy720's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[cat]

Nice!

This one is pretty good! I think you conquered the highlights on this really well, and I think what you need is some darker shades on the hind parts facing away from the light source (the backs of the front legs, the rear end, the back of the tail, just under the head at the neck, etc). But generally this looks a lot better than the other one I reviewed! It seems like you've improved quite a bit since you drew that one.
I understand from the outline that this cat has a more subtle kind of fur, which would require less texture, however a very subtle texture for the fur would make a world of difference as far as making the body look a little more convincing. Some shading behind the shoulder blade might also help that shoulder guard look more like it's ON the cat as opposed to next to it.
Overall, good job!

PS: The necklace has an awful texture!! The grid lines should not all be aligned like that! Bleeeeeggghhhhh!

[meow]

It's okay!

This actually strikes me more as a fox, due to the elongation of the snout and pointed ears. I can see the cat body and general shape in there, but originally my impression was "FireFox".

Its interesting what you've done with the piece. It looks like some good gradient work. The piece sort of lacks a certain pop, or contrast because of the linear method of shading (ie, the gradients), so next time I think you'd get better results shading by hand. On second glance it seems as though you HAvE done some by-hand shading, but more of that would be great, add some shadow on the body from the tail, add a little shading from the fur onto the body to add texture, make the fangs exist outside of the outline of the head (maybe they're gray markings, but they should be textured like fur if they are!) and I think you'll have a great piece here.
It's a good start, but you're not quite there. Keep at it!

[Matter Morph]

Fantastic!

Oh man this is sweet. It reminds me of a quasar jet punching a hole through interstellar gas. I think it would be better if you gave the long streamlike part a little more definition from the gas cloud, but other than that I think you did a great job. What did you make this in?

Kaze666x responds:

I made it in Photoshop CS3

[Self Portrait - S.A. Style]

Sweet

That's very good! I like the style, and the piece is very clean. The shading is minimalistic, yet effective, and the expression on the character's face is very telling! The image as a whole, however, is kind of drab. This would be an amazing complement to a dialog or a storyline, but by itself it doesn't really hold attention, which is probably inherent in the webcomic style.
So 10/10 because I think the fact that its from a webcomic offsets the fact that it isn't attention grabbing.

Plette responds:

Thanks for the detailed critique; that kind of insight is always welcome! ^_^

And yeah, on it's own it's kinda dull, I totally agree. This was more about trying to get that sort of greyscale coloring technique down, as I've seen it used very effectively (Everafter at Snafu Comics is a great example).

Granted, this pic is hardly as action intensive as Everafter... so yeah. Pretty dull lol

[TriFlame]

Awesome

Wow that's great! I've been trying to master this kind of abstract art-- what did you use to make it? There's a great sense of motion here, and the particles are very nice, crisply defined, and organized to boot.
If you have any tips I'd be more than receptive to them.

EchoRun responds:

Apophysis is the program I use for this. It is free to download and use - just google it. :)

It is basicly a flame generator that uses maths to create images, like a very complicated chart - you just put the variables in, move stuff around, pick colours and it creates the image. There are plenty of tutorials and guides for beginners to use, or you can just play with the random stuff it generates.

[Reach For the Sky]

Good job.

I think you did the characters REALLY really well. The tress kind of threw me for a loop, though, and I had some trouble reconciling the background with the subject. Keep working on that perspective! Organic figures are the hardest to master in that respect (in my humble opinion) so props for giving it a shot.

The scene setup is also great. I can't put my finger on it but somehow as an onlooker I feel more directly connected with link than with Malon. Maybe he's more centered, or maybe it's because his eyes are open... anyway. Good job. 5/5 9/10

[Guile]

Dedicated purpose

This reminds me of Paul from Tekken. Just a little bit. I really like what you did with the space you used, nice spriting!
I definitely like the one on the left more.

So 5/10 for reminding me of paul, 5/10 for a good quality sprite, and 5/10 for your amazing storyline and keen commentary on human morals.

[Chao]

Nice

Hey! Take a look there! You did some nice shading, but what about highlights?! I think adding some lighter tones in the upper left portions of this character would really give your picture some more depth. That and maybe add a little variation in tone to the colors in general. What kind of thing is it? Is it fluffy, furry, covered in scales, or is it matte? This is pretty good, but there's still a lot more detail you could add if you wanted to!
I like the character though-- what is it?

[Ravged Soul]

Good planets

This is pretty cool, but something that would make it cooler is a much darker shadow.
Take a look at this picture of mars:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0312/mars5p5_esa_full.jpg
See how it's almost completely black where the sun don't shine? I think your cool molten scar would pop out twice as much if you made the planet almost disappear into the darkness of space on that bottom right edge.
Also, some mountains or craters in the larger planet would definitely add a touch of coolness.
The stars are a little neglected here too, what you should keep in mind is that there are millions of different stars of varying brightness in any particular direction in space. Perhaps if you added some light and dark gray pixels instead of only white ones for the stars, you'd have a better balance between foreground and background.
And, I don't mean to take my constructive criticism too far, but a lens flare on the sun would be awesome. I know that's really hard to do with pixel art, but it would be kick ass nonetheless.
Good drawing. I liked the debris between the two planets-- but the magma was my favorite.

pbjplatypus responds:

First off, thanks for the review! It's great to hear from the more experienced.
Ah, yes, I see what you mean about the shadow! That's certainly something to keep in mind, especially because I'm too lazy to go and fix this one. As for the mountain and/or crater idea, I tried that and failed massively when trying to do that. On the stars, I had no idea that a noise field could be used back when I made this.

Holy crap I wish i could do lens flare like that. . . That would look kick ass, you're right.

(And can you believe that the magma was actually an after thought after grabbing the wrong color from my palette?)

[Binko]

Master Binko.

Master Binko.
Ten.
lol.
Also you should try shading a bit more smoothly-- which IS possible with four colors, you just have to INTERTWINE the pixels, you know, have every other one be light/dark.
You can make this better and retain your style!
Sorry, I'm usually more constructive.