Ahkihoun's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Black sheep]

Now this is great! This piece shows a lot of what I was talking about in that newer piece about lighting. I like how dramatic you made this; though be careful in not making your picture too dark! A white moon? BAH! You have a black demon sheep with red eyes! Play it up friend! This is fantasy! Make it a yellow moon. Or a blue moon! Then use those highlight colors with a low opactiy and highlight that sheep face more.

If you use a harder brush instead of a soft one, you could get away with not having to do backgrounds as much. Right now the focus of the picture is the creature and the moon. The background and rock don't really need to be messed with AS LONG as you know how to draw your viewer's attention away from what is unfinished. This is a common artist ploy. :3
Eveeryone's eyes lead them in a certain path through artwork. Just like a comic, just like a piece of graphic design. Generally they say that everyone will scan the picture from the left top corner in a backwards S shape, to the bottom right corner. But this is where you are master. There are MANY different ways to have people divert their eyes from what is unfinished. Just adding more extreme lighting to this piece would help. You can't hide your lack of detail in the darkness. :3 But you can make it look intentional. ;)

DrApfelwurst responds:

Wow thanks!
I never thought of sth. like how the viewer looks at my pics :D
Could it be just instinct that I'm good at it? :D Or was I just lucky at it?
I dont know, but 4,5 for such an unfinished and dumb looking picture is very nice ;)

[Alone]

You use photoshop often? This is pretty cool! I like the solitude you displayed, its quite sad, but fitting at the same time. I'm not sure what program you're using. If you hacks then its probably photoshop. If you don't its either Gimp or Paint Tool Sai. if any of these next few lines don't make sense, lemme know and I'll do my best to re-explain in PM.

From what I'm seeing in your illustration (btw, Bad ass signature? Keep it. Keep it. hahah) it looks like you have your background as one layer, and your person on another. I like the minimal amount of color you used, and I seee you trying to blend the two together using the same brush type , and by adding more black in to give the shadow effect. You're on the right track! Here's a couple tips:

1. Don't be afraid to let your background and main focus kind of bleed. I always start off using a gradient paintbucket on the background, and then making a new layer for the character. I then use a low opacity brush (very smallll) to sketch out my scene. Make sure you use whatever color lineart you wanted your picture to be,...so for example. If you were gonna sketch out this dude, I would have suggested a dark brown. True black and true white do not exist in nature. When you use these two colors a LOT, it makes your environment look flatter. When you're done coloring, color color colllllooooor over it. Guess what happens to your lineart? It gets darker! Cause your brush is a low opacity! Now the lower you start your opacity (I start mine at around 30 percent) the more coloring you can do. There is some risk of losing your lineart if you keep coloring TOO much. As you color in, you can fix your sketch as you go.

2. Add more color. I don't mean the dodge tool and burn tool. You'll be better off without them. What happens when you use em too much is your picture begins to look watery and flat. Pick your own colors from your own pallette. So if we were going to color that cloth again, take your dark brown, and color. Then you see that beautiful goldish brown color for the clothing underneath? Oh yeah. I would use THAT as a highlight instead of the dodge tool, which ends up just ultimately making all colors white. All you gotta do it just set your opacity looowww. I like to use a hard brush and make sure you're ZOOMED OUT! It helps you get a better composition.

3. Know your lighting! I see we have a light source coming from the right. The more dramatic you can make a scene: the better. If there was a light source coming from one direction, I would make the left side background MUUUUCCCCH darker than it is. This would help with blending your character in as well. Wanna know another cool trick to making your character and background look like they belong together? Take a low opacity (soft round) brush , grab your background color, and color that onto your character. OR take the same kind of brush, with a 20 percent opacity and use the eraser tool! If the character is in the shadows, that cloak wouldn't have a hard line to it. It would be softer, fuzzier, and less visible. Which leads me to the next step.

4. Not all highlights and shadows are soft! You know what would REALLY make that character pop in a magnificent way? Take that highlight color (in this case it was white) take a hard brush, with a 60 opacity and just outline that right side. The light it hitting the hardest there. Not everything must be blended. Now, admittedly I tell people to stay away from the smudge tool. Its another reason why most people's art starts to look like water, but there ARE constructive GOOD ways of using it. If you take that hard brush for your outline and you zoom out, and find that its too grainy looking? Geeently rub the smudge tool over it. it doesnt have to be completly blended. Just the very edge of your line on the INSIDE of the cloak. Not the side completly facing your light source. Smudge too much and you lose all your beautiful texture.

It all comes with practice. When I zoom in I see you're a wonderful illustrator. :3 I can't wait to see how you develop your coloring techniques! Good luck! And remember, the more tools you rely on, like your smudge, dodge, burn, pre-made brushes, filters; the less you'll learn about creating atmospheric art.

DrApfelwurst responds:

Thanks for the review and tips ;)
Well I never use the smudge and dodge tool ^^
I use filters though and I mostly use the same brush, 'cause I'm not capable with the others :D
But the tips really help me out! Its good to see that someone even takes a part of his time to help an 15-year old noob getting better in digital art :D
And yes I draw with photoshop all the time! I really enjoy drawing on it! :D
And really a big thanks that you build me up and tell me I'm doing good, 'cause I'm not even sure if I should keep doing it :D
So thanks thanks thanks for the tips, for the review and for the nice words! ^^

[Spider]

Hey you right handed? This piece is spectacular. I really loved the vector style that you decided to go along with this. With this color and balance its an awesome design piece. Keep it up!

DrApfelwurst responds:

Yes, howdid you figure that out?
Wow thanks :D At first I wasn't sure about putting it on the art portal, but your comment showed that I did right :)

[The face of all your fears]

HOly F*** this is scary as hell. But I love it. Your color and lighting is just great. I also love how smooth the overall piece looks. very soft despite the horror look.

The only thing that really bothers me is that the shirt on the girl is TOO soft. You have a lot of good bright highlights on the face and surrounding the face, but without implementing this technique on the shirt, it almost gives it the illusion that the head is floating.

This didnt stop me from giving it five stars though.

liransz responds:

actually i was looking for something soft for the shirt, but yeah, maybe its too much n_n
thanks!

[Cute Cosplay 3]

Haha. I saw this and was like..wait..why does she look familiar?

Ahha. Of course. Amy Rose. She's like..the most annoying character in any video game, aside from Tidus in FF 10. But I digress. You didn't create the character just re-drew her.

For all intents and purposes this is great. You definitely recaptured that "lolita" type of look that Amy encompasses with her annoying singsong voice and short dress. (Funny how you're right though. Sonic and tails and knuckles ARE naked. They must be too cool for clothes I guess.)

Beautiful lineart, shading, lighting. But oh.

The background friend! What happened? Since its just a simple character standing I suppose it doesnt hurt the piece all that much, but I would have loved to see a line for some kind of grounding. Her feet are at the base of the picture, but she's not standing on anyytthinnnggg. Its what they taught me in college. Illustration 101.

But hey. my college was retarded. So you do your thing. Something to perhaps be mindful of in the future.

keep up the good work.

bocodamondo responds:

well i didnt want to do a background in first place..its kinda...eh...i dont know how to say it...trendy? if i could do a simple background i would but i never intended to do one..
but yeah thanks for this review ^^

[A Fond Return (CHOW #53)]

This is great. Your colors, and mood are spot on and beautiful! My only problem with this is that the human doesnt look grounded. If she's not supposed to be floating, the body position might need to change? And some kind of line for grounding? If she's supposed to be floating, her body language (mainly her lower body...) is very stiff, for something that's supposed to be loose and sensual. I almost wish the canvas itself was a little lower, and more time was spent on finishing her with her legs outstretched.

Personal opinion though because i'm not sure what your aim or goal was. Still great overall!

ImpendingRiot responds:

Thanks for the review :) Funny you should mention that the floating looks akward. Originally, this was horizontal instead of vertical. She was kneeling on the ground. I just rotated the canvas because I liked the composition better vertically. With that said, I should have put a bit more care into adjusting her pose. Thanks again for the feedback.

[A Dragon]

hey nice style. Love the design.

[Chamber Maid Bot]

Its got a Ratchet and Clankey kind of look to it. Very cool. I love it.

[Scarf Girl]

What a great style! This is so fresh and original! I wish you would have kept some kind of consistency with the clouds- added some of that awesome lineart to make it feel like part of the picture and not something seperate. Perhaps if you hadn't used the blur/smudge tool? Great regardless. Well done!

MurphysFlaw responds:

Thank you! And I see what you mean with the clouds not quite matching, backgrounds have never been my strongest area, so I will try to maintain my line work through-out on my next picture:D

[Summer Friends]

Oh what a funny subject and the style is perfect! I love the expression on the girl. Really fabulous. The designs are a little simplistic for my taste, but this works really well for you. Great work!