Coop's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[SpideyKitty]

Not Awful...

Although I would have to say that this piece is pretty average, without me getting into too much detail about what I disliked about it. A lack of background was a big issue here, as I could have overlooked other lack of detail with some other detail to look at.

The big, overdone signature is horrendous - you're not writing a cheque here, you're supposed to make your signature at least legible, so that someone knows who drew it. In this technological age, that's practically redundant, but in a piece which could legitimately be stolen, putting it into the piece so that it cannot be easily cropped or erased from the piece would be a better thing.

What's with the cutaway mouth piece? If the cat had an opening for the mouth, why not also one for the eyes, which would have given a much freakier look to the face. Also, the legs are poorly positioned - the left leg should have been attached in the fore of the body, not behind, creating an awkward position of two shoulders on the right side of the cat, in effect. It's either that, or you've got the cat in a ridiculous pose, where the body is facing backwards, the feet to its left and the face towards us...

Lacking in distortion for the mask's contours and the web effect causes me to mark it down, though I do commend you on the level of detail for the fur. Sadly, this looks like the only thing that I favoured for the piece.

[Review Request Club]

SerPounce responds:

Just went ahead and edited the signature in what is hopefully a more bearable way, I don't understand your reasoning for the cutaway eyes, the reason I put in a cutaway mouth was because a cat would still be able to, you know, bite, a cat does not bite with its eyes, Coops.

[Priscilla]

Good, but your legs need some work.

I think that the image as a whole is more than passable, representing a very accomplished work of art, perhaps lacking in the background department, but other than that, you've made a good stab at it and have given us something very interesting to look at.

The legs look to get a little thin, below the calf muscle, tapering almost to nothing before entering the boot, which is not how a human leg would look - sure, it would taper, but exaggerating this does not give us anything, nor does it serve to accentuate the size of her calves or thighs...

Further to this, the toes of the boots look massive, while the body of the foot looks rather tiny, pointing to some sort of deformity, perhaps club foot... Always remember, the legs are going to be proportionally bigger than the arms, as you have to use your legs more, thus building the muscles more than the arms, unless you go to the gym and pump some serious iron.

Simple lines, good colour, good shading. Keep up the good work and see if you can give us something more to go at :)

[Review Request Club]

[Happy Halloween 2012]

Good distortion work

A lovely varied texture and shape to the skull, giving rise to a particularly creepy look of the piece overall. I like that you've put a little additional detail into it, with the cracks, though I'd suggest you took it further and had a chip or two missing from the main structure of the skull, to enhance it even more.

A nice simple background makes this piece a lot better, as a white (hell, even a black) background wouldn't look right in the context of the piece itself.

Then the distorted fonts that you used to write your little message, which adds to the creep factor, yet I think it could have been done better - less interfering with the image and perhaps some sort of mounting, like the MGM lion's head would have made it stand out even more (in which case, a black background would have worked quite well!) Still, it's a very good piece overall.

[Review Request Club]

[Twitter Faces #1]

Apparently, I'm constipated...

That and TehSlapHappy looks like a Paedophile, pushing illicit Pepsi onto those poor unsuspecting kiddies, but I really like this. A great way to kill a few hours for you, no doubt and a good chance for me to think of how I'd sound in some of your pieces. Definitely with your voice, that's a character I can see taking off... Mind you, I'd probably get pwned by John and his Olympian gods.

We need to get a group shot, perhaps from the next meet and get someone to draw each participant, much like this. Would you do a commission for us and how many beers would be required?

[Review Request Club]

JohnnyUtah responds:

you have no idea how many characters i draw that look very similar to your caricature.

i don't drink beer, but you can pay me in gold bullion

[Kitty Cat Sketch]

Looks more like a fox...

With the angular face, which goes to a point, the shape of the ears and the tail, this looks more vulpine, than feline. Most cat's ears can be drawn quite simply as triangles poking out of the top of the head and the face is generally more ovoid. Add the that, the general absence of whiskers and it starts to show more than your average cat, to me.

A decent job with the shading, but I would urge more on the shading at the shoulders / hips, just to show where the joint sticks out of the side. Accentuate it and build it into the colour of the fur - that's where the real skill as an artist comes from.

Finally, you should consider making this a colour piece. It would give a much greater degree of realism to the piece itself and allow you to progress to other things, such as backgrounds. Good luck.

[Review Request Club]

SerPounce responds:

I believe the major thing about the head (other than the ears) that makes it seem vulpine is the eye's unnatural slant, but that was a result of me attempting for 15 minutes to no avail to get those eyes down, but I finally got that and decided to settle on it and stop fussing.

Thanks for the tips about shading, however, I never really got the hang of shading (mostly from my obsession with doodles and not full projects), so any tips on shading are really helpful.

[The Force]

Hmm, it seems that if she's not careful, this Twi'lek is about to cut her head tails off. Now that would be very painful and not something that a Jedi would like to happen to themselves. More a comment on the posture, as opposed to anything else. This also doesn't help with where in the image she is - off centre, due to her left arm sticking across the frame, which is a niggle, as opposed to any major issue, but I'd better say about it, anyway.

The detail around the eyes and ears needs to be touched up a bit, as with the way they are at the moment, you've not got enough, compared to the rest of the piece and I think that seeing more would certainly benefit the piece hugely.

If I'm being hyper-critical, I think that you've gone a little too far with the dark blue. Sure, shading is a great tool, but you've made the darker blues just a little too dark, for my liking. brightening those up just a little would certainly help your endeavours.

A nice background, to finish the image off - did you trace it from an actual photo, or did you just design it yourself?

[Reveiw Request Club]

[Reaper]

Very mean.

I'm not sure that the white background works so well with this piece. It lightens up the background and paints the reaper in a completely different light, pardon the pun. Something needs to be done in the background, to perhaps give the piece an altogether more menacing look.

Call me a traditionalist, but the eye sockets are the wrong shape. You can be creative, even if you're locked in a certain posture with the bones being a certain shape - granted the frown is something that a normal face can do, but strip away the muscles and the face is frozen in an almost permanent look of surprise. You can do other things, to make it look angry, however.

The colour scheme is great - keep working at the other issues and you'll get there.

[Review Request Club]

[Day of the Dead]

Samedi Nuit Morte meets Carnivale.

What an interesting piece - the vague intonations of a death mask, portrayed mostly by the sunken eye look and the stitching lines across the lips, vaguely reminiscent of a mortician's handy work with a needle and the finest of threads.

Then, we look at the wider image and see the spirit of Carnevale - the bright, exuberant colours, the floral designs and things that would usually decorate some of the more lavish porcelain masks worn in Renaissance Venice. Such contrast!

If I'm being picky, the eyes weren't quite right, especially the one on the left of shot, as the white eyeliner looks a little smudged into the iris... I'm not sure that was the effect that you were after. Perhaps zooming in will give you greater control, for the fine detail. Still, a wonderful effort.

[Review Request Club]

[Self Portrait]

Rushed.

I'm not sure that I like the idea of this image, with the bomb being misshapen and largely irrelevant to the proceedings of the rest of the image. You may as well put the explosion up there as the background, for all the difference it would make.

Schoolboy errors creep into the piece, with the t-shirt joining the jeans and there being a difference in the measurements, so that at his hips, he is wide enough to put a "step" in there.

As with any art, the devil is in the detail. The shoes looked untidy, which took away from the rest of the piece. Jeans I can understand, but you need to tidy the footwear up, because they don't have creases on them, like a piece of cotton. With the T-shirt, you've written the word chocolate and the letters don't look like they were intended to be messy, so getting them the same height and width, where applicable would have been so much better. Obviously, the "L" should be the tallest, with "H" and "T" being second, with the others being the same size as one another. Sure, crease it afterwards, but you're trying too hard, if you're playing for creases on the clothing while drawing the fonts at this stage.

[Review Request Club]

[Green Flame Skull]

Not bad

A fancy abstract background, complimented by a shattered skull, a brain that looks tied up in purple string and a dribble of spittle, origins unknown.

I like the form of it all, with the sharp fangs, the eyeball looking skyward, possibly at the next blow willing to strike at it and the emotion, either of aggression or fear - I struggle to tell which, as they both start off the same.

I'm not happy with the result of the brain - try looking for more images of that and you'll see that a dark pink needs to be the colour for the recesses, as opposed to purple, unless you're making the brain a lot deeper colour. I don't think you'd have gone wrong in putting the brain in greyscale, either.

Getting there, just a little more work required.

[Review Request Club]