Coop's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Some Weird Guy]

Size matters

I think that having one eye a lot bigger than the other, when they dominate the picture like this matters a lot. Yes, cite Picasso at me all you like but in this piece, you're clearly not doing an abstract.

There are flames in the background and a guy who looks like he has a sword shoved through his left eye socket. A little gratuitous, but I'm trying to see the meaning in it, though there is a certain degree of failure here.

Backgrounds with a lot of empty white spaces are a pet peeve of mine - even a wall that is painted white is not the same as a filled white screen on a computer. I'd suggest doing something with the shading there - paint a few shadows on there, or even some soot, since the flames are that close.

The head of the guy himself (I'll assume it's male, if it's not, I'll apologise to your model) seems to be a little disproportionate, with the hair stuck to one side of the head. It kind of reminds me of some of the hairstyles employed by Mandy Morbid - long and colourful on one side, shaved completely on the other. Still, the look of the piece says to me that you need to work a little on the detail and then see where it stands from there. If you get a picture worth a thousand words out of it, I think you'll be doing well, because I can't see it at the moment.

[Review Request Club]

MisterTig responds:

Thanks for reviewing. I thankyou for your tips and stuff. The white background isn't sipposed to be white, i guess I covered up the blue too much.

[Ross Fenton and the Explosion]

Distance isn't apparent

I think that from reading the note, I've discovered the real issue - you've not taken care to make the explosion distant from Ross Fenton. Some detail in the foreground, to imply that it's behind stuff could help you here. Search for perspective online and you'll see what I mean, hopefully.

It's a decent picture of Ross, but I've got to ask about the 1980s shoulder pads that he seems to have in his jacket. His eyebrows look truly massive, which is a worry for something like this picture. Put a little less emphasis and you'll see more results, as the face softens slightly.

Finally, the explosion needs some work. Writing "BOOM!" in the mushroom cloud couldn't make it any more tacky, if you tried. The use of colours was good, but I'd suggest that you use greys and browns for the dust, with a rippling explosion within, representing the fire beneath the dust.

[Review Request Club]

MisterTig responds:

Thanks for reviewing. First off, he doesn't have 1980's shoulder pads. And his eyebrows are supposed to be massive and his mouth is supposed to be tiny. When i created Ross Fenton, those were the characteristics I put into his face. And your points have been noted for my future submissions.

[Nice job, Ross Fenton!]

A little basic

Okay, so the background has a fade, indicating the presence of a light source. Good, but a problem occurs when you fade too far either way, so you start with white and finish with black. Since you've not started with white, consider trimming the black a little and you'll end up with a better looking background. Also, consider curving it slightly away from the light source.

Moving to the foreground, you've messed up the shading entirely, since the light source is shining the wrong way to cast shadows on the left of shot, yet the face is in shade. The drawing isn't fantastic and you need to zoom in and use a smaller tool, to give you a better degree of control over what you're putting into the picture. More control gives much more detail.

Next time, you can think about putting other things in the picture, such as background furniture, rather than leaving a blank space, it looks untidy in works such as this.

[Review Request Club]

MisterTig responds:

Thanks for reviewing. And I agree with you completely. :)

[Jeo flys]

A good start

I love the background of the piece, as my eye is drawn straight to the planet and the amazing look that you have for the planet and its rings. The "dust cloud" look of the background is nice, lending a look of the Aurora Borealis to the scene.

Moving on to the character, he looks good - humanoid, with a square jaw, but the devil is in the detail and melding his nose into his cheeks is a nice way to make him look inhuman, aside from just the skin. The left forearm does looka little on the large side though.

You've designed the cockpit well, giving space for two people to sit up front, where the point of view comes from. A question I would ask is where the steering equipment attaches to the main console - there doesn't appear to be anything connecting the two.

Finally, with the detail attached to the background and the character, you've let it down a little, by not tidying up the flow of the curves on the console and the straight edges of the display. If you try zooming in a little and attending to the finer details, you can deal with the issues at a more base level and when you zoom back out, it will look a lot better.

Still, this is a great concept and I'd love to see you take this further, be it to a comic, story or even a flash cartoon. Best of luck!

[Review Request Club]

Rennis5 responds:

i'm glad you like it, i want to perfect a style before i start drawing a comic but i have already started a draft.
i think you'r review is fair and you mention some good tips, i might even go back and make a 3rd version of this one with textures and better line art
thank you
:)

[Trying to be gangster...]

Nice work

I like the way that this picture looks - I'm not sure about the title, as it seems a little ambiguous, with the way that I can't see how the potato is trying to be gangster. Unless you're making an issue of the potato being dark skinned, which would be pushing the boundaries of taste far too far.

The spotlight is good and the shading around it works well, as does the background detail that you've put in there - the bricks all look different, which adds so much character to the piece.

I'd like to see some more action in the picture, rather than just being in what I presume to be a police spotlight. Some sort of actual gangster action, such as a drug deal, extorting money with menaces, or posing with a gun, rather than looking a little gormless in the light, as it does at the moment.

[Review Request Club]

PlusPlusKid responds:

well its after a highspeed chase when they corner him...

[Skuvari]

Needs touching up

I'd say that the effect of the piece is pretty good, though you could stand to use a little more in the way of colour and presentation - the lines coming from the eyes going straight over the top of the piece look messy and I'm unsure what they actually are - eye lazers, the eyes actually being out on stalks, much like in a Tom & Jerry cartoon, for example.

The shape is decent, but the back of the head looks a little angular. Softening these lines could certainly help you out, with the overall presentation. I know that certain parts need to look angular, like the ears, but the neck just seems an odd place to do that.

Finally, to give a little more impact, background and context could certainly help you out here.

[Review Request Club]

NekoMika responds:

Yea, I think when I did it back then that the lines around the eyes were meant to indicate brightness of its eyes as lasers shot out of them. As for color I do plan to do so in the future when I think of a color that would best fit it here.

For softening things up and redoing the ears and neck piece, I would be more than happy to try doing those in the future too so it looks smoother.

As for background, I guess a cosmic background would be nice.

Thanks for the review once again.

[Soul On Fire]

A shame about the size

The main issue that crops up here is the size of the image, which leaves us with something a lot less than it could be, since the thumbnails actually zoom in a lot more :(

Other than that, you've got a very nice looking drawing - detail levels seem great from this distance as does the shading. Please do get larger versions uploaded, as you're doing yourself a disservice, by not showing off your talents to the max.

Finally, a splash of colour would certainly enhance these pieces - did you draw them by hand or computer? If they're computer, the colour shouldn't be difficult at all.

[Review Request Club]

Harlandgirl responds:

Thanks for the review. I got a bit confused with the sizing. But hopefully its sorted now. Hope this looks a lot better!

[Waking Dreams Part 1]

Nice comic

Good story, well laid out, with a nice few hooks in there, so that we want to come back for the next one. I'd suggest that you research the layout of comics and make this one more of a "comic book" style layout, rather than a thin strip that descends down a page like at the moment. I'd suggest Order of the Stick as a basis, since that is laid out horizontally, with as many frames in lines below as are required.

I love the black and white of this - it kind of reminds me of old Beano or Dandy issues (showing my age there!), when they weren't all printed in colour. The one difference is that this sets the tone for something dark and mysterious. I'm intrigued along with the story as to how this will turn out.

Perhaps in an introduction issue, the walking down the stairs took up a little too much, but as we look at it for now, you've drawn each frame really well and the setup does kind of work. You could see to lose maybe three frames, without harming the integrity of the piece, thus leaving a little more space for plot exposition.

Could you leave it on more of a cliff hanger? Perhaps as she leaves the cafe with this mysterious old guy, who is asking her if she believes in magic, something is said, that makes the reader think a little deeper, while they wait for the next issue?

[Review Request Club]

Aigis responds:

The comic was drawn as 21 separate pages, but I didn't want to upload every one of them individually and flood my profile with the pages, so I linked them all together in two tall files.

[red scorpion]

A little "too perfect"

Don't get me wrong, this is an excellent piece of art that has great lines and definition for the character. Perhaps the forearms could have been better defined, with more musculature, to compliment the upper arms, which look very buff in comparison.

The weapons that are being used are very interesting - should they not have been complete horseshoes, to give them better rigidity in a punch situation? Perhaps I'm reading too much into the situation. The look is still very impressive though.

I like the background and it does offer some sort of "character selection" feel to the proceedings, which is slightly accentuated by the symmetry of the muscles and the tattoos that the guy has. Nothing is perfect, yet it looks like if you ran a mirror down the middle of this guy, he would look just the same, from either side. The hair does a little to offset this, but all in all, I'd still take some steps to make the tattoos just a little more imbalanced.

[Review Request Club]

Rennis5 responds:

sweet,
i love that "too perfect"
i think this would have to be the biggest review i've gotten on anything so far.
you'r right about the forearms but as for the blades this wasn't my design.
the background was kind of inspired by kirby crackel, kirby was a guy that (i think) did comics for marvel titles like fantastic 4, anyway the crackel is like a power aoura and i always wanted to try it out.
i don't know why i tryed so hard to make the tattoos symetrical, i only added the smaller details to it anyway

[Freaky Food]

...Freaky...

Well, the addition of a background to this piece certainly brings it to life and the fact that they both appear scared of something else is a little off-putting. If you had their eyes both looking the same way, i could understand, but it seems that from my point of view, I'm threatening the apple with a corer in my left hand and the pear with a peeler or a knife in my right.

Crucially though, there are no shadows from their assailant - could the light source be between the fruit and whatever they are afraid of, or is it just an omission? I'm tending toward the latter.

I'd like to see you make some sort of comic out of these techniques, because you're getting quite accomplished at this sort of drawing, so why not make it better, by encouraging you to develop as you write something like that?

[Review Request Club]

PlusPlusKid responds:

i actually made a 13 second cartoon with these guys XD

also the light source is between them :)