Coop's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Splatoon Inkling]

A good start, with the simple, but bright colours and the computer game cartoon layout, this certainly encapsulates the better, more entertaining side of paintball combat. From looking at the weapon, this is more of a paint gun than a paint ball gun, though I'd assume the principal is the same.

While I'm not quite sure what the ear-like flaps of hair are for, they certainly add a dimension of perhaps protective cover for the combatant, while the squid-like familiar in the background looks entirely too cute to think dangerous... perhaps until it's too late, then he inks his opponents.

If I were going to be overly critical, I'd suggest that this piece yearns to be made into an action pose, mid shot, while an opponent is rushing onward, trying valiantly to cover her in his gooey, pigmented secretions - ooh, er.

Keep up the good work, the lines flow nicely and I think we'll see a lot more from you in the future.

SinCOMIXXX responds:

Thank you for your critique! If I ever do Splatoon-related fan art again, I'll definitely consider your suggestions! :)

[HAPPY ROBOT DAY]

Surely your non-drawing had should be doing something other than drawing... I'm not sure what, but given enough time, I could probably be chauvinistic about it.

Damn, I hate it when people are just too talented for their own damned good. I want to be able to draw, but I just don't have the ability, while here we have an example of a good artist, who whiles away a few minutes with her opposite hand and creates something better (albeit not by much) than I could draw with my main hand.

Sabtastic responds:

Aw shucks! haha Thanks, Coop.

Sorry to make you feel shitty though. x:
Just keep at it!

[Dungeon Crawlers]

Hope I don't fuck it up!

Seriously, you've really helped me to get this story off the ground and that is worth more than merely just a stock image that has caused this piece to start with. I've now got a good idea from talking this through over a few months about where the pair of them are going (aside from around a dungeon, trying to escape with their lives, that is). Not that I'm going to tell you what my ideas are.

You've got more than merely "some skill" with the tools of an artist and I've got a few ideas to throw your way for "future projects"

Clever use of shading, to go with the underground / torch lit look to the piece and showing off the fact that these two have been prisoners for an indeterminate amount of time - you can almost smell the stale sweat that this image conjures up.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have more to write on this story.

[Thankyou Caricatures]

I wonder...

What on earth would you have drawn for me in this sort of scenario? Possibly something involving me sitting behind a computer screen and "geeking it out", either by writing or gaming my way to victory. Some great little drawings, featuring some guys whom I have heard a lot of on the net, some whom I've not heard much from at all. Obviously, the two Newgrounds Stalwarts are clearly identified and their concepts are fantastic. Putting glasses and a pony tail on a Tyrannosaur is a novel idea and you really make it work.

While I'm less sure about corgis playing on an Xbox, or a computer screen ejaculating at poor pickleotez, I love the concept and the fact that you're really making it work for you.

Keep it up, I look forward to more of your stuff.

[Need A Light?]

Clever.

The use of the light here is highly understated. Starting off with a dark room for the spy and then having pyro spark off a lighter at the tip of his fingers gives lovely dimensions to the piece as a whole.

Simple lines for the spy make him look rather sharply dressed, as opposed to just mad at pyro for blowing his cover. Perhaps reduce the thickness of the chalk-stripes to pin-stripes on his suit and make the tie look more like a well tied knot, than a mere line down his front, as a well tied knot can jut out from the collar in a statement all on its own ;)

Finally from the spy, I might have had a snorted sigh of smoke coming out of his nostrils, as the cigarette is smoked enough for him to have taken a breath in and out. There is no need for a look on pyro's face, so just the inclination makes all the difference to such a pose. A nice use of dimmed colours, to make it all look so dark, private and indeed surreal. Keep up the good work.

Jemmuh responds:

I definitely need to look into how ties work to better draw them... It'd help if I knew people who actually wore such fancy attire.

Funny you mention the smoke coming from the nostrils, I actually originally had that drawn out but took it away in the end. Kind of regretting it now that it feels like something is missing.

Appreciated! Thanks.

[Mitsubishi Eclipse '03]

Trace?

I've just looked this piece over and thought that it looks like a traced drawing of the car, then overlaid with the design and detail that you wanted, to give it a much better look. The thing that really didn't look right was the fact that the Goodyear Eagle F1 is written upside down - any Goodyear tyre has the lettering written around the tyre the other way, with the top of the letter nearest the tread pattern. I'm not sure that the lettering would be coloured, except for gold on the sides, though black may be a good choice, so shading it with grey scale would also work.

Judging by the scene that you used, there is too much light shining off the surface of the car - the background appears to be slightly overcast, while you've got the car glinting through the sunshine, as if it were polished silver or gold. Also the question of where the light is coming from is asked, due to there being light reflected off the bonnet, front and rear wing, though not the driver's door. That seems very confusing, in my opinion.

Still, it looks nice and I wouldn't mind having a spin in it myself.

BlazingEclipse responds:

Well thanks a lot for the response. I guess when you make a 3D model based on a real object it is sort of like tracing it, if that's what you mean. The program I used to render out the model calculates the reflections on the model based on the HDRI map that I give it so I didn't have much control over that aspect. As I worked with it more it seemed that if I changed the angle of the camera more reflections appeared on the door. So that problem was from picking the wrong angle to render it out in it looks like.

[S<3T: Sudden Updraft]

Okay, I'm not sure I get it...

I can understand that this is a Japanese cartoon and tentacles, schoolgirls, sex etc, that all makes a degree of sense to me. However, I am a little concerned about the anatomy of the girl in the foreground on the right - What is going on south of her panties? Either she has a vagina that can phase through her underwear, or she has prolapsed. Neither of which is a particularly enthralling thought, I just had to mention it.

I can see how you've taken a lot of the detail out of the image, by conveniently placed scenery, removing the need for detail on the girls' knees and also by hiding their faces to one degree or another. People like me watch out for that, so in your next piece, I'd prefer to at least see some more effort in the facial detail. Yes, you're capable of recreating a little lace detail on a girl's panties, but it's not enough. The same can be said for the folded design on the fan - it should not look like it has just been overlaid, it would actually be folded and distorted to reflect this. Making this work would be a crowning glory of the piece, I would feel.

DeliciousOrange responds:

Thanks you for the review. The issue you seem to be referring to is the fact that the muscles on her inner thigh (particularly her adductor magnus and the gluteus maximus) are partially visible from the front. This is actually entirely normal and a common occurrence in women with well defined muscles. This is known more commonly as "the gap" in some circles.

The reduction of detail in areas like the face and knees is to help focus attention on the key points of the illustration, in this case the flipped skirts and panties. Faces are inherently very effective at drawing attention, which is why they are almost entirely obscured here; they would draw too much attention away from the intended focus of the image.

As for the designs, it is a matter of balancing time invested in rendering and effectively communicating the content of the image. Tentacle Bento: Double Major is a very large project with many illustrations, so each image has a limited amount of time available to invest in it. The fact that you recognized it as a folding fan even without the detailed rendering makes it a success for communicating the content of the image, so in terms of the investment of time to the return of effective communication that is quite a good ratio.

[Starcraft Terran Medic]

Such detail!

Wow, I can see what some of the masses are raving about, by saying that this piece looks real. Certainly around the face, this looks so highly polished and detailed, that the woman makes me think that I am looking at a photograph. Taking the picture in on a wider view, I can see that it's not quite the case, as the space suit doesn't quite come up to scratch on that particular level of detail.

Inside the cockpit, the dangling wires clipped together in places look fantastic, as does the change of colour scales with the HUD projecting onto her left cheek, I would assume, as the visor has been lifted, preventing projection onto there, where it might be relevant.

The exterior of the space suit looks good in close up, the left hand part of the image looking reminiscent of brushed steel, the kind of thing that kitchen sinks are made of, while on the other side, some sort of corrosion, or burn has been painted over, it would seem. That's a fantastic attention to detail and I'd love to see you show us what she is staring at in the beginnings of what could be horror at some creature ready to tear out her spleen, or the remains of one of her colleagues that has recently come across said beastie, to his cost.

["Angler" concept, Charcoal]

So at first, I thought that this creature had a very spiky chest. Then I realised that it was the lower jaw that we were looking at and that it was roaring at us. Silly me.

Maybe it was the lack of a tongue that drew me to this conclusion, but other than that minor detail, you've created a detailed concept sketch, which reminds me of the murlocs from World of Warcraft. I'd love to see you take this concept further, whether or not your friend wants such a sketch for his project - do some graphic design and show us the colours that you'd use, to compliment the shiny black eyes that I can see in this sketch.

Of course, with moving on from a concept sketch, you'll be in need of a background and an even higher level of detail, so it should be enough to stretch your creative muscles even more. Go for it!

[Turanga Leela]

I love how you've subtly blended the looks of the cartoon Leela, with the real life Katey Sagal, particularly around the mouth - it looks very powerful and yes, of all of the aliens out there, I would love to get to know this particular specimen (okay, we all know she's really a mutant, but who cares) a lot better.

Perhaps you overdid the shading on the abdomen part of the top, since her breasts are not that massive to have their own gravitational pull, dragging light away from her stomach quite that much.

Other than that, the curves are great, her eye is fantastically detailed (I can see that an expression for the monobrow would have been difficult to conceive, with no real reference to draw upon, so I won't criticise. Her hair is another high detail area with what seems like each individual strand painted in, which must have taken hours.

Certainly one to come back to and admire again.

bigCman321 responds:

Thank you for the well thought out review, I appreciate it!