Coop's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[A Twisted Transparency Poster]

Got me hooked.

This piece is a great sign of how accomplished that you've become at graphic design, over your years of experience. What lets you down, I feel is the shape of faces, but in a piece like this, that doesn't really take away too much, from the grand scale of things. I'd like to see a little more in the way of a traditional skull shape, not just an ellipse - even ovoid shaped faces have more similarities to human skulls than that and those are from the bottom of the barrel, which, thanks to other factors, you should be nowhere near. I'd lower the top of the head and have the taper for the jaw, where it looks like a smaller ellipse has merged with a larger one, giving the classical jaw / cheek bone overhang. Perhaps that's being overly picky, though.

Graphically, there is a bizarre similarity between your Twisted Transparency logo and that used for Take That, the UK male vocal group... I'm not sure if you'll have a vampiric Gary Barlow, or a spectral Robbie Williams, perhaps Jason Orange as a serial killer, but that's just strange.

You have a great colour scheme here and the various circles give away various clues as to what might be contained in the movie or comic, perhaps both.

Keep up the good work, I look forward to viewing the fruits of your labours.

[Review Request Club]

Celx-Requin responds:

Hiya Will,

The only U.K. group I listen to is "Turin Brakes", so I can't speak to any album art comparisons, I am a fan of the "100 bullets" comic book covers though and they feature a lot of intricate floral patterns.

Also that's not a face, it's a mask, obviously you wouldn't be able to have known that since the cartoon isn't finished yet.

Thanks again for the review,
I'm glad you feel my art has improved over the years!
- Celx

[Ms. Leursen Hates You]

Well, she's angry.

I wonder what she has seen to deserve a reaction quite like this? Being a school teacher, she probably had enough, when the kids fed the class pet frog to the chickens, or something like that. Of course, it could be the case that it's something innocuous, like the third child that morning who has accused the dog or eating the homework, so she has just hit TILT and exploded.

A decent level of detail, with furrowed eyebrows and a lot of creases across the dress. I'm glad that you told us that the subject was a female, as there is no body shape to indicate one way or the other and curly hair could apply to either gender.

I'd like to see a little more in the way of background - perhaps a school scene, that is faded out, as the red mist has descended with this image of a hastily roller-coated rouge over the background. It could give a more devastating effect.

[Review Request Club]

Aqlex responds:

This teacher was quite insane. It was probably somewhere between ghetto fights nearly starting in her class, students mocking her voice and mispronunciation, students not knowing the bible (she was very unhappy about this), students threatening to say something about her constant bible thumping, me secretly posting pictures of Jesus and God from south park around her classroom, me drawing a turtle being stabbed for one of her assignments (she wanted an animal from the Life of Pi, so I gave her one), and plain insanity that led to her anger.
And yeah, I gave no good hint as to what her gender was, it's a very odd caricature I drew of her back when I had her class.
I totally agree that I left something to be desired with the background. Doing maybe the same thing with the red mist, but including a faded or fading school background would have produced a nice effect.
Thank you for the review! =)

[Jillian on the Ocean]

Good, but needs a lot more on the background...

Right, the best thing that I can advise here is to spend time creating your own background. This looks like you putting the character onto a photoshopped scene, including the rock itself here. That either means a great level of detail in your drawing of the rock, or just that you've not reduced the quality enough from you tracing or similar. The clouds look like a photograph and the effect of having them next to a cartoon looks poor, if I'm honest. Try something other than just an Ocean / Sky background. Have you considered adding something like beach in the foreground, for instance?

Turning to the character herself, you've done a decent job there, with the feminine curves, the smile, the red hair and the horns. Applying a subtle cheat, by covering the feet in shoes and hiding the hands behind the hair and rock was a nice way of getting out of potentially "tricky " detail situations, but we'll let it slide. The pose was decent, but no-one sits down perfectly, so a little detail, where the underside of her right thigh gets pushed in by the top of her left, as they cross over would be nice, as would be the attention to where the shading should be. Looking at various other shadows, I would say somewhere around the top-left of shot, therefore more of a shadow should be cast by the upper leg.

Attention to detail is what will get you more stars, so keep working on it.

Finally, your signature is a little colourful to blend in to the piece, particularly with the shading as it is. Perhaps consider layering it on top of the piece in post-production, as opposed to putting it on the rock itself, as you have. If you're going to leave it on the rocks, perhaps change the colour and don't shade it so much...

[Review Request Club]

DragonPunch responds:

That sounds like sound advice my good friend! Thank you for your feedback, and the three and a half stars was well-deserved. Thank you. :)

[Snail]

Why the collar?

Surely this only stands to impede the snail (Gary or not) from living as a snail, impeding him from retracting into his shell. Like putting a chastity belt on a whore, in essence.

You had a good stab at making a background, but there are still large expanses of white that need to be dealt with. I like the way that it looks and I would love to see you take this further, so work on filling in the background for starters, as that would help so much.

Yes, the snail looks badass - I've never seen one rear up like that before, but I'm open to new ideas. You could have made the curve on the shell more pronounced, both the red one on the centre and the pink exterior of the shell, rather than making it square, with rounded edges. Finally, as a nod for detail, consider making both of the pupils the same size.

[Review Request Club]

[Hat]

Another poor background.

Why bother with the two cigarettes? Was this an oversight, during drafting, or just something that you did intentionally? If so, he's a poor, wasteful smoker, smoking faster than he can take in. He'd be better lighting his second with the remnants of the first. I'd have also had him with a firmer grip on the neck of the bottle, in case he drops it. Alcoholics are usually quite careful over their possession of booze - it's a characteristic of theirs.

Little details have been missed here, such as the line separating the brim of the hat from the band - it looks like the bottom of the brim merges just under the band. I would have made that go in front of the brim slightly, just to get it looking better.

Finally, the background. As I've said in previous reviews, I'm an all-or-nothing guy, Give me a full background, not some generic "magazine photo shoot" background, which looks awful. Put him in a wild west scene, with cacti, horses, a few roughly erected buildings and make it look like he belongs there, not on the cover of "what cow" magazine.

[Review Request Club]

[Beast]

Work on the background

Now the main focus of the image is the dragon itself - the inspiration appears to be drawn from, as other reviewers have said, Pokemon, but I think that another source has been overlooked here - the Disney Film, Pete's Dragon. Given the body shape and the two-tone look, I would say it is more than just mere coincidence. Sure, make the wings bigger than the Disney one, but it even has a paunch, like the cartoon from the Mickey Rooney Film.

With the background, initially, you feel that there is none, but looking closer, you find that there is one - the moon, which seems entirely out of place, against a wholly white background. All or nothing is better than this, but I would prefer all. A generic circular shadow cast from a light source overhead is poor, considering that the moon is a light source and it is behind the dragon. All sorts of little niggling errors make me twitch over this piece, which is not in a good way at all.

[Review Request Club]

[Crossing the Alps]

Detailed, but slightly inaccurate.

I think that the Elephant would be being led by someone, rather than having it's tusks so close to someone merely walking along in front of it. Still, as details go, it's relatively minor, so Nothing major gets deducted for that.

To be honest, the wrinkles on the elephant's trunk irked me more - they are too angular, as if some sort of bone plating has been sub-dermally implanted, giving armour plating to something like that. You need to make the skin seem more relaxed and supple. The tusks certainly look dangerous and should they come across any Romans, Hannibal and his men will definitely take some out, before sustaining losses of their own.

The other thing that needs more detail is the fallen tree. It looks to have been "cut" in the angled manner and the re is no natural random splintering of the wood fibres, as a tree falls over. If an elephant has pushed it, consider making it an uprooted tree, as the roots may give way in the mountainous / hilly terrain first.

[Review Request Club]

samulis responds:

Your fallen tree is a ruined column, symbolic of the distruction to come.

Perhaps I should sub in a different elephant... all the hate at this one poor elephant! XD

Though thanks for the great review. Next time I will be far more subjective when finding elephants.

[Zombie Pin UP]

Rather basic.

A sketch, at best, this piece shows some decent work on the outline, yet falls down, when there is little to do with the background and only a half-hearted attempt to properly shade the areas in the foreground. I would suggest that you take your time and work more on polishing the finished product, rather than rushing to complete what could be a decent piece in the end.

Basic mistakes abound here - the fishnets need a lot more attention to detail, as opposed to making a regular pattern. Where she bends her knees, the material of the stockings pinches in, giving you something more like stretched diamonds or triangles, as opposed to squares.

The shading and colouring is too haphazard for me, giving the impression that you were against the clock. Art should never be like that and you must spend more time, getting the balance just right. With a different balance, this piece would stick out more, have a better projection against the white background and give you a much better presence.

Have you torn the paper? That's a massive no-no for me, especially if you can see stuff written behind it. "Found in a tattoo and it in my theme" is hardly a coherent sentence, but looking closer, it's as if the bottom right corner has been torn from the page, which is a shame. Keep the attention focused on the muse of the drawing, that helps a lot.

[Review Request Club]