Coop's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Maverick Special]

New parts, or just painted?

I can see that you've added the feathers to the hammer, as a decorative touch. The problem that the moving parts give you here is that the paint gets rubbed off, as you can see the garish orange around the trigger mechanism and the revolving barrel. I see that you didn't attempt to conceal it on the muzzle at all.

Now, being a gamer, I would suggest that this is for some degree of LARP or cosplay, as those are two perfect uses for a nerf gun like this. Having researched the model, I can clearly see that your work is detailed and makes the gun practically unrecognisable it the first instance. I'm worried that using such a thing of beauty will only lead to the paint peeling or chipping off, which is not a nice thing, since you've done such a good job on it.

Do you get many requests for this sort of thing and how much do you charge?

[Review Request Club]

[Fish Tank]

Much better!

Okay, so the tank could use a good clean, but I think we can work around that. Personally, I would have put more work into the fish, a few more layers of detail, making them three colours, as opposed to just a monochromatic silhouette. The effect is quite profound and even the splodges for the bubbles works surprisingly well.

Perhaps spend a little more time practising the drawing / painting of the Angel Fish, before you put them into your piece. (Usually, Angel fish are quite a bit bigger. The green one on the left has a tiny body, compared to the fins, which may not be out of the ordinary, but the proportions are slightly wrong) They tend to look conventional at the moment, with them all occupying a horizontal plane - try having one pecking at the gravel at the base of the tank, for example.

Yes, it looks murky in there, but that is something that can be tolerated, as some people choose not to light their aquarium, which leads to these dim scenes. Perhaps consider a lighter backing colour in future and maybe you will compensate enough, but not too much.

[Review Request Club]

MajesticBob responds:

You have some very valid points. The only thing I am going to say is: They are not angel fish. They are Beta fish, and yes I know they don't get along so they would not be in a group like that. I just like Betas. But you are still right, I mean Kinsei thought they were frogs. I could try and say since this was mostly just spraypaint, i could use that as an excuse, but it would be weak. If I'm going to try something different, I should still practice and get them more recognizable. Thanks for the review.

[Earth]

What can I really say?

You've made a stencil from a circle, have coated it heavily in blue and, while there are background colours to the earth of green and white, it's not something I can really give marks to for artistic merit, if I'm entirely honest. The moon looks basic as well, the only detail coming from three pinpricks, which make the piece reminiscent of a bowling ball, as opposed to an orbiting satellite. Perhaps making some stencils to add detail (continents, or the moon's larger craters) would have helped here?

The background isn't anything special - like you've sprayed the background black and then thrown a few colours at it willy nilly, to attempt to portray stars. For me, this doesn't work - the colours are wrong and they are far too close together.

Regarding your response to the review below, the lighting for me takes away from the realism, destroying the illusion. Space itself does not reflect light, it would just be black. The Earth and moon would reflect the light, so there is an issue there, which this image is not done justice to.

[Review Request Club]

[To Write Love on Her Arms .]

She looks a little scared...

Aside from the facial expression, this is an awesome piece. I think that softening the lines around the eyes, closing it up around the corner and "relaxing" the expression on her face a little may turn it from shock to longing.

The hands could use a little detail on the palms - the creases for the life line and so forth, ever so finely from the thumb, to the middle of the wrist. I also spotted that you made the pupil of her left eye (her left, your right) slightly smaller than that of the other side. Perhaps a small error in drawing, or is it an observation from a photograph, due to the light being less on the one eye, from the curtain of hair, obstructing it slightly?

What is she supposed to be holding? I get the feeling that it could be a dog-tag plate, which would require a bit more of a uniform typeface, to hold that script. If it's something like an eraser, then you can get away with a more haphazard style.

Good work.

[Review Request Club]

Flashmovieboy responds:

The observations you've made are right on to the point. The errors with the creases of the life line come from reference photo not reaching that much in width so I had to improvise, which is of course less precise than drawing according to a reference. The issue of pupils are explained in my previous responses, and yeah, my mistake on that one.

It's a dogtag plate indeed. I agree that it looks unnatural, but at that point I had everything drawn out already and I was afraid to smudge the rest, so I tried to avoid drawing in the middle section (dogtag) as much as possible. Again, I probably should had spent more time and drew it earlier. . .

Thank you for taking time to observe my work of art ! :)

[Long Lived The King]

Stencil outline?

Well, the first thing that came to mind was that the main tyrannosaur shape was created using the outline around a stencil. I've seen similarly posed dinosaurs before, so perhaps that's the cliche in the piece...

Are you drawing in pen, or pencil? It's very difficult to shade with pens or ink, but you seem to have accomplished it partially. The vertical lines and the circular scales on the two heads seem to work well. On the lower part of the body, where the abdomen becomes the tail, this starts to lose prominence and it's as if you have reverted to pencil techniques, which don't work so well in ink.

The border in an interesting and complex idea, which for the most part has worked - drawing individual dinosaurs all the way around is novel and time consuming, one must expect. This does lead to a nice effect on the tail, but one that was not carried on around the egg, above the tail section, which I felt was a shame. On the shading there, you have turned the page around, as you've gone on, haven't you? This changes the angle of attack for the pen and does run the "overlap marks" in a different direction. When shading with inks, try to get one colour to flow in one direction, relative to the rest of the image. This would also indicate to the viewer the lie of the scales.

Finally, we turn to the sectioned skull on the left of the image. I'm not at all sure why it is in the image, nor indeed if it is relevant. Perhaps you were merely using it to take up a large expanse of white, within the picture? Making a decent background usually helps matter there.

[Review Request Club]

[MuchaFresh]

A productive use of your time.

I'm glad that you had such an awesome time at the Newgrounds meet - I've seen people drawing and creating artistic pieces at meets before (full pencil sets, pads and so forth), but never someone attempting a full 6-8 hour piece such as this.

Lavishly detailed, this piece has a lot going into the background, without even looking at the main event in the foreground. Each skull is independently drawn, as opposed to the copy / paste nature of wallpaper that can be bought for such a purpose. A small cheat of reversing the pattern and cutting it to fit from left to right was spotted, but I think we can let you off :P

As for the incredible detail of the devil, from the blood splatter bra, through the flowing locks and the relaxed tail, this piece looks fantastic. I'm not to happy with the look of her chin - it just looks a little angular, but if she got her claws into me, I'd be a footnote in history, that's for sure. The shadows give a fantastic perspective to the piece and it certainly gives depth

With the PVC / leather stockings / boots, shouldn't they pinch in on the thighs a little, to stay in place? Choice viewing material across the years has taught me something! I wasn't too sure about the way that the horns have been "combed back" and both seem to point the same way. I know that no-one's perfect and that nature both strives for and abhors symmetry, but that just seemed a little strange.

[Review Request Club]

Sabtastic responds:

First off: thanks for the awesome review, as usual!
You have a knack for picking out details that I don't pay enough attention to, and you're great at offering some good constructive criticism, too!

I'll probably be taking into account the PVC stocking comment next time I draw something similar. I always forget to make it look as tight as it's supposed to be. o: It really does 'grab' to stay on the wearer.

The horns gave me a hell of a time, too, so you hit that nail on the head as well. B:

Thanks again for the great review!
I give your review a 5/5! :V

[Sleeping with the Flying Fish]

Reminds me a little of Dali.

I think that I am reminded of the flamboyant Spanish surrealist by the presence of a balloon spouting flame, which is usually the other way around - the hot air balloon receiving a gout of flame, to keep it inflated. The persistent look of shock or perhaps fear on the eye of the balloon is a little disturbing, though I was amused by the birds becoming completely prepared by the roasting that they receive mid-flight. What would have made me even more amused would have been a chef trying to catch them with a butterfly net on the ground below, but that's another story entirely.

I loved the way that the fishy balloon has fins made from what look like scarves, flapping in the wind, as it moves on. The broken tether is a nice touch, as is the couple sleeping, oblivious to the cold air, the blast of heat not far above and generally anything else that is going on around them - such is the power of the subconscious mind.

I loved how the detail is lavishly highlighted in the flame, with the detail that you've given to the wings, as the feathers are just about to catch light - a simple black outline representing all that it needs to be, giving a great, harsh contrast, compared with the rest of the image and the softly blended pastels.

[Review Request Club]

Merol responds:

The look on the balloon's eye looks more like a lost stare to me, as if it is clueless about what's happening. I guess that's pretty cool, that it means something different to everyone (or so).

I like your chef idea, he could have been sitting on the edge of the bed, but I made this for the Emoticon collab on the art forum, and that could have deviated the picture even more from the theme. Mi emoticon is the sleepy one.

Thanks for the review!
By the way, there are no pastels here, just watercolors and a bit of colored pecil.

[A.T.T. Design Dossier: Artwork]

Design study / advertisement.

Hmm, an interesting way to plug your next step in the trilogy, I'll grant you. Perhaps some sort of additional annotations could have been put in, pointing out colours, fluidity of drawing and other features that are within the characters of your three pieces? I'm in two minds over whether or not this is successful as a way to advertise your upcoming new piece, but that's beside the point.

This piece gives little clue as to the backgrounds of these three protagonists and only reading the comics could really do that. I get the feeling that it shows a good deal of development of your style over the years that you've been doing this, though I'd like to see something in glorious full colour, as opposed to the few tones of a classic comic book that we see here. Still, classical pieces, such as "That Yellow Bastard" and various other works of the same type have gone down in history, so should be paid tribute, in a sense.

[Review Request Club]

Celx-Requin responds:

Yeah it's gonna be tougher to get steady publicity for the last chapter in the trilogy because it's going to be an animated film proper, therefore I can't release it to the portal until it's completely done.

At least this way I can let people who are interested some updates, until I get a chance to cut together a trailer.

As far as the colour thing goes, I consider "The sugar claws" to be my "coloured " segment,
I've played with the idea of doing a traditional coloured comic, but it doesn't really interest me,
plus after the trilogy is done, I think I am going to be done making cartoons and comics.

This is going to be my swan song, and I really appreciate the feedback !
Thanks,
- Celx