Kinsei's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[rain]

:3

Hai.... this is me being an ass :P
I like the texture you have on the ground and background. I had to take a moment to look at your last two pictures to see if you have been using that recently and I hadn't noticed.... but this is the most extensive so far.
Very nice :P
Carry on :3

PixelCake responds:

OH NOES NOT TEH KINSEI

I haven't seen you in a while where have you been hiding?

Anyway, I haven't used THIS particular texture before :) I usually use the same boring one but I really like the white texture this time instead of the black one.

[Grand]

Good...

Its a lovely start. A couple of areas could use some work, but over all this picture is good.
Lets start with some of the problems I'm seeing and move on from there.

One of the First things to catch my eye is the blue splotches on the floor. They are very distracting. And if they are taking away attention from the main model, then it is something that needs to be adjusted. Perhaps lowering the opacity of it like the red splotch under the piano would be best. Like I said you don't wish to draw attention from the main subject of your scene.

The next big thing I want to address is the lighting. I am expecting this nice polished grand piano, although you have one here, you cannot see it. The use of a couple ambient lights would have been excellent, but a good strong highlight to put a solid shine on the piano would been awesome.
The extra lighting would also have helped you get a better feel for your setting. At the moment it looks like you simply dropped a omni off to the left there, and quite closely to the ground I might add, and then had some simple spot lights used for casting shadows. Sadly it just isn't working for the scene. Adding some of those ambiance lights but extruding them from casting light so they will force your shadows to taper off instead just being solid all the way through would have helped as well.
When I look at this, the wood floor, the white walls (I'm not even sure what your trying to do with those red and blue lights.....) and I think that the best lighting would have been sunlight. Treat it as if there is a big set of windows just beyond the camera and have it flooding the room with light. Use a mask on a spot light to get the feel of the window shape. And then have the strong light on the floor just barely creeping in to the frame.

Now something I tend to get on to a lot of artist for is the size. Give us a high resolution picture where we can see every little detail. Please! I understand that it can sometimes be rather hard on a computer to sometimes render at larger sized images, more details, and extensive maps, but it is truly worth it in the end. You can really get a good feel for a scene when you can just see everything.

Now on to some of the things I like.
I like the piano model. from what I can see, I like. Again this draws back to the lighting issue just a bit, but that has been discussed. At the moment I cannot tell if you used a good bump map or actually modeled each key. Either way I think it looks good.
I also like that you put up some sheet music. so many people do a piano but never give it any music. I feel that a little touch like this in the scene gives the piano a played feel, not just setting in an empty room.

Over all I like the scene and I think it is good. You need to work on some lighting, but other than that, I don't see many other flaws.

m1kclark responds:

The splotches and red & blue lights were what I remember from high school plays. :-P
I've actually got 6-7 lights going, 3 that cast shadows. I've tried sun-lighting before (the Wraith in my profile), but I didn't like it, thus the attempt at mood lighting. And I completely forgot a highlight: thanks!
Also, yes, I modeled each key.

[Gamefreak Logo]

Not Impressed

Don't take this the wrong way, but text just isn't impressive. Even if it is a nice render, you should just have done something better with the scene.
Perhaps if you modeled every brick in the background, and mortar in between and then made one hell of a good map for it all, then I would be more kind.

[Gordon 2.0]

Great Update

I like. you have done a nice job with a character redesign. You even kept the simplicity consistent with the original which I think is worth some points.
Again you did well with the textures and color, so no beef there.

You also have some confusing light sources. I know you want to keep this shiny, and that means a lot of shine, but you need to organize them just a tad.

One thing that is bothering me about this is the lack of joints at the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. Even just simple lines would have been ok, but as it is it fills so rigid and like it couldn't move. and even if it could move, it looks it would topple over very easily.

Anyway it was a pleasure reviewing your stuff. keep up the practice.

[Toothbrushman Pixel Art]

Well.....

Well.... I think you did well with actually construction the gradients on the handle and brush. I had to zoom in to see it but it was worth it.
The Thing that takes off 7 points is the character design. It is too simple and lazy. I can understand not wanting to kill yourself ove a simple project, but I know you have more design skill than this.

Perhaps you should do a updated version and upload that.

[Slime Man]

Not Liking This....

I'm not liking the way you have just tossed the anatomy and proportions out the window. If the line are was smooth then it could be passed off as humorous, but here it just looks bad.
Try and get it more fluid if you want it to work.

[Giddy Giddy Boing Boing]

Roll With It.

It seems that you really have grasped the cartoon style.
I'm liking it. But as I have said before get a little more in depth with the highlights, especially on black.
The characters will keep from looking so flat.
Since this is a still picture and not an animation piece, you can add a little more detail that would otherwise be daunting during an animation.