m1kclark's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Special Delivery]

Three things

(1) Fantastic postwork. The feel of the image is really stylistic and unique.

(2) More polygons. The engine, the bomb, the wing, the connection, the wheels, all of it shows that the round surfaces are made of separate faces. Looks fine in the NG window, but full-view really shows the geometry.

(3) It's a shame. After you did ALL that speckling and blurring and glowing and lighting and texturing ... you forgot to anti-alias?

Xorberax responds:

Don't credit me on any of the 3D work. I took a screenshot from my favorite game, ArmA 2. I then did alot of post work on it in Photoshop and Lightroom.

And yeah, forgot to turn on AA :(

[Winter Pixel Poster]

Edward Scissorhands FTW

I'm still looking. I just decided that the references to Godzilla, Edward Scissorhands, and the Robocop droid ED(whatever) were worth the 10 instantly.

poxpower responds:

There's something for everyone

[mazda rx-7]

Hard work, little gain

I apologize for the negativity, but let's compare this image with one of your earlier pieces, "rose".

You put a lot of detail into the geometry of both these images. There are lots of polygons that you made sure were perfectly placed, and in both cases you did an excellent job of realistically reproducing real-life objects. However, this image has no details beyond the geometry of the main object. In "rose" there's the tiled floor and the shelves, there's a sense of perspective with a foreground, midground, and background, there's a definite space for the image, and the lighting provides an artistic focus on the hyper-red rose.

This image is noticeably lacking those details. Sure, the car's framework is great and I like the motion-blur and smoke coming from the wheels, but it sort of ends there. There really aren't any other details to speak of. This would be fine, as there is a LOT of low-detail art out there, but this image doesn't have the right feel. The lighting and the focus and the composition don't really suit each other. To clarify, I'll use examples: the infinite-space suggests the car is the only focus, but looking closely there isn't much to focus on; the image is too dark to be called "detailed" but too sharp to be called "obscure" or "mysterious"; the lack of other details suggests you want to show off your object, but the image is too small and off-center to really appreciate it.

I think what I'm trying to say is, you've got a great 3D model here, but it seems you didn't figure out what you wanted the *image* to say to us. Make it more dramatic, add a texture, or even some "Author's comments" and it will be substantially improved. I'd like to see more of this RX-7, frankly, if you decide to keep working with it.

neefu responds:

In this model, too many shortcomings.
But this is the only renderer that was with this car
Chronology rose was created later.

[Basement]

Fantastic first piece

As a first-go in 3D modelling, this is some excellent work with a lot of attention to details. I really liked, for example, that you beveled almost every object, that there's a lot of depth-of-field blur, and that all the shadows are realistically soft.

Each object is very simple, which speaks of an efficiency on your part. What I mean is, I might have added more polygons on the couch and then did a random-displacement of the vertexes, so that it seems more like a cushion and less like a plastic mold. All the textures are only one or two layers deep, which makes the paint cans look a little unrealistic, and as you said everything looks a little too clean.

I DON'T consider this negative criticism, however! Given that you only had 4 weeks, you managed to give each object about the same level of detail and quality. It looks broadly consistent, if a bit amateur. The consistency between objects, in fact, gives the render a video-game feel instead of an I'm-just-a-beginner feel. It seems to me that you maxed out your potential and delivered just as good an image as you were capable of given the time limit. And that, sir, earns you an extra point.

I hope you do more 3D in the future. And after a few more years' experience, this would be a great model to go back to and spruce up. As it stands, it is a piece for a beginner to be proud of.

SPace responds:

Thank you for the review. Thanks for the positive comments, didn't get a lot of that in my critique. I got a lot of comments on the couch needing to be more "lived in." Its funny you say that it looks video game-esque cause after awhile i thought it lookedlike something out of Max Payne. I will be continuing with 3D art, I start animation in the fall. I will certainly go back to this and clean it up at some point in the future. thanks again!

[AWP Gol Magnum]

Substantial improvement!

Awesome, Dawn-Breaker! It's really cool to see the progression of the last three 3D gun images in your profile. This image is high enough quality that I can't even recommend anything off the bat for your model. Now that the model is good, you can put it in backgrounds and environments (no background is why I gave 9 instead of 10), and make a real composition out of it. This is some good modeling work, and I can easily see how much your attention to detail is paying off. :-)

Dawn-Breaker responds:

As usual, thank you very much for the constructive and awesome feedback :D

I'm glad to hear that you can spot improvements into the quality of my 3D pieces, even though I'm not completley satisfied with the results and the methods I used. as it does consist out of unpractical ways at times but for a snapshot I usually let these things pass by.. I'll be trying to create some backgrounds in the future or use it as an object in a different project. :)

Alas! thanks allot for the review :)

[Like a Drug]

Efficient

It gets the point across, and makes very efficient use of limited textures and geometries. A few critiques:

The pills look decidedly un-pill-like, but you can fix that by (a) decreasing the specularity and (b) increasing the "noise" size on the pill's surface. The deviant-art logo has its own shadowing effects that don't match the lighting of the scene at all; this ruins the realism.

The wrapper is too perfect. Bend it a little, then add some noise in the silvery color texture. (My opinion is that the noise size should be big but the difference in colors should be small, but that's just my opinion.)

The image that's reflected in the wrapper and the wood is a nice touch, but it leaves the rest of the background feeling all the more empty. I think filling the space would be better, either with new objects or by zooming in a little more on the pills and wrapper.

This looks like a quick scene thrown together, but it has a lot of potential if you care to go back and improve on it. And hey, I like that you beveled everything!

Little-Bacchus responds:

Firstly big thanks for taking the time to review this image (I hate the term review for art) critique this image :) I was sort of hoping as newgrounds I'd get away with a lot more than I did lol.

The pills always bugged me but they were added at the last min, dA logo looking odd is down to it being an over inverted bump map (cringe).

The wrapper was the main part for this image for two reasons, the scratch made plastic texture as a test I could still make my own as rely too much now on stock textures now days and working in spline modelling as was something In really needed to get back to using more. The silver texture has that crosshatch pattern on it you get on pills but doesn't show up unless rendered in really high res.

Thanks for taking the time to have a good look :)

[Horned Anvil]

Awesome textures!

I see at least 9 high-quality textures that are solely responsible for the realism of this image. The geometries are actually really simple, letting the textures do all the work. Even the rusted-iron texture, which is full of mostly small-scale flecks and facets, tricks the eye into thinking the anvil's geometry is more distorted than its polygons are. The sword in front blends a little too much, but as the anvil is the centerpiece, it stands as a nice accompaniment. The canvas bag and the barrel, too, are very nice touches, also with outstanding textures. Even the stone floor, which I'd bet $20 is just a flat plane, has a wonderful texture with its own shadowing. Actually, now that I stare at it for minutes at a time, I see that the shadows on the floor stones don't match exactly the shadows on the anvil, but this is a small thing.
Excellent work, and you should let us know what the DVD and short film are, so we can look it up.

DarkSword responds:

I see you have excellent observation sense, mister!

True that the geometry was kept at a minimum (without affecting contour, where possible) and most of the work was in texture. This is because I want to go work in the game industry, so I tried my best to reflect that, even if it's in a short film, rendered offline.

Almost all textures have 3 maps, diffuse, specular and normal map. For the floor and walls tho, there is a displacement map, witch actually makes the geometry much denser. It would take a camera movement to see it better tho, in the short film, you can easily see it! The shadows don't match, it's true, cause the anvil ones were photoshopped.. : ) didn`t think such accurate eye would scrutinize my work.. = p

thanks for the awsome review.. ! I'll add the link to the short film

[Macbook Pro]

Gimme a 'B'! Gimme an 'E'!

And a "V" and an "E" and an "L" !!
Also, turn up the antialiasing. Looks like it's at 5 right now, I think it needs 11.
Otherwise, it's a simple design, but well done nonetheless.

gr33bl3r responds:

i dunno, i looked at some macbook pros and they looked pretty sharp... maybe not that sharp.

also the antiailiasing with the new render engine in blender is a little screwy... oh well, it is worth it for realtime previews and cuda support. have you tried it? if not you really should, its awesome.

thanks for the feedback.

[Concept: SMW-1]

'Goliath online!'

The drawing is good quality and shows a lot of imagination for the structure of the mech. It unfortunately suffers, in my mind, for looking a *lot* like the Goliath from Starcraft with the guns. I doubt that's worth a redesign, and since this is part of a larger world, it's perfectly acceptable to have similar elements. Nice work, looking forward to more.

Rhunyc responds:

Thanks, actually I had no clue it was anywhere near the resemblance of a Goliath. I believe the Goliath is much larger - with an enclosed pilot. I've played Starcraft 2 to see the Goliath in action once (I played zerg), so I didn't get a good glimpse of them, basically right now I'm relying mainly on my memory of them from the original Starcraft.

I've seen many many mechanized walker designs.. So there's probably a lot of minor influences I've used from different games and series.

But thanks for the kind review, and I appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think.

[Beauty]

Truly skilled

The ears look a little odd in the details, but otherwise ... this is one of THE best portraits I've seen on this website. I really feel as if I've met the subject, because you portray her character and her humanity so clearly. It doesn't hurt that she *is* beautiful. Did you use a reference, or is this from memory/imagination?

einharjar responds:

I used reference for this one.. She was our model during sketching session. Then i decided to take her picture for future portrait studies.

Thanks for the comment. I really appreciate it.

I gotta admit, i still need alot of practice when it comes to portraits especially the ears. hahah