m1kclark's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Smoking Space Man]

I love Blender

This is a nice model, but the composition (pose, background, lighting, camera angle) need work to really show it off. Right now, I can't really comment on materials or geometry because, well, I can't see it.

Also, some technical details: increase the anti-aliasing (OSA in the Render panel) to 11 or 16. Increase the resolution to at least 800x600, preferably 1024x768 or even 1200x800. Also, I don't how/why you did it, but the JPEG quality is seriously low. There are JPEG artifacts everywhere (see: above each foot, between arm & body on right).

Having said that .... THANK YOU FOR BEVELING!!!

falariem responds:

Well, thank you. I've only using Blender for a short time, so I'm not really concerned much with scene creation as I am with getting the character modeling right.

I agree with you on the anti-aliasing and the resolution settings, too. I've only just recently discovered those settings in the interface, and I usually work toward something around 700 square. As for the JPEG junk, my copy of Photoshop sucks. That, and I need to figure out a better way to handle the reds - those are the colors I notice the most not saving off correctly.

As I said, I'm still fairly new to the app, and I appreciate any feedback from those who see my work. :)

[Tomb Kings]

New style!

By and large, your other stuff is more anime/line-art style. This more realistic shading (there's a "painted" feel) is a very nice deviation, and very successful I think. The metal parts are particularly well done. The bones are where the "painted" feel is most prominent: I can't decide if that's a weakness or a strength, given the more realistic feel to the metal. Oh, and the shadows are (to use a technical term) BITCHIN'.

P.S. When I saw the thumbnail, I definitely thought, "It's Scorpion!!!"

Brakkenimation responds:

Hee, yeah - I've been trying to expand my drawing styles a bit from my usual lineart stuff. Glad you like it! I will keep your points in mind for future paintings (bitchin' shadows, good to know :P )

Haha, nope - not Scorpion! Maybe I will draw him someday :D

[Scooby Doo (Set 1)]

I support thee, but

Much as I like the idea of using ads, etc., to distribute your content in a profitable fashion, I'm not such a big fan of the porn-ad-popups. In general, if I'm trying view your art (regardless of its adult-oriented nature), I'm probably not looking for the Live Jasmin webcam show. I personally wouldn't go this route for very long, but then again I don't know how to make porn-parody art, so my advice isn't strictly applicable!

In either case, good luck. Your 80s-animated parody-porn is the perfect mix of sleezy and nostalgic and deserves more attention. :-)

AKABUR responds:

Hm... I think I can switch those adult ads to "kid's friendly" ads. I'll do that with next scooby-doo set.

[Concrete bathroom]

Awesome

I think this is great. You're a few steps away from true professionalism, but given some of the challenging things you took on, I think you were really successful here.

Compliments:
The textures for the stone, wood, trees, lamps, and towels are all very nice. Those palm-leaves on the trees are great; I like the placement of the leaves, whether by algorithm or manual positioning, and the material really looks like that plastic you find in bathrooms. The "tile" form of the back wall is appropriate, and maybe that would've worked on the floor as well. The silver hardware has the right amount of reflections, and the towel has the right amount of coarseness. Lighting, specularity, and radiosity all look right as well.

Nitpicking:
The furniture-wood looks a little too perfect, as if some long-range noise would do it more justice, but that's only noticeable in Full View. Those lamps seem like they look REALLY cool at even higher resolutions, but right now they look a bit confusing. Also, the light-source from the left isn't really intuitive. It makes me think there's a mirror off-screen that's surrounded by bright lights. Finally, the furniture itself looks off. Somehow the angles look too sharp, which I know isn't right because I can see you beveled them (yay, beveling!).

Lastly ... is this image anti-aliased? I'm looking at the towel/toilet paper and its silver holder, at the tree leaves, and the silver cabinet-handle: doesn't that look strangely pixel-y?

Still, overall it's worth a 10 in my book. :-)

<deleted> responds:

Thanks for another useful review;
I'll respond from the back

It is antialiased, but only with an edge pronouncing filter, making the non-edges weird-ish. The furniture was modeled rather quickly due to this being a lighting-focused image and should have spent a little more time on it, but I think it looks good.
The walls would certainly work on the floor as well, but due to contrast and the feel of the scene I wanted it not to be the exact same texure being resued all over the place :p

Oh, and I do agree that I am becoming better at lighting and rendering, but still, I need to perform some heavy modeling tasks in order to improve. I plan on going to VFS when I get the appropriate amount of cash to do so ;D

[Crystal Cave Dweller: render 1]

Good design but

So the creature design is pretty good, but the one weakness of both your submissions is that we have no sense of how the thing might move. You can put a creature in poses and in contexts such that the audience will "see" how it moves and what's about to happen within an image. This pose doesn't do that. This is sort of the "statue" pose, like a human standing straight with arms outstretched. To really make the creature stand out, it needs to feel alive i.e. moving.

Also, I love the background "ice", but it doesn't look like ice. I wish you had made it green-tinged and called a kryptonite cave, or maybe made it read and called it a crystalline-lava cave ... but ice? Ice is either transparent with microcracks, or it is white with a highly grainy (read: not crystalline) surface.

You're so close to delivering a fantastic piece, but there's little mechanistic things standing in its way at the moment.

toshema responds:

I understand what you are saying, I wanted to pose them differently. I was just having lots of trouble with transpose in zbrush and I couldn't pose them correctly.

and I decided to change it from ice to crystal, thats what I wanted at first anyways. I was told by someone else that it would be better for it to be ice.

[CARACOLES]

Textures!

Fantastic use of bump maps here. Did you make all the textures yourself, including the ground? And I like the purple highlights, although its not clear whether it is a reflection or some kind of bio-luminescence. (That is, did you put a purple light somewhere, or do the textures glow purple?) My one and only negative comment is that I expect slugs to be slimy, but for all I know you wanted these to look dry and only semi-organic.

Nahuije responds:

I did not make the texture of the ground, but yes I did it for the slims, for the light I used self luminescence and a very soft purple light ( U can see it in the gorund which have some purple) And u are absolutly right! this slims have no slimy !! :( and that is because my computer couldn't calculate that in the render time!!! so I omited it. Have a very nice day.

[STOP SOPA]

Perspective

SOPA isn't really about censorship. It does more harm than good, I agree, but SOPA is about piracy.

(From Wiki) SOPA would make it a felony to enable or facilitate sharing copyrighted material. Now, if I posted 'Dark Knight' to YouTube, I could be charged for copyright infringement (that's fair). But SOPA would declare that YouTube *also* committed a felony by distributing the illegal movie.

Another example, if I took a copyrighted image and posted here on the Art Portal, and Dept. Justice saw it, they could charge NewGrounds with felony piracy, could prohibit NG from appearing on Google searches, and could prevent internet users from getting to NG through their ISP. It means "game over man" for just about *every* website based on user-generated content: NG, YouTube, DeviantArt, Etsy, BlogSpot, ...
--
The art itself gets an 8. I like the water colors and the political cartoon style, although it is overly simplistic and focuses a little too much on the message at sacrifice of the art.

ZombieMonkey responds:

Thank you very much for the 8 :D This piece was a bit something new because I haven't really done anything like this. So I'm still working out the kinks.

I know that the bill isn't about censoring the content itslef on the internet. But what it does manage by prohibiting these websites is an awful, and terrrible way of censoring the internet without actually having to deal with the content in question.

[5 Golden Rings]

Almost perfect

I can totally see the polygons in the ribbons, just as they loop through the rings. And the candle flame is too transparent.

Otherwise, AWESOME!

Whistler3D responds:

Thanks!
Yes the ribbons could have some more resolution.
And the candle was a tough fight that I lost completly.

[Roboto]

Nice sci-fi work

This is the first 3D image I've seen on NG where the graininess reminds me explicitly of American film. It wouldn't be out of place as a screen-shot of a 21st century sci-fi flick. The design of the robot's "head" is realistically bulky, but is still flashy and cool. The background, though blurry, gives the right context. I give both of those elements 10/10.

That said, the appendage is not consistent with the rest of the robot. The structural style, the non-reflective surfaces, and the lack of mechanical details on the grasper-thing don't match with the "primary" disc structure. It frankly looks like Geordi LaForge adapted the "Batteries Not Included" robots, and then attached a rubber garden hose before sending it to the Death Star. If you had added the Terminator's arm or even didn't include an arm at all, my rating would have been 10/10 instead of 9/10.

A final thought: do the lens flare first, *then* add the graininess. And do more work in this sci-fi vein, I'm really pleased with it!

Whistler3D responds:

Thanks for the review, as always.

This is an old work I found in my pc, It is incomplete, I never finish the appendage , it has the default material...If I find the project I´ll finish it up.

[Roman Forum- Full]

What's it for?

There's nothing "wrong" with the model in this image: it is well-made and aesthetic, though I might call it unspectacular.

Is this made for video game usage? There's extremely few polygons, suggesting you wanted to reduce render-time, and if it isn't for a game you should really up the details in geometry. Meanwhile, if keeping it low-poly is a priority, you should still consider including a bump map (or a "normals map", whatever it's called in your software) on the surfaces to give it all extra depth. With low-poly models, the textures do *all* the work; make them work as hard as possible to improve realism.

I'm going to quote Kinsei01, another 3D art reviwer on NG: we can't see any of the details of the model, and you should consider a higher-resolution render. If you don't want to make a huge image, though, you could reposition your camera to show the details better on at least a portion of the model. This is especially true if this is indeed for a game, because we want to see what the player would see in the game. Maybe render a shot from next to the pedestal (that thing on the left) putting the Parthenon-like thing (the structure on the right) in view.

samulis responds:

Thanks for the review (especially for bothering to give your time, unlike many reviewers), but your advice isn't helpful since I already am following it... :(

First off:
http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/samulis/roman-forum

This is designed to be sold as content for a real-time animation program. Every texture uses a bump map and some even use a secondary diffuse/blend map. The model isn't really that low-poly... it has over 200k faces (mostly because sketchup is stupid and duplicates faces... which I can normally remove, but I did not consider this when I started so it would mess up all the textures if I were to do this), which is considered medium to high poly for a real-time render engine.

The wide shot is to show the entire forum as a model, whereas the other shot is more artistic.

Thanks again for your time,
-Samulis