m1kclark's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Footpads of Impending Death]

Lovely and intriguing!

I love this one! Both low-res and high-res.

In the low-res, it looks like a real storm, an immense force of nature with huge clouds violently writhing in the sky. The ground gives reference with detracting, and offers a calm contrast to the conflict above. The tree is a bit hard to see at first, but you definitely notice it when you stare at the roiling formations long enough. It stands as the observer of this spectacle.

Then, in the high-res, you see that the maelstrom is actually polygons! It gives substance to what should be air, a roof representing the endless sky, and a thing with hard, man-made edges posing as the continuous vorticity of turbulence. The reason the tree isn't visible becomes clear: it's back-lit by the powerful "storm", or Thing, coming at it.

Now for the construction: Kinsei01 seems to think a randomly displaced mess is poo-poo, and I might agree if not for the texture and the coloring over top of it. The depths of the dark colors, the brightness of the light ones, the uneven transitions and deliberate noise superimposed over them, they all suggest a sky-like behavior that cannot at all be represented just by a mesh. The mesh may be the substrate and the vehicle of deliver, and its jagged edges are part of the manifold, but it's really the colors and the churning-heavens feel of it that drive the entire image.

I've given you bad reviews in the past, although nothing so disrespectful as what is below. But seriously, this work is a truly deserving piece of spectacular art. >>hats off<<

BenTibbetts responds:

Thanks very much. Regarding the sky--I originally thought of using atmospheric effects, as you mentioned, but in the end the render time was too long and the results weren't convincing. I tried a few different things but in the end I created the storm by making a transparent terrain map and placing the camera inside it looking up.

[Gemini]

:-D

Not sure why it's been voted so low. The structural style reminds me of some of the World War I art I saw at the MoMA recently, but with much more vibrant coloring and with a fantastical bent. I'm a big fan of the shading and the droplets here and there, adding a feel of noise to the image without detracting from its content. Nice.

Charongess responds:

What is the MoMA? and thank you for the support. I also have no idea why people dislike this.

[Jennifer walcott]

Good + Bad

The anatomy of the body and the shading are great. There's also a lot of nice details on the underwear.

However, her face looks terrible by comparison. The lips are far too big and too close to the nose, making her look as if she had a medical condition that caused swelling. You may only have to fix the lips, since everything else is well-done. Unfortunately, good body or not, the inaccuracies in the face are distracting from the image as a whole, which explains why the score is under 3.

rickygonza responds:

thanks for the advice

[LEGO me]

One recommendation

Bevel your edges. Otherwise, NICE! I'm a big fan of Legos and of 3D art, so I'm pleased with the concept as well as the delivery. ^_^

Vertlain responds:

I beveled the edges, though not much, because if you look at a real lego figure, you can see the edges are really sharp. I'm glad you like it. Thanks! :)

[Glowing Cube]

Lighting FTW

Holy radiosity! The shadows, the glow, the twilight back-lighting, it's all fantastic. The one and only detractor is that I can still see the polygons on the sphere. Can Octane do a NURBS sphere, or maybe a smooth subdivide?

<deleted> responds:

It can, but also -> Octane is a standalone rendering application. And as this scenes original purpose was shader testing, I didn't up the subdivisions when I made this in Max :) I would have removed such an obvious artifact if the result was predicted in some way ;) Thanks for the review!

[Roman gladius]

Way better than the axe

That lighting is fantastic. This is a real photorealistic render, with perhaps the only issue being one of placement: There's an optical illusion that the far-left sword is "melding" with the center sword, but frankly that could happen in a photo, too.

This would be a nice model to start experimenting with, actually. For example, experiment with blood splotches, or autumn leaves, or coins falling, or rain ... you see where I'm going with this? Use this really excellent render as a baseline to improve some experiments with newer modeling techniques or materials. Not that this doesn't stand alone, but as I see you expanding your scope more and more, this is a good place to try things out first.

Always a pleasure to see your stuff!

<deleted> responds:

Thanks m1kclark :) I always love reading your constructve comments. And as soon as I cannot find any more medieval weapons to model I will put them altogether in one scene; hopefully. And after that I'll start experimenting with different techniques ;) Im glad you enjoy wathcing my stuff. You should post some more 3D art yourself, too.

[Broadhead Arrows]

Heavier bump maps

The floor and arrowhead bump maps need to be deeper. Otherwise, nice!

<deleted> responds:

Yup, it's a shame Octane doesn't support displacement mapping yet :/ I'll have to model in the details on the floor myself from this point onward -> until the support is added of course :D

Thanks for taking your time to comment :)

[Castle of Flame]

Two main comments

(a) Tell Reallusion to bevel his edges.
(b) Use a higher-resolution texture for the ground. I can see your interpolation.

Otherwise, it's a very nicely composed piece of a very foreboding castle. Would we really be able to see the sunset through that door, though, since the castle walls probably go all the way around?

samulis responds:

Beveling is fun... except when working with real-time render engines. It would become quite taxing on the system.

It's more of an 'experiment shot' than anything really concerned with physical accuracy.

[Magneto's helm]

Again, excellent!

Just like the barretta, the only flaw is the depth-of-field blur. The left-center shouldn't be blurry at all, since it is approximately level with the helmet.

Otherwise, what textures! There is exactly enough noise in the bump map to suggest a real material that's malleable and shaped by hand. Your beveling is still spot-on, and even the composition (lighting, camera angle, positioning of everything) really shows off your model.

Man, if you keep producing stuff of this quality, I'll stop commenting just out of awe!

Great-Rambo responds:

Thx again for your comment. It realy help me to go on.

Your job is realy good too ^^

[Panting Wolf]

Dali

I'm strongly reminded of the dog-like images in Salvador Dali's work, like in these two:
http://www.oilpaintingshere.com/artgallery/big/Fantasy/the-great-masturbator.jpg
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5359/lollitop98357copyofsalv.jpg

Looks very nice, almost tribal. 9/10 for not being a "polished" work, but it's an excellent charcoal/crayon drawing.

Museismymuse responds:

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my work. I appreciate it. :)