m1kclark's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[I want to forget]

I think that stand-alone it's a good piece of art, but reading the title makes it more powerful. I didn't listen to the song, but I interpreted this as a suicide attempt. Drowning oneself evokes sorrow, her face clearly shows her desperation, and her nudity suggests just how vulnerable she is now. I took off a star for technical flaws (mentioned) below, but the idea and overall delivery are top-notch.

Rhunyc responds:

Thank you, I appreciate the review. :) Interesting to see it as a suicide attempt, I hadn't thought of that to be honest. :O

[Q'rotes]

Nice ambiance, and excellent character design! You took a creepy cockroach and humanized it. Your geometries are nice, though the feet seem just a bit low-poly and video game-like. (Not sure if that was the intent.) There are some weird shadows on the roach's arms, and you can argue that the environment (walls, etc.) needs more light. On the other hand, the murky and dark environment goes really well with the diffuse light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel effect in the center-background.

Regarding character model, it looks just a bit like a video game because of textures and lighting. These two things are the hardest to get right, though, and even though I can *see* when lighting isn't realistic, I can't reproduce realistic lighting myself. Best of luck, and good work.

Kacassero responds:

Hey thanks for the detailed review. Will keeps those points in mind on the follow-up art for this project.

[Bar]

I like many things about it. The room design and decor are well-thought out. The overly-minimalist style, particularly the bright-white everywhere, does make it easy to make a boring scene, though. The wall hanging does spice it up a bit, but it also seems out of place. I think a glass sculpture would go better, for example.

My biggest issue is the lighting. Your shadows just aren't ... well, there. I can see under the table that you've enabled shadows in the render, but in general it looks shadowless. I'm guessing you used a hemi light. Reduce the size of the hemi and maybe turn down how bright the light is. With all the bright-white in the scene, it's a bit overwhelming to have light apparently coming from everywhere. Also, there's a way to change the reflect surfaces (the steel of the chairs) such that it continues to be reflective, but less mirror-like. I don't know how to do that in your program, though.

[Avatar Snowskin Mooncakes]

That is some great texture work and lighting. But the tea cups need to have a more detailed mesh: I can see the polygons.

[minda pinup]

Oh! That's her BUTT?

Sorry, I was horribly confused at first, thinking she somehow had two sets of boobs, one of which was tiny and the other was incredibly droopy. All other features are awesome, though.

megadrivesonic responds:

yeah i understand the confusion. her spine is very out of place

[Steampunk revolver]

I see three amateur mistakes in the 3D modeling.
(a) The image isn't anti-aliased. You can see it most clearly on the blade and the handle.
(b) You only have one light and it is WAY too bright. Cut the brightness by half, and then add two more lamps that are much dimmer and don't generate shadows. Those lights will fill in the details that the primary light misses.
(c) The model isn't high enough resolution in terms of polygons. I can see the polygons in almost all of your round edges, particularly at the handle and the base of the blade. And here's the advice I give to almost half of all 3D submissions on NG: BEVEL YOUR EDGES. The rectangle under the hammer, the triangles on top, the barrel, the gears, the handle; so many places in your model have those infinitely-sharp edges that are unrealistic and reveal the fact that it's computer generated. Edges on real objects are just *slightly* smooth at the corners.

I have no problem with the concept and design, but LegolaSS already made recommendations for you that you might want to employ. Keep trying. 3D art is like algebra; you have to do 20 steps exactly right or the whole thing can fall apart.

whatthemeh responds:

Again, just threw this online quickly for use elsewhere, I used newgrounds outta laziness really, it's not a complete frickin master-piece. I understand it's not tip-top standard. I was learning at the time.

Also the brightness was an aesthetic choce, sorta like in a museum or something.

I probabely sound like a bitch no accepting constructive criticism but you know, context and stuff.

[Biomech color-rotation linked]

My main response is that the image is confusing. The geometry is does not clearly point to anything: I cannot recognize any features that distinguish this as "bio" or "mech" because I see no arms, I see nothing is definitively a face and multiple things that could be reinterpreted faces, and the color scheme of the textures seems (to be regretfully honest) completely arbitrary in how it was placed on the object. It doesn't help that the texture is very highly details toward the top, but is clearly interpolated and low-resolution near the bottom. The geometry has that problem, too: why is that hood-ornament-looking thing so highly detailed when the rest of the image is much smoother and continuous?

Clearly, this sculpture took a lot of work your part, but the overall effect is a piece of clay that someone squeezed and pulled with no real shape in mind, and then painted with similar slapdash quality. I hope that these comments are helpful, and I apologize if I was harsh or too critical.