m1kclark's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Isolation]

This seems to be game-render quality. If that is its purpose, excellent. If not, then it seems geometrically sparse. I do like the vision and playing with perspective, though! :-)

[Talgar]

Damn, the textures, geometry, expression, and color choices are so good that I hate to critique it at all.

Reduce the depth-of-field blur. I've said it before, but it seems particularly distracting in this one.

[Songkran]

Okay, so your water looks like its still running in rivulets, as if she had just *seconds* ago emerged from a pool. That doesn't match with the smile and the pose that we see, so instead of dripping water, my eyes see cracked skin at first. It doesn't have to do with your technique, it has to do with what I (as a person in the audience) expect to see. I would actually love to see the top image with water-beads and a slight sheen to the skin, as if she had gotten out of the pool a minute ago and was posing for a picture before toweling off. Bottom picture is also nice, but I encourage you to revisit the water.

Blud-Shot responds:

Thanks for the feedback. I hadn't seen "cracked skin" at first in this image. What was bothering me was the thought of veins lol my mind couldn't decide whether to label the "water" as veins or not. I modified the image and added the glow to the skin. Also worked on the water a little more. Going to upload it later.

[Alien Dude]

I love this render, the other one looked like a plastic sculpture. I've noticed a lot of purple-toned images from you recently. It gives everything an exotic look, and is a perfect backdrop for the imaginative content. On the other hand, this character might benefit from "warmer" colors to allude, however indirectly, to a human face.

[Frozen Death]

Looks like a nice use of Blender's tools. Good ambiance. It would be better, though, if there were a frame of reference: a building, a character, an object. At the moment, those spikes could be one foot or one mile and we can't really tell.

bluemagma responds:

Thanks dude, I really appreciate the CC. You are right about the frame of reference, though the background seems to imply that this is somewhat large when I look at it. I'll make it more obvious next time though, maybe add some water spray.

Yeah, The main tool I used in blender was it's Multires tool. That allowed me to detail everything. Also, the cocktail of shaders was made using a hairball of nodes. Definitely wish nodes were on more programs. :D

[Splitting Personality]

Kung Lao fatality?

fadedshadow responds:

hahaha quite possibly

[Underpass]

I love the image because it is universal. You mentioned lighting and water's reactions and the perspective, and all of these things are not only technically good but they lend real emotion to the character in the foreground. You want to empathize with her, and the rest of the image makes that easy, right down to the color choices. The best part is that it could be anything: the girl could be sad or desperate, introspective, grieving, peaceful, tormented, reflective, at the end of a journey or at the beginning of one; it could be the present, or an alternate present, a steampunk past, a dystopian future, a utopian future, in any city in the world, real or imagined, and the image doesn't even exclude the possibility of a sci-fi otherworld.

This is what I mean by universal. Your art really speaks to our emotions using all of our visual senses, with a setting and a character, upon which we may imprint any of our own ideas, feelings, and insecurities. It was a successful experiment and you've made a great piece.

DJPsi responds:

Thanks for the in-depth review!

[The Lamp]

I've noticed a new trend among NewGrounds' 3D art submissions, and it applies here. Your depth-of-field blur is too high. We should be able to keep the entire lamp in focus, but the head of the lamp is slightly blurry while the neck is in perfect focus. The image also wastes a lot of space on the left- and right-hand sides, when clearly the image revolves around the model itself.

The model itself is all right! You used the right colors, specularity, and geometry to construct a convincing flexible-neck lamp of a particular design. There is room for improvement, however, in that the materials could look more "worn" or "used", and you could have done the image with the lamp on instead of off. The soft light-source was a nice touch, though.

Overall, I'd say you've got an excellent model that you could do more with artistically speaking. Please, please, please play with this model and use it in more submissions!