m1kclark's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Xenomorph dick]

A dick-shaped xenomorph is ... redundant!
Well done anyhow.

Rennis5 responds:

just like the colonial marines game!
lol, thank you anyhow.

[Assault mech]

I'm a big Blender fan, and I've got general comments on all three of your "mech" models.

The design is nice, with proper attention to detail on the geometries. Kudos on beveling your edges, but everything is too low-poly. I can see those polygons in the feet, in the gun ... actually just about everywhere. You would be well-served to increase the detail of your mesh. I realize that this is not a simple fix, and that you'll have to go back and re-do most of it, but that's one of the biggest weaknesses.

Your lighting and materials aren't realistic. You should add more lights that are much dimmer (brightness 0.100-0.400), that don't cast shadows, and that don't cause specular reflections (there's a "No Specular" button if you select the lamp and then go to Shading [F5]). Place them so the back of the mech is better-lit. Regarding materials, you made a good call wanting to add some noise in your textures, but don't use the built-in texture "Noise". Use "Clouds" instead; it'll give you a softer noise that you can control better. And make the two colors more similar (like 0.500,0.500,0.500 for the main color and 0.400,0.400,0.400 for the cloud-texture color). This would make a big improvement in all your models. And is there some kind of blue light coming from the left? All the blue on the back wall and on the mech's front looks out of place.

Finally, you made a mistake with the reflections. The back wall and left wall have "Ray Mirror" turned on, but they aren't reflecting the mech. I have no idea why that is, but look for a setting like "Only reflect objects in the same layer" or try putting all the objects in one layer. And the reflective "head" in the center of the mech looks strange: you should play with the various mirror settings as well as specularity (color, brightness, softness) and transparency. I don't know if you were going for a mirror-effect, a glossy-effect, or a glass effect, but it doesn't really look like any of those.

Coldworks responds:

Thank you very much for your insightful comments.
Truth be told, these models are actually intended to eventually render some 100*100 pixels with, but I'll definitely keep your comments in mind when I move up to making some cutscenes (totally a plan of mine at some point)

[Pokeballs in the Woods]

That's a really well-done immersion of your models into the scene. At first glance and even at second glance it looks real. I admit that I had to stare for a long time, looking explicitly for flaws, before I found any, which says something.

The greatest strength of the model is also its only weakness: the lighting. The softness and color are perfect and the shadows cast by the pokeballs are wonderfully matched with the shadows of the tree on the ground. It's the direction that's a problem. All the other shadows are going from the bottom-left corner to the top-right corner, while the pokeball shadows are going straight left-to-right. But seriously, that's the only flaw I could find after staring at the thing for 10 minutes. So I'll go ahead and give 5 stars, because nobody likes a nay-sayer.

BlazingEclipse responds:

Lol wow, I don't think I would have picked up on that. Good eye.

[Kervamps Zbrush Sculpt]

As a quick job, it's excellent. If you wanted quick tips to improve, then try adding more details in the texture at the back of the head and on the clothes. There's so much detail around the eyes that it feels like other parts of the image are empty. Otherwise, it's a good extrapolation of the reference into the 3rd dimension.

crashadams responds:

I didn't expect anyone but Jouste and the other game artists in my sketch group to see it...was more focusing on form for this practice session but I'll put more time into different areas next time.

I do agree about the clothes, should have extruded them a bit thinner on the collar there too.

I like the renders in your gallery, you use Maya? Max? Blender? I use Maya for base mesh before moving to zbrush normally, this time I went dynamesh all the way.

Thanks for the critique! *Jouste style virtual high five*

[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.