Alone

I would like to submit this picture to try and capture a phantump please.

 

Claim! Despite my bat-dragon avatar (dragons are my #2 favorite type) ghosts are my favorite!

 

Hi! So Phantump is rather adorable and Trevanent can cause a lot of stalling shenanigans sometimes to a better degree than its counterpart Gourgeist. Let's see if you catch this little ghostie!

First impression: Phantump is a medium rank pokemon, and I can tell you are working hard on your shading. I appreciate that. I think working on one scene at time helped you focused on you principal subject, and its surroundings. I do see improvement from your last work with your Vulpixes.

Technique: I see that you are still using colored pencils which is a good thing as they are more flexible in terms of what can be done with them. You can hatch with different colors, shade by varying the pressures, etc., and it is clear that you understand that. The three-dimensional rendering on Phantump allows it to sit in the forest space with a mostly clear light source. There are some qualms. I have, however, as it seems that Phantump's body and its head are lighted by two different sources. You drew the stump of Phantump like an open can when its ghostly body fills it like a bowl. Its right ear (my left hand side facing the computer) also drops the rendering a little.

I do see that you have made great efforts to improve your background and placing Phantump's cast shadow brings life to the artwork. It does get a little confused near the tops of the trees. You don't have to draw every leaf on a tree to convey that we are looking at a tree. Things sitting in the background naturally appear a bit blurrier as they recede in space. Putting one tree in the foreground and one in the back was a smart move as it brings some depth and help moves the eye around picture after entering from Phantump's shadow on the bottom. I can't really tell if the leaves in the background go to which tree and more clarification would be nice. I'm a little upset that there is a giant black band of the night, I mean it is pretty hard to do forest scenes as they are typically filled with lots and lots of stuff but for this piece I think it competes with Phantump who is pretty much the same overall value. I would definitely like see that pushed back a little or perhaps added some hint of another color to differentiate the background and Phantump's body color.

Your color choice is a bit limited. I see that you're starting to blend colors in phantump's cast shadow but I would defninitely recommend with more variety in colors. If you are limited based on the set that you have you can either hatch differing colors together to make different kinds of greens or browns. Right now Phatump's head is the same color as the trees, a rather generic brown, while in the official artwork looks more like a light Umber color. I'm wondering if hatching a bit of yellow and white to the default colors might help. Regardless, I think having a wider set of colors will help later on because scenes like this that require rather subtle color differences really benefit from subtlety.

Conclusion: Overall you have a solidly medium work and you have improved upon your shading and attendtion to the background! The background and coloring is a little to simple to consider it for a hard ranking, but you definitely have the skills needed for the higher ranks. Keep working and I'll love to see what you have next. Phantump captured! 50/45!