Date Night

Pokémon: Scraggy
Difficulty: Medium
Medium: Pencil
[On DeviantArt] If you're not a Curator but you've got a comment.

 

I'll claim this one.

 

It's been quite a while, so I'm assuming this is probably freed up for other curators or no?

 

Go ahead. Speed was around on Skype so I thought maybe she was working on it, but it doesn't seem so.

 

@Elrond 2.0; Sorry for the extra wait—I thought both Speed and Proto were working on it.

Date Night Curation

Form

Great theme here. This is reinforced by Scraggy's pose—pulling at the collar as if he's nervous. The eyes also reinforce this, being slightly cringy. That part is great. It definitely portrays an age group too with the outfit. Sort of reminds me of traditional school uniforms, which is a nice, subtle detail as well.

For the most part, the form seems okay. Considering the angle of view and the way Scraggy is looking up, the head tuft is probably hidden, since that seems to hang on the middle-low part of the head and arch backward. Your nose holes are missing, though! Just a little detail, but it does look sort of odd without them haha.

An additional thing I would've liked to see is some different values when it comes to the head. Right now, it looks like it's all the same color, when the top part of the head is actually darker in color. I think some filling in of this area, on top of the shading, would've really made the Pokemon pop while staying more true to its form. It would mean you'd need to shade a little heavier on the darker part, but it's doable.

That would also let the hand pulling the color contrast more against the head. Since you chose black and white pencil over color, contrast is even more important so we can distinguish shapes from each other.

Technique

You've got the basic shadows down here: under the head and on the left side of the outfit based on an overhead to the right sun source. There are a few other areas I think, but they're really hard to see because of the not much contrast in the scan/picture. It might help in the future to either adjust the brightness/contrast on the scanner or load the photo into a free program and mess around with the settings there, just to make sure your work is seen as intended.

The shadows help add a little dimension, even in the CEL-like style. I think that you could include even more of them, though. This is not necessarily a gradient suggestion, since that would be a different style, but I think you could have more of them in more areas and the ones you do have could be slightly darker. I used to be worried about having too much shadow in my own work but found that the minimalist look made it look lacking sometimes.

For here, I think the shadows between two objects could be darkened a little bit. Objects also cast shadows on each other, and if it's a tighter place/blocked from light source, that place is going to be darker. An old art teacher always told us “the darkest place is between two objects” and that sort of applies in spots here. For example, between the collar and tie. That's an area that's pretty closed-off from the light and could be darker. Underneath the flaps of the jacket and things like the buttons, we would probably also be able to see a slight darker line.

This, like the hand thing I mentioned earlier, will add much more contrast and make the image really seem like its 3D and not flat. It also adds more detail, like the pocket with the card, pocket of the pants, etc. And since we don't have color or any other medium to aid with that, it all comes down to the pencilwork.

Background

I really enjoy the story you have going on in this piece. The rose in particular is a nice tough. I would, however, have liked to see a little more to the background.

Right now, it's just outlines really. Everything else looks flat because it's the same “color” or value. There's also a lack of details, such as wood grain, clouds, or grass tufts compared to the Scraggy. In a way, that makes the Pokemon pop out a bit, but on the whole, it just makes the background seem sort of empty. I would at least like to see some different values here so that the background elements don't look so flat. If it's darker, a lighter-skinned Scraggy will also pop more.

Also I'm kind of wondering, is Scraggy in the back yard? That looks like a fence for that, since I can't see any other street details or a gate. Don't dates usually arrive at the front door? Maybe some elements in the lawn or behind the fence could have reinforced this.

Result

Spoiler

The Scraggy, for the most part, is pretty neat. There's a good theme going on, and some details on the Pokemon itself. Shading could maybe be bumped up a little bit, and some “color” on the Pokemon to contrast the different skin colors could also be good. The background is pretty flat and lifeless.

I'm going to score this 40/45 which means Scraggy is not quite caught yet. However, this is easily fixable.

I mostly want you to amp up the background a little bit. Add some details and some values to it, as well as the differing skin tones on Scraggy. You can touch up some shadows if you want, but for Medium rank, what you have is probably good. Then hit me up for a regrade!

 

@WinterVines : May I have a regrade, please? :3

 

@Elrond 2.0

Ahh, it's so much better! Now the story seems way more complete. Especially love the reflection of the light from the presumed front door of the house (although that should indeed make some of the lighting on Scraggy change/become more contrasted). I can tell where the walkway is a lot clearer now too.

The parent in the background is very great. I can now imagine the parent hyping up the Scraggy to do this, being all supportive, and cheering them on even after driving them to the house.

I'm not exactly sure what the light near the parent actually is--it's at a weird angle for it to be from the house, but if it was from the car, it should extend past the Scrafty as well.

But I love the improvement on this!

Easily score 60/45, meaning it's now caught!