Liam's Gallery of, Dear Lord is that Art?

Let me take you on a Magikarpet ride tonight as I reveal to you that special moment when you, when you were a new trainer, went fishing and expecting to catch some super awesome sea monster Pokemon, managed to hook a Magikarp instead. What use is that? I wanted a sea monster... oh.. just wait.

Spoiler

I used pencil to sketch him out, then chalk to color/create the dream/blur effect and then pen to line in the details.

Pokemon: Magikarp
Category: Easy
Need: 25/100

 

Re: Liam's Galley of, Dear Lord is that Art?

Okay, I'll bite. (har har)

Curation up within the next few days, depending on what we're doing for holidays.

 

Re: Liam's Galley of, Dear Lord is that Art?

@Ace Trainer Liam;

Magikarp Curation

Form

The anatomy looks pretty good. I like how you didn't use the standard art post but instead used the jumping one from some anime frames and that traditional “fish jumping out of water” emphasis that we see. It adds some uniqueness but also keeps a familiarity that's often used. The colors also match very well, which is cool since chalk isn't the easiest thing to match. The only thing I really see is that the inside of the mouth could've been a little darker, since light is harder to hit that area.

One thing I had a question on was the overall theme to this. In the beginning, you presented that Trainer fishing for the first time and not expecting something so... lackluster. But on the bottom, you mentioned the blur being a dream-like effect. That being said, which is it? Is it a Trainer fishing in real time or just dreaming about fishing? I think your form could've reinforced whichever one you were going for.

For example, if it was a dream, perhaps the edges of the entire fish could've been more blurry, or maybe the inked in lines weren't necessary, since that creates a very sharp definite line where things are. There could've maybe been some exaggeration, too, if it was a dream, since you can get away with things that aren't quite normal in a dreamscape. Exciting/dramatic lines around the fish could've emphasized it was jumping, or maybe sparkles or some other anime effect we often see.

Additionally, if it was in real time or dream time, maybe it's expression could've added something too. While normal Magikarp do look a little blank traditionally, that doesn't mean artists have to stick to that. Eyes are one of the most expressive places on a creature, and either an exaggerated expression there or just any sort of emotion could clue in viewers to what's going on. After all, there is a story beyond just what is shown on the canvas.

Technique

Going back to the inked line thing, I did notice that some of the color escaped them. Chalk is definitely not the most exact thing, like crayons, but you mentioned adding in the black lines later. Just be careful about this. I understand that maybe going outside the lines is for the dream effect (since chalk is an excellent selection for this theme since its hard to make the color even, especially if the canvas isn't smooth), but its so minimal, and whether or not it's a dream is still a little unclear, so it looks a little rushed instead. If going outside the line was purposeful, perhaps more of a glow would've made that dream feeling stick out. If that wasn't the intent, be careful where you draw those lines or even consider leaving them out entirely for a different style.

I did like the water effect you added from the splashing. That clearly shows the fish is in motion. What about some of these behind or in front of the fish? It's slightly odd that the splashes are only to the left and right of the fish, when in reality, water would be coming up all around it. Showing tiny pieces of a splash behind the fish or visible in front of the fish helps add depth to the piece and aids in showing viewers where the Magikarp is in relative space compared to the water. While in this case it's pretty obvious what the water is doing, someone could mistake it for an attack by the Karp or another mon or perhaps that it was rain because it's hard to tell how far away it is from the fish.

Another thing that will help viewers is adding some shadows and highlights to your piece. All images have a light source somewhere, and, assuming this is outside, that's probably going to be above the Magikarp somewhere. This means that places where the light shines directly on top of, like the Magikarp's head and even the tops of the water splashes, will be brighter/paler than other sections.

Likewise, places that receive less light will be darker, like underneath the fish on its belly. Showing how the light curves around objects creates a more realistic feel. It doesn't have to be a super intense gradient, but even some simple cell-shading (which is more fitting for pieces in this anime-style anyway) gives viewers a basic idea of where light and dark are. You do have some darker areas on your fish, but that may just be from uneven chalk pressing, since they don't really follow a rhyme or reason. Adding little touches like this will help you build up to the next rank of art.

Background

At a first glance, the background sort of makes the piece look slightly unfinished. Mostly it's due to all the white space, not only on the edges, but within the color itself. They're too vast/blank to really contribute to the dream effect if that was the intent. Be sure to fill those spaces in if they're not serving a specific purpose! If it is a dream sequence, perhaps making the edges of the piece cloudy/blurry would've suggested this was a foggy dream.

Besides that, the background looks a little empty, being just a vast expanse of blue. The fish is jumping out of the water, so what's behind it? If it's jumping vertically as it appears, we wouldn't really see water from this point of view—we would see the environment behind it, such as the lakeshore, horizon/skyline, trees, etc. Depending on how high it jumped, we may also see the body of water it came from.

Whether realistic or dream-sequence, a background would apply. If you didn't want to go the realistic route, they often make the background surreal in order to reinforce the daydream feel in anime and other media. Something like those cloudy pink bubbles with sparkles and such. You get the idea.

The point is to find something to put in the background. The main focus of this piece is the Magikarp, yes, but background completes an image for viewers by providing context for the action and adding little details that tie everything together.

I think in this case maybe your canvas was just too big. If you can't/don't want to fill up the entire space, perhaps consider trimming it down. We do want to see a lot of the Pokemon, but sometimes having it fill up more of the page instead of leaving vast spaces is better. Depending on where you cut off the piece, you can also add a dynamic and exciting factor for the artwork. It also helps if you don't have anything else to add to the background.

Result

Overall, I think you did very well. The fish was slightly flat because of no shadows, but the form was clear and the colors were good. The water effect helped emphasize Magikarp's motion, but the main theme, if it was dream/real, was a little muddled. The background could also use a little work. Regardless, I'm scoring this 30/25, which means Magikarp is captured!

Just keep in mind those things like clear theme, shadows/realism, and backgrounds, and you'll be sailing up the ranks.

 

Re: Liam's Galley of, Dear Lord is that Art?

SlowmyGod! What's this dopey Pokemon doing? Fishing for Shellder in fresh water? What a card, what a silly hippo, slug, whatever it is. But whatever it is, it's delightfully blissful fishing on a rock. U so sill-e slowpoke. I drew this guy out with pencil, colored with chalk and shadowed with color pencil (I was experimenting with things, as I'm not very artsy and haven't shadowed before now... word to wise chalk + color pencil shadow = hard and not very practical...) then outlined with pen!

Spoiler

Pokemon: Slowpoke
Category: Medium
Need: 45/100

 

Claiming Slowpoke then!

 

Pokemon

You did a decent job on this piece. Nothing too fancy, but you did an overall good job. To be honest, the Pokemon itself is probably one of the weaker parts of the piece, but it isn’t terrible. First off, the pose and colors are all done well. It’s a semi unique pose, something different than him just standing in space, but still a pose that we’ve definitely seen from Slowpoke before.

One thing I would’ve liked to see a little bit more of is shading/attention to small details on Slowpoke’s body. Adding shading will give your piece more depth and make your Slowpoke more unique and personal to you. That being said, the shading that you did do, was done efficiently and pretty well. I’m looking specifically at the thin line right under the left arm and the nice shading underneath the left leg. Those simple small additions give your Pokemon a lot of depth and make him pop more, but you should be doing this all over! It seems like you attempted to do so on the neck, but the colors kind of blended funny. Some other places you could’ve added shading are the inside of the leg, and a little bit more on the tail.

One other quick thing is that you should be careful with some of your linework getting sloppy. For example on the face, a lot of the lines are really close together (like the mouth) and it just gives the image a sloppy effect and it’s also hard to color in between those lines so avoid that when possible!

Style

I really do like this style of art actually, the colors and shading, when done correctly, are pretty nice. That being said, the blending effect of the colors is a little hit or miss. In some places it works really well like the blending between the branches of the tree and “leaves”, particularly on the trees right around Slowpoke’s head. You also did a great job with the water blending the colors from light to dark as the pond enters the page. That effect on the water is actually maybe the best part of the piece.

However, in other places it kind of looks sloppy/looks like you were unable to color within your lines. If you notice outside Slowpoke’s head his color extends outside of his outline, and then on the bottom of his mouth the color from the tree bleeds onto his face. This happens again with the trees on the top left corner of the page. This brings me to another point. In the future, you could benefit from using different colors for your lines. Not all of your lines have to be harsh black lines. For example, when you have a brighter spot, consider using a lighter color as an outline. Then your piece will have more contrast and your darker shades will pop even more.

As I mentioned above, your linework gets a little sloppy in some places so be sure to tighten that up in the future. Overall, the biggest issue is the flatness of the image. For example, the rock Slowpoke is sitting on appears to just be floating on top of the water. It isn’t really interacting with the water in anyway. Adding a shadow behind the rock would help alleviate this. Always think about how all of the elements would affect one another. You did a good job of this with Slowpoke’s tail in the water. Small things like that place your objects into the scene instead of just on top of them.


Background

Your background is pretty strong overall. You clearly spent a lot of time on it. The rock has a nice, uneven texture to it. While I wish it was shaded a little bit better, the shape is pretty nice and you did a good job here stopping the colors from bleeding unnecessarily (but that makes me think you could’ve been cleaner with your blending everywhere!).

The white space in the top left hurts the image especially because of the green you didn’t keep inside the outline of your trees. It just accentuates the sloppiness. Even like a generic blue sky would’ve helped here.

So while you did a good job with the rock being unique, you were a little lazy with the grass. Also, the trees were good and bad. Good because a lot of them have unique bends and shapes and are placed at varying depths, but bad because you just did a generic tree shape with regards to the leaves. I like the effect of the dark green to represent forest depth though. Using other colors instead of just black is a nice touch.


Result

Honestly, this is pretty close for me. On the one hand, it’s a pretty simple drawing, but you did improve on some of the things Winter mentioned in her curation above and I like that. I think, because you did a nice background and because this is a Medium Pokemon (and only your second submission) I’m willing to pass this with a 45/45. However, in the future some of the mistakes above might outweigh the positive so do try to be a little tighter with your art!

@AceTrainerLiam;

 

Happy Easter URPG! What if your pile of Easter eggs suddenly hatched? But instead of chickens or platypi, it were Pokemon!? Well this little blue, and possibly transgender, bunny just popped right out if it's decorated shell and is awaiting for its siblings! Oh wait, what's this? Are there Easter eggs in my Easter egg drawing? Is this some kind of Easter inception? Are the Easter eggs that go bad turn into Exeggcute? Does the shell of Togepi absorb into its body when it evolves? How do Skitty lay eggs the size of Wailmer... or at all? So many egg related questions, just accept the wild world of Pokemon breeding as it is and enjoy the art!

Spoiler

Drawn on canvas with color pencils only:

Pokemon: Azuril
Category: Simple
Need: 35/100

 

@Ace Trainer Liam: All done!

COLORED PENCIL BROS UNITE

...Ahem. Anyway, let's talk some Azurill up in here.

The Pokemon!

Azurill looks really cute! There are a couple of details I'd like to point out where you could have improved it. I know some of these will be related to the sort of unique challenges that drawing in colored pencil entails. For example, let's talk about color first. You colored his tail ball in this really dark blue that's pretty close to the official artwork, but his body is much lighter. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be because there's a light source somewhere, or if it was an oversight. I think the problem with coloring in Azurill as faintly as you did is that it's hard to tell where Azurill ends and the eggs around him begin. He's got this pink egg behind him that pokes up above his tail. The first few times I looked at the picture I couldn't distinguish the two, so I thought you had drawn Azurill's back as having a long teardrop shape instead of his body being a ball with a small tail. There's a similar problem on the top of his head, where it's hard to tell what's part of his head and what's part of that blue egg behind him. These two cases could have been improved with better color choice and composition. For example, if the blue egg had been a different color it wouldn't blend in so well with his head and cause confusion. If the pink egg had been a little further to the right, it wouldn't get confused with the top part of his tail. I'd also recommend using a darker outline. It doesn't have to be super dark and cartoony, but just enough that you can distinguish where one object ends and the next begins.

There are a few other small details on Azurill's body I'd like to talk about. First of all, shading: It seems like the light source is coming from the left side of the picture, so you've mostly got your shading in the right places. It is quite a dramatic turn from very light to very dark, however. I think if you had colored Azurill a little closer to the shade of the official artwork it wouldn't have been so striking. The big thing I'd like to point out with regard to shading is his tail, however. Since his tail is behind his body, and we're looking at Azurill mostly from the front, his tail should be a fair bit darker. More importantly, you should have continued the shading down his back as if his whole body were a ball, since the part where the tail connects to his body would not be visible from this angle. The way you drew it, it kinda looks like his tail is sticking out from the side of his body, which it shouldn't be. There are also a couple of little black spots on Azurill's face, and I'm not sure what they are? Are they a part of his body, or confetti or something? It's not a huge deal.

The Other Stuff!

Now onto everything else! I like the rest of the picture. The eggs are really cute, and I like how you made them recognizable as other Pokemon, like the Sunkern on the right. I also like how the ball on Azurill's tail kinda looks like just another egg off to the side there. If I were going to offer some criticism, I'd say that you could have made the shading on the eggs a little rounder. It's particularly noticeable on that green egg in the front, where the shading doesn't really follow the shape of the egg. Obviously the shadow should taper off as it gets toward the front and bottom, but probably not quite that sharply. The background is a good color choice, I would just recommend going over it with another coat of yellow. I know it's kind of tedious to color in big areas like that with colored pencil, but it's worth giving it a second coat to smooth out the areas where there are streaks of dark or light areas. I'm still learning this myself, so I can definitely sympathize!

Another quick colored pencil tip I just thought of is that sometimes it looks good when you use a separate color for shading rather than just coloring really heavy with the base color. I've found that navy blue works really good for darkening areas, even when the base color is totally different. Just some food for thought!

Grade

I'm totally willing to give this a 35/100. Creating a passable drawing like this by hand takes quite a bit of time and you've definitely earned Azurill. It's a very cute drawing! For the future, try to pay attention to little details like the objects you place around your Pokemon, because you really want the star of the picture to pop out instead of blending into the background. Enjoy your Pokemon!

 

Deep in the ocean lay deep traditions of family, brown colors, giant words, and other November themes. This loving family celebrates that good ol' Thanksgiving vibe you can only get after eating an entire turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, and other fall foods- oh! and being with family. yes, yes... family, the CORNERSTONE of Thanksgiving! Bet you didn't think Clamperls knew what family was since there's usually just one of them in there; well I challenge you to fisticuffs over your perception of this mollusk-ular Pokemon's family values. Wham clam thank you ma'am! Anyway, enjoy this themed Clamperl drawing I did!

Spoiler

Drawn on canvas with pencil, colored with color pencil, and loaded onto the interweb with my cell phone!

Pokemon: Clamperl
Category: Medium
Need: 45/100

Also, this not only has brown in it (which may not count as a "theme" 'cause blue is more prominent, idk), but it's totes about family, eating together, and has words in it, so... woo, themed piece!

EDIT: Btw this is for November!

 

Nnng do we have one more in us ladies and gents.

oki, I think so.

 

I lied! Revoked! Sou can have.

 

Winter said I could claim the clampearl here, so I'll claim that if thats alright ;;
thanksWinter <3

 

Alright, Curation is up!

First Impression:

I think is a really cute picture of a Clamperl family having what seems to be a Thanksgiving dinner! I think this is really creative and that while they all normally wouldn’t share one shell, I really like what you’ve done here. I think you’ve definitely managed to get the November theme down in this piece.

Form: Let’s take a closer look now!

So the main star of this piece has definitely got to be the Clamperl family you’ve got centered here. As I mentioned in my first impression, I don’t believe there could be this many of them inside one shell, so I’ll be a little more flexible here. First off, let’s talk about the shape of the shell you’ve got here, the ‘casing’ so to speak. From first glance, I’d say you’ve gotten the general shape of it’s shell down pretty well. It has this gear-like indentation going on where it open and closes it’s ‘mouth’. You’ve really shown your understanding for it’s shape on the bottom half of it where the ‘innards’ and the actual Pokemon rest. The top half however does seem a little flat, and I understand that's mostly because we’re looking at it directly from the front and open at a 90 degree angle. However, given that this is a shell with grooves/indentations, you could have drawn some lines to show where the “gearlike indentations” are. This is a bit harder to explain, so here I’ve made an outline mostly following what you’ve drawn to show you kinda what i mean. To the right of it is a picture of a clam with something similar on the inside of the shell to give it a sense of depth rather then leave it flat. Here is the picture for you to see what I mean. Sorry its a bit sketchy (not feeling 100%).

As I mentioned, the general shape of the shell is fine, it’s just that there are pieces of it that would look better a bit more with just some slight changes. Moving on, as I’m sure you’ve noticed from the outlined picture,, your centered “fleshy” piece is actually just a tad bit off-center. For the future, it might be a good idea to make the general shape first so you have it positioned, the general shape being the bottom oval part. Then you could draw the little bumps on top of that and erase any overlapping lines. You hit the shape of the bumps really well and that includes the little spherical creatures inside of the shell. I like how, to fit the November theme, you drew a family of them, presumably two kids and two parents. The kids look so happy to be eating their Thanksgiving dinner, while the parents seem content and relaxed as they enjoy it as well. I also like that you made them a little “table” out of the same flesh they are sitting on! It’s a really nice touch to add to your piece here. Overall, Clamperl was done pretty well and aside from a few things mentioned (moreorless about the top of the shell), I think it’s pretty spot on! Great job here!

Aside from Clamperl, I’ve noticed you have a background drawn with some rocks on the sides. This will be discussed more in my background and foreground section, but I’d like to say here that the general shape of the rocks are pretty nice. There isn’t too much about the ground or the ‘sky’ I could comment on here.

Background/Foreground: Gotta have a place to be!

This is where I’ll be focusing some attention onto the background and foreground you have presented in your piece. Admittedly, there isn’t much of a foreground for me to judge here as Clamperl seemed to have wanted all the attention in this piece haha. So the first thing I noticed as I look at this picture is the lack of evidence to say ‘this is where this takes place’. By this I mean, I can’t tell if this was outside on the ground near some rocks or down on the ocean floor somewhere. I want to say, being I know this is a water Pokemon and it rightfully belongs in the ocean, that its the ocean, but its not entirely clear here. If this was outside on the surface, I’d expect to see some kind of plant life perhaps or the sun or maybe even some clouds in the background. For the ocean, I would imagine seeing bubbles, seaweed, fish swimming around in the background or something to that extent. It’s pretty bare bones here, so really even adding some pieces of seaweed or bubbles would help to say this ‘place’ is underwater or wherever it takes place.

Moving on, I’m going to talk about some of the background elements. I’ll start by talking about the ground you have Clamperl sitting on. It seems to be colored using 2-3 different colors and has a few drawn ‘cracks’ or lines in some parts of it. Admittedly, because of the cracks I want to say this is suppose to be rock or dirt, but I’m assuming it’s the camera blowing out the colors as you mentioned taking this with your phone correct? Aside from that, on top of the ground you have a few rocks sitting on it in the background with a few lines through them to resemble cracks. They look pretty good, though i think you could have had some lines branching off some of the lines (the crack ones), I find that tends to give a better ‘crack’ feel.

Last we have the sky or the ocean in the back past the ground. As mentioned before, it’s hard to tell whether it’s suppose to be the ocean or the sky outside because of the lack of plant life or water elements if this is under the sea. There isn’t too much to say aside from that, it’s colored with either one or two blues with nothing else really going on with it.

I would just like to reiterate, I am not trying to say anything is wrong, just that certain elements in a background help to ‘cement’ that this background is what you want. If it’s under the water, there’s bubbles, seaweed, fish, coral, trenches and other things. If it was outside, you could have had patches of grass, the sun shining from a corner, clouds in the sky, you understand what I mean right? You’ve done a great job, but a few more things would add worlds to your image.

Line:

Alright, for the most part your lines are pretty solid and I can tell where things are. I imagine they would look better had this been scanned, but based on what we had here, the ‘bumps’ inside of the shell are really light compared to the hard lines you used for the rocks. Speaking of that, the lines for the rocks are really hard and help to make them stick out, which is a good thing, but because they are darker then the shell they take attention away from Clamperl. While the shell’s lines are decently dark, I think it would have benefited from being a tiny bit darker to help make it a ‘pop’ a bit more. I would say this for the spherical creatures a bit too. I can tell where they are and separate them from the other parts of the image, but the lines are a bit lighter there as well.

Overall, as I said before, I can tell where everything is and they are relatively neat, but some parts could benefit from being a bit darker, likewise. Aside from that, great job here!

Technique:

Okay, this shouldn’t last too long, sorry these sections seem to drag on a bit, but I really want to help you see some of these things so your next piece is always better then your last! I want to keep seeing things from you after all. In any case, here is where I’ll be talking about the overall shading and coloring.

I can tell you’ve used colored pencils for this and thats great! I loved seeing colored pencil work and I know it’s hard to show shading and highlights through it. Now, you have used darker and lighter colors of the same color (or pressed harder with the same colored pencil) to show highlights and shadows and I think thats great!

However, in some areas, this isn’t as noticeable, moreso on the bumps inside of the shell. I can see the difference, but i think you could have made it more apparent by making the next blue after the highlight a little darker. That way there would be a bit more contrast and it wouldn’t blend in as much. This could also have been done on the bottom portion of the fleshy piece where you have the blue a bit darker but is, again, not too noticeable unless you’re staring at it. The spherical creatures however were done very well and i think with a slight increase in pressure on the red as it transitions from the lighter to the darker part, it would be perfect, so great job there! I would also like to say the shadows produced by the table and those creatures are really spot on. That does however, question why the bumps themselves didn’t produce shadows as they are surrounding this little family and appear to be hit by sunlight. Which from what I can tell seems to be coming from the top left corner of the picture.

As previously stated, the sun appears to be coming from the top left as shown by where your shadows are laying inside of the shell and outside. The inner workings on the bottom of the shell or as i called them, the ‘gearlike’ indentations seem to reflect this as well. Moving on to the shell itself, I do think it’s a bit weird that the top of the shell is so light. If the sun is coming from the top left and the shell is completely open, then i imagine it would mostly be dark. The most you might be able to see is the indents from the shell shape. If it was dark, your message inside would pop out a bit more as well.

I apologize that this has gone on a little long, but I also want to mention that the rocks should be casting shadows with there being a light source as they actually seem to be floating in space a bit now. The shell is casting shadows, so it would make sense for the rocks to be doing the same.

The last thing I want to mention here is the coloring technique you’ve used. You colored diagonally in one direction quite a bit and in doing that, there’s naturally some gaps you couldn’t close without it getting pretty tedious. It’s a tiny bit messy left as is, but it is mostly colored which should be fine for this. However, there’s a technique called cross-hatching where after coloring or shading in one direction, you start coloring/shading in the opposite over the same area. It covers more area and tends to look a bit cleaner as well!

Quick Section: Color

I wanted to separate the section on the color used for Clamperl real quick. It’s not too big a deal, but when I look at it versus the official art, I noticed your colors used for the shell itself are quite a bit lighter. In fact, the inside is a really dark blue-almost black color as seen here. However, the inside colors seem to be pretty spot on with the fleshy area and the spherical creatures.

Overall: Drum-roll~

Overall, this is a wonderful piece that depicts the spirit of thanksgiving in a cute image featuring some Clamperl. I really enjoy looking at and analyzing this lovely picture you’ve drawn! It came together wonderfully and if there was anything I believe would immediately add to this picture, it would definitely be to add some kind of plant life, shadows from the rocks and something in the background where the sky/ocean sits. So with that, I’m going to rate this picture a 45/45, thus your Clamperl is caught! However, I would definitely say to remember to have more background elements in a picture for medium or higher. This was a great piece.

Clamperl is Captured!

 

Some summers nights are full of magic and wonder, this summer evening seems to be a calm, sultry, and fluffy. A sweet Swablu soaring in dreams; a perfect evening with dark, looming clouds, to end a day of nest making. Let the warm summer breeze brisk you away to dreamland...

Spoiler

I drew this on canvas with a pencil, or at least the tree, branches, clouds, and swablu. Everything else was colored in/drawn in with only colored pencil (e.g. the nest, and sunset). This drawing took me around 6 days to complete, where usually I take 1-2 days :0. Things I worked on since last art piece: shadowing, cross-hatching, focusing on a more detailed background. I tried scanning it onto my computer, but my canvas is too big and it didn't come out good... like at all : ( so I took a photo again with my phone and did some online (free) editing.

Pokemon: Swablu
Rank: Hard
Need: 55/100

Thanks guys!

 

Claiming Swablu.

 

Swablu Curation

@Ace Trainer Liam;

Sorry it took so long!

Form

I definitely like that the Pokemon takes up the majority of the space. It puts the focus right on Swablu, which is really want you want. However, it also means that more attention is paid to it. I think the mon is my least favorite part of this piece relatively. And I guess that's mostly because, compared to everything else, the mon is the most plain.

The form is okay for the most part. I like that the wings are curling around its body because that is adorable. I think maybe the wings are slightly too small compared to the body, as in the official art it looks like perhaps they're able to at least meet in the middle when folded like this, if not overlap a little.

I think the beak is also a little too low—it's sort of hard to tell with the eyes closed for sure, but the crest of the beak generally sits between the eyes. The perspective is a little off in this case as well. As the “camera” is looking at the Swablu from a pretty head-on angle, the beak shouldn't really be tiled to the side as it is. It should be forward facing too, just like the Pokemon. That means its going to show more as a V or U shape pointing down instead of to the left.

It is nice that you gave the Swablu some shape though, in the pouches of its cheeks and that the wings have contours throughout the whole thing and not just ovals with contours inside. It would've maybe been cool to see the tufts of hair on top of the head do the same thing with some unique pose to show it was sleeping too!

Technique

Here is where I see some definite improvements! And some things to still keep working on.

I really like that a lot of your lineart is either not there or replaced by colored lines. I've fallen in love with the colored lineart lately because it seems a lot more natural—especially more than just pencil/when its not dark inked/in that animeish style. Here, I especially love that on the tree and the leaves. It works well with the setting sun because light becomes harsher on the dark sides.

I think I would've like to see that same thing applied to the body of the Swablu and the beak. As such, they're only in regular pencil right now, and it doesn't exactly fit, especially since the wings have colored lineart as well. The same thing applies to the closed eyes—the darker blue might've made for a better outline color.

Next is your shading! I see some crosshatching in the wing area, so that's cool! On the whole, the shadows are there, and some of them are where they're supposed to be. The tree one is fine, and the wing ones are almost there, but it's the Swablu shadow that I have to question just a little bit.

You picked a challenging time of day, since setting/rising sun does funny things with light. Generally shadows are longer, particularly between two objects, because of the sun lower angle. I think the amount of shading is okay, as in the physical space they take up. I think that the line between what is shadow and what is not might be a tad bit too sharp.

This is how they do it for CEL shading, it's true, but even then, I don't think that quite fits here with colored pencils. A little more blending on that line, maybe having some gradual half shade in between would help smooth it out a little bit and make it seem slightly more natural. It just sort of hits me in the face a little as being too sharp.

Part of that might just be the way you're coloring with colored pencils. The unfortunate part about those, crayons, markers, and the like (as my art teacher once painfully pointed out to me) is that you can see the strokes; therefore, it's important that all the strokes be the same way or blended in unless its being used for texture (as you did with the nest).

Lately I've been really thinking about the shape of things, the 3D shape, and I think that might help you here. Right now, the lines on Swablu go every which way, and you can see them. I think, perhaps, envisioning Swablu as a round objects and then coloring it in as such, might help a little. Because it's rounded, you would have rounded strokes. That way, if there are lines, they are going to follow the contours of the Swablu's real shape and look a lot more natural.

The other way you can fix the “seeing the lines” problem is to do more blending. This means going over it many many times very lightly until you get a smooth, solid color with no lines. It's painstaking but it makes the end result look really polished. The Swablu is the only real place that this is an issue, and that could be because of its shape and because it is the largest element in the piece. The trees for example, make sense to have lines because it's part of the grain (and the trees are straight like the lines). Swablu, however, is not flat, and so the flat lines look a little weird.

As far as Swablu's shadow goes, which is the one I have the most suspicion of, I think that if the entire thing was rotated about fifty degrees clockwise, it would work. Because of the sun angle being more below to the left instead of directly left, having the shadow climb so high on the head doesn't really work. And on the other side of that, there's not enough shadow on the bottom of the Swablu. The bottom part is being blocked form the light both by the next and the body of the Pokemon itself, so that shadow could extend on the blue all the way under the left wing.

Much like how you did the wings. Again, I think maybe the crosshatching wasn't the exact fitting technique for shadow on the cottony parts, since those are fluffy and not scruffy and flat. I think the same rule goes for the wings as does the body—the shadows should follow the contour of the mon. That will help define its shape. On the whole, for the wings, I think you did that, but it's the top part of the shadow, where it gets blocky and straight, that sort of makes it seem not fitting. Some of the shadows toward the bottom could probably also be darker to give the wing more shape too!

But I love what you did with the nest. I definitely know how painful and tedious making nests like that is, but it definitely adds to the piece! I really love how its darker and thicker on the bottom and lighter and more see-through on the top. That is spot on. The only thing that could be improve don there is maybe some different width and length sticks, or maybe something like a stray leaf poking out. Great work here.

Background

I love what you did here. This is super much improvement and it really makes the piece better overall. This adds so much story to the whole thing. Very glad you worked a little extra on this area.

I've already said how much I like the nest, for both technique and how much effort you put into it. I'd like to say that I really love the leaves too, that you can see all the little veins. Very spot on and they add tiny bits of green to an otherwise sunset piece that gives a great contrast.

The sky gradient is also nice considering you had to do that by hand. There, the colors are a lot smoother and the lines blend in together nicely. I'm not sure the cloudy sky did much for you here. I think it maybe sort of conflicts with the soft, sleepy tone of the rest of the piece a little, but that's not such a big deal since it's a very small portion. A little more shadow could've maybe been given to these as well, since they're sort of all the same shade barring the lineart. It also sort of conflicts because storm clouds are different shape and stretch out across the sky a little more sometimes—if it was a storm rolling in, the clouds should probably extend to the horizon line.

But I also appreciate that the top of the piece is slightly darker than the bottom half to correspond with the setting sun. I assume that was put in with your free online editing.

Result

Spoiler

This was a really tough decision for me. I definitely saw where you took advice to heart, but there were also areas you could improve on (and fairly quickly), especially because this is a higher rank mon. I think I am going to score this 50/55 right now, which is just shy of capture.

I think the main thing I want to see is smoothing out that colored pencil and altering the shadows, particularly on the Swablu, just a little bit—I realize that you probably can't move the shadow down from the top of it's head, but you can definitely add to the bottom and mod the wings a little bit, as well as try to smooth out some of those streaks. This is what I want to see you do. Then tag me for a recuration. I don't expect it to take that long.

 

Re-curate! Things I tried to improve upon: swablu's shading (more of it as appropriate to the setting sun, to the contour of swablu's bulbous body), outlined swablu, shading of the wings (to the contour of the cotton puffs), smoothing the hash marks overall (namely on swablu).

Spoiler

Thanks @WinterVines you da best, and can't wait!

 

@Ace Trainer Liam;

Okay, sorry it took me so long to get to this. Conference and lots of other things going on. This time, I've quickly sketched (emphasis on the quick) to help explain the light thing.

I think it might help you to step back from your project and think of your work in a 3D format--where are the objects sitting in space?

Mostly because of the shadow. In my first curation, I mentioned that the shadow should be rotated about 50 degrees clockwise--this was because there should be shading all across the bottom of the Swablu. The reason for this is that the rest of the body, wings, and nest/tree are blocking the setting sun light from reaching it. There is very little light coming through for the bottom of the body on the left side to be as bright as that on top (circled area on pic). There's too much in the way for it to be that bright.

Brace your eyes for my bad explanation:

Spoiler

Generally, the setting sun like this casts longer shadows because the light is coming from a lower angle--this makes it stretch out. On the bottom, I placed your next in 3D space with a sun somewhere in the background. Do you see how only a part of the light is hitting the nest? The brunt of the light is actually on the underside/walled off by the edge of the nest that is closest to the sun. It wouldn't technically even be wrong to have the Swablu's entire front shadowed in some way--however, that would probably be a good instance of having different values of shadows: light, medium, and darker ones. The same could probably be argued for the beak, but I can see a little light seeping through too.

My other notes reference that a bit, in that shadows have a gradient just like everything else, and as more of an object is covered up by other things, the darker the shadow becomes. My old art teacher used to always say that the darkest place is between two objects. It wouldn't be a bad thing to practice perhaps using two levels of shadow if you want to stick to that CEL style and not a more realistic one. A lot of anime and mange use two layers to really define darker areas compared with a little-dark-but-not-that-dark areas.

As far as the re-curation goes, you did attempt to improve the shadow. It does look better stretching a little farther, though it still lacks some of the bottom half. I'll be honest--from your picture, I can't tell what you did with the wings at all. From looking at the left side that has the least amount of glare and comparing it to the first version, they look identical. The shadow on the wings still cuts straight across the lump instead of curving with the object, since the wings are not flat.

It does look at little more blended on the Swablu's body, though. Seeing more curved up and down lines looks a lot better.

A large part of me doesn't want to pass this just yet. But another part of me thinks that in a way, I am beating a dead horse and it doesn't do either you or me any real good to make you keep doing this. You did attempt to fix what I asked. Part of that was messed up because of the glare. Perhaps next time, use an area with more natural light so you don't have to use flash?

I'm still not sure if this is Hard-rank exactly. But I'm going to score it 55 anyway, I guess.

 

I'm back! And this time when the creative juices started flowing I found myself without colored pencils, chalk, or even a pencil! (Seriously, it's like they only use pens and white out in France, even at school!) But an idea sprung when I went to the beach in Julouville and collected seashells and had a couple brown paper sacks from the Christmas Market!! So I dwebbled in modeling as I had the appropriate (kind of) materials!

Spoiler

We see here, a young Dwebble, making his way in the world across a sandy, shell ridden beach. Larger rocks sit in the sand and sea behind him under a clear blue sky. His shell may not originally be his, it may be worn and old, but it's his home nonetheless.



I used shells that I collected on the beach to use for this (note, the spiral shell Dwebble uses was probably one of the more rare shells to find @[email protected], but I found a good one!), also I used sand that had stuck to some of the shells, or were inside of them as they dried. I used brown paper sacks and cut them up and scotch tape to keep together Dwebble (it's really standing up on its legs with the shell sitting on it). I used black pen to draw in the eyes and mouth on Dwebble, I used the remaining brown sacks as "rocks"; I cut the sacks, but left them able to stand and drew rock features on them. And I used a bottle of oil and a jar of jam to hold up a blue folder I had lying around as the sky and sea as I used the crease of the folder as an illusion, a line separating the "sea" from the "sky" . I was also lucky that I was able to get a photo while the sun was still out as a massive fog rolled in about 20 min. later. I also used some free photo editing to spruce up the photo. I used contrasting features and blurring effects to highlight Dwebble.

Proof: Bottom left of photo I edited in ATL and here's a photo of the "overworld".

Spoiler

Pokémon: Dwebble
Rank: Medium
Need: 45/100

 

I'll dwell on your dwebble sculpture (claiming)