Morning Duties -- An Artistic Resonse to the Trial by Star-Fire[collab]

Heyo! This is a collab piece in response to Magikchicken's story Trial by Star-Fire! I'm also looking to capture a phantump as well! He is a medium rank poke so that means I need 45/100! This was done with colored pencil. I forgot the signature so an in-progress drawing is in the spoiler!


View: https://imgur.com/gallery/F6wnv


View: http://imgur.com/a/0AiZN

^ work in progress pic

 

@juliorain : Gonna have to fix these links

 

@juliorain I know you've already had some issues with the image here but can you hit us with the proof of work please, since many of us wouldn't have seen it before Photobucket's epic nosedive?

 

Ok, sorry you've had to go through so much hassle with the image stuff, but I'll be claiming this! The curation might take a bit, but it's on its way. :>

 

And the curation cometh. My first pass/fail system curation, whoo!

Form and Composition.
Here we have a Phantump hanging out in some sort of grassy enclosure, carrying a paper and watching a ship go by over the ocean outside. For the most part, your elements are clear and easily recognizable. Phantump jumps out at the viewer right away and can clearly be seen for the ‘mon it is at just a glance. You’ve done well with Phantump’s pose, too - it’s clearly not just grabbed from some official art, and it’s well thought-out, with Phantump craning its neck to look at the displays rather than just standing around. You did a pretty good job at this perspective. Because Phantump is looking at the clock above it, its head is pointed upward; due to the shape of its head, we can see the bottom of a cylinder as its ‘chin’. However, I do have some gripes with Phantump’s horns - and one of them is even related to the previous topic, which is kinda unusual for my normally rambling rants. At the angle from which we view Phantump, the near horn should come straight towards the viewer, without bending backwards before it juts upward. Because it does bend backwards, the perspective looks slightly off. However, Phantump’s horns don’t visibly bend where they should - ie, curling upward. From this perspective, showing those curves is a little awkward, but these bumps can be shown with shading since these horns will catch the light. I also wonder why you didn’t choose to include leaves. While I’m mostly evaluating this piece on its own, I skimmed Trial by Star-Fire to see if the protagonist Phantump didn’t have leaves on its horns, and it does. I see no reason to leave the leaves off of our friend here, and I think that adding those little splashes of green would really help connect Phantump to its environment. One last thing that I would suggest is altering Phantump’s chin a bit; its art shows that its head is not a solid log, but rather a hollow one that we should be able to see just a little bit inside of from this angle. This tidbit doesn’t really fit in great, but I like that you added Phantump’s signature cute little frown. I can tell that you see these details in Pokemon designs; you’ve just gotta make sure that they make it in there unless they would somehow detract from your piece.

You’ve done a good job of distinguishing your foreground and background, using overlap as your main tool. Phantump and the tree rest in the foreground, sitting over the black lines of Phantump’s enclosure which form the middle ground; the lines and display screen overlap the ship, pier, and ocean, which distinguishes these as the background. What’s best, though, is how you used the display screens. Without the displays, I as the viewer wouldn’t be able to tell whether Phantump is sitting beside a door or a window; having the display screens overlapping the ship shows that Phantump is behind a window and serves to isolate it from the background. I also like the way you’ve done the ship - it’s got a lot of whimsical shapes and is interesting to look at. I would suggest trying to make what’s going on with those shapes a little clearer, though; I find myself getting distracted trying to figure out exactly what’s resting on the back of the ship. It looks cool, but polishing it up with a little more detail would make this cool ship much easier to appreciate.

There’s a few things about the middle and background that I would change, though. Let me tell you about an unfortunate occurrence in art: the dreaded tangent. This link explains them really well. I recommend reading this in general, but the main issue you’re facing here is ‘the long line’, found right at the top of this article. Your long lines are the black patch of wall in the lefthand corner and the shadows beneath the ship, and the anchor line of the ship and the rightmost building on the ship. Moving your horizontal lines up or down and your verticals right or left will help do get rid of these tangents.

The other thing that I would recommend changing is the tree. These trees have a similar perspective and shape to the roots of yours:


Deciduous trees’ roots generally do not slope inward that gradually; the most “external” tree root will generally have a long, flat line to the trunk of the tree before the trunk curves upward. Pine trees’ roots will have more of a slope, but they will straighten back out into an almost completely vertical tree trunk more quickly and will have fewer visible roots than yours does. Trees can be tricky and those roots are wild, so make sure to use some references when you’re going after them!

Colors and Value
Colors, yay! This is a super colorful piece, with lots of cool blues, slightly muted greens, and neutral browns making up the bulk of the palette. These colors work together nicely to create an environment that’s welcoming, but calm and natural, with a few reds, yellows, and grays that stand out as the manmade elements. Your colors are mostly harmonious, though I stand by my statement that some green on Phantump’s horns would be helpful for color unity. I think you could use some variation in hues in a few places, though. The tree and pier are the same hue and roughly the same value; therefore, the two of them seem to blend into each other. The buildings on top of the ship have a similar issue, though not quite as badly; there’s a slight purple hue to the buildings whereas the sky surrounding them is a ‘bluer’ blue. However, the values and hues are still similar enough to cause a little confusion. Changing either member of these pairs to a different hue, and-or altering the value where the two meet, would alleviate this quite easily. One thing I really liked about your color choices was that you made Phantump’s head a distinct brown, different from that of the tree and the pier, which helps it to stand out. That hue distinction can be channeled into these spots of similarity and help with visual clarity.

Quick thing: that brown dot in the middle of the grass sticks out a bit and looks kind of strange. Based on your WIP, it looks like you had to cover up a stubborn dark pencil line. While the way you did the coverup was nice, that brown dot just sort of… is there. You could make this work for you, though! Those dots can be rocks or clumps of soil showing through the grass and breaking up the green if there’s several of them, which would add a bit of extra depth to your ground. The dot by itself is no huge offense, but it would look much more natural if it either wasn’t there or wasn’t all alone.

Your shading is pretty good, and except for the above spots you have pretty good value contrast with lots of nice, strong shading! Your shadows are mostly in the right places, and you’ve done a good job including lots of different tones, even pulling off adding highlights to Phantump’s black shadow body. I do have some mild troubles with the light source, though. The ship casts a shadow straight downward; the buildings on it are lit from the left. Within the enclosure, all of the shadows are cast toward the viewer. While it’s logical for the light sources not to match between the exterior and interior (all of the light for the interior seems to come from the exterior, which is fine and sensible), the mismatches outside are confusing. Having a consistent light source is so important, even for places that aren’t the focal point, so make sure to keep an eye out for that and keep your light source in mind!

Technique
I’m not sure if the medium here is crayon or colored pencil; it can be hard to tell unless the waxiness of crayons comes through. Regardless of which it is, you’ve done well with it. There’s no markings from your preliminary linework (with the possible exception of that dot I mentioned already), and I only see one empty patch (right above the righthand side of the ship), so you’ve done a good job laying in your colors. Furthermore, it looks to me that, for your shading, you opted to blend together your lighter colors with the colors of your shadows in many places, particularly in the grass. I love this style of shading with crayons/colored pencils, personally. I find that it’s actually helpful to your piece’s color unity because you can see the colors beneath the blending area coming through, which makes for a smoother transition than what the jump between a lighter and darker color would create.

The only thing that I would recommend here is something that I gather you’ve heard a few times - there are areas where you could stand to keep your colors a bit tidier. While your more textured, almost wild color work is great for the organic elements like the grass and Phantump’s bark-covered head, it’s out of place where your strokes have infringed on the display screens and on the hull of the ship, which looks like it should be smooth and solid. As this piece shows, varying your stroke angles and working a little ‘rougher’ really helps make the organic forms look alive. Tighter strokes and smoother textures will contrast with this, and they’ll really help push your inorganic forms and more polished elements.

Conclusion
Overall, this is a pretty solid piece. Your shading and colors are good, your Pokemon’s pose is original, your idea is interesting, and you’ve created a composition with a lot of depth despite it being pretty simple in its execution. You still have some kinks to iron out in your coloring and ‘mon details, I’m happy to pass this at the Medium rank. For the future, make sure to keep an eye on the little details of the Pokemon you’re drawing, and keep an eye out for places where you could enhance your visual clarity. I encourage you to cultivate your technique and keep exploring its uses!

As we discussed over DM, this will be for cash. Since you passed at Medium, Smiles tells me that Magikchicken passed, and this is a WaR collab, you and Magikchicken may both claim Phantump and $17,000. Good job, guys, and congrats!

 

claiming