Mow Day

I would Like this to submit this to try capture this cute little Rotom.
I know thi sprobly isn;t demanding rank material but your advise to improve it would be much obliged

Capture Target - Rotom
Difficulty- Demanding
Points needed - 75

 

Claimed!

 

Hi, Ghost! I just wanted to start off by saying it's been so great to watch your art grow and improve over the last couple of months. I've been watching it even before I became a curator, and it's incredible how fast you've grown! I'm super proud of you for using the critique you've gotten to keep improving instead of taking it hard and getting discouraged. Being able to take critique and improve everything you do from then on based on that critique is the mark of a really great artist, and it means you have so much potential open for you to grow! Very proud. I'm also proud that you're being ambitious and going for higher attempts, and also that you've opened yourself up for more critique on this one.

We have a pretty jolly-looking scene of a suburban backyard in what is presumably spring or fall. A Rotom-Mow dutifully chops the lawn while a host of other creatures sit in the background. Our subject matter, up and front in the foreground, commands our attention nestled in the bottom left part of the rule of thirds. The rest of the scene sits nicely in the background with a nice use of perspective and scale.

Let's start with your Pokemon figures! Your Rotom Mow is lovely, accurate in its figure and body color. I notice that you've made its outline yellow instead of green, as well as its eyes, which isn't accurate based on its reference but is a good choice, one that I assume is intentional since the change of color matches consistently on those two parts. The yellow really brings it up from all of the green behind it, and that was a great choice on your part, I think! I believe the only thing I'd comment on in regards to Rotom's anatomy is that the wheels look a little crooked--thy both lean slightly to the right, our left one more so, which makes him feel a bit lopsided.

Kakuna seems like a 'mon that would have some variation in folds and creases, so for the most part, your Kakuna looks good, though he could do with some smaller and much lighter eye marks. The Murkrow also looks fine anatomy-wise, and has a very nice character to it. I think adding some gray into his color might have helped with getting his color more accurate here--adding gray helps take the saturation out of the color to help get that murky look to the shade. Your Foongus is small and unassuming, but I can see the marks for the Pokeball and its mouth, and all seems to be in the right place for that. So I appreciate that attention you've put into the anatomy of your Pokemon here.

I'm going to go over aspects of the background, next. The topics I'm going to cover are big ones, so be sure to buckle in tight!

First, I want to touch on your color. You've showed a really awesome grip on color, here, and that's something I'm even envious on! Your colors seem to work really well together. Your choice of primary colors really adds to the playfulness of the scene.

One of the things I want to touch on is your choice of blue in the background. When I first saw the work, I actually didn't realize that it was the sky behind the fence and houses for two reasons: one, the fact that I couldn't see the edges on the top cloud made me think it was a mountain sitting on a distant horizon, and two, because the color of the sky came across as more of a gray than anything else. If you look closely, you can see that it is in fact a light blue, but it looks gray because of the colors beside it. On the roof of the house, you have this brilliantly bright, baby blue. When you put a light blue beside the bright blue, that light blue looks gray because it doesn't look as blue as the one beside it. I think brightening your sun with the same yellow you used on Rotom would look very nice, as well. It also helps thematically--when we see that bright yellow, we associate it with bright energy, which works thematically for the sun, also! The side-by-side-colors illusion also applies to cool and warm colors next to each other. Warm next to cool brings out the temperature of those colors, so brightening your sun will make the blue seem much cooler and brighter in comparison, also!

Next, I'd like to move on to your shading. You've shaded things pretty nicely, but there are some things I want to go over. I'll start from the front and move backwards, beginning with Rotom. With the sun behind him, there are some small pieces that need to be darker in its front, like our side of the top of his handle and the base of that, around his face. The tree also has some shading issues. You have some very lovely dark greens on its lower part, but if the sun is as low and far back that way as we see it is, more of the side that's near to us should be dark.

So one thing that isn't clear to me are the shadows of the fence and the tree. You have the fence shaded like the tree hangs over it, but that shadow doesn't connect well at the bottom of the fence, where the tree's shadow would start. This led me to initially think that the lighter parts of grass you colored were where the grass had already been cut, but after looking at it, I feel like maybe that's just where the light is. I thought at first that the darker grass was the uncut grass (which would have been a wonderful, thoughtful detail), but because of the lighter parts on the middle right, I realized that the dark parts might be intended to be the tree's shadow. This uncertainty made me think you were missing the shadow altogether. That sort of uncertainty isn't something that you want your viewer to feel when they're examining the naturalism of the work.

I also feel like the shadows at the bottom of the fence would be much longer. You have them in a small line along the fence, but since you're telling us that the sun is much lower, I'd imagine that they'd cast a lot longer shadows with the sun further back behind them. The side of the tree (both the trunk and the leaves) closest to us would also be pretty dark, with only the edges of the sides facing the sun being lighter.

Your red house seems pretty alright with your shading, but it's difficult to tell with some of its details hidden. The blue house, however, would have much deeper shading if, once again, the sun is where it is in the sky. We only see the sun just above the roofs of houses when it's on its way to setting, so we want everything else to convince us of that. Additionally, you have a shadow for the pole on top of the house going the wrong direction--even though the roof slopes that way, the sun is still on its left side, which would cast the shadow to the right.

I wish that you'd had some darker shades on the cracks and folds of the Kakuna, also. It's very difficult to see its details--any lighter and it would have been hard to tell it was a Kakuna. I think you should make a decision on what you want to do here. If you increase the contrast of the Kakuna to match the black of its eyes, the rest of the work needs to match that difference in lights and darks. However, if you just darken up the creases a little and lighten the eye a bit, that might be a good middle ground.

I also notice some out-of-place bumps at the top of the tree. It looks like maybe you were going for drawing individual leaves but gave up. The darkness of that draws a lot of attention, so in the future, I think cropping it out would be a good choice. For your clouds, I think taking a look at the shading of clouds would help also differentiate it from the mountainous look it has. A good reference for that is here.

All of that being said, I want to talk about detail for a moment. I really like all of the little details you've put into this. The unique branches on the tree are lovely, and the patience you put into marking every individual strand of grass is wonderful. It looks very careful and very clean. The painstaking lines you drew on your fence are a really nice touch. The variety of architecture on your houses is really charming, and the idea of adding more Pokemon to give the scene more character was a great idea. I love the expression and gesture of the Murkrow, like it's complaining about the noise or something similar! This is a very playful scene thanks to your wonderful attention of detail on it.

Overall, this work shows that you've come an incredibly long way since you've started. I know I've given you a lot of critique, but I mean it when I say that you should be proud of this attempt! I had to consult some higher-ups on the score for this, because I know you put a lot of effort into it, but right now, it's at 55/75, Rotom not captured! I think the suggestions I've made are very doable, so if you'd like to continue to revisit this work, I'd highly suggest it!​

 

Edited Rotom Mow picture reposted to attempt capture. I smoothed out some of the shading redid the tree and fence colours (took me ages to remove the colour hahaha) Added some finishing touches to rotom move himself, Made murkrow more murky added details to Kakuna best i could and extended out the fence and tree grass shadows. The sun was removed as it was giving faulse lighting to my picture and i smothed out the sky and clours to look blue and not mountainy.

 

@K'sariya

 

Can I just say, I think the wheels being skewed like that is to indicate speed

((like here

Spoiler

or here

Spoiler

))

And that I'm a big fan of the inclusion of the grass clippings flying off, in the new draft.

 

Heyo! Since yours is a rework waiting curation I'll go ahead and take over from where she is.

 

Hiiii so I see that you've worked on it a little bit more! I read what Ksariya said about your work and I see that you've touched upon on all the places that she mentioned BUT I am not so willing just to go ahead and give you an automatic approval. Demanding is a really tough rank. So let me see what you did in your draft two and lets see what can be further improved.

Rotom: I see that you've straightened out the wheels. Which is good. Tuly was talking about skewing the wheels to give a more cartoony effect, but for that effect to work literally everything else would need to to happen to keep consistency. I've noticed you wanted to stick to the rectilinear lines of the houses and the fence, so your figures should at least have some semblance of that rectilinearity in them. I've noticed that you've completely changed his light source once it was that glowing sun in the corner and now my left and now it is gone and you have a solid color sky. I'm a bit confused why you did that. I understand that the lighting in this drawing is flatter, but nevertheless, your rotom is shaded very well.

Murkrow, Kakuna, Foongus: Since theyre in the background, the figures you've put in would naturally carry less detail since they're placed so far in the background. You're trying to squeeze tons and tons of details in a very small location, and from the distance that you've placed the viewer, probably some of them are less important. It is a bit difficult to shade murkrow because it already is so dark. It is difficult to get that transition from a 80% to 90% dark blue gray and make it look three dimensional, yet alone from such a distance. It is a little flat, flatter than I expected, considering how well-shaded kakuna is. Foongus can live without those pencil lines because it is getting consumed by them. I expected more of the quality of shading that you did in rotom's wheels in your murkrow or introducing some hints of highlights.

Composition: I mentioned earlier that your drawing is very rectilinear, meaning that your drawing is composed mostly of horizonal lines and vertical lines which makes a more calming, and regular feel. Your rotom interrupts that. But I still feel that I have to make a large jump between your tree, and rotom. There isn't much interaction between your characters and I feel like you could totally do something about that, perhaps put a few objects, toys maybe, something to bridge that gap. Why not break that straight line; make some planks in your fence a bit higher than the others, have the grass overlap the fence in an uneven way. I just noticed this but your fence is at an angle (and can be hidden with tufts of grass).

Other things: I'm impressed that you spent all of that time distinguishing your grass, as it appears that you pretty much drew every blade of grass which I would never have the patience to do. But I mean the grass problem is the same as your tree: do you draw every leaf or do you make abstractions about your leaves. I think that even with an overgrown lawn you can totally distinguish what needs to be cut and what has based on the texture you give your drawing. For low cut grass you can play around with more mossy, fuzzy textures, while for long unkempt grass play around with lots of lines. Right now there is still a lot of white in your dark grass. I know it is vitually impossible to create that many strokes but it is a little discontinuous with the solidity with everything else. If you also want to really make the grass more believable try blurring the line more with the fence.

I do want to mention a little about the color of the roofs and of the fence. From your original they made sense being in such high contrast, but now they don't really fit as well. I think if you darken and dull their roofs, you'll find that they'll sit better back in the scene. The bright colors are cheerful and everything, but they don't really make sense in this new lighting situation and really do pull focus from your scene. I know that seems small, but everything does add up.

So sorry, but your drawing isn't quite there but you are closer!!! Demanding is simply put extraordinarily difficult! You are on the the right track however, and there was improvement from last time. If you fix up most of the things I pointed out that need work, I'll approve it. (65/75) Rotom is not quite caught!

 

Darkened the Fence (sadly it can;t go any darker without loosing its effect), Added a light green to the white patches int he grass but again without loosing the individual blades. and lightened the Murkrow to see shading. Also made the roof of the houses darker. @juliorain

 

HI! So I can tell that you have worked dutifully on your artwork and I have to stay you should feel proud of yourself! The biggest changes I've seen making your colors bolder with less white space! With colored pencil, the thicker your color the more power it holds! If you compare this version of your drawing to your first I hope that you can see the progress yourself! While I am a little bothered by the harsh line that separates the grass and the fence, but at the same time getting that soft green to overlap on the red-brown is difficult. Regardless, the colors make it sing and I feel like I'm on some lawn in suburbia. I get a feeling of warmth and time of day in the drawing that was only suggested in the previous drawing. I think your Rotom gives your drawing a little bit of life, opposite of the sameness of suburbia and those pokemon who tend to be rather inactive in the background.

I think you've worked hard and learned a lot and your artwork sings! I think you've put in the effort to merit a rotom! 75/75~ Rotom caught!!!