Safety

Dabbling back into art again. Wanted to try out Krita, a free program for pixel-based art. This is my first digital painting, so I didn't really know what I was doing. All I know is that I never want to make fire ever again. The style for this one is sort of weird, as it's stuck between semi-realistic and the more cartoon-style of the anime.

Title: Safety
Target Pokemon: Charmander
Rank: Hard (55+)

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WIP:

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Right off the bat, the mellow orange tones make for a wonderful visual. Charmander is one thing since it's orange to begin with, but there's great attention to detail on the flames to make them predominantly orange yet use enough strokes and colors to make them still seem alive. Also, the ground is a nice soft brown that goes very well with the orange and is light enough to fit in with the analogous color scheme. (Minor note I ended up not having room for anywhere but wanted to add: good work with negative space)

Secondly, great swirling effect. The whole two tails thing, with (presumably) Charizard's tail wrapping around Charmander, is a great look and it has a bit of an optical illusion-effect on the eyes, which is fun. It goes very well with the soft and curving outlines - where I noticed this most was the curve of Charmander's neck and it was great.

What I think needed to be improved most was work with the proportions, and to a degree, the dimensions. Something about the shapes don't look great right here, and while part of that is the exaggerated curve of the lines which worked well, some of it is also something else. Your title here was "Safety", and you got at it with Charizard's tail surrounding Charmander. Still, something about the appearance and the size of Charizard's tail doesn't exactly exude safety. It's thinner than I expect from safety, and even near the thickest part of the tail, I felt it realistically could've been thicker. Also, while I enjoyed the extreme curve on Charmander's neck, I think it still went a bit too far. The back of Charmander's neck is unnaturally steep, and it makes Charmander looks like it's being choked cartoon style. The fingers are also creeping me out, since they're more stubs on the actual Charmander and here they look like frog fingers.

Those are details though. Details are important, but I'm happy enough with the strikingly warm visual effect of this image to pass it. You were going for cute, and it worked out well. Grade: 62