Truly's Art Dump

You’ve been waiting for a while, so let’s just dig right in!

Mood
This piece packs a lot of creepy punch; you’ve jumped from the cute and cheerful stuff you usually post to something with a cool, unsettling vibe, and you’ve handled the transition swimmingly. The monotone green you’ve used is similar to that of night-vision cameras, which associates it with a dark, shadowy, eerie environment. It’s also a somewhat sickly color, which implies that nothing good is going to happen here. The yawning, quiet, empty dark space on the sides of the Weepinbell also let the user imagine ominous things waiting in the darkness, on the edges and out of sight. They do say that “nothing is scarier” (at least, they say it on TvTropes), and you’ve left a nice amount of nothing in which the user can fill in all the horrors from their imagination. I don’t have much to nitpick here; just wanted to point out what you did well to show the menacing mood.

Form and Stylization
… The latter of which I include because you’ve done it quite a bit to the former. This Weepinbell has many of Weepinbell’s normal features; the shape is roughly the same, and it has its leaf-arm-things and big mouth. You’ve enlarged its mouth, added a second “tail”, given it one eye rather than two, and even added some big pointy teeth. As a big proponent of stylizing Pokemon from their original designs, I fully support this. I also believe that stylization should be done with a good reason, and to be honest I think you were justified in the changes you made. This piece is all about the Spooky Factor, and the gaping, fang-filled mouth and the single eye make Weepinbell look much more monstrous and dangerous than in its canon art. Furthermore, you didn’t stylize so much that it’s unrecognizable. This is a monster, but it’s a monstrous Weepinbell, and that is quite clear to see.

However, there’s a couple of issues that I don’t believe were deliberate. The thing that stands out most is that the leaves aren’t placed symmetrically. While I appreciate that you took the time to paint this all out rather than just copying and pasting, you do need to make sure that your front-view drawings are at least mostly symmetrical. The leaf on our left is much higher than the leaf on our right; I believe that the leaf on our right should be moved upward, as this is closer to where Weepinbell’s leaves are placed in the canon art. Also, your Weepinbell has a rather thin “neck”, which contrasts the canon art. I would also personally remove the extra tail; it doesn’t help contribute to your mood. Most of your stylization is really good, but I think these particular things should be corrected - they don’t serve any purpose for the rest of your piece, and since they’re fanart of an existing Pokemon, these extraneous details can confuse the viewer.

Real quick, lemme talk about the human person hanging out on the bottom! I’ll talk a little bit more about them in the next section, but I do want to hit on their anatomy. They’re pretty much just a silhouette, so there’s not much to talk about, but they’re worth mentioning. The proportions are pretty good for the most part; the only issue I notice with them is that the leg on our right is a little thinner than the leg on our left. As always, with front-facing drawings, symmetry is key! I’m also having a hard time telling what the arm on our right is doing - it appears to bend at the elbow to the person’s front or just kind of disappear there. This is more a pose issue than an anatomy one; I’m struggling to think of what the person could be doing with their arm. Overall, though, these issues aren’t too major - this person isn’t the focal point of the piece and seems to mostly be there to draw attention to how freaking massive this Weepinbell is. Keep an eye to your symmetry and you’ll be fine.

Value
You did some pretty good things with this. Weepinbell has some nice contrast, drawing the viewer’s eye straight to it. Your highlights aren’t very bright, but I think that in this case super-bright highlights would have detracted from your piece. Instead, you’ve used colors that would normally fall into the midtone range as highlights and colored with intense shadows, something that bolsters the menacing feeling of the Weepinbell. I especially like how you did the eye - the jet-black pupil stands out in stark contrast to the bright eye, bringing the viewer’s attention straight to it.

I personally would recommend shading the mouth a little bit differently. Weepinbell’s mouth should, based on the lighting of the rest of your piece, fall into shadow. The gaping mouth would also (in my personal opinion) look far more eerie as a pitch-black pit just waiting to devour hapless innocents. Unless the mouth has its own light source and/or is very pale naturally, there should be a bit of shading.

Also, quick mention about the person - I could barely see them without maximized brightness on my laptop. This is a quick fix, though. If you were to just lighten the central area of the background slightly, the person would be much more easy to see. Overall, good use of contrast; just make sure you’re conscious of how your light source plays into things.

Conclusion
The seed has been planted, and now it has sprouted - 40/35! This is a really awesome piece, and I absolutely love the vibes from it. You went bold with stylization, and it paid off, allowing you to create what is definitely the most ominous Weepinbell I have ever seen. However, like with your Wurmple piece, I need proof-of-work; you always need to include this when you submit a piece. Please edit in a proof-of-work and PM me when you do, and I’ll edit this post to reflect your success.

EDIT: And, proof-of-work provided. Bellsprout captured.

 

Thanks for the grade.
Looking at it now, there are definitely some things I'd change. I had forgotten, for instance, that the teeth were blocking out the light of the bioluminescent plant-- probably, what's light and dark should be inverted in the mouth. Or how the teeth come from the sides, not the top or from all around. Also I remember having trouble deciding where to put the human figure, and ultimately decided to play it safe and not obscure the subject, despite it making for a more boring piece-- if I were to do this again, I'd give it a more frontal view, looking from the level of the person, who would be much closer and actually layered over the weepinbell.

Ultimately this was just a painting where I started messing with the layer filters and decided it would be cooler than the original painting. I may very well have another go, but actually choose my palette and paint a giant, glowing, weepinbell in the dark, rather than let filters do it for me.

Like my Wurmple piece, proof is in the work already: "TRULY" is written in black in the bottom left corner of the image. I would have worked it into the teeth but couldn't figure out how.

 

So it is; sorry about that, my bad on missing it. ^^' That, plus the included file, are more than sufficient proof; my post has been edited accordingly.