What a Jerk

Not sure if that link counts as proof, but I can assure that that's my tumblr.

Pokemon: Shellder
Rank: Medium
Creation time: Took about an hour and a half.

I know I have to draw two Shellder pictures (which I don't understand...), so I'll make another one later.

EDIT: Okay, I had to do some pop art portraits for my class, so I did this shellder as a warm up painting.

 

@Eska

Shellder 1

Spoiler

Form/Color
One component i see that you tried to use is color contrast. You made the main two elements of your image stick out vividly by adding in a more subdued, brown background. It works well, although another color that would contrast against the girl and Shellder could have helped to add enough variety yet keep the focus on the two entities. Green comes to mind, as it would naturally complement the purple and pink while mixing in nicely with the browns and natural portions you had. The image is nicely detailed and balanced, you added just enough scenery to keep the viewer’s eye moving throughout the piece, and added the path to ensure there was a direct correlation between the two main characters. Usage of lines like that is always helpful in directing attention towards something.

Next up, things that stand out as possible improvements. Shellder, if you look at it close enough, has very jagged edges. Cleaning up and smoothing lines like that is always advisable, especially at the medium or higher level. With that, making sure the purple areas of Shellder adequately fill up those outlines areas so that small brown spots don’t sneak through.

Pokemon
So for the pokemon, I don’t really see too much wrong. The colors, while a bit bright under normal lighting, seem to fit the flashlight lighting you have in the image. Some details that could have been added include mainly the lines along the top of the shell, just to break up the top shell piece.

I do like the emotion you’ve conveyed here, the “I’ve been caught!” bug eyed face is a good fit for the scene you attempted to convey, and shows how Shellder feels at the moment. Adding in stuff like that brings life to the scene and allows the viewer to empathise with the pokemon. The tongue holding the stolen ice cream cone adds to it.

Environment
The fact that you added in an environment and definitely put some effort into the trees and such is good. The trees have the appearance of bark with both the lines you added and the jagged lines. What they lack is possible further texture, as well as shading to make them look less flat. Shadows and highlights on trees would make them look round, and give them the realism they could definitely use. You did start doing this, but it could be enhanced to further bring out their shape.

Lighting is something that could be improved a little. SHellder is good, and the direct area around him is good, but as you move away from the flashlight, the area seems to take on a very overcast feeling. THe colors of the girl however, do not seem to follow this and are very bright and even have a level of basic shading even though the rest of the scene does not follow with it. Consider adding in more levels of lighting to increase contrast among the varied elements.

Improvements
1. Variation in the environment. While one color can be used quite well, and you dodn’t do too bad, adding in more will offer more for the viewer to look at, and help further set apart the important aspects of your scene.

2. COntinue improving on your textures and details to enhance the level of the scenery.

3. Lighting is a very important aspect to any image, always make sure your colors and shading all lend to whatever lighting scheme you choose for an image.

Score
35/100

Its not a bad image, it just needs a few touch ups before its up to the level of a medium mon.

Shellder 2

Spoiler

Form/Color
Again, you utilized color contrast to make the pokemon pop from the background. Especially with the style you based this image off of, I would almost expect bright and dark, excellent contrast lends itself to the cartoon pop art movement. Would have liked to see more elements in the image to help add variety and give more definition. Or, elements like black lines, spots to add different levels of light, and all the different techniques could be used to increase the visual comparisons and make the image a much more dynamic system.

Pokemon
While I can recognize Shellder as being the pokemon, the attempt at Pop Art style really made it lose most of its definition. At the moment it could be seen as a purple pillow if one didn’t look hard enough. Now you were straight on with the color, and the shape is still reminiscent of a Shellder. Lack of shading adds to the shapeless pillow comment earlier, it needs more detail and shape in order to really be viewed as a Shellder. The tongue was a good way to mix the style and include the pokemon’s name.

Environment
Not much to say for this, the image lacks much of an environment beyond the yellow plane. The major element that could improve what I consider part of the environment is shading, as I listed above. There are plenty of ways to use the existing Pop Art styles to shade or add definition and shape to Shellder, so my vote would be to improve on that.

Improvements
I’d say the only improvement i can list here would be to add more to the image. Be it just in the way of increasing the variety of techniques to enhance whats already there, or adding more diverse elements to create a more ‘full’ image, whichever would feel more natural to you.

Score
25/100

“I know I have to draw two Shellder pictures (which I don't understand...), so I'll make another one later.”

Because the higher the level of difficulty, so does the level of effort you need to put in to achieve your goal.