Thread: Fishing for....kelp? [Complete]

Claiming toxic seaweed horse.

@Sou Cleife: Skrelp curation finished!

Alrighty, here we go:

I’ll begin by talking about the Skrelp itself. Once again you’ve done a pretty good job of emulating the Sugimori style while putting your own spin on it. You’ve got a clear base color for each part of Skrelp’s body and a light color for some occasional highlights and a dark color that you use well in order to shade in certain areas, creating a sense of depth and roundness. For the most part, I think this facet of your work was successful. The only part that jumped out at me is the stomach area. The pink part of its stomach is shaded starting about halfway down, but the brown part remains the same shade until we get almost all the way down to its tail. This isn’t toally a bad thing, I believe there are spots like this in Sugimori’s artwork. I do think you could have made it a little more consistent, however.

As far as the shape of the body goes, most things look great with one exception. The one thing that seems off about Skrelp’s body is his snout. In your picture, the snout seems to kind of protrude from the center of its face, with a clear base where it is attached. If you take a look at the official art, however, you’ll see that a Skrelp’s face transitions smoothly into its snout. I hope this explanation makes sense because I’m not 100% sure how to describe it. Another thing is that your Skrelp seems to have a small ball attached to the end of his snout while, again, the tip of his snout is supposed to have more of a smooth transition from its smaller middle to the large round tip.

One thing that stood out to me about Skrelp is his expression. Looking at the official art, I realize now that the bags under his eyes are actually always there. Before I realized that, however, I thought you had given him a cute kind of tired or bemused look. I think what really makes it seem that way is the fact that you’ve made them a little more prominent than the official artwork, and you also showed both at once. On that note, I should bring up the other linework on Skrelp. Your main deviation from the Sugimori style here is your thick black outlines. For the most part, they look alright, but there are some places, like the bags under his eyes, and the lines on his tummy, where they seem to be a little too big.

Okay, moving on to some of the other aspects of the piece. Compared to some of your other work, the background here looks kind of empty. Even compared to your Cottonee, which just had a couple extra Cottonee in the background, this one looks a little more thrown-together and less cohesive. By that I mean the Luvdisc and the seaweed don’t necessarily fit anything going on expect that they solidify the undersea setting. I do like how the Luvdisc look, I think they are the right size for the piece—not too distracting—and the linework and shading looks good. The seaweed, particularly on the bottom left, looks a little too zoomed-in. The outlines are even thicker than the ones on Skrelp and the shading isn’t blended as well as Skrelp. Having everything on the seaweed be so big and prominent makes it seem like it’s in the foreground, even in front of Skrelp, and therefore distracts from the star of the picture.

The ocean backdrop itself was done very nicely. I like the different layers of color in the background and how they all blend together very smoothly and give an effect reminiscent of ocean currents and shimmering water. I do think you went a tad overboard on the bubbles, especially since they all appear to be the same bubble, just scaled to different sizes. In a realistic seting, bubbles can take many different shapes. Sure, they tend to eventually become regular ol’ spheres, but depending on the source (which we don’t see here at all) and any other influences like the current and the stuff swimming around them, they very often shift and change shape quite a lot.

The last object in your picture is the Pokéball. I thought this was a nice, whimsical touch that contributed to your fishing theme, since it looks like the trainer here is using that instead of a hook. The only criticism I would add is that it doesn’t follow the same artistic style as the rest of the objects in the picture. The Pokeball doesn’t have any sort of outline, and the shading is very smooth, whereas Skrelp’s shading has clearer light and dark zones. For this reason, the Pokéball feels like it doesn’t belong in the picture even though it does contribute to the “story.”

Grade

I rate this a 54/55. It is a very well-done picture, but since it’s for a Hard ‘mon this time, I’m looking for just a little more polish. I’ve pointed out a few things you could improve in the picture, and I’m really only looking for one or two tiny tweaks to bring the whole thing together. Let me know whenever you’ve finished revising the picture, and I will happily take another look! I hope that fixing a finished picture is not too difficult a process; I don’t know much about Photoshop.

@Sou Cleife

Regrade

TL;DR: I grade this a 55/55 so Skrelp is caught!

I think that making the seaweed on the lift a little less sharp makes Skrelp look even better by comparison because now it's definitely the star of the picture and there's nothing competing with it for foreground space. Weirdly enough I also think it makes the background look better because now it's part of the background instead of the foreground.

I like that you've connected his snout to his face more smoothly now. I think the ball on the end should be connected to the shaft in the same way. Btw, sorry if I implied that I disliked your picture because it differs from Sugimori's art. I meant to use it solely as a reference help explain my critique, but I did not mean to suggest that you needed to copy his style at the expense of your own.

I especially like what you did with the Pokéball! I think it looks perfect now. It just needed that little bit of an outline and a more prominent sheen so that it felt more like part of the picture.

For those reasons, you get a pass!