Thread: [JUN] Papaswine and the Kiddlets! [Complete]

Best not to ask about the name.
I thought it was cool ; v;
I did some experimenting here and I need to get back into my drawing flow, so another piece for another mon xD

Pokemon I'm Catching: Swinub
Difficulty: Medium, I believe.

Spoiler:

My first time trying to make snow too D:
Its hard, but I tried xD;
Picture of a proud Papa Mamoswine and his kids. Happy late Father's day! :>

Guess this is the oldest un-curated art, so CLAIM!

@Sou Cleife: Swinub curation complete!

Sou,

Another nicely done picture!

I’ll start off by talking about Mamoswine, who is the star of the picture—the biggest and most central figure. I think you nailed a lot of details; there’s nary a line out of place. I especially liked how you worked in a couple different shading styles to differentiate between the types of “materials” that make up his body. His ivory tusks have a shiny porcelain feel, since the shading areas have clear ends with not a lot of fuzz between light and dark. On the other hand, you’ve got some blurring effects between the light and dark areas of his fur, giving it a softer glow that fits the fact that those parts of his body are hair. One bit of feedback on the tusks—it seems like the level of light and shadow isn’t quite right in certain parts. I had a hard time figuring out where the light source in this picture is positioned. Based on Mamoswine’s body, the light source appears to be positioned at the top left, but the darks areas on the tusks are more concentrated in the center, rather than the bottom right. Furthermore, the lighter areas of shadow are positioned at the bottom right, making it look like the light source should be coming from the ground rather than the sky. One explanation, I suppose, is that there’s light bouncing off of the snow, although I think in general the shadows should still be balanced a little more toward the ground even if that’s the case.

I really love the way you added a dusting of snow to the Mamoswine’s fur (and the little guy next to him). I think you pulled off the effect really well, especially on Mamoswine, where there’s enough snow to add in a little shading. I think it may be a little too transparent on Swinub, as well as the outline around Mamoswine’s body. The outline there is dark enough that it comes through the snow, whereas it otherwise seems like there’s quite a bit on his back. Since the outline is really an “artificial” part of his body, I think it should probably have been covered up here. On Swinub, I like that you tried to give him just a thin layer of snow, rather than the pile on top of Mamoswine, but I think it could still have been made a little more opaque. I think the reason it stands out is because I can clearly see the brown streaks on his fur, including the outlines again. Even if there’s only a little snow on his back, I’d expect those features to be more obscured. Otherwise, it takes away a little bit of the immersion of the picture since I can tell it was created by a brush rather than a “natural” phenomenon.

I only have one note on the Swinub in the foreground, which is that you forgot his nostrils! It makes him look like a Diglett with tattoos rather than a Swinub, which I had a bit of a chuckle at.

I like how you added in extra details, like the footprints in the snow and the cracks in the cave wall. Though they could use a little polish, I think they really tie the picture together. For example, I wonder whether the footprints are the right shape? We’ve got two differently-shaped sets, which makes me think that one belongs to a Swinub, and the other set belongs to Mamoswine. The set closer to the bottom, though they are bigger, don’t seem big enough to belong to the Mamoswine, nor do they seem to be quite the right shape. This makes me wonder whether one set belongs to some other Pokemon, but there aren’t any clues who that might be. The cracks on the cave wall look pretty good already, but I think the cave itself looks a little too… clean? Like, it’s got all these cracks in it, but other than that it’s a solid, polished slab of rock. To take it to the next level, you could consider adding more irregularities, like bulges and places where parts of the rock got knocked off. You could probably accomplish that to an extent using just shading. For example, instead of a clean line down the middle separating the light and dark areas, you could have made it more jagged to simulate the effect of protrusions in the rock.

Overall

Given the level of detail, shading, and general awesomeness, I think I would be willing to give away a Hard Pokemon for this level of quality. Or it would be very close. Anyway, that means you get a 55/45, so Swinub is captured! Enjoy!

Theme

One of the theme elements for June was the color white, and there's quite a lot of it in your picture. The snow is obviously central to the subject of the image, and you even went above and beyond with the extra detail to make it look more natural on the Pokemon's fur. For this reason, I'm ruling that your picture fits the theme, and you can claim an extra $5000 for this picture.