Thread: [July] Zam's Happy Fourth! [Complete]

I'm not good at titles kay :<

I did some more experimenting with this one and learned quite a bit. I think shading might be getting a bit better :o
I just wish I could do dynamic poses. In due time I suppose, so enjoy Alakazam on his Fourth of July!

Pokemon I'm catching: Abra
Rank: Hard

Spoiler:

@Sou Cleife



There's plenty to say here about the Pokemon, the background, and your use of the monthly theme. I'll start off by talking about Alakazam.

I want to talk about three aspects of Alakazam's form in this picture: pose, shape, and shading. I'd like to discuss the pose first, because I think it's the weakest of the three. The composition of the piece, with Chandelure facing backward positioned in one corner, and Alakazam positioned towards the opposite side, makes it clear there's a battle going on. There's not a whole lot of action in the image, however. I can see that Alakazam's spoons are glowing, and he's holding at least one of them out in front of his body, which makes it look like he's preparing for some kind of psychic attack. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of other visual cues to support this. For example, I'd expect to see Alakazam's eyes closed or at least focused. I think you could have also made him look a little more imposing if you had put his right arm out in front of his mustache like his left arm. As it is, Alakazam looks like he's holding back, with his right arm not poised to attack and his whole body in general extending a little behind his center of gravity rather than forward.

I think that last part comes down to shape, however. For example, the line that makes up the right side of Alakazam's stomach is a little longer and stretches further back than the one on his left. I have the feeling this is partly meant to show his back, but I don't think that part of Alakazam's body is angled in such a way that the viewer would really see any part of his back. His legs are definitely positioned at an angle, as if Alakazam were facing Chandelure, but the top half of his body is angled straight out at the viewer. The stomach, where the two halves meet, ends up looking a little awkward as a result. In order to fix the discrepency, I think Alakazam's right half should still be angled a hair lower than his left half. Finally, the way you have his arms positioned makes them look a lot shorter than they actually are. Alakazam's arms actually reach almost all the way to his feet from his neutral standing position. That's a good deal more hunched over than he appears in your picture, but I think his arms should be a little longer. His forearms, which are covered by the brown "armor", look good because they are foreshortened in order to show perspective. The yellow parts between his shoulders and elbows should probably be a lot longer, however. Since they're extending out to the side, not to the front, Alakazam's elbows should probably come out at least twice as far as you have depicted them.

Finally, I do want to touch on your use of shading, primarily to say that I think it looks really well done. Alakazam's design has complex shapes, but the colors are rather drab. You've done a good job of making him pop regardless. I like that the moon is the clear light source, and I like that the highlights here are bright, and the shadows still dark. It really helps the picture feel like it's being lit by soft moonlight. I do have one note, however. I think you could have really cranked up the awesome if you had worked the color of the fireworks into the shading on Alakazam's body. With a fireworks display like that in the background, there would almost certainly be flares of red, green, and blue flashing on his skin from behind.

Onto the background: There are a ton of really nice details here. I love the way you've made the moon look. You've textured the shadows really nicely and made it look absolutely stunning. Once again, I also like the way you create grass. I like how it's kind of weaving in front of and behind the Pokemon, and I also like the range of brightness you used, because the high contrast of light and dark helps add to that moonlight feel I mentioned earlier. I also love that I can see faint stars in the background. On the less awesome side, the setting is a little mundane. As far as I can tell, the Pokemon are on a hilltop overlooking the ocean, or maybe a big lake. There's also some sort of shadowy form in the "water" behind Chandelure, but I can't tell what it is at all. I guess I'm not really looking for a more exciting setting (because it does look beautiful as-is), but I would like something with a more discernable composition. For example, it almost looks like Alakazam's left foot is on the edge of a cliff, because there's no reference to let me know whether this piece of ground goes on any farther. If you had extended the grass, it would have made it look more like a realistic hilltop. (Or maybe they really are on a cliff, in which case, oops).

Finally, we come to the monthly theme. There are red, white, and blue images in the piece, but they aren't really put together in a cohesive theme. The fireworks do definitely fit the theme, but again they don't really add anything to the piece. You could remove them from the picture and it wouldn't really lose anything. The story that's happening in the piece is the battle between Alakazam and Chandelure, and if there's a celebration going on somewhere, it doesn't really have anything to do with the battle. I would have liked to see some details that work those fireworks into the picture a little more, like the lighting changes I mentioned earlier. You could have also played up the celebration aspect, and showed a crowd of people in the background looking up at the sky, or something like that. For these reasons, I don't think the theme applies fully here.

One more note: Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I couldn't help but notice that the line work on Chandelure matches up very closely with the line work on your other Chandelure picture, although filled in with new shading. I'm not too terribly put off by it because you definitely did redo the color, and Chandelure isn't really the star of the piece either, but it's not the sort of thing I'd like to see happen very often.

Anyway, onto the grade.

I'm giving this a subtotal of 54/55. The background and other details here win you some points. I took off a few because of some of the awkward shapes of Alakazam's body, and because I think you could have put a lot more action or at least focus into his pose. But! You get a point because it took me forever to get around to grading this, which brings your grand total to.....

55/55! Abra captured!