J-qb's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Frieza Kahlo]

This is brilliant, could be a bit more defined overall. Love the lil stache.

Madame-origami responds:

Oh hey! You're the bloke who scouts me! Nice to finally meet (well, not really since you probably won't see this message xp). Thank you very much!
And I agree- I rushed through this and left it a bit too watery. I might fix the flowers and a few details one day when I'm not working on another project.

[Sleeping Giant]

depth

You've got some great depth in this drawing, but it doesn't really come across. I'd say the mountain in front of the dragon should be as defined as the dragon itself give it sharper outlines. I'd have probably put some of the dark you have below the dragon now behind him too, to set him apart from the mountains behind him.
You digitally colored the sky right? no big fan of that; I like the pencil shading on the mountain on the left, would have preferred that in the entire piece.

Ramatsu responds:

yeah i was meaning to outline the mountain in front of him with slightly thicker outlines but i ran out of time and had to get it scaned while my neighbor was still home. I was trying to make those mountains look "atmospheric perspective-e" didn't quite work out that those mountains were a bit further away.

not really digitally color but more of like smudging because the sky didnt look much of a sky when it was scanned you can see all the pencil scribbles in it, didnt look like that when it wasnt scanned but i wanted it to look more like a sky, sorry your not a fan.

[Dragon vs Kraken]

awesome but unclear.

This has some great aspects too it, but imo it lacks definition and clarity. Don't be afraid to use some sharper contrasts eg. where the kraken comes out of the water. Slimy smooth things like the kraken's skin have edge lighting, that is to say; the edges where it bends away from the viewer are very shiny, so give them some hard highlights.
Contrast: the background is the same colour as the dragon's head and the kraken's suction cups... this makes everything blend in together... A good way to check the read of your drawings is to zoom out really far till you've only got a thumbnail sized image... If you can still make out what it's supposed to be, or where the areas of importance are it's okay. In your drawing the eye is drawn to the kraken's head, the dragon's hair and the tentacles around the dragons head. the dragon's head itself get's lost.
I like how you tried to use a bit of fog, but if you had drawn the fog behind the dragons horns and hair you could have made those stand out some more.
Anways, really cool drawing, just doesn't really work very well for me.

ZaneZansorrow responds:

I forgot about hard highlights D:, maybe because I was worried it might not fit in the foggy scenario. The dragon head color is white which is forced to look blue-ish and I understand what you mean since it blends with the color of the background. That zooming out idea is neat, but I've been working on it for so long, everything look alright to me lol, so I easily fooled myself. Either way, thanks for the critique :3

[Alduin x Ridley]

Cool

nice drawing, quite atmospheric. My fav part is Alduins head. Ridley is a bit hard to make out; I initially didn't see his head and though it was all part of the same dragon. Personally I'd have put ridleys tail and leg above the flames. All in all good work though.

Lintire responds:

Yeah, Ridley's whole composition is a bit iffy. Just kind of happened, you know?

And thanks! I really do plan to get better at making these kinds of paintings.

[Beer Flooder]

Movement

Nice work; I could definitly see this as some advertising for beer brand x. I like how you integrated the thumbnail a couple of times (but you still didn't set it right).
Anyways, really goot movement in this; like some kind of tribal dance or a party or something. The beer orb looks a bit like an orange, maybe if you had made it a little less perfectly round it would have been better. I can't really make out what's happening with the head/face/mask?
I'm looking forward to seeing what awesome stuff you'll make with a tablet ;)

ZaneZansorrow responds:

Lol the portal won't let me re-crop it right. And I'm so psych for that tablet too :D

[Samurai Rabbit]

Cool

Cool idea. A bit messy in both the linework and the shading which is a shame cause I really like the design.
Personally I would have probably chosen to go with either top or bottom lightning rather than from one side; that could make it a lot more dramatic; especially if you used really bold shading. What shading there is does in general make sense, except that the bunnies fur is awefully flat; His face curves just as much (even more probably) as the helmet, yet it has less shading.

Toast-Tony responds:

Thanks J-qb, i like the design myself so am considering redoing this image, i will take the advice of the lighting, never thought of the way lighting would change the image, making it more dramatic is what i am after. i feel the cheeks are a little too small and the fur doesn't look like fur lol so there is much to attend to in making this image finished. Thank's a lot for the advice dude, good as ever.

[Bunny!]

funny design

but a bit messy in the shading. Like savory Im no big fan of the bg.
Id suggest not using black and white for shading. rather: pick a darker saturated shade of the color; that should look better.

SourCherryJack responds:

that's what I usually do, and did for this (except on the tie) its just a mess due to rush-ed-ness.

[Flooding]

Nice clean design

I like the colors on his face, although you could have done more with that. There are quite a few "errors" in this one; the bas of the ears, the box near his shoulder... A good first venture at vectors though. I dont like the way you did the lux, it doesnt really fit imo.

Luxembourg responds:

Damn, I was hoping nobody would notice the box near his shoulder. I don't know how it happened and I didn't know how to fix it, so I kind of just covered it up. As for the base of the ears, that was just a dumb mistake and hopefully not one I'll make in the future.
I wanted to add more blue-greens into the image, as you suggested, but I didn't really know where to put them.
Thanks for the review, qb.