HOME | DD
Cyberdrace — You Can't Run
Published: 2013-02-25 21:40:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 9970; Favourites: 608; Downloads: 428
Redirect to original
Description
Throwing rocks worked when AJ did it, right?Started this right after the episode aired and then I just left lying there unfished, because of various distractions.
Alas, I finally got around to finish it now! I hope the composition works... it looked more consistent as a sketch, but oh well!
Related content
Comments: 48
I will write this critique following (more or less) the categories as defined by the deviantArt guidelines of Vision, Originality, Technique and Impact, whose definitions I will post after the critique.
Please take no offense at anything I write. I only mean it as constructive criticism, something to help you learn from your own work and then improve.
_______________
You are very strong in the vision here. The idea of Spike, cornered and trapped by a timberwolf, is conveyed quite clearly. The fear shown on Spike's face is well done, although the sweat drop is slightly too large in my opinion. I find it interesting that he is holding a rock, though, and it hints at a desire to fight back still. I like that, and would've followed through with that a little. Perhaps explore a bit; try posing him with his arm cocked back, ready to throw, with the concern and fear still evident.
Your originality takes a bit of a hit because it's an idea that I have seen enough before to no longer be completely shocked or surprised by it, yet I still appreciate the effort that you put into this art. I still give you four and a half stars because of the tagline you included in the description of "Throwing rocks worked when AJ did it, right?". To me, this implies a couple of potential ways this situation came about. Either Spike was careless in where he walked, or he was feeling bold and arrogant, so cocksure of himself that he could take on the timberwolves that he managed to get himself into a horrible situation. The fact that there are a few different stories possible behind this intrigues me, and earns you an extra star in Originality.
The technique, however, suffers greatly. The shading is inconsistent with the apparent light sources. Looking at Spike's scales on his head, for example, we see that the lighting is coming across him diagonally, suggesting lighting from above and at an angle. However, the majority of the shading in the picture disagrees with this source, and places the light source visibly behind the timberwolf. If the light sources is truly behind the timberwolf, then this picture should be even more dramatic. The timberwolf would be hardly light at all, most of the light on the side we see would come from his eyes, while his body would be hardly visible. His front paws shouldn't be nearly as bright as they are portrayed here. You started off fairly well with the rear paws being as dark as they are, though they should be darker, but the front paws would in no case be lighter. We, the viewers, shouldn't be able to distinguish many particular features on the timberwolf at all, but Spike's front should be well lit, as it is, adding to the contrast of the image. However, his back is too light for the light source. When you challenge yourself with a light source position like in this image, follow through and truly challenge yourself! Boldly leave your comfort zone, and learn from all of your work, whether or not it's a mistake. The shadow of the timberwolf fades too quickly. While it would be long and would fade, the ground is too light for the image. Had it been kept darker, the shadow wouldn't have been a problem, and it would've again added to the contrast and vividness of the picture. It would've helped you in Vision as well. Be willing to lose some details in the shadows! Lose some of Spike's back, and lose the detail of the timberwolf, and the image will stick with people.
The Impact score, therefore, does lose a good chunk through the Technique. However, because I can still appreciate the artwork for the ideas that it represents, I will not being completely diabolical. I would love for somebody to include this as part of a fanfic, but I don't see it being the spawning of an entire story. It could be a chapter or two, but not several.
In conclusion, this artwork conveys the idea crisply, invokes some thought (how did Spike get into this situation, how will he respond, will anybody be able to help him, etc.), and presents a fairly original idea. However, the detail in shading severely hurts the impression that this artwork could leave, which in turn hurts the Impact score.
I would recommend that you try drawing white graphite on black paper. It seems like a bad idea, but some people find it easier to work with. Give it a go.
_________________________________________
These are the definitions of the Critique categories as provided by deviantArt.
"Vision – Does the artwork present or reflect a point of view, theme or idea?
Originality – Is the artwork fresh or new in its style, execution or approach? Is it something you haven’t seen before in its particular genre? Does it surprise you?
Technique – Was the artwork skillfully created? Does the artist exhibit advanced knowledge of the medium and/or bring special focus to the craft of the medium used.
Impact – Does the artwork resonate with you or evoke strong emotions? Does it make you think? Does it blow your mind? "
help.deviantart.com/95/
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Well, I really liked this artwork. The perspective makes the picture really exciting. But if we take a look closer it seems like you haven't put enough effort at the contrast and I also think you made it a bit tooo softy. You should use harder colors and brushes for the shading. The trees in the background looks a bit messy and plastic, do more bark and maybe also some leafs.
But I liked this picture. The green light in the background makes the pic exciting and it fits with the perspective. And the way you made the background looks pretty great. Keep up the good work and keep improving!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Overall I really like this piece. It reads really well as a thumbnail, overall layout and perspective are great, chosen colors and values are okay.. Buut when it comes to looking at the whole picture, it all just isn't rendered and executed well enough.
Your skill level is really balanced at where it is (different areas aren't notably worse or better than others) though and you have a great base for improvement.
Color scheme is good. The blue-green gives a nice dark mood, but you could've got more of that blue backlight out by using it on shadows. Also you could go further and include more colors like yellow or teal around to give the picture more impact while still keeping the same color scheme.
First thing I noticed though was the very, very soft and low contrast value blending on everything, plus the lack of harder edges around the environment. It makes the image feel unnecessarily soft and blurry.
You don't have to make all the shadows smooth and gradient-like, there can be more rough and harder shadows with clear edges and sharper lighting. You lose a lot of impact if you introduce mid-value areas between light and shadow around majority of stuff
You need to get some textures going on on everything. Not necessarily texture brushes, but just harder edged brushes to further reduce the softness of everything, especially for environments I recommend something else than regular shaped brushes like round.
You can get away with just having hard edges, but you can't get away with just having soft edges. Best is to have a healthy mix of both around all objects.
You also seem to be too careful of your brushwork, let it flow and scribble around more. For instance, when you paint grass, you don't have to carefully do it strand by strand like you've clearly done here. Instead you can create an impression of grass by scribbling more chaotic lines of different colors and values around.
Get more reference on forests in general. It reeeally doesn't hurt to take good looks on a hefty pile of photography before the work and during the work.
Trees aren't such smooth straight poles, and branch structure is quite different. All your branches are very thick related to the trunk, and spread out in pretty much the same angles. Paint bark rough, and have light be more inconsistent on the bark surface because there is always a lot of stuff like moss and cracks going on around the surface, all your wood surfaces look very dry and plastic-y due to this regular smoothness and soft shading.
Don't be afraid to show us some leaves either. They still exist pretty far down especially since we're having a forest clearing going on here.
Ground needs the same treatment as trees. It looks so smooth and cries for some texture and rough lighting going on, plus more things like grass, leaves, branches, moss and rocks to give it more interest and make the place feel like a forest. Current amount of stuff on the ground just isn't enough, and adding more cannot hurt in this situation. Again, you don't even have to try and paint them invidually, you can just throw pretty loose lines and blobs of color around to just create an impression of branches, pebbles and stuff.
Rethink your bushes a bit, get some reference images again. Make them have visible branches and some more visible invidual leaves to break the cartoony afro shape.
I would also remove the middle one on the midground to open up the forest a bit and make the image breathe. It'd also add more interest by revealing the roots of the tree and you could make the varying flora behind the bushline to reach out forward around the roots.
The way those repeating similar bushes barricade the forest and frame the timberwolf looks kinda odd.
Spike especially has waaay too soft and simple gradient shading. It just doesn't work when you try to make rest of the piece follow more realistic idea of an environment. Again, you can break the overly soft shading by mixing in some harder brushes and less blending. You don't have to make his shadow so deep either, you could just shade him with blue since shadows absorb some of the color they see, which in this case is the blue ambient light around the forest.
Arm's shoulder position looks kinda odd and makes his pose feel really stiff. Although he could be sorta stiff given the situation, it's now stiff in a way it doesn't just feel right and it eats the impact of the picture a bit. This could simply be fixed by making him more relaxed just by moving his shoulder down.
Also I miiight reconsider his position. You're cutting him out of the picture in two places and that hurts the composition. Considering his contrast, he's the focal point of the picture and should be closer to the center.
So yah, most of the stuff here revolves around breaking the softness of everything and getting into the world of harder edges and more carefree painting.
I can't really tell from here what kind of brushes you use, but this really feels like Corel Painter, which seems to have a lot of very soft blending brushes as a stock thing. In any case getting some hard and rough brushes is a must for you, and it'll help your work immensely once you just quickly get the idea of them.
Use more reference to get the environment things look more like what it's supposed to look like, no copying, but just to get better idea of how things work. Internet has a tremendous amount of photography, and I'm sure there are also a lot of trees near your house to creepily stare at.
But yes, like I said in the beginning, you have a good good base for improvement here. You have an excellent grip of all basics, but now it's just time to step it up a bit and get some more stuff going on like major life/photography referencing and better tools.
It's like you have leveled up as an artist but forgot to spend your talent points.
Keep going. I'll keep an eye on you because I like where you're going with your style... And just happy to see another pony painter interested in getting environments going. There aren't enough.
...Gosh, this escalated quickly. I just intended to do a quickie here but got carried away. I guess I've already said a lot of stuff here that you already know...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
wow.. I really don't know what to say other than THANK YOU! <3
this is so helpful, thank you so much for investing you time in writing this!
The only thing I'm going to elaborate on right know is the thing with the brushes... I'm using Paint Tool SAI and never managed to get any textured or specifically shaped brushes to work for me.. I tried adding custom brushes, and maybe I'm just doin' it wrong, but it never looked any good at all. I guess I'll try again and if it doesn't work I'll move to photoshop. though the thing with that is, I only have CS4 and I couldn't figure out how to use it as a painting program yet. I have to find a good tutorial :/
As for references, do you know a good website or two? I mean, google image search is okay but it could be better
Anyway, thanks again! you made my day :3
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I learned the Photoshop simply by watching others use it, the things you need for painting are pretty simple in the end.
If you want an actual tutorial for it, go for Ctrlpainter in Youtube to get hang of Photoshop, it's definitely worth it if you already have a version of it. SAI is nice but free program is always a free program, Photoshop is much easier to customize for you needs.
But yeah, actual textured brushes, the ones which leave texture instead of solid color, aren't all necessary until the very highest levels. At any level they're always convenient for some things though.
Just having something more harsh as your hard edged brush is convenient so you can mimic textures and leave less repeating feel on brushwork quite easily. (for example, mine is number two here on my brush list: [link] ). Shape is all up to you though.
Something regular like a simple round brush will do too, yet it'll require quite a bit of skill and patience if you want anything even remotely painterly looking.
This is just my standpoint though, brushes I use try to loosely trace the traditional style, and that's how I aim to keep it.
But in any case the main point is: Shapes are all up to your preferences. Even SAI might have something that suits you, I don't know, just have something to create harder edges and rough stuff with.
For environment references, I reeeeaally recommend browsing the so-called "SafeForWork Porn network" of Reddit, which essentially is a bunch of different subreddits dedicated to find the most beautiful environment photography. For example, the place I use a lot is the EarthPorn [link] which gathers phenomenal landscape and nature photography.
EarthPorn for generic landscapes, SkyPorn for skies, VillagePorn for old architecture.. List goes on. It's a miraculous network.
Other than that.. Well, going outside and taking a walk while looking at stuff around me for mental reference. I happen to live in the edge of the city so I have stuff like forests and farmland near my house.
Other than those... Yeah, Google.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I love this! The view and angle of it is really interesting. The color pallet is very good, and diverse. The way the ground looks is really cool. I like particularly how you took the green from the trees and reflected it onto the ground towards the back. The color of the grass towards Spike is pretty. The timberwolf is very menacing, I like the eyes. Now before I say this, I can't really say I have any experience with digital art. The only thing I would suggest is to be a little more creative with the texture of Spike. I can see it would be a little confusing on how to shade him because... well... he's kind of plastic looking in the show. XD
However, he's still a dragon, so he could be scale-y...
Anyway, I loved this! Keep up the good work! This is my first critique, so I hope I did well e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you so much! And you nailed the issue with spike. I toyed around with scales but it somehow ended up looking weird so I left it (also due to lack of motivation to be honest). I guess the key would be to have him just a bit scale-y and not too much... but how to achieve that, I don't know. It's always difficult to find the balance between cartoony-ness and realism. Maybe (probably not >.>) I'll try and do a scale-y version.
And as for your critique, be more confident in you criticalness! The worst that will happen is that the artist will disagree with a rational and polite response (I have faith in our kind apparently). Thank you again, and please continue writing critiques even if your knowledge on certain subjects is limited (fresh minds ftw), every opinion is valid and it's pretty much the nicest thing you can do for an artist!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you on your positive feedback! I will probably do more critiques in the future thanks to your help
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Spike: Come on Spike, just remember what Twilight taught you to do...
(Rarity): It feel like I am wearing nothing at all... nothing at all...
Spike: Stupid sexy Rarity!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
any sort of explanation as to why his fire breath isn't working?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
*CRACK!*
The timber wolfs head exploded into sap and splinters, seeing a way to escape Spike ran for it. He heard more Timber wolves behind him but every time one got close it suffered the same fate as the last. When he got out of the forest he stopped to catch his breath. Looking towards it he wondered what saved him, little did he know that his saver was only a few feet away in a bush with a L96 sniper rifle.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
[timberwolf intensifies]
Seriously though this is giving me the slightest bit of vertigo if I stare at it for any amount of time.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I guess I'll count that as a success?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Your icon is too fitting to say otherwise XD
But seriously I kinda like that effect.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
haha okay^^
and I'm glad you think so, thats kinda what I was going for :3
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Really love the background, so mystical and Everfree-ey..Good stuff!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow the shading and atmosphere in this picture are just fantastic
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Spike!
They're made of wood!
And you're a dragon!
BLOW FIRE AT THEM!!!
(Srsly though, this is awesome!! 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
this is gorgeous! I think you can add some more texture to spike's skin- it's a bit too soft and gradient. But this overall piece is astounding and looks wonderful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
*Mudkip comes in and kils timberwolf then runs off*
Me:
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh man, poor Spike. He looks so helpless and afraid here. Makes me want to swoop in, grab him, and carry him off to safety!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, that's gorgeous. The green glow in the background makes me think of the greenish twilight in Wagner's Ring cycle.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Spike is so innocent,he's just a baby.(Y~Y)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Spike, turn that timber wolf into kindling and torch that son of a bitch.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
spike you green idiot! you breath fire!FIRE! you have the advantage against a pile of living sticks.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Really nice picture!
How long did it take to be done?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you^^
And I have actually no Idea how long it took since I was on and off working on it for like a month. So I guess maybe 10hrs?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You need to record your times XD
Naw, but really good work, seems it really pro.
Keep it up!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNLIKEABAWSRUNRUNRUNRUNABLABABABABABAAAAAAAAAAAH!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Throwing just ordinary rocks won't work, but....ROCK WILL!!! *air guitar* yeahhhhh!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow I'm glad you finished it!! This piece looks fantastic 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
