[CritiqueChat]-RoundUp

Featuring all the participating artworks and the critiques given on them yesterday in our Critique Chat on :#ArtistleChat:

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by Orima-Kazooie

Most people found it hard to have a point for their eyes to land on since the image is quite full of subjects.
This "messiness" though, also corresponds with the world the characters live in.
We liked your use of detail, the organic shapes you use, your lines and the style you used throughout the whole picture.
Things you could improve with your work would be to add a scene to set up the characters somewhere and using contrast and line thickness variations to help distinguish each creature (when overlapping).
It was also suggested to start with your images sketching them lightly and later on defining them with a darker pencil or pen.

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Happiness and How To Find It
Today happiness has gone down 35 points,
While sadness is up 43 points,
Which is a record high for this year.
Today the president announced a bold new initiative
In order to generate happiness,
He's shipping in 100,000 puppies in from overseas.
Projections indicate that those puppies could
boost happiness by as much as 30%.
President: "America needs happiness. When you
Want happiness, you don't sit around and wait for it."
The national party of Life Fulfillment issued a statement
Today claiming that the president should be
Placing an emphasis on long term happiness,
And that this is only a temporary fix,
As those puppies will only be regular dogs in a year.
Andrew Socolovoyich, house min. leader: "America
Needs long term solutions. The president should
Be encouraging citizens to pick up a hobby. It's not as
Fun as puppies maybe, but people with hobbies
Usually live rich, happy lives."
And in local news: Have you ever wondered what
It would be like to live without happiness at all?
Well by Quippers-United

Our first impressions of this poem was, that it was whimsical and witty, that you combined humor and thoughtfulness into a very clever package and that some of us found the placement of line breaks really distracting.
Some of us loved how you've been able to place side by side the trivial and the important, the real and the perceptions we subscribe to.
We also liked how you use an easily accessible, simple manner of bringing forward heavy issues like politics, state of life and living and the profound philosophical issues we are constantly grappling with.
It deals with how superficially we have begun to view something we should hold as being more profound. And also at the same time sort of pokes fun at us for taking something so simple as happiness and making it so complicated.

& Puppies!

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by Tahog

We absolutely loved the stamp idea and execution and found only small points to critizise.
If you'd put psyduck in the foreground, the lines wouldn't overlap him and it'd look much cleaner and neater.
Looking at the typography, the kerning in between the F and the A of Face is larger than the rest of the text. You could improve that by moving both closer to each other so it would read better.
We liked the placement of each subject within the stamp, too.
After having a little conversation about the colours, we found that the colours you chose really match each other and we liked how psyduck blends with the background.

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by xXNaemyXx

We found this very beautiful and stunningly photorealistic.
The color, the technique, the impact from just viewing the thumbnail are awesome.
You used the splash very well, the shading is great, so is the shape, light spots are set brilliantly and we all felt a little watched by this eye, which underlines the impact you made with this.
We suggested to make the lashes a bit longer (so that they are proportionate with the size and shape of the eye), and a little less clumped together.
We also liked the blue-green that you used as flecks in the eye.

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:bigthumb334403326: by AnneSun

Powerful yet silent.
We like the dynamic quality that gives a sense of movement to your photograph, however the colours seem to lack the spark of brightness that are there in the other photos in this series.
Several of us had the feeling of her running away rather than dancing
"Although I feel like it's hard to really get the emotion from the photo, even though it made me wonder, about the girl and why she's dancing, and what's there she's looking at, but somehow it made my interest go away pretty quickly."
To solve this problem, we suggested to re-edit the photo and make the background brighter instead of darker which could lead the attention of the viewer to the view the girl has.
Also, if you change the title to suggest a running action instead of a dancing one it might hold the viewer's attention further?

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  by Bonelos

The first image was shown to us in the previous critique-session, and Bonelos tried to follow our advice and made the second piece!
We saw how you improved what we told you last time!
The outline looks much cleaner, composition is perfect, colours are brighter and more friendly!
We found the perspective interesting, unique and the symmetry combined with the realism of your art lends it a unique charm.
The photorealism in those was stunning, and we would love to see more of these, or even a white flower series.
The minimalism was taken positively, though some of us thought it might also look good with a simple background (bokeh or such) .

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by NerdyGeekyArt

These icons are adorable. They are detailed and they show your effort and dedication to pixel art.
The similiarity of the facebook and tumblr icon were confusing, though we solved that by suggesting a brighter blue for either of those two icons.
We especially loved the detail on the instagram icon, and suggested to put the "g+" down a little for symmetry issues.

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Hidden YouYou hide behind your logic
We must read between those lines,
To define you is impossible
As you don't show.
You follow how you should be,
Not as you wish.
Your views are stolen
Taken from a higher source,
You are not your own,
You only think,
Not need.
Your maturity grows sweet
From the childhood you never had,
You are beginning to unravel,
Your world, crashing
Falling off the frail truths you told,
You will one day learn Bonelos

First off, we suggested to use punctuation, since poetry is language, language needs punctuation to effectively communicate itself. Lines are demarcations, punctuation adds pauses and aids in tone and character.
We also found it to sound a bit like a songtext, which is neither good or bad for the mood in the poem.
We especially loved the lines "You are beginning to unravel Your world crashing Falling off the frail truths you told You will one day learn"
and we think that punctuation will really help transform this with striking results.

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by Orima-Kazooie

We liked how you showed her from all sides, and with such love for detail again, and adored the colours you chose too.

AlexanderPaupoff: "I will stress once more on neatness and a variation that is necessary between light and dark lines and their thickness as well. But I will say that you've worked really hard on this to convey what you want in the best, least confusing way and that's commendable. You're using colours too, and that's very interesting because they will help shape the response you wish toward your monsters.
May I suggest before taking on complex tasks like designing monsters and being consistent in your drawing of them from different angles etc., you try practicing with basic shapes and simpler ideas from everyday life?"

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Thank you for Being Born (Song Story)Once upon a time, sat the girl.
She was the maid, no, she was the center of his life.
Everything he knew of revolved around her.
His first time seeing her smile
His first time feeling what a hug was
His first time waking up from a nightmare
His first time being comforted 
His first time feeling completely happy
Even though his life was 
darker than black


.
.
.


'Now I have no regrets.'
'NO DON'T LEAVE ME!'
Tears streamed down his face.
There was a smile on her face
The face he loved so much
He saw his tears trickle down her cheeks
'Thank you.'
Those were her last words by Kurokurousagi

Even though we found the story moving and good, we found the use of text-effects distracting.
It works fine with the bold in "Darker than black" , but the rest is somehow distracting from the story itself.
It also felt like one wants to know more about the characters, too.

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by mondscheinsonate

The most frequent reply to this was: "COOKIES!"
Many of you also liked the blurry background, and how the glass of milk was positioned there.
There was to critizise, that maybe the M&M's colour didn't come out as well, but that the plate fit the cookies very well.


Thank you all for participating in this CritiqueChat again. We had a lovely time!