Luwano's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[You lookin at me?]

Composition is the key here. First off, reviewing the actual content, it's a pretty funny cartoon. The reference to Finding Nemo are all there and very clear, without being unoriginal or a caricature.

I enjoy seeing a variety of art from you and while I love your creature concepts, this cartoony style fits you well, too.

What I like most about this picture is how well you used the composition to emphasize the joke of your drawing. The shark is rather even, blue in blue, not standing out from the background very much. The only real attention it attracts on first view is to the highlight in the eye and to the tooth, which is good because that puts the facial expression in focus of the viewer. The clown fish however is more dynamic, with folds, in strong contrast to the background and high contrast coloring. The fins are spikey and if that's not aggressive enough, the face with its pulled-up lips and the dark under-eye circles do the rest. The position of the fish add to the intimidating feel of the clown fish. Even the background with the swarm and the colorful plants draws more attention to the right side more than to the left side. Thus emphasizing the small fish as main focus.

I think the bubbles are a nice addition to show how angry he really is. lol

The only tiny little thing I would have liked to see would be some underwater light you usually see shining through from above in the upper background. Since parts of the background seem a bit boring. Hard to explain, I guess you know what I mean, but you can just google underwater light, if you are curious.

Overall, very good job. I like it.

Kkylimos responds:

Hey thanks man , awesome review , you got a good eye!

[Redwood Bar N Grill]

Very impressive acrylic art as usual. I have to say it suffers from bad lighting though. The flashlight makes an area in the top left seem rather flat. This stretches out to the tophat. Apart from that it's a really good piece of art. I am sure it looks even better in real life. The flowers look perfect and I especially love their colors. Your colors are really good overall, do you mix them yourself? I tried a few times and it's kinda difficult to get them right. That whiskey bottle is an awesome addition!

Great job, I'm sure the people at the Redwood Bar'N'Grill are happy to have found you.

SourCherryJack responds:

Thanks man, I agree about the light, it was made brighter so I could work on it more easily and I didn't know how to dim it when I took the picture. getting the top hat to pop was something I tried to do, but it never looked right when I went to bright.
And I did mix all of the colors, thanks for noticing. I used probably around six or seven colors and between those was able to get all of the tones used in the pic, The hardest part is when you mix a bunch of colors one day and then have to get the same color a few days later.
They are very happy with it, already lined up some more work, thanks for the kind words.

[Mirana]

It's well done as mentioned before. I hope you don't mind me pointing out some issues, though. An actual ground for the lion to stand on would have helped to bring some more depth across. The sky could use some more stars on the left. Overall, there should be lesser stars visible as you get closer to the moon. And the neck of the princess is kinda misplaced, to far to our left (her right).

Don't get me wrong, I like it nevertheless. The colors go very well with each other and suit the moon theme.

Apart from that, I totally agree with Jazza's review.

[Alpine ralley]

I don't wanna turn this into a longwinded textwall about your composition skills, since you know better than me what you have done. But I just want to mention how well you guide my eyes across the canvas. Great use of contrast, not only colorwise, but also considering big and small, near and far, peaceful and dynamic. And despite or rather espacially because of this great use, the drawing is very harmonic.

The smaller you view it (or the further away I move), the more it appears as an actual photo. The bigger you view it, the more it falls apart into different colors, values and brushstrokes.

I could say I'd wish for more details in the background village, but that would take away some of the effect mentioned above.

I already liked the drawing when I loaded the page and couldn't see the car yet by the way.

Great job yet again!

P.S.: Congrats to your dad for being chosen!

Flowers10 responds:

Thanks luw, appreciate this!

[Middle-Eastern Santa]

I know I bothered you about the number of camels too much already, but just because you did that one so well. It looks like it's about to start moving any moment, since you chose such an optimally dynamic pose.

Style is such an awfully overused word that you'd deserve a new one, but until I found one, all I can say is, that I like your style generally and the style you used for this one. All these swirls one finds across the drawing add that little orientalic something that goes so well with the theme you picked. It kinda reminds me of Disney or Nightmare before Christmas without being unoriginal.

To cut a long story a little shorter: Love the colors, love the composition & love the whole thing. All it could use is one dozen more camels or two. :3

[Dreaming]

Cute idea, I like the concept you came up with and especially that you gave him goggles.

As for critique, I think what it lacks to be one of these enchanting dreamy night scenes is, above all, contrast. You used dark and desaturated colors, which makes sense cause it's night, but you need light to make other parts appear dark and you need some saturation to make the shadows appear misty. Otherwise they just appear dull to the viewers eye. If you'd google 'night scene' for example you'd instantly see what I mean.

So what is this babbling about? I'd recommend adding some hightlights, a moon maybe or at least make those stars 'pop' a bit more and and some blues or purples in the mix. The cloud needs some defining too, this is again due to the lack of contrast. The shadows are only slightly darker than the midtones and highlights are basically non-existant.

The text you added doesn't add a lot of charm either, maybe you'd be better off using your handwriting or use another font for that purpose.

Some resources for fonts:

http://art101.newgrounds.com/news/post/569368 (remove the empty spaces in the URL)

Am I saying all this to discourage you? Not at all, it's just because I like what you got here so far and I think you should build upon it.

I'd even say you could consider reviving your thread in the art forum for that purpose... just saying. :)

All in all a good idea, nice execution thus far, but could use some work still.

[Collaboration Breeze.]

That took a while...

It took a while until my mind understood that the tank is really infront of the people. Of course the hints are clear but my mind insisted on seeing it standing next to them. Things closer to the viewer have a higher contrast, once you get that it's so obvious that you can't see the tank next to them anymore. And of course, the fact that the grass is behind the tank is a good hint too.

Usually I would say you could move the tank a slight bit down so it's easier to make out that it's in front, but I see how the composition is so important and so strong in this piece that moving the tank might be a problem.

It took a while until I got what's going on overall. At first I thought 'Ok that's Pico and Nene in the back... probably... and the one guy wears Tankmen glasses... but who are those other two?'. And judging from Izzy-A's comment I am not the only one who asked himself that question. But then it struck me like a lightning bolt.

OF COURSE they represent the four portals! Guy listens to music, girl is an artist, gamer controls the RC tank and the other girl is filming it. Now that I got this this, I like your drawing even more. Trust me, I am not the only one who didn't get it, so it might be a good idea to give a bit of an hint towards it in the author comments. Although the title is a good hint already and helped me understand it.

Before I got the concept, I already loved the art. The color scheme is a pleasure, it's well composed and of course, it's very well drawn.

It also works good for an autumn month for the calendar, that was a nice decision and implemented persuasively.

Good luck for the contest!

Kuoke responds:

When an image is distributed, the chances of an artist statement to remain attached to it at all times is highly unlikely. I can only hope that others, like you, can grasp the concept without being told.

[The Old Digger]

It's a interesting take on the theme. You really got the old digger across, with his facial expression and his pose. You screwed up or at least didn't care for his anatomy, the right leg (his left) and arm are weird. But I never know what you were going for with your stylized drawings. You did a good job on the hand resting on the pickaxe handle.

What I like about your drawings, is that you can always discover something new when you look at it several times. That's also what makes them so hard to review. But the little extras you hide in your art make it even more worth looking at it.

Generally I like the definition in this drawing, I mean you can instantly make out what is what. :D

I love the stone! :3

Overall I dig your old digger pic!

ZaneZansorrow responds:

I wonder how I missed the anatomy issue with the legs, I even flip the image horizontally to see anatomy issue D:

This can be an easy fix-able problem just by adding in some fat on the skinny leg :)