[img]http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2018/02/16/xLE.png[/img]
Welcome back to works's eighth Crit Pit. Every Sunday, one of us will analyse some art posted in Rate My Graphic, or submitted to us privately. If you'd like us to consider your work for next week, please post it in RMG or PM it to me! works will not critique any project which has been rushed, produced in a few minutes, or is a work in progress: it's pointless to seek criticism on anything but your best work, for then you'll never improve.
The idea is that by sharing feedback on your work, everyone will improve together - it's extremely useful to read criticism of others' work because doing so hones our own critical eye, and means that we can self-analyse our work as we create it.
Piece #1 - Refusal (design by SesoHQ)
Spoiler (Click to View)
A bit of a slow week in RMG this week, possibly also caused by me writing this on Friday as I'm busy this weekend. Anyway, be sure to submit your work for next week's Crit Pit!
We're kicking off with a logo this week, and it should be noted before we begin that this logo isn't by the OP - a YouTuber made it for OP, who's sharing it here. Pretty neat to see what other design scenes are doing. My main problem with this logo is scalability: when you shrink this down, you'll lose the compass marks around the middle immediately, as well as the detailing in the crown and the S. This loss of detail in the central S is particularly worrisome, because the negative space separating each part of the letter isn't very large; at small sizes, this space will vanish and you'll just be left with a central blob. I do like the outer shape, though- it's strong and will scale well, helping this logo to stand out at any size. My other issue with this logo is just that it seems kinda... random. I'm not sure what any of the elements on the logo are there for: you have a crown, a shield-shape, and compass marks, but I'm not sure what any of this is intended to signify. It's like you gave him a bunch of things you wanted him to include and he just went down the list and ticked it off one by one, without thinking how best to integrate each individual element into a whole logo, if that makes sense. I guess I'm trying to say it looks like a collection of elements grouped within a shield, rather than an actual logo.
Piece 2 - #Doge
Spoiler (Click to View)
Most of the facture is actually pretty good, as per usual from Doge. It's clearly not a project that took ages, because the shading and highlights seem slightly rushed, but it's serviceable; the only area that sticks out to me as looking very rough is the top section of the lower blue arm. There's a large darker-blue area which hasn't been blended into the rest of the arm, so it just looks like a random shadow or some sort of horrific rash.
Colours are nice: they're vibrant, but also kinda dirty, which really fits the vibe you're going for with the piece. Same with that thick, slapdash, moody linework. Good creative direction throughout. However, the area that needs obvious attention is the hair; to be frank, this looks like a .png stock of some hair which you've fiddled with and then just dropped on top. I'm not sure it really fits, and its highlights are so harsh they distract from the moody introversion of the face below. Nonetheless, this is solid work and it's also cool to see words being used as inspiration below the image! I fully back this.
Piece 3 - Crimin4L
Spoiler (Click to View)
Wb to RMG! If all you were trying to do with this piece was re-create the original image (say, because the original was too small and you needed a bigger version or whatever) then I'd say you did a good job. It's a very faithful re-creation, and I'd be pleased with it if I was a client who'd asked you to do that. You asked about making it pop more: more vibrant colours would help you out here, as would using non-flat shading (if you take a look at Doge's work above, for example, you can see he's shaded the image so there are darker and lighter areas and the whole thing looks more realistic and visually interesting). I'd also recommend following Doge's advice in the comments and using thicker lines which taper to a point. All of these techniques will help your image seem more dynamic and attention-grabbing, and are definitely the next steps you should take in your digital painting :)
[img]http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2018/02/16/xLL.gif[/img]
Welcome back to works's eighth Crit Pit. Every Sunday, one of us will analyse some art posted in Rate My Graphic, or submitted to us privately. If you'd like us to consider your work for next week, please post it in RMG or PM it to me! works will not critique any project which has been rushed, produced in a few minutes, or is a work in progress: it's pointless to seek criticism on anything but your best work, for then you'll never improve.
The idea is that by sharing feedback on your work, everyone will improve together - it's extremely useful to read criticism of others' work because doing so hones our own critical eye, and means that we can self-analyse our work as we create it.
Piece #1 - Refusal (design by SesoHQ)
Spoiler (Click to View)
![[Image: 1B9TQ0g.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/1B9TQ0g.jpg)
A bit of a slow week in RMG this week, possibly also caused by me writing this on Friday as I'm busy this weekend. Anyway, be sure to submit your work for next week's Crit Pit!
We're kicking off with a logo this week, and it should be noted before we begin that this logo isn't by the OP - a YouTuber made it for OP, who's sharing it here. Pretty neat to see what other design scenes are doing. My main problem with this logo is scalability: when you shrink this down, you'll lose the compass marks around the middle immediately, as well as the detailing in the crown and the S. This loss of detail in the central S is particularly worrisome, because the negative space separating each part of the letter isn't very large; at small sizes, this space will vanish and you'll just be left with a central blob. I do like the outer shape, though- it's strong and will scale well, helping this logo to stand out at any size. My other issue with this logo is just that it seems kinda... random. I'm not sure what any of the elements on the logo are there for: you have a crown, a shield-shape, and compass marks, but I'm not sure what any of this is intended to signify. It's like you gave him a bunch of things you wanted him to include and he just went down the list and ticked it off one by one, without thinking how best to integrate each individual element into a whole logo, if that makes sense. I guess I'm trying to say it looks like a collection of elements grouped within a shield, rather than an actual logo.
Piece 2 - #Doge
Spoiler (Click to View)
![[Image: csQgcUb.png]](https://i.imgur.com/csQgcUb.png)
Most of the facture is actually pretty good, as per usual from Doge. It's clearly not a project that took ages, because the shading and highlights seem slightly rushed, but it's serviceable; the only area that sticks out to me as looking very rough is the top section of the lower blue arm. There's a large darker-blue area which hasn't been blended into the rest of the arm, so it just looks like a random shadow or some sort of horrific rash.
Colours are nice: they're vibrant, but also kinda dirty, which really fits the vibe you're going for with the piece. Same with that thick, slapdash, moody linework. Good creative direction throughout. However, the area that needs obvious attention is the hair; to be frank, this looks like a .png stock of some hair which you've fiddled with and then just dropped on top. I'm not sure it really fits, and its highlights are so harsh they distract from the moody introversion of the face below. Nonetheless, this is solid work and it's also cool to see words being used as inspiration below the image! I fully back this.
Piece 3 - Crimin4L
Spoiler (Click to View)
![[Image: 314154148eebafc6fb6fba57ed3ced74b468e1ce...ba8476.jpg]](https://serving.photos.photobox.com/314154148eebafc6fb6fba57ed3ced74b468e1ce8b9e5d35ae845b9067a2dcc0f6ba8476.jpg)
Wb to RMG! If all you were trying to do with this piece was re-create the original image (say, because the original was too small and you needed a bigger version or whatever) then I'd say you did a good job. It's a very faithful re-creation, and I'd be pleased with it if I was a client who'd asked you to do that. You asked about making it pop more: more vibrant colours would help you out here, as would using non-flat shading (if you take a look at Doge's work above, for example, you can see he's shaded the image so there are darker and lighter areas and the whole thing looks more realistic and visually interesting). I'd also recommend following Doge's advice in the comments and using thicker lines which taper to a point. All of these techniques will help your image seem more dynamic and attention-grabbing, and are definitely the next steps you should take in your digital painting :)
[img]http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2018/02/16/xLL.gif[/img]
![[Image: HMHpl76.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/HMHpl76.gif)
![[Image: gjTsm61.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/gjTsm61.gif)
