KingBaller06's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ankha's Sleepover]

This looks more chibi-esque in comparison to the other pieces I've seen from you, but they are still cute, round, smooth, and still has a good emphasis on the lower body (the legs).

Starmilkplus responds:

I usually don't lean into the chibi-esque unless they're younger characters, but maybe I'll try it some more in the future! I am glad you liked them!

[Portraits]

I like the top one the best because that has the most variation and experimentation in terms of the lighting.

GRIS9 responds:

Oh thank you!

[Tron Bonne & The Bois]

I like the vibrant colors and the shape of the legs the most.

Starmilkplus responds:

Thank you! A year has passed since I made this one, and I can definitely see some things I'd like to do better, especially the rushed servbots. Glad you appreciate the legs and colors alot though! 👌Thank you!

[Bea]

I honestly love the stylized look for the face and the flow of the clothing. I also love the red that pops out in the shadows. If you wouldn't mind going into your coloring technique that would be great!

rtil responds:

i always start with the shadow colors first and block out the light later. once it's in a place i like, i pick a saturated bright swatch of the skin and go over the edges lightly to get that effect on the midtone. it's especially good on characters with more refined areas like muscle, so it fits on Bea pretty well.

[A Warm Night on Coruscant]

The double rim lighting really brings more interest to this. If you don't mind me, where do you do blending and where do you keep the hard edges?

MollySkyfire responds:

Hey thanks!! I absolutely love the multi-directional lighting found in glamor photography, so I'm trying my best to learn!

As to edges - in any rendering, you've got to consider three kinds of edge - hard, soft, and lost. It's all about what direction the light is coming from, how bright it is, and what the shape of the surface it lands on is. A gradual slope or curve will usually mean a lost or soft edge, whereas a crisp corner or a cast shadow tends to create hard edges. Rim light tends to be a little crisper because it's usually cast from a bit behind the figure and very bright, so we only see the terminator of that cast light.

That said, I am still an intermediate at best with rendering and light, so I encourage you to look up tutorials on YouTube or grab some books on the matter (Color and Light by Gurney is a very good book).

[Aphrodite]

Is this a 3D render? Because this doesn't look like normal digital art to me.

MaddyKenyon responds:

Yes! Rendered in Blender :)

[Nova - Just Peachy]

I was searching through the featured art and found your art. I'm glad I did. I can see clear signs of cell shading but a little bit softer, which makes your artwork look very smooth and clean, especially with the varying colors in the lineart.

MollySkyfire responds:

Thanks man! I'm constantly trying to marry the simplicity of cel shading with the robustness of painting, so I 'm really glad that's landing. Cheers!

[Knight girl]

I like the lineless look. How do you go about where you blend? Most of the image is composed of hard edges but do you have a general where you choose to apply soft edges and blend some parts together?

GRIS9 responds:

Thank you! With metal surfaces I usually blend only whena highlight is being reflected, otherwise I tend to go for hard egdes. With organic material such as skin I use hard edges and contrast in some areas to give form to the nose, eyes, mouth etc and in others I blend to make it look like a soft surface

[Bikini Mitsuri]

The way that you communicate form with your sharp and triangular looking shading is quite unique. My general suggestion would be to emphasize the highlights more, especially with this piece since the color for the highlights and the skin are so similar looking.

bocodamondo responds:

i prefer to keep the skin shading like this for lower tier commissions, otherwise they would look almost the same as the high tier ones