[Trixy]

It's not really a polished piece, but it's as finished as it's going to get for now..

[tek9z]

nice work!
love the expression of the frog

[monaux]

The hippo looks either very surprised or frightened, yet there does not appear to be any cause for this. Unless, of course, he's acutely afraid of miniature women or cartoon spiders.

It's a nice piece but like you said, it's unpolished.

[[666]Flat]

teh hippo char looks like somebody's just shoving a corn cob up his ass

[Trixy]

You say the nicest things Flat.

[Bronson]

Hey, if you were going for realism then you would expect this to be polished (as you put it) but seeing as how it's more cartoonish illustative then this is the effect you want.

It took me a minute to see why the hippo was surprised, but she's obviosly afraid of the spider, right?

Neat concept, very funny expressions and nice water.

[Trixy]

I appreciate the sensible comments, although I was hoping more people would say something about this.

I know there's alot to critique on, so let's hear it. Be nice or harsh.. really..

And for the record, the hippo is a MALE.

[gArGOyLe^]

I think the hippo is calling out to the frog dude to do something because his side of the raft is about to sink cuz of his weight..

Like.. DO SOMETHING!! EEk!

or maybe its the storm

well... good pic

[Hunago]

I showed the pic to my lil niece and she loves it. I think you did a good job, giving this picture great personality and infectious charm.

In a way, I think you could be more confident with brushstrokes for the wave and the cloud. but achieving technical perfection might not make this a better pic in a child's eye.

I like the picture a lot as is, but keep experimenting!

[Trixy]

gArGOyLe The hippo is actually afraid of the spider landing on him. As you can see, his reaction can lead to potential chaos..


Hunago This picture was created for my children aged 2 and 3. They love it too, and it looks perfect as a print on their bedroom wall.

I do most of my art for my children now I've developed a certain style that shows in this picture. I don't worry about neatness or crispness most of the time, but the actual content of the picture.

I'm still practicing though, thanks for your kind words

[Highfive]

Really dig those slight colour changes in the stars and the clouds in the sky. The water effects of the ocean are well-painted as well. Some spray and splashes on the raft would help that effect some more.

[hamilton]

did you do this with different layers? looks like when you went in and colorburned them, it looks like you were afraid of coloring outside the lines or something. you can lock transparency to avoid going outside the lines. otherwise i can't think of any good reasons for those gaps between the shading and the actual outline of the character. it just looks sloppy.

and i would honestly advise against using the color burn for straight up shading. because it's so obvious what you did. try, instead, to pick a really dark version of whatever color you're shading, and put the transparency on your brush way down, then build up the shade. or you could make an entire layer just for shading. and use only the color black and put in all the sading as you want it, and then you can edit the layer properties of the whole thing. or pieces, with the lasso.

just some suggestions.

[Trixy]

Hamilton-- That's exactly the kind of advice I was after, thank-you

I'll be the first to admit that I love the dodge/burn tool, and somehow I've come to depend on it because it makes things so much easier.

[Ian Jones]

Hi there.

I like you painting, cool hippo, great for the kids. The expression on its face is the best part, its great.

Hamilton already commented on your rendering process, I agree with him. In the end though it comes down to personal preference, so there's nothing wrong with it.

The first thing I noticed was that areas of the image looked a bit flat. I'll talk about the hippo's head for example. The problem I see is in the rendering (you dont have enough contrast between light and dark), but also the drawing itself. It looks like you got lost around the upper jaw and nose and didn't know how to draw it, so to me it looks strange and kind of just 'slapped on'. I hope you know what I mean.

To me, the Hippo's head looks flat also because of the rendering. This is because as a viewer I am finding it hard to see where the light source is from, and ultimately this leads to confusion and a 'diffuse' lighting scheme. So I think you need to pull the rendering out of the mid greys, and add some more contrast and a more defined light direction.

So I did a quick 20 minute paint over of the hippo's head.. to show what I mean about using a more defined light source and building up the form a lot more with highlights and shadows.

I picked an upper right light source.



Hope that helps a bit. Just really to demonstrate, my painting is far from accurate!

In fact now that I look at mine, hehe it doesnt really have much contrast. LOL. Well at least it should have a more obvious light source thatn yours, and thats the most important thing I was trying to get across...

[Ian Jones]

heh, I stuffed up the expression a bit, the dot I did in the eye is way to small... it just doesn't say "SURPRISE!" quite so much.

[Trixy]

Thanks Ian, I see the point you're making. Just one clarification though, the picture is set in the early evening. Hence the lack of light source.

I do like your overpainting though, especially the tongue and the added spots on the skin.

Thanks alot for the critique, now that the pic is up I can see a few more errors I've made. Comments like yours and Hamiltons help me to improve, which is my main goal