I NEED A VERY BIG FAVOR ASAP!

I've been working on my portfolio review coming up March 20th and I need some discerning eyes and replies on my work (DA is useless for that sort of thing).

herogear.deviantart.com

"School Machine" is the best place to start and work up to the current stuff. If you're really interested in helping me out, let me know and I'll upload everything I have so far (I say so far because I'm working on a new project, and want time to rework anything I may need to). Please, if you can give any amount of feedback (what's working in a piece, what's not, what you feel my strengths appear to be) I would greatly appreciate it!

http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs9/300W...y_HeroGear.jpg
Permission to make new avatar out of this image.

Some of your stuff, like the Link piece, seem a bit sketchy and not fully realized. Is this your intention?

yeah, the link one is still just a concept. Unless I state that it's done, consider it a work in process.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andrew

Permission to make new avatar out of this image.

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Wait, one for you or one for me?

What is your portfolio review for? Is it for school entry (where), work entry (where)? What kind of advice/critique do you need? Is this the extent of your portfolio? I know I've seen more of your work that what's on that page.

school entry at CSULB for the illustration program. Not all of my work is there. I'm looking for some feedback and what the strong and weak points for certain works are

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hero

Wait, one for you or one for me?

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Oooh... definitely for me... oh yes...

Stylistically I think the sketchy overhead pics(cats + flying girl) are your best. + the spot that goes with one of them. The colors in them are muddy though; I don't know much about digital coloring, but I thnk that comes from overlaying many colors in low opacity or shading with the burn/dodge tools? I don't know what you do, but they'd be better if you went over them with more vibrant opaque colors.

I think the original school machine works better than the reworked one as an editorial illustration.

A portfolio for a school needs to have life drawings and still lifes and such, correct? Your personal stuff stays on the cartoony side, so use them to give a greater idea of the scope of your technical ability.

also: the bubble on your face in that flash portrait is popping out too much. It shouldn't come out like that if the hand is on the back side of the face, and if the hand is on the front side,more of the cheek would be pushed up and rest on the knuckles.

When At Play is pretty good. Flee would be better if you worked on the hooded face. Otherwise, that one is pretty good too. School Machine is ok. Looks a little flat but I like the colors used. The "remix" would be better without the animals and conveyor belt.

I don't really care about overtly anime-styled shit so apologies on that front. The afore mentioned works are really nicely done anyway and I'd rather see more stuff like that.

I think the only serious critique I have is with composition and that there aren't any realistic pieces in it.

Gah I hate Deviant Art and how slow it is. Really ridiculous for how popular it is. Anyway.


Pieces that are strong:

Nightlights
School Machine Remix (minus the "message")
The Mermaid Splash
Back it Up
-and to some extent the Thrice logo thing

The stronger pieces tend to have imaginative content and unusual perspectives. The off-kilter perspectives work with the cartoony color schemes and sense of fore-shortening, anatomy, etc. Things are representational but arbitrary, and tend to come off more illustrational than digitally produced. That's working for your art style. I really like the way you color things (at least in the pieces listed)...great sense of lighting and color choices...you're not afraid to use colors outside of the typical base (i.e. trees trunks are brown, grass is green). Objects are never too sharp or heavily delineated, which is a nice end for pieces that start as contour line drawings.

What I feel isn't working is the level of refinement in most pieces. For a portfolio (to be reviewed) many of the pieces just seem like sketch book doodles. Nothing wrong with sketches, but sketching something that has the potential to become something great is not the same as actually finishing the piece (and still having it be great). There's a lot that can go wrong between those stages. Many times, I have myself been eager to finish what looks like a brilliant sketch, only to be disappointed with the final results.

Another thing I notice is that you've adopted a generally cartoony/manga'ish style. It's a fine style, I suppose, but inherent within it are a lot of visual shortcuts. Your pieces look like you learned the shortcuts without ever learning the unabridged version. Take noses, for instance. You typically employ the highly stylized and ambiguous "anime" nose...there isn't a lot of evidence from the portfolio that you can draw a "classic" nose, or hand, or ears, or even a human nude. You have pieces with exagerrated, unreal perspective, but none that are accurate. There isn't a tremendous range of expression in your characters either, most seem to have a slight smile.

Those would be my main concerns as a portfolio reviewer. I might assume that you less able to draw things or use methods outside of your "comfort zone". Now, you didn't mention if this was for a graphic design or fine art (or whatever) review, so the standards will definitely differ.

Also, a lot of self portraiture, but I know classes do tend to assign those like they're the hip thing. Hope this helps, these type of discussion always get so artsy-fartsy and require the use of many a quotation mark or italicized word. Your stuff is fun to look at, but I'm trying to critique as a neutral.