The honest OC/Art-review Blog! @honest-character-review - Tumblr Blog

Hi! Is this blog still active?

Yes! There is only one active mod (me) but it is still up and running.

hi mod megaphorical!! i just found out that the old mod left and i was wondering if youre still going to do the oc profile that i submitted? thank you!!

Hey! I apologize for this but I probably won’t be able to do a very good review. I haven’t watched South Park and don’t know much of anything about the characters or anything of the sort. I’d be willing to review the OC, but I wouldn’t be able to do an in depth version of it. The best you would get is likely thoughts on the backstory and design only. Anything related to the world’s lore or other characters wouldn’t be covered. If you’re okay with this, feel free to shoot me a message on my personal (@megaphorical) and I can start working through it. Otherwise, I recommend you submit to a different account.

New Mod

Last post lead to me (@megaphorical) entering modship for this blog, thus reviews are now available again. I have nearly five years of experience in both character design as well as narrative and writing. I look forward to helping everyone here.

-Mod Mega

Blog update

So you might have noticed that the soul mod of this blog isn't active anymore and you're right. If you haven't noticed, that's okay too. Basically I'm working 2 jobs and take classes so I no longer have the free time needed to curate the blog. The blog will still be here but I will no longer post to it. If anyone would like to take over perminently just contact me @thejibblesokayart it's my art blog and it has a working messanger unlike my main blog.

I'm sorry to the one person whose character is still in the submission box, but from what I read they're fine but please be wary your character could be seen as a straw man defense for South Park and it's antimuslim behavior.

-Mod Jibs

#its over #bye y'all #finally all original mods have left #i was the last hold out

Redraw of a character I never developed from like a year and a half ago.

Kinda just wanna know how I did on shading, changing the colors, pose, ect. and if there’s any tips on improving! :3

Thank you for your patience on this. Life has ade reviewing slow for me at the moment. There are a couple things wrong with your pose in the redraw (nice improvement btw). The front paw that the cat is standing on is too close to their back feet, making your character look like they’re about to fall over. Next is your back foot furthest from us isn’t on the same plain as the rest of your cat.

See how the feet on this cat are? They’re inline and underneath the body of the animal. An easy way to fix this is to draw a cube for your character first and then fit the character in the cube, this way everything is on the same plain.

Another thing is the cardinal sin of shading and painting with black in digital art. The reason why this is such a big nono is because black has a tendency to make everything flat and digital art arguably is harder to create forms with than traditional mediums. I know you want to keep your character as dark as possible so there are a couple ways around this. One is you do use black, but your highlights and shadows are opposing colours on the colour wheel, bringing high contrast so your black doesn’t look flat. another is to simply go as dark as you can on a certain colour so it looks black without being black, then use either a darker version of that same colour, or a complimentary colour and shade with that.

I quickly redrew your character with a more balanced pose and better colour scheme. The black as much as it gave nice contrast to your colours, made the body of your cat look flat. The other issue was how jarring the yellow at the base of the spine is. I know you tried to lessen the effect by blending it out, but it still doesn’t look good the only way for it to seem more natural is to cary the yellow up through the design. I also used purple for the tail instead of red because of how much blue I was using. the red would have thrown off the colour balance of the piece. When picking colours, only one colour should be on the opposite side of the wheel. Your shading is fine and I can tell you didn’t use black for it, so for now work on poses and colour theory.

-Mod Jibs

#art review #redraw #submission

would you be willing to do an in depth review of a story (in my case, a plot synopsis and the designs of 7-9 characters)? id be looking for critique on the story as well as the character design and mannerisms (ill provide basic personality/backstory if needed). i completely understand if this is too big of a request, but if youre willing to do either of these id appreciate it a lot!!

I would be willing to do it but each character would have to be submitted separately and the chapters themselves as well. It would take some time to get it done so if you were to send in as much as your saying you want to send in, keep that in mind. -Mod Jibs

hi again!! tumblr has been eating asks lately and i was kind of afraid that submissions were also being eaten - so i wanted to ask you got the oc submission?

Yes I did. It'll just be a while getting to it as I know nothing about South Park and it's universe. So I will have to do some research before I review your character -Mod Jibs

tjnovakart

Hey, guys! I’ve noticed that there are a lot of artists who struggle with “same face syndrome,” or the tendency to draw all their characters with the same face. To help you combat this, I’ve created two different challenges!

The first (pink) one is mainly geared towards artists who are struggling with same face syndrome and want to start branching out. It covers topics that a lot of artists struggle with when drawing faces, such as age, weight, and face shapes. It’s not super specific, so you still have some wiggle room.

The second (yellow) one is a bit harder and is mainly geared towards artists who want to really challenge themselves to diversify their faces. Personally, I think this one’s the most fun to work with despite it being more difficult. Chances are with this one, you’re not going to be drawing a whole bunch of beautiful people. You don’t have to roll for every option on this one either. A certain combination of rolls from 10/13 of the options may give you a great character idea, and that’s great!

I hope you guys enjoy these! I’d love for you to send me your drawings if you do one (or both) of them.

#fun #art challenge

Out of curiosity, if someone were to ask for a art review, wouldn't it be recommended to include the art program they use for the best help suitable?

Not really. You an create beautiful art with anything as long as you have a grasp of fundamentals. If you wanted to learn how to better use some of the layer features, functions and filters, then I would need to know the program. I know digital art can be limited by less than stellar programs so I always keep that in mind. -Mod Jibs

just more of a note but the links on the navigation thing don't work(or at least for me)... just in case you would wanna know! :)

I do! Thank you for telling me. I have no idea how to fix this :) -Mod Jibs

ghostbri

hi- I was wondering if u had any process gifs of your background art? like how do you go about adding the textures? is it at the final stage that you do it? I'm also interested in working as a bg artist after I graduate and you're a really big source of inspiration!

hello! i dont have any process gifs but i put together a little tut for you, i feel like im overdue for a proper one :8) i want to make a more in depth tutorial on background painting (maybe a video?!!?!) but for right now i’ll just address your questions on texture if that’s okay!

here is an ultra basic bg we’re gonna spruce up. keep in mind i’m not going to talk about lighting and composition really so, try to put that out of your mind for now. anyway, there is no texture or edge difference in this yet. everything is smooth and samey (but there is a little bit of atmospheric perspective in the color). the most important thing at this stage is that every unique shape or plane is on its own layer. this is because all texture and lighting will be clipped to the corresponding layer.

sorry this is kind of ugly but this is how i arrange my layers LOL. everything is arranged on planes. i think of it like cut paper stacked on top of each other.

make a clipping mask for the texture you’ll put on each shape. i talk a bit about clipping masks and how to use them here. normally i’d have a clipping mask for texture, shadow, and light, so it can get a little crazy when you have a lot of layers but it’s invaluable for experimenting and getting things just right.

ALRIGHT SO LETS TALK ABOUT ACTUAL TEXTURE. i think about texture as having two functions: 1. to draw the viewer’s eye to where you want it to be, and 2. to describe the material/feel of objects. for our very first texture, we’re going to put some snow on the front tree. im using a variety of brushes, please check my FAQ for a full list. since i want the viewer to focus mostly on the front tree, i’m going to put the most texture on it. to answer your question about when i add texture, i usually just kind of follow my intuition and use it when i feel it’s needed. i will almost definitely go back and add/take away throughout the process of the image. a lot of things change and it’s cool to change your mind throughout. i don’t really follow solid “steps” for every piece, they’re always different for me!

now i am just continuing to add texture here and there. the middle ground trees get a bit of snow, but it’s subdued enough to not be the focal point. as well, i added some texture to the snow because i wanted the front plane to be the one you look at the most. everything behind the middle ground trees is wholly untouched. now we have a nice contrast between smooth/textured going on! and contrast/opposites is the key to guiding a viewer’s eye.

after all that i decided at last minute that the front plane could use some texture to differentiate it. but looking at it now, i’d probably go back and rethink it. that’s life.

finally! i added some color corrections and some gradients to push back the mountains and trees. i also added some falling snow and an overall paper texture to simulate a snowy feel without having to paint it all. the paper texture is behind the front plane, again to push everything behind it back. i would be very careful about putting a texture over everything, it can really flatten everything or make it look fake/gimmicky. clip it to shapes or erase where necessary.

lastly, a short word about more contrast. here, i am trying to push the contrast between soft and sharp. the only difference between this image and the last step is that i blurred and sharpened some planes. there are multiple ways to think about this, but for me, the photographic approach is easiest to understand and it’s just how i like my art to look. basically, i try to always make my focal point sharp and in focus, and blur other elements.

this felt a bit all over the place….sorry!! but, i hope it helped. i would like to do more in-depth tutorials in the future so please hang with me til then. thanks for the ask!!

#reference #tutorial #backgrounds

bverdy-deactivated20181210

‘warm up’ is a fancy word we artists use to describe a drawing we did in order to put off the drawing we were supposed to be doing.

#relatable

diditmarketing

Awesome infographic on ideal social media posting times from Sumall & LinkedIn.

knightofbunnies

Artist friends, this is especially helpful information because the time you post your art can have a big impact on how many people see it!

Mateo and Matías are Italian twins born in 1725, they had always loved building and inventing stuff from old scraps they found around their father’s metal shop even if it was kind of dangerous they always wanted to invent and figure out stuff. When they were 26 (1751) they traveled to England when they heard about the industrial revolution happening. They’re both tall and lanky and always wear the same clothes just to confuse the heck out of everybody because they look exactly the same, that’s why they got that hat in the first place, it was a gift that one of them is supposed to always wear so people know which is which, unfortunately they switch wearing the hat like 20 times a day. They have their own language and most of the time they don’t even have to speak to understand each other. They’re always joined at the hip and have never been apart. They can flawlessly finish each other’s sentences and are very often perfectly in sync. They’re also huge fuckin dorks and are somehow able to not trip over each other everytime they walk.

Their biggest fear is being apart, since they’ve never actually been apart, so they are just frightened of the possibility of not being together. There are in fact some differences but they’re very hard to spot. Matías has a small scar on his left hip while Mateo does not. Mateo’s nose broke once when he was only 7 years old, it has healed but if you look hard enough you can still see evidence of that it was once broken.

---------------------------- Hi! I see you haven't actually tagged this with what you wanted critiqued so I'm just going to do a little bit of both. Your bio needs to be structured better for easy reading. Try grouping common subjects like appearance together into one paragraph for starters. Next I want to say is make sure you treat each twin as an individual as apposed to a set. They may be hard to tell apart when they're together but they should feel different when apart. Your bio is a good start but in no ways complete. Think about the purpose your characters have in the story and progress from there. For your art I would focus in anatomy, doing quick figure drawings everyday and brush strokes. Your lines are very shaky and have the chicken scratch texture. When making strokes, try to move your should instead of your wrist, this will help with the fluidity. Hope this helps! -Mod Jibs

If I submit an OC profile for a fic I'm writing, should I write as far as before the story starts or should I include the development/relationships that happens after the story starts? Thanks!!

Both would be good. I like a clear picture of the character so the more the better! Just make sure you include what fandoms they're from at the top. -Mod Jibs

art critique?

i might be a bit overexcited because it has been a long time since i’ve seen an active art/writing review account so a fair warning that i’m going to ramble a lot. i hope it’s okay that i’m going to submit 3 pieces for now - though it might be two if you don’t critique animation - and that i might submit an oc review in the future. i’ll also be giving links because i’m sort of afraid that the images won’t load (except for the animation).

(Mod Jibs will be reviewing in brackets)

(Thank you for the submission and unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of experience with animation so I can’t give you an in depth critique on it, just a glancing once over. When the girl is saying no, the mouth doesn’t make the right shape so it ends up looking more like a haa sound. the mouth should be more round.)

[i] the first one is an animation that was recently done. i think this is the second one i did this year after i had to reset my phone and lose most of my previous animations so i’m a bit rusty. i’d like to know if the lip movement was done right but any other advice to improve future animation is welcome!! (link: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bil93I_nLy1/?taken-by=papparafin)

[ii] this one is a sort of warm up for a new app i was using to draw with some of my ocs. kind of experimented with the shading and i’d like to know which character had the best shading within the four. i know that you can’t really judge a character design by headshots but what do you think of their color palettes? and a bit of context: Yana is a Pokemon OC, Tomoko is a Kagerou Project OC, Holly is a Harry Potter OC, and Lethia is an original OC (though the setting of her story is an Umineko-inspired 20th century witch/afterlife setting) (link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BiCE1p1Fx6c/?taken-by=papparafin)

(So I want to say, thank you for including links, that was a very smart move of you. On to the headshot. I have a couple issues with the saturation in tomoko and some of the colour choices with Lethia. There’s also some anatomy issues on the hands that need to be addressed as well. I’ll start with the anatomy and end on the colour theory.)

(Here I did quick sketches of the headshot you gave with fixes. The first anatomy issue I spotted was the lack of fingers on Yana. With how the hands are positioned you wound see a lot more of the pinky and other fingers then showed. So a quick finger add was taken. Next Yana is looking up, so i adjusted the nose, pulling a line to illustrate the bridge and fixed the mouth. The middle of the mouth sits directly under the nose and the corners line up with the iris’ of the eye. how you had the mouth before made it look like Yana was talking out of their cheek. I put an indent in the mouth because the character is not front facing and that changes the shape of it. Out of personal preference, I made Yana’s hair a brighter orange just because it really brought out the blue, but the colours you have now are fine but this is just a small tweak that you can choose to ignore.)

(Holly’s face was lopsided in shape causing your eyes to be different widths from the nose and the corners to be different heights.The hand had the same issues as Yana’s so just study hands, I know they’re hard. The hair also didn’t have proper physics. Curls are heavy and having curly hair myself I have never had it from the middle have two different flips in it where it left the hair line visible. It’s one and then the weight of the hair drags it down the shape of the face. The colours were fine on Holly, If a little dull. To fix that I’d just pick a darker shade for the hair and you’d be fine.)

(Tomoko anatomy wise was the best but her face had similar issues to Holly’s just make sure your eyes are aligned. The colours around the mouth were super muddy so you lost completely that she was sticking out her tongue, just keep that in mind. Your clothing folds were off as well. When arms are lifted the material tends to bunch up and fold rather than round out as you had drawn. The sleeves would keep their pointy shape and the rest of the sleeve would bunch up around the shoulder. Tomoko’s palette was all in the same value range. it was all very desaturated muddy colours. The skin I kept the same but it came out lighter just because of my drawing program but I darkened the hair and blazer, only leaving the original colour as highlights. You can see that those simple value changes really added depth to your design.)

(Lilith was interesting. I noticed that she was once again looking up and her pupils weren’t looking the same way so I fixed that. Her eyes were also two different sizes and one was higher than the other once again. But what the big thing with Lilith was is the colour palette. There was not enough contrast between the hair and the shirt. So quick fix once again, made the hair a dark shade of green so it fit with her theme and made the yellow more pure yellow and stopped it from leaning towards the green’s making it look more golden which I think is what you were going for.)

[iii] this fanart is also digital art but i lined this on paper (and lined the green blood with glitter pen which was a huge mistake) and then continued working on it on the same app as the previous art. i want to know what can be improved lineart-wise and how to make the pose less “floaty” because i understand that my anatomy still needs a lot of practice. actually, if you have any methods/techniques about learning anatomy that’d be great!! (i’m still going to look around your ref tags but most advices don’t work for me most of the time) (link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BiYj3ytnYmw/?taken-by=papparafin)

thank you for taking time to look over these and please tell me if there’s anything that i can do to improve my art!!

(The pose in this will never not be floaty unfortunately simply because people don’t stand like this. If you changed the angle so it looked like he was laying down and then added a drop shadow, that would fix your problem. The green for the blood looks a lot like snot and the teal as a background colour doesn’t really work. I did a few fixes that I will go over.)

(Now I understand wanting to keep certain things certain colours but if the background is a darker shade, it really makes the character pop. It also doesn’t hurt the eyes as much as that bright teal. The feet were severely off to the point where they looked broken and more like hooves then actual people feet. Feet are probably the easiest thing to draw in my book. it’s two triangles tied to together. I would recommend you study hands and feet along with faces. your anatomy for the body’s fall squarely in cartoon territory so your legs and arms lack definition. If you eventually wanted to stray away from the cartoon style, I would also practice drawing arm and leg muscles.

So In conclusion, face, hands and feet should be the three top for anatomy and you need to look more at colour theory and how that relates to a characters palette as well. Good start and I’d love to see more from you.

-Mod Jibs)

#art review #submission

commander-hel-deactivated201908

Baby is ALMOST here and some overnight bag goodies are an expense I don’t want to cut corners on for once! 😭 Gonna be doing these daily, so PM me or email me @ [email protected] if you want one - or a few 😉

commander-hel-deactivated201908

Gonna be doing more of these cause I’m just. Stuck in bed rn and these are easy enough to do through the pain 👌🏻

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