Ferstofus's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[仮面]

Oh baby, what a delight. I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with the colors, I loved the intensity (saturation?) of the red and how that's contrasted with the black all around in the hair, the masks; also the work on textures on the girl's skin, dress and hair and of course the use of value (light/shadow) here is _so_ creepy, _so_ creepy, I love it and with the contrast on the stark eyes and how the shadows on the surrounding parts give such emphasis on the terrifying girl to me.

I loved all of that, as well as the liquids dropping from her eyes, nose and mouth, they have such thinness and smoothness to their lines that really unsettles me (in a good way). And the variety in the shapes for the eyes on the right painting plus the textures on the left one (in and outside of the eye) are also giving me the creeps. I just love it.

The masks designs also unsettle me in a good way, giving me the feeling that they are apathetic to me in some way (even though they're just masks), my favorite one is the one right beside the girl's head as I really like the shadows and forms on its eye and nose and with the creepy smile and how open the eye is for I really feel like it has "gotten me", let's say, noticed me and now I'm afraid. I forgot to mention the skull, also giving me the creeps, specially due to the textures and lines I believe. I just love all of this.

Ok for some constructive feedback...I guess I'd enjoy more monstruous features on the masks, like fangs, maybe vertical eyes, there's already one with a beak and one on the top-right has some fangs but I think I'd enjoy more. Though I'm interpretting the human features on the masks were a part of the creative vision here so I don't know how my suggestion could be implemented without going against that, but who knows, maybe I misinterpreted or maybe there's a way.

Anyway, freaking tremendous work of art here to me, thank you so much for making this!

SketchMeNot responds:

Wow, oh my gosh, first of all thank you so much for providing such detailed and thoughtfully worded feedback! It makes me so happy seeing an artwork I worked on inspire so many thoughts! Thank you so much! I'm so glad you like the piece! It was so much fun to work on as I looooove working with themes of horror and general spooky vibes hehe (>w<)

Oh yeah, as for the masks, they were designed by my friend, who I collaborated with on this piece. I only arranged them for the composition and drew over them. I am pretty sure he mentioned that he wanted to keep the masks looking fairly humanoid, as opposed to making them more obviously demonic like hannya masks or something. He has a super unique way of drawing faces so that ended up working pretty well in making the masks look unsettling in a more subtle way. He also created the illustrations featured as the three paintings on the wall hehe (^w^)

Thank you again so much for your awesome comment and thoughts on the piece! It was super nice to read! Thanks again for enjoying my, and my friend's, work on this piece! (^w^)

[Frankelda's Book of Spooks]

Wow, perfect use of value and texture to me, with the light calling attention to the distinct shapes and also strengthening the use of color and some blue x red contrast on Frankelda and also "smooth" and realistic shadows when it comes to value; while the texture specially on the dress, hair and face is intricate yet simple and clear to me.

Also I enjoy the variety of colors, red, pink, blue, light blue, orange, green(?) and how you implemented them, tying them to some areas or elements of the picture and to me making it easy to digest everything without feeling it as chaotic.

The characters are expressive to me too, specially in how you used the lines and shapes, really liked that.

And finally the composition is also pleasant to me, I feel like you organized really well the space ocuppied by Frankelda and the book and their position in the picture, in a way that I can look at and appreciate the ammount of details fully with enough space around for my eyes to rest.

If I could think of any sort of constructive criticism I guess I'd suggest more space between the areas of denser detail (like the forearms and the dress) for I think it would give me even more easiness to appreciate each one, doing something like drawing her right forearm in a position slightly higher and her left one in a position slightly more to the right (though between the freckles and the front part of the garment I dunno how you'd do it, elongate the neck or something? Lol)

Anyway, marvelous job, thank you for making this

StarGureisu responds:

Thanks to you for taking the time to closely analyze my work. 💙 I deeply appreciate your feedback.

[Mr. Dark]

The joviality of the style hides an elegance in the cohesion between shapes and colors that I hadn't noticed at first, astounding. Also great work on the curvature of the lines, smooth yet firm; the use of light, clear and guiding the focus to characteristic traits; the expressioness of the characters, vivid while not exaggerated and finally textures that, while not the focus of the piece to me, look carefully done. That's what I would say.

What would make this a 5/5 to me would be more intricate and worked on textures, but maybe I just like textures a lot because I keep recommending that in reviews often.

Bundeluxe responds:

Thank you for this review, it always puts a smile on my face when someone puts this much thought into describing something I made!

[Terra the Vampire of Lucid City]

Omg, this is so cool! The way I see it, love how the thickness of the lines harmonize with the solidity of the colors, your style, as always. Solid use of light and shades too. Loved the sharpness of the shapes of the background also, think it expresses some personality; although I'd perhaps appreciate some curviness to those lines, like claw marks or something similar. I do think the drawing could make use of some elaborate textures on Terra's clothes, skin and hair, if you could maintain that with the balance of color and your overall drawing style. But anyway, great job!

CacklingPumpkins responds:

I'm glad you like it! And thank you for the constructive comment. These go a long way to help me grow as an artist so I appreciate it.

[MessyPaints2022 November: Saturn Eats RePaint]

Astounding job on the texture of it, and the colors are on point, that's some great work in emulating the visuals of brush and paint and also the lighting is well done. I feel that the smoothness of some of your lines ironically go in a different direction than the dark nature of the picture, for instance Saturn's cheeks and mouth look so polished to me that I see them even as a bit cute; it kinda annoys me to say this since I usually really like to see polished lines and textures in a picture, but I won't deny I felt it had lack of cohesion this time. Also the blood on the son feels a bit like paint to me, I dunno if you outlined it too well or if maybe it's just thicker than it needed to be, but that's what I noticed. Well, I wonder if I would say something similar would I be reviewing the original when it was created, but anyway, good job, man, thank you for making this.

DoctorGrambo responds:

No problem man! Thanks so much for the in-depth thoughts!

[Ulala]

She looks cute, nice design and good job on the shading and lighting, man, I also liked the stylized background. I don't know how well the goofiness of your lines and style fit with the dynamism I get from the picture and perhaps I would appreciate a little bit more detail, perhaps in the clothes, hair and/or accessories but if so I believe some care would be needed to harmonize it with the visual load the lighting/shading effects already have. Well, anyway, my opinion. 4/5, thanks for making this, man.

ZaazNG responds:

Thank you so much for your kind words and absolutely solid advice, my man! Will definitely keep it in mind for the future :)

[Terror of the Woods]

I really liked the linework and colors of this drawing, the characters too look charismatic to me despite showing little of their faces (except the monsters, which I too found charismatic). I also enjoy the details on the bark of the trees and around the creature's nest. I feel like edgier shapes could possibly fit better in a scene like this, specially for the characters, but that could maybe be in conflict with the roundness in your style, so please take that feedback with a grain of salt. Overall pretty nice, thank you for making this.

HappytoDraw responds:

Thanks! Great feedback 🙂

[Afro Owl Slav Squatin']

I think the buildings and the scenery needed more detail, being the focus point of the composition (I think?), but the slav owl is good stuff. Overall good.

thestupidmeddy responds:

Yeah, I still struggle with backgrounds. I thought not to go overboard and keep it nice and simple.

[Spiderman: No Way Home poster]

I like the composition and the use of gradient in the circle, plus the text font is not bad. Also, hi Poppy.

PoppyTheMerpasaur responds:

Yay! Glad you like it! Also hello <.<

[MessyPaints2022 January: Elena]

Good shading and good composition. Great stuff. I also liked the texture of the hair.

DoctorGrambo responds:

AAAAAAYYYYYE Thanks dude! I spent way too long on that hair XP