BluMiu's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Belong to me]

That is truly a beautiful and amazing background. Another thing is the character is more than just light and shadow like some pieces depict and you really can get a feel for him as part of his surroundings. Is there a reason behind the transition to the sands?

zigan responds:

Thanks for the feedback! There isn't really any reason for the sands. It was originally all tundra terrain but I slowly started incorporating some different terrains types and was doing it merely to see how I could combine the two and also 'practice'. :P I've lately been very interested in high volume lighting with rough contrasts.

[Raven of Last Rites]

I love the storybook illustration this has, but it feels like an art piece at the same time (if that makes sense). The heavy fog is perfect for creating that obscure setting and blends in the lantern's light really well. What brush did you use to create it? Glad it did well at the convention, it's a very imaginative, well executed piece~

gavinvalentine responds:

Thanks BluMiu! My process starts with a pencil sketch and I scan that in and paint mostly with the selection tool, the gradient tool and the round brush. If you're interested in learning more about that kind of painting process check out Chris Oatley's Magic Box.

[Anubis vs Jehuty]

This! THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS! It needs a frame ^_^

[Laveris Lilim]

Love the character design. Looks great with your style~

[Issun]

Issun never looked cooler :)

[Eru en' isima]

Damn you. The fact that the planet is implemented such alongside representing creativity earns my admiration ^_^ Amazing~

Lucanii responds:

Thanks. :D

[Rain the Cipher]

Wow, came out not long ago I believe and you already designed a character. Nice~ :) I love the beauty of all of it, no experience with Photoshop to come close. The eyes have to be my favourite (per usual), but what did you use to create the foreground effect just below her?

Lucanii responds:

Thanks man and yeah the eyes are important to get right otherwise the whole face will look weird. So i always try to make them stand out in some way.

This is what i did in Photoshop:
1. create a new layer
2. Draw some pinkish blobs with white colour in em.
3. Merge all the layers
4. Then i used motion blur on the whole image to make that distorted effect. There's a lot of ways to do this and photoshop has got a built in motion blur effect, but i use: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/analog-efex-pro/
5. I also used this trick in some places:
http://lucanii01.deviantart.com/art/Chromatic-Aberration-Tutorial-261969212
6. Another trick to increase saturation, among other things, is to draw a colour in one layer and then mess around with the blending mode. Thats a really important trick and a lot of professionals use it.

Extra:
You will only get experience with photoshop if you start using it more and learning all the tricks. "Level Up" has been a great motivation for me getting better with photoshop. They give some great tips and interview a lot of great artists. I sometimes listen to them while i draw:
https://www.youtube.com/user/levelupsessions

Sinix, Sycra and Bobmeatbag are also great pepul and their streams totally suck(they are awesome).

well, this became a bit long.

[Squishy Squish]

She has a lovely figure, despite the Stick Figure lovers critiques. Nothing wrong with juicy, I mean, who wants a chicken leg without the meat? That's what I thought, naysayers T_T Keep up the cutesy "squishy" anime girls! Is SAI your preferred program or the one you can afford at the moment? (I use it too).

ShayInator responds:

I'm glad that someone appreciates squishy anime girls just as much as I do! Also, Sai is my preferred program, I use to use Photoshop, but Sai just fit me more. c:

[The Zero Sequence Poster 1]

I can't even fathom the time and attention to detail in that monster. I am curious what those objects in the background are since they are different from the buildings in the foreground. Was anything about this particularly difficult or you wish you could have done differently (before your great delay).

Demplex responds:

There really wasn't anything super hard, except maybe for the buildings because I haven't drawn much of them lately. One thing I could say I wanted to change was to tone down the amount of sky light striking the monster's skin; it feels too much. Thanks for the comment and questions :)