Kajenx's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lazarus]

I'm such a sucker for rendering...

This is just everything I love about old master painters like Rembrandt and David, strong and solid sense of light and plasticity, well conceived edge relationships, simplification of textures to improve clarity. The end result is almost better than real life and it creates that eye popping dimensionality that's so elusive. Amazing work!

Radziu responds:

Well, thank you. Temporarily I experiment and try to draw everything that comes to my mind in all the possible styles... the latest is zombie fridge, but died of natural causes on my piece of paper.

[Feelin It Out]

Interesting

This has some really great use of white space in it! Those circular color bands give it a really interesting feeling of dimensionality where my eyes want to turn the circle into both an endless hole and a sphere at the same time. Also, the bold black marks and thin lines really go well together, contrasting in a way that's reminiscent of seaweed or hair billowing about in water.

The two square shapes are an interesting decision too, pulling your eyes out of the dominant mass and into the white space, just to leave you hanging there, in a sort of cream colored void that extends infinitely off the page (at least in my mind).

This whole piece is just a study in contrasts and I think it does a really good job of tying technical design principals with an expressive mood. There's just enough there to give the viewer a foothold, and the rest of it aims to destabilize, like standing on the cliff at the edge of the world.

[Inner Darkness]

Very nice!

I think the colors you used in this are a step forward for you. I've enjoyed your other art on here, but the colors (while handled nicely) have been so saturated and static that they seemed to take away from the picture a bit.

If you take a look at the face on this picture, it looks more fleshy because blues and purples and pinks are all present and they're used in such a way that the skin feels somewhat translucent (as skin is). It's showing light moving through things, rather then merely bouncing off. The hair also uses color to show volume in a way pure lights and darks can't.

You have a nice variation in the saturation of colors on the clothing, especially between objects, but I think you can keep going on the track you started. Keep exploring those color relationships, because what you achieved here is very exciting. For example, if you make a picture with an outdoor scene, don't just color the grass and the leaves the same overall green (like in your Annika picture) think about how you did the face here and try to apply the same concepts.

[On The Bed]

Hey, a background!

I guess you do have ONE picture on here with some sort of spacial context. :D Interestingly, the figure in it also seems to have the most gesture and personality.

I understand that it can be interesting to bathe a figure in harsh white light, but it's really just melodramatic, and it feels kind of sterile to me. It's interesting for a few drawings, or even a series, but even your other drawings that aren't related to that lack a background.

[Emerge]

I'm convinced

You're definitely afraid of backgrounds. This is the most context you have in any of your drawings on here, and it's because the figure is dissolving into the page, lol! Come on man! Let's see a figure lounging on a couch or something! I dare you to put a horizon in one of your pictures!

Anyway, backgrounds aside, this is a rather nice drawing. Just be careful on facial proportions, his eyes are too high. His hand is also a little awkward.

ornery responds:

Not afraid of background, the whole point of these large figures is to show that a background isnt necessary in a drawing and the figure can still feel grounded or in some sort of space by simply activating the blank areas of the page intelligently.

I always found backgrounds to be arbitrary in most pieces. In the ones where there is one it either dominates or plays little role in the piece. And in pieces where there is none the piece always seemed unfinished, or like the figure or objects were randomly placed and floating there, even with a shadow.

The purpose of intentionally omitting a background is to allow the viewer to create a space in their mind. This is much more effective in person since these things are large enough to make it feel as though the figure is in the room with you to some degree.

[Laying]

A bit awkward

I was going to give it an 8, but that seemed a bit harsh for the effort expended. It's rather close (in terms of accuracy) but it feels wrong proportionally speaking. I think the main thing is that the head is just much too big. I saw in one of the comments that someone called you a pedophile, lol, and I think that's because the large head gives it a childish sort of look. The figure's right hand also looks strange, The thumb seems to be missing half its length. I have a feeling this is just the result of overzealous shading, though. :3

In terms of formal elements, I think the composition is pretty powerful and dramatic, and it has a great plasticity and solidity of surface. The edge relationships aren't as nice as they are in your sitting female figure, and I think it has to do with the materials used. Pastels make a softer edge easier, while still allowing for crisp areas. In some places here the edges are too sharp and it tends to flatten it out a bit. See the transition between the figure's left arm and the torso especially.

Overall, a great effort. Most of the stuff I'm saying is nitpicky, but to me it always seems like the closer a drawing is in accuracy, the more obvious the mistakes are.

Like I said on the sitting figure, too, I'd love to see this in person. :)

[Shy]

Nice colors

I think the best part about this are the colors and the range of edge relationships. I like the way you treated the hair as a mass, and the shifts in coloration are very pleasing. I tend to focus more on color than anything else in my paintings, so I'm probably your ideal audience. :3

The anatomy is close, but feels a bit awkward, similar to the other large drawing of the man lying down (though maybe not as much), but that just gets down to more careful observation; I know the figure gets exponentially harder the bigger you go, so I don't really fault you on this (I have a painting I made this semester with a shrunken head :/). I'd just say make sure you're stepping back from the work more frequently, especially in the beginning stages when you're laying out the masses. Looking at it in reverse helps too (mirror).

Anyway, it's really great to see someone dedicated to accuracy. I'd love to see this in person.

[Nek]

Woah...

Actually, if you know anything about art history, this is pretty iconic of the mannerist styles, only taken to an extreme in a John Currin sort of way. I think you could have pushed the grotesque elegance of the face the same way you did with the neck to make it a bit more cohesive though. Either way it seems very intentional, and pretty funny. :3

[sluds von starsworm]

3

The story made it even better. This belongs in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or maybe the world of Titan A.E.

jouste responds:

haha some very cool references!

thanks a lot for the high-score pal! i really gotta get going on a comic or something so these guys can live longer. i would love to have something i did as memorable as either of those properties.

*highfives*

[CCS: Sakura]

Not bad

The colors are good, and I like that you let some original style seep into the drawing. There seem to be a couple different textural styles fighting each other though, so it looks a bit chaotic to me. The composition is pretty good and well balanced, too, but it's also a bit cliche.

Overall I like the experimentation, but the final result reads as if you spent most of the time drawing the head, then wanted to give the head a space to exist in so tossed in a quick body and an even quicker background. This kind of cheapens the quality of the face, which is the obvious star of the show.

I bet if you worked on ever part of the drawing equally you'd get a result that's way better. I know faces are interesting, but that's just because we humans spend so much time looking at them. Once you start looking at the trees and the pebbles in the road with the same care that you look at faces, you'll find them just as interesting to draw. :3

suwako responds:

Thanks so much for the critique and score! :3