In case you've been wondering: Yes, that image in the background is mine. Here it is.
Based after the song I was listening to for five hours straight while drawing this, The title of this fun little bit is Taste of the Milky way, and if features my wolf character Vesper. Yes, I am a wolf artist. Deal with it.
Don't worry, not all my characters are this exotic. Actually, most of them are quite visually bland. I make up for that with the characters themselves.

What to say about this? Well, first off it took me five hours to turn out this dang thing. Five hours, eight layers, some iced tea, and Galaxies by Owl City on repeat is what it took to make this, and for that I am proud.
Color wise, I really think the image fits together. Vesper is mainly blue, and so is the background. The stars are there and they stand out, but they aren't garish. Since most of the space is blue, the whites and yellows really pop out at me. The shading is near perfect, with a couple flaws on the face and one spot at the chest. The forced perspective on the paw I'm proud of, and I really like the glow on that ring.

So with all the things I like, what is there for me to hate on?
Several things, actually. Something you might notice quickly is the wacked out proportions of Vesper's face and head. While if you were to take each piece individually, the proportions are perfect, as a whole, they're flawed. What do I mean? Well.
The forehead. It's huge. The reason actually has its base in my own technique. See, to draw the head I use base construction lines that I'll erase later. For the head, that's a circle. However, I have a really bad issue with not being able to figure out the angles of the circle itself. Oftentimes I rely far to heavily on the curve of the circle and treat it as the actual finished lines rather than a guide. This is something I'm trying to break myself of and may have started to conquer with my new style (to be shown at a later date).
Second of the proportion issues is the eyes and mouth. I'm trying to work with better angles when it comes to canine snouts, but as you can tell here, it din't quite work out as planned. The eyes are askew and off center, the mouth is curved incorrectly, the jaw is not where it should be, and the shading is too dark.

While I do love this piece, I feel it has some core issues that take it far from what it could be if I had payed attention.

Now it's your turn. How do you think I screwed up on this? Am I right or wrong? How could it be better improved, and is there anything that I left out in the review?

- The Teenage Artist

Shining Cross

Hooray! My first bit of traditional work uploaded here.
This fun little piece was actually done today. Water colors and oil pastels on... paper...
As the first time I've touched oil pastels and water colors in six years, it's actually a decent job. I'm quite fond of the grass which, unfortunately, could not quite be captured on my camera. I blame the lack of a scanner. From what little of the grass you see, I'll have to tell you that I used two different greens and several differing opaquenesses (is that even a word?) using multiple levels of water. Oh, water colors, how I missed you.
The cool shine effect was done by cutting out a cross from a sheet of cardboard and scribbling on it with the oils, then smearing it with my finger.

Enough of the good stuff, on to the bad. First off, I got a dot on my cross! The point of the piece was to keep the cross perfectly white to have it stand out in stark contrast with the rest of the colors, and to symbolize Jesus's purity. But I got a smudge on it. Sad face.
The clouds. Good gracious, the clouds. They look like... nothing I've ever seen. I couldn't get them to quite work. And it's actually the cloud's fault I got a smudge on my cross in the first place!
The sun is okay. I shouldn't have filled it in with that other yellow, but other than that it's decent.
The sky. Just the sky. I just messed it up so much that I have nothing more to say about it. I broke the first rule of novice-water-color-usage and tried to use black. To horrid outcome. As you can see.

So this piece is an odd mix of success and failure. The grass and shiney stuff really make my day, but that horrid splotch of black in the sky really draws attention away from the white cross. The clouds look like pieces of poo, and I got a smear on my cross.
So I don't really know what to call this one.

Your call. I need you guys to critique this one for me. Failure or success? Good or bad?

- The Teenage Artist

On to animations.
As you may have noticed due to the fact that I'm posting a video here, I make animations. This one here is my best work. Next week, I'll post my first one, and you get to compare them.

Starting off with the song - This animation (or, Flipnote, as it's called on the site I post it to) is set to one of my favorite songs, Fireflies by Owl City. Not much can be said on this topic, save that this is a beautiful recording.
All my animations are made on my DSi, and so the audio must first be recorded before it can be used. This can lead to very poor sounding recordings that have ruined many a good animation.

Now for the art.
As the best work I've done, I am obviously quite proud of it. However there are mistakes that I made out of sheer lazyness. The most obvious is during the 'I'd like to make myself believe' section of the stanza. I failed to recognize correct anatomy, and the animation is quite choppy. Even during the simple heart-and-word effect, the animation coud be improved.
Other than that, though, It's great.

- The Teenage Artist

Emmanuel

From something old, to my most recent. This is something I actually finished last night (10/12/2011). The collage I'm looking at - Azuza Pacific University - is having their anual Christmas art competition. The spots are open to Students, Staff, Alumni, and Other... I'm pretty sure I'd fall under the Other category seeing as I'm stil in High School.

I'm quite proud of this little bit. It's my first time using textures in anything, and now I've officially fallen in love with them. Thank you internet for providing the means to add sparkly things to my art.

The image itself is a whole new style that I haven't really explored until this point. I'm not so sure if I'll continue to use it, or if this will be a one-time deal. We'll see.

Now for the harsh part. I don't feel like this is complete. I have no clue as to what this is missing, but it feels like it's lacking something to tie everything together. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be great.

Like I said before, this is my first time exploring this style of drawing, so I guess that may excuse a small amount of mediocracy, but I doubt it. 

Other than the odd lack of something-that-I-have-no-clue-what-it-is, I actually quite enjoy this one. It took me a while, and I'm proud of that. I successfully used textures for the first time, and I managed a new style. That's something to be proud of.

Just like last time, this is the point where you guys tell me what you think. Give me your own review or opinion, and tell me wether you think my review was fair.

- The Teenage Artist

I decided I'd start off with something old. This is an example of one of those ideas that just never really got off the drawing board. The story was about a race of sentient ferrets (think the Redwall Saga). The character here, Kestrel, was to fall in love with a woman-ferret who he may not have, as she is a royal of the rival kingdom. So instead of him progressing with his life, he obsesses over the woman, until he drives himself mad. His inner demons then become materialized in a insanity-driven hallucination - seen here.

Now about the piece itself. Like I said before, this is old. It was the first bits of art done on my shiny new Wacom Bamboo tablet I got for my birthday. So you could argue it's crappyness is due to lack of practice with the new material, slash, getting used to the program. But I think I'll step away from that excuse and look at the art itself.
I admit that this was my first time drawing a ferret (can you tell?) and so I was not quite sure on how to approach anthropomorphizing an animal I'd never even worked with before. Did I succeed? Maybe.
While there's no doubt I am mediocre where ferrets are concerned, I find many other issues with my work itself. While, again, lack of practice could be used as an excuse for this, I find the shading... blotchy... It's half-hearted to say the least. Also, I'm not so sure if it's visible on this size image, but both the highlights in the eyes, and on his broach are on the wrong sides. What the heck?
The anatomy was botched, the subject matter was flawed to begin with, the shading looks like smeared make-up, the highlights are all wrong, ... and that's supposed to be fire on the right side over there.

Now, with all the negative feedback I'm giving, does that mean I hate this? Not at all!
I'm proud of this little fail-hole. It was the first major work I ever did digitally, and I enjoyed making it at the time. While it pales in comparison to the things I've done more recently, I still rather like it.

 This is the part you come in. What is your opinion of this bit of art? Are my critiques sound, or am I too harsh? Give your own critiques, comments, trolling, hatemail, ect.

- The Teenage Artist