Turboo - I haven't played Mina, but that doesn't at all detract from my enjoyment of this piece - which to me is a sign of its quality! There's something especially strong in the contrast of the two characters here. The... blue knight individual has a wide, confident stance. Feet planted apart, arms out, that stance builds them up as a proper obstacle - which then gets reinforced by Mina's leaning forward and her expression. Add to that the sense of motion in the lines rising up from Mina's platform and trailing her flail, and it all comes together to make the confrontation palpable. Everything in the foreground and midground works to support the sense of a tense confrontation here, and I enjoy that kind of tension. I'm really taken by the background, though! Its serenity contrasts the rest of the image, accentuating the main focus! Fitting you had orange and blue to work with, two colors often used to highlight each other through their contrast!
Yap - It's impressive how much you were able to incorporate into this image without sacrificing readability. There's a lot going on here between the text exchange, the various text and thought bubbles, the onomatopoeia, and the emphasis on the expressions of the characters, but I didn't have to sort through it to understand what was going on. It was immediately readable, with the extra details like the sobbing noises being something I discovered the longer I looked at it, rather than something that clouded the focus. I don't know all the technical terms, but I imagine that reflects a mastery of using different sizing, line weights, color contrast, and placements to direct the eyes to the most important parts of the image. It strikes me that the sobbing is all purely blue on black, making them lower-contrast than the shaded thought bubbles, which are in turn lower contrast than the speech bubbles, which are in turn lower contrast than the heavily-shaded and dual-colored characters - I suppose that creates a hierarchy that guides the eye.
Uniju - Uniju, you are incredibly skilled at making peaceful and wistful scenes. Even though there is a dangerous rescue mission going on here, the image still feels... almost oddly nostalgic? The thin scratchy lines of the background and the cute details like the penguins in silhouette give this the feeling of a hazy memory. It's like I'm recalling a zoo I barely remember visiting at the age of five. Even the relative lack of detail on the girl climbing into the enclosure contributes. Her hair mostly obscuring her face, her plain outfit... it feels like I'm struggling to recall the face of a playmate from my early years. All of that creates an interesting interplay with your detailed and nicely-textured alligators. Thinking of this like a memory from childhood, are they so concrete in form and texture because they stood out as dangerous? Perhaps this is even the rescuer's memory! Perhaps she's recalling this rescue operation, and the alligators she vividly recalls because they were so frightening!
GBA - I'm a big fan of the openness here. Your palette and the choice to cleanly separate land from sky make it feel as though this landscape truly stretches on forever. I particularly like the choice to make this a nighttime sky. It'd have been easy to do a daytime sky with that blue, piggybacking off the general perceptions of deserts as searing hot landscapes, but you saw the softer hue of your blue and went with a nighttime scene. I feel like that enhances the loneliness of this image. Imagining the desert sands illuminated only by headlights makes me feel like I've been confined to some sort of pleasant purgatory, where I will never reach my destination but I will always have the pleasure of a spiritual adventure. Digby's endless journey... and all because Isabelle forgot to tell him she was working late...
woglirl - woglirl, your character designs and expressions never cease to blow me away. You always leave me with a feeling of "I want to read a story about these characters..." She's amazing. The short sleeves and fingerless gloves are nice touches for rounding out that punk look. This may be an odd comparison, but I was recently thinking about Pokestar Studios from B2W2, and its mechanic of "Strange Endings", where films could garner more attention by doing something unconventional. If I remember correctly, the tutorial for that mechanic is playing an utter failure of a hero. I know this character is a villain, but I'm reminded of that scenario... I want to see this character fail more...
TPG - It's neat that both you and your opponent went for punks. I'm feeling Andrew Hussie strongly in this one, and I mean that entirely positively. The second character from the left reminds me of Zhen. Big personality to these characters that meshes well with the striking color scheme of the graffiti behind them.
TB - I feel unsafe. I say that humorously, but, like, also, that seems to be the intention and you delivered. These two men are threatening each other with broken bottles and knives and yet I fear for their safety. Captain Cola's size, expression, and slightly askew stance combine with the minimal light and pervasive scratchy shadowing make me worry these men are going to end up floating down a river in pieces.
kramer - Great use of your palette for light and shadow, here. The way the green flows out of the doorway clearly positions it as illumination spilling out of the room even though you're working with such a dark color, and blue naturally lends itself well to draping Snake in shadow. The sparing use of white makes its abundance on the missile draw my eye first, which in effect conceals Snake from view immediately - so mission accomplished, soldier.
MCD - Way to make the Wordler threatening with the striking use of shadow and the off-center posing. Great use of subtle touches of grey to keep his face readable on the shadowed side. I'm mesmerized by the way those little touches manage to make his mask feel blacker than black. I know it's a trick, but I can still see the outline of his mask over the shadowed part of his face!
Fanta - I don't know who the fella next to Scrooge is, but I like how they both spill out of the frame. It gives the impression of them jostling to be the focus of the piece, and all without them needing to overlap or needing to figure out how they would press against each other. I also like how their color schemes mirror each other, both going from purple to grey to white to black as they ascend. That coloring parallel accentuates their similar personalities.
Morgan - You know what this reminds me of? This feels like those shots in animation where a character is suddenly drawn in a more detailed, realistic style to express some strong emotion. We're two seconds away from a shattering screen transition to a spotlight shining down on this kid while they falls to their knees and pounds a fist against the ground. It's something about the way you drew the face with the eyes in shadow but the nose so prominent.
YtSSM (Ink) - Mario Pinball Land mention, wooh! Seriously, though, I enjoy seeing ol' King Tut get his due. I like the layering to this one. They are indeed making a (ideally) fair trade, but also Pinball Land was set at... a fair. Good joke. I also want to highlight your Chain-Chomp and Super Leaf, which both have great depth to them. I can see you put a lot of care into the Chomp's chain and teeth, as well as giving the Super Leaf depth through its little missing bit.
Hint Toad - Ahahaha, I cracked a huge smile seeing this! The comic with these two troublemaking Shy Guys has stuck in my head for its absurdity, so it was a treat to see it referenced. Even if one didn't know the original comic, there's much to appreciate here. You do an excellent job of drawing Bowser, and I'm especially taken with the way you've drawn his shell spikes. I'm going to have to take notes on the way you shade them - it gives them a great deal of depth! There's also the positioning of the panel with the Shy Guys, so small and tucked into the bottom right, a natural endpoint for the eyes to reach so it can deliver the punchline. That you're a professional comic artist shines through here!
Nine - There's that Ninelevendo action scene! You're skilled at capturing moments of intense action in a still image, and this is another prime example of that. Again, I'm noticing a sparse use of white that draws attention to the baseball in conjunction with the swirling lines of blue. You use a lot of white on Poochy but wisely temper it with some black so that it doesn't distract from the main focus. The looseness to your white and the fact that it's the brightest color in the image impart the ball with tremendous energy. I wouldn't want to be the outfielder here!
Waluigi Time - As always, your ability to create scrimblos are unparalleled. I see a little bit of Zurg and Chief Palmer in these two, but they have distinct energies that are all their own, too. That police officer in particular feels muppetish to me. He just got done harassing Kermit the Frog, y'know? He pops up with an exaggerated accent and starts requesting increasingly ridiculous documentation. He goes from wanting to see your driver's license to wanting your birth certificate to wanting to see your medical records to wanting to see your online shopping orders to wanting to see your mmorpg login information, then goes "well, everything appears to be in order. I'll let you- oh, whoops. Can't let you go yet! I need your fishing license". Then you can't find your fishing license and he writes you a citation. Meanwhile, this villain - look at that shawl, he's got flair. I feel like he's on his way to compete in a televised car race. I know I spent this time talking about the scrimblos and not the art, but, I mean, I think that's a testament to the strength of your pieces - I can immediately spin up skits and stories from what you draw.
PoochyPie - I like the relative simplicity of this piece. Everything is nicely spread, there's no clutter, and it's just got a good, readable premise.
BBQ - I haven't the words. I mean, I think I would exhaust all of my available time if I tried to comment in detail on everything there is to adore in your piece. GBA articulated thoughts much better than I could, but I am enamored with the ferocity and style of this character. They are not content with simply razing the land - they're doing it with flair. They're a villain's villain, forming that heart shape around themselves while setting the world ablaze. Powerful and confident energy, they have. I'm a big fan of the way you rendered the flames, layering them in a chaotic-yet-controlled way to capture the amorphous nature of a raging fire. The pink-on-black to create this trail of destruction is especially striking.
LTQ - This image resonates with me. There is a palpable optimism in this image, even disregarding the title. The perspective offering a look at that beautiful, boundless blue sky communicates not only a world of reduced pollution, but a hope that we look beyond ourselves and surpass the boundaries which presently hold us back. The intermixing of homes and trees, too, points to a literal physical harmony between civiliazation and nature, but also, I feel, to a broader metaphorical directive to look beyond ourselves. "We are bound together," this image says, "by complex webs of relationships both human and ecological." This image, to me, is an affirmation that humanity can show its better nature and rise above individualistic thinking, and I adore it for that. I also really like the decision to let the green spill outside of the outlines of the leaves. it gives the trees a softer, gentler feel.
Rose - Giiiiiiive it up for threatening ghost Pokémon! My second-favorite genre of threatening Pokémon images, only after threatening Fairy-types! You did a bang-up job making this Froslass feel dynamic and intimidating. By the former, I mean, like, it feels like it's in motion. Froslass is rapidly approaching and actively spreading her arms to come grab the POV character as they freeze. Fan of the minimal-but-not-absent background detailing to suggest a snowy nighttime scene where the blizzard and the darkness conspire to leave this character unable to see but a few feet in front of them. There's something to be said for how small you made Froslass' eyes. It is an interesting choice to eschew more "on-model" anime-style eyes here, and it pays off handsomely. That these read as more pinprick eyes until I zoom in gives them a more ghostly and threatening feel. This isn't a ~friend and companion to join you on your Pokémon journey~; this is a Creature (TM). Shrinking the eyes turns Froslass into a proper vengeful spirit driven only by a desire for revenge and adding to its collection, and that is a great design choice for this image.
Hearts - Cascabela!!! Interesting that both you and your teammate have someone licking up blood (and more, in your teammates case). Was that a pre-coordinated design element? I doubt it, which makes it cooler that it shook out that way. Nice use of striped colors to suggest a softer texture for Cascabela's hair and the flowers on her hat. Great expression and posing. Free her. She did everything she's accused of, but, like, free her. #Women'sWrongs etc etc.
Paradox - What most intrigues me about this image is the chain of eyes. There being these relatively evenly-spaced, evenly-size eyeballs makes for an intriguing contrast with the connected, snake-like eyeballs. The eyesnake reminds me of a... I believe it's Link's Awakening? It reminds me of a Link's Awakening boss, but I digress. The fact that eyesnake eyeballs have colored irises and pupils that are looking somewhere, whereas the other eyeballs look straight ahead and have white iris, suggests that the eyesnake has a degree of intelligence which the regular eyeballs lack. Does it perhaps consume them? Is this is a creature in a surreal world, looking to add to itself? Interesting questions arise from your design choices!
Koops - #Women'sWron- what do you mean I "already used that bit"? Who said it was a bit? I like the definiton on your character. You've got a knack for interesting body styles. It's neat how you contrast how clearly readable and defined she is with how messy and incomplete the background clutter is. It's intentionally left vague to contrast with the central focus of the image. That lets you get the most out of your purple while leaving the blue for striking touches of blood and vitreous fluids. It's nice.