BiffTheTimid's Reviews

[Birthday 30]

Keep on keepin' on dude. I still call people cutie-pies thanks to Pico 09.

[Raw Latex]

Ah, the perfect balance of latex strap-on's and Siobhan. Even though I feel like this is a satirical jab at young adventurer kids shows, I would watch the shit out of this series.

Sexual-Lobster responds:

cheers, biff.

[Wooden Hearts]

Nod bad, especially for an intro class. My main gripe is your shadows were all sorts of jacked up. I don't know which program yoiu used, but I'm sure it has light linking. All those tiny strung up lights would not be strong enough to cast shadows, and and probably had no fall-off. You also have the light-angle at 0, giving you a sharp edge on every shadow, when with dim lights light that you'd be getting very very soft shadows. Also, your wood was suuuuuuper reflective, which though it looks cool to see reflections in stuff, is kind of distracting. Other than that I liked the texturing, set building, and lighting (other than the shadows). Good stuff, keep it up.

Snazzymation responds:

Thanks I plan to. I actually wanted the shadows soft but I haven't completely figured the best way to do it yet. I am still working on it. I have a few things I want to change but rendering took forever.

[Castle Crashing the Beard HD]

Just delightful. :*

[Pico's School 2]

Just as good as the original. Everything is improved upon - characterization, game play, art style, music - it's all got that Pico feeling, but it has matured and refined with age. Simply incredible. Hoping this gets ported to XBLA and PSN soon.

[Cave of Wonders]

I had a blast

It was a great old-school style side-scroller. I liked the idea you had with you having to build your own way up to get to the third boss, and the Metroid/Megaman style "escape as the last boss" was cool. A few glitches made my kill myself, but I got it done. I uh...... beat it in 666 seconds. Great work and a good kick-off to the Po3 event. I'm going to go repent for my sins and read the bible.

[At the End of the Desert]

Looks pretty cool. I dig the lighting and the composition. A few critiques: The chromatic aberration seems out of place and doesn't really serve any artistic purpose, at least in my opinion. The atmospheric distortion is cool on the wheel, but it would also affect the small hill in front of it, since it's pretty much the same distance. Right now it's too dark, and would have the same level of haze as the wheel. As for the wheel itself, if it's as gigantic as you depict it, it wouldn't have that detailed a texture on it. It would be so large and far away that you wouldn't really see the detail you have. The way it is now is at odds with it's scale. The weathering of the wheel also is pretty uniform and doesn't have much art direction. Worn objects have wear and tear, but in predictable spots, not over it's entire surface. The clouds are cool, but look a lot more painterly than everything else. I suspect the ground and wheel are a mix of CG and paint, and the clouds are painted. The clouds on the right seem a lot different than the ones on the left, and look repeated. They're different enough but the shapes look like a pattern. I taught CG and Illustration in College, so sorry if it seems like I'm being overly critical. These are just things I notice since it's the type of stuff I deal with on a day-to-day basis. Cool stuff over-all, keep it up.

ErrorCell responds:

You nailed some of the deep seated issues I've personally had with this image that a lot of my friends have also nailed me on after releasing it. I think this image deserves quite an overhaul given the feedback. My hope is to get back to these images one by one and resolve the issues over a couple years time as I work on new images. Then recompile the whole series as a book.

You're not being overly critical! I think if you notice something I'd rather be told than not, especially if you've kindly taken your time to write a whole 250+ word paragraph of just ideas and input. If anything art is a life-long craft that becomes better with discussions like this. It's a practice that makes people better, and it can't get better if nobody has things to say.

Not that it adds anything here, but I'll just add that the scene is 100% 3D, including the clouds. SideTrip really began as an experiment to use partially computer-driven design techniques to tell a story I wrote when I was a kid. And I'm thrilled to see it grow. I've been proudly working on it for 2 years.

So really thanks for your input.

[Study time]

Your color, lighting, and linework are all done well. I'm not much of an anime-style type guy anymore, but I appreciate what you've done, and the resolution you did it in. I have a few suggestions that you can take or leave. First, when you upload an image to NG, I wouldn't upload it at its full resolution. At it's current size it doesn't fit anyones monitor, even if they had double the resolution of current displays - and it takes forever to load. Secondly, work on your perspective. The viewing angle is straight on, but the table and bookshelves look as if we're viewing at a downward angle. We shouldn't be able to see the top of the bookshelves, at least according to how the characters are positioned. Same with the table, though I like what you have arranged on it. The background is also askew slightly, which is interesting, but slightly disorienting. The way you do folds in clothing is a bit haptic and doesn't make much sense, especially in the dude on the left's left arm. I'd suggest googling dudes in dress shirts in various poses and you'll see they don't have those strange bulges and sharp folds that run down the upper arm like that. Also, grey-bro has a very effeminate hair-style, but that's neither here nor there. That's all I've got to say about that. Keep up the good work.

TheDamnThinGuy responds:

I appreciate your critique so much. I can definitely use some words of advice, and I'll try to work on the things you've pointed out. Thank you!

[Morrigan... again]

Always enjoy a good Morrigan

One thing that's a little off, though it's your own interpretation, is I've never seen a Morrigan who didn't have super muscular thighs. But this'll do too.