Robot feedback

[Christijan]

Hi, I'd love feedback on this image for the April contest if you have a moment.

[marshallx]

@Christijan, I think it's a pretty simple and clean design, which is appropriate for young kids books. I do think that the face could be a bit more mechanical looking, and a few convincing looking mechanical details would help (the joints and the feet are really simplified). The design of anything mechanical should come from it's function. What does it do?
Drawing interesting (and convincing looking) robots is really difficult. You have to decide how "human" you want them to look (the more human you design them, the more emotion you can express thru their face and pose). Jake parker is one of the best sources to learn robot and mech design (I don't think many people do it better than he does). Also I think some of the pointers the Etherington brothers have on their blog about robot arms and mechanical things, are really good advice.
The bottom line though, is if you want to get good (and confident) in designing robots it takes practice. Start a sketch book just for robots and draw them a lot.

[TessaW]

Can't help with the robot design, but this is a fun concept and nice execution overall. Really funny! The expressions, gestures, and scenarios all feel genuine but exaggerated just enough to make them super fun.

The critiques I have would be for the color and rendering.

Color can be very subjective, but for my taste, I think the color harmony is out of balance. For me the green is a little too intense for the colors established. I also think your browns are sort of competing with each other. The saturation of the chicken/dirt is making your girl's skin tone look a little sallow in comparison and you are heavily skewing attention to the right with the warm, saturated colors.

The rendering on the ground is looking a little "digital airbrushy" and I think throwing a texture on it, or handling the fade a little differently might help. Again, this may be subjective, but I thought I'd point it out.

Awesome work, take my critiques with a grain of salt!

[Christijan]

@marshallx Thanks for the feedback!

[Christijan]

@TessaW I think I got a little hasty with the coloring there at the end. I think the girl's color looked a little better before the export from my iPad, but I definitely see an issue there. Thanks for the feedback!