MLP: Commission: shieldgenerator7

Oh man this is awesome! I'm so glad and excited that this commission got you out of your comfort zone in terms project scale <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="15" height="15" alt="" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="366" title=" (Big Grin)"/>

And altho it turned great, I do have several issues with it.

1. First of all, the details of the two main characters are great. The shading is good and I love the dirt effects on the Bastion. The bullet effects and shield effects are well done (although personally I would not have chosen that shape of shield for Shield's shield, but it's an artist's interpretation so it's ok).

2. That said, the eyes still don't look quite right :/ . He's looking at Bastion's feet, and not at his face or other important part. I guess it could be something he would do, but it seems kind of strange, even with his head tilted down.

3. I still can't get over how fluffy his ears look :3 (altho the shading kind of kills the fluffy look a little)

4. Ok, now for some fundametnal issues I have with it. It's boring. The main two combatants are the same distance from the camera and are both side view. They're also at the same elevation, and not much is going on except Shield protecting himself against a single Bastion that decided to focus him instead of the Crusaders and who else is on the battle field. And no other Bastion has even noticed Shield. Anyways, the main problem is that the positioning of Shield and the Bastion is uninteresting. Having them different distances from the camera and/or at different elevations would have made it more exciting.

5. So, fundamental flaw #2: the background action is obscured by the foreground action. The main "rectangle of action" of the foreground completely contains the "rectangle of action" of the background. Yes, you can see other bastions and crusaders off in the distance, but they're obscured by Shield's shield and Bastion and his gun.

6. This leads directly into fundamental flaw #3: there's too much empty space. There's a big red area up at the top that is very empty. It could very easily be cut from the piece and the piece would lose nothing at all. I think it would have been better if the background action could have been moved more up into this space, or have the foreground action occupy more space, or something to use up this awkward blank space.

7. Center of Focus. For whatever reason (I'm not entirely sure why), it seems that the focus should be the interaction between Shield's shield and Bastion's fire. But my eyes don't feel comfortable sitting right there at that spot. I think it's because the foreground action is in the bottom-right corner of the piece, instead of center of just off-center. This ties into the other fundamental flaws I've already stated.

8. Overall, your execution is great. I think this piece needed a little more storyboarding and layout design before starting the execution phase.

Also, sorry, I don't know the technical terms for all the things I talked about. And the rating? I just filled in random stars.

I do want to reiterate that I am in no way dissatisfied with the piece. It's awesome and well worth what I paid for it (I kind of think I underpaid for it actually :] )

I hope this critique helps you with the next piece! ^_^