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Luckytime
If you're a fan of your own work, then you'll be fine ~ Start small. If you can't, then start smaller ~ If you don't love what you put out, don't expect anyone else to

Age 32, Male

Process Improvement

AAS Mechanical Engineering

North Carolina

Joined on 8/6/09

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Luckytime's News

Posted by Luckytime - October 19th, 2020


I really like the new video player, give a bonus to whoever made it.


2

Posted by Luckytime - April 5th, 2020


Every time someone uses the word "cute" in a review on Newgrounds, it means they just got done jacking off.

Look for it. You'll find it.


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Posted by Luckytime - May 29th, 2019


INTRODUCTION


I'm writing this because you may or may not have seen one of my many art reviews around the site and wondered where I get my basis for grading artwork. At the very least, I hope you get a kick out of reading this. in this post I will break down why I give 5 stars to some drawings and not to others, and demystify the thought-process behind it.


PART 1: PURPOSE


One of my art teachers once told me something that forever changed the way I look at art. We had just finished our warm-up sketches and as I continued to push the quality of the cup I was drawing, I inquired about something that all artists struggle with at some point or another. I asked: "when can you call a drawing finished?" He responded with another question: "What is your drawing meant to be?" and then continued "If a drawing is meant to be a sketch and you're using it to loosen up before getting to the important stuff, then your drawing has served its purpose". This was a brand new concept to me at the time; assigning a function to a drawing BEFORE starting it was never something I considered until that moment. Needless to say, that stuck with me. More on this later.


PART 2: DISTINCTION


Here on Newgrounds, you have the option of submitting your art as a sketch, in which case it will not have a rating, or you can submit it to the portal, which is what most people do without thinking of the implications. I understand, there's an allure to the attention associated with your art being on display for the public to admire. However, the distinction between these two is important because one acknowledges the validity of a piece of artwork and the other doesn't. People can still leave a rating and review of your sketches, but the OVERALL rating is not displayed. The way I see it, this feature was meant for drawings that have been shelved and may never be completed, practice drawings, works-in-progress or anything else that doesn't show you putting your best foot forward. Unfortunately, hardly anyone uses this feature because the sweet, sweet call of attention is just too strong.


PART 3: CRITICISM


Newgrounds makes it very clear that we are not leaving comments, but REVIEWS. This is precisely why I may not hold back when reviewing the art you submit to the art portal. Even so, I still get replies on my reviews that show a fundamental lack of receptiveness to feedback, even if it's constructive. I believe it's important to illustrate this point so without naming-and-shaming, let's take a look at an example:


iu_30123_2955357.jpg


I may be reading too much into this response, but I don't think so. I think this person actually felt like I was attacking them in my review. Two things clued me in: 1. The artist didn't respond to any of their positive reviews, as if a positive review is to be expected. 2. They apologized to me, something which signifies that an error was made, or that a confrontation has taken place. I started with a list of things I LIKED about the drawing and gave it an above-average score, but it still wasn't good enough because we tend to demonize critical feedback instead of celebrating it as an opportunity to grow.


Now let's take a look at a healthy exchange:


iu_30124_2955357.jpg


Do you see the difference? I did not get defensive, I did not make excuses and I thanked the reviewer for taking the time to provide their perspective. Nobody on this site gets paid to sit around reviewing your artwork. Trust me, I wish I could. People are giving you their time for FREE so the least you can do is acknowledge when somebody goes the extra mile and looks at your art with a critical eye. You would normally have to shell out tuition to find out from a jaded, middle-aged art professor that your drawing sucks ass.


PART 4: FULFILLMENT


We already know about color-relationships, negative space and composition. Artists often talk about these things when they evaluate a drawing, but nobody discusses what the purpose of a drawing is, or why it even matters. Here is where my point comes full-circle. My ultimate theory which I use to grade art is this:


"An artwork is successful if, in its execution, no aspect therein, or lack thereof, dampens, diminishes, or in any way detracts from the unbridled realization of the raw vision that inspired the artist to commence it."


In other words: Does the art, whether it's a drawing or something else, live up to the purpose it was created for? Just as my art teacher asked me, does the sketch fulfill its purpose? That question is easier asked than answered. It's also equally important to ask whether the purpose is a worthy or noble one. This is very subjective and everyone must answer it for themselves. I try to be as unbiased as possible, but I'm human and flawed. That means that I might not see the purpose of a drawing when it may be clear as day to someone else.


PART 5: INTUITION


All of this begs the question: "If you don't know what the artist's original vision was, then how can you grade the outcome against it?" The answer to that question could be an entire blog-post of its own. Basically, it comes down to intuition. It comes from having seen thousands of successful and unsuccessful drawings and paying attention to the skill-level of the artists who made them, commentaries supplied by the artists, public responses and a whole slew of other minutiae. My thought-process when I see a drawing for the first few seconds is critical in forming my opinion of it. First, I immediately try to find obvious flaws. These stick out to a point where I can't ignore them, even if I tried. If I can't find any obvious flaws, I try to find subtle flaws. These don't necessarily make the drawing bad as long as they're offset by something else which makes them less relevant. I also take note of any obvious or subtle successes. I then take all of this information and combine it with my previous experience to form a theory about what the artist's raw vision may have looked like, and if they succeeded in recreating it.


PART 6: EXAMPLES


Because a drawing only needs to realize its purpose to be deemed successful in my eyes, It can be extremely minimal and derive its profundity from some deeper subtext. Here's an example of a drawing that I would say pulls this off perfectly:



While this drawing is not nearly as technically impressive as others, I feel like it absolutely nailed what it was intended to convey. I gave it 5 stars and I want you to remember that as you look at this next example:



I personally think this is an amazing drawing, but my precise review of this drawing does not matter. All that matters is that I wouldn't give it 5 stars. It's got much more going on than the previous example, but it engages in self-sabotage. What I mean is that because the artist included mountains next to the figure to give it a sense of scale, I am forced to consider how an object looks at a scale that huge, and my experience tells me that it doesn't look like that. There would be way more atmospheric diffusion if it was the size of a mountain. Therefore, I deduct points. That is only 1 flaw, but my point is that If the artist chose not to include mountains, that would've been 1 less flaw for me to notice.


CONCLUSION


Am I saying if you can't draw something then don't even bother? Absolutely not. On the contrary, you should try to draw as many challenging things as you can. That's the quickest way to improve. What I'm saying is that when an attempt is made, and the attempt fails, and you submit it to the portal regardless of whether or not you think it represents the best of your ability, then don't act surprised if you receive some critical feedback on it.


If you still don't understand, this may help: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Critique.


Tags:

2

Posted by Luckytime - March 1st, 2019


I don't like what's been going on with the front paged art lately. So instead of dumping hate on the first person that fits the bill, I'm going to lay out what's been bothering me in this secluded part of the website where almost nobody will see it


  1. Front paged art is more sexually charged than ever
  2. Art is frontpaged at a faster rate than ever before
  3. The quality of the frontpaged art is lower than ever
  4. Many of the frontpaged artists created their accounts in December 2018


My bells are going off and I'm getting the feeling this site got worse since the mass migration of tumblr smut made its way here. I don't know why this is happening but I only started noticing these changes after tumblr's nsfw ban dropped. Why are mods suddenly frontpaging everything that enters their periphery? Getting featured basically means nothing now because you don't get time in front of eyes, THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF BEING FEATURED.


I don't have any evidence to say for sure what's going on, but my gut is telling me to stay away. I love Newgrounds and I don't want it to turn into a shithole fap-fest. I just want it to be about good art, that's all.


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Posted by Luckytime - August 20th, 2017


I'm making this post mainly because I want to bump the previous one off my profile, I tired streaming and it was a lot of work and not that much fun. Maybe I'll come back to it at a later time.

Right now I'm here to say that I also love to edit videos! But these sort of videos don't really belong on Newgrounds, which is why I'm letting you know you can head over to my Youtube channel where you'll find a small collection of videos where I try out different editing techniques to varying success. These mostly feature games I like to play but the editing adds a little value to the experience. Anyway, here's a small sample of something I've been recently working on:

Here is the link to my Youtube channel for all my videos going back almost a decade: https://www.youtube.com/user/TekaiGuy/featured


1

Posted by Luckytime - February 17th, 2017


Follow me on Twitch if you want to see some art streams, you can find my twitch channel here:

https://www.twitch.tv/lucky_time

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Posted by Luckytime - January 31st, 2017


One listen and I had to buy:

 


Posted by Luckytime - January 19th, 2017


I finally got fed up with Photoshop fucking up my workflow with this "feature" that I decided to look into it. It turns out users have been bringing up this issue since 2008 and Adobe has refused to acknowledge the validity of their cries. If you know me, then you know that makes me livid. I have actually developed a tick where before I start drawing on a different layer, I will switch to my eraser and put a mark down on some empty space in order to record that I switched to that layer in the history. Can you imagine doing that every fucking time you want to switch layers? Adobe thinks that's reasonable... or just doesn't give a shit.

Well fortunately someone by the name of Will Fuller wrote a script that you can use to deflect this insipid behavior, and draw confidently, knowing that your layer will never switch on you without your knowledge. Here's what you do:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3580711/StepBackwardSmart.jsx

1) Save this webpage in ProgramFiles/Adobe/AdobePhotoshop/Presets/Scripts as a text document with the extension .jsx

2) Open Photoshop and go to Edit -> Keyboard Shortcuts, then under the shortcuts for 'Application Menus', open File and scroll down until you see Scripts. Under there will be the name of your newly added script. Select it and set it as your new shiny 'Undo' button.

That's it!

It's super easy and I know it will save me so much time that I used to spend performing some nonsensical behavior. The author's name and email address are at the top of the script, so you can send him your thank you's if you appreciate his hard work. (though I'm not a programmer so maybe it wasn't that hard). If you found this useful I encourage you to spread it around as much as you can, I was suffering greatly with this issue and I know someone out there would appreciate it as well. Take care.


Posted by Luckytime - July 23rd, 2016


 


Posted by Luckytime - July 7th, 2016