Review #5: Sparklewand12

Second out of four requested reviews is the review of Sparklewand12. Kirsten started off with a swimwear line called Tidal and was later on chosen as a contestant for the first cycle of SDNTGD and ended up on fifth place. With help of SDNTGD's judges and a lot of practicing, she has improved a lot indeed, but the real question is, how good is she now?

Two recent graphics:

Review:

On the first sight, her graphics look rather amazing. Her skin shading technique is balanced, but very basic. On the top right graphic, for example, we can see that a highlight goes in a pretty much straight line with the same "thickness" and opacity all the way down her arm, thus it looks rather unrealistic. Her technique of drawing and shading hair seems to have improved a lot, it is alright now, but the hair still does not look like she spent a lot of time on it, it isn't very detailed. I can tell she tries to shade her clothes the way they would reflect light in reality, but sometimes she fails, and the shading turns out rather odd. When it comes to shading the neck area, the shading looks very blurry, almost like it was done in a hurry. Highlights are supposed to be there, too, but they do not make much sense when they are misplaced. Her backgrounds are always white(or any other solid color).

Two oldest graphics I've found:

What to improve?

First thing I'd probably recommend is to keep on improving, obviously. Work on your shading technique in general and do not always choose the same model - yourself. Choose models with lighter and darker skin, as weird as it may sound, I feel like you've gotten too acclimatized on a specific skin tone, which is not always a good thing. 

Also, I'd like you to get more risky with your selection of clothes. If I was you, I'd find some good reference pictures and practice drawing and shading - clothes and hair. 

When it comes to shading a neck, it is better to stick to a basic shading (maybe even Stardoll's?) and draw the collarbones, than to completely change up the shading and make it blurry and odd-looking. 

Try to incorporate some bright colors into your graphics and do not stick to pastels, greys and whites. They might be trendy, but too much of them can make a graphic look plain, or even sad!

And last, but not least - your models are always makeupless. Give makeup a chance!
I'd love to see some graphics from scratch, but I think you may not be ready for those yet.

Blog link?

http://sparklewand12graphics.blogspot.com/ 

Do they provide graphic tutorials?

No, Kirsten does not provide graphic tutorials.

Do they take requests?

Kirsten is currently too busy to take those, however, her prices are really affordable and you can check them out HERE.

RATE

Improvement: 6/10

First impression: 8/10

Shading technique in general: 6/10

Proportions/anatomy: 8/10

Custom poses: 0/10

Hair: 6/10

Medoll/face shading: 5/10

Clothes shading: 6/10

Attention to detail: 5/10

Background choice: 1/10

Sparklewand12 scored a total of 51%!

Graphic level: Decent