Walking on broken glass.

*sigh* Felt that I needed to write a review about this. Which is probably more a punishment than anything else, because I tend to be a long-winded bastard. So I won't blame you if you just read the first line or two and decided to walk in the other direction.

Your style is unique and brilliant. It's a bloody niche that has the ability to be elevated to unforeseen heights of brilliance, instantly recognizable by all and frequently copied by the nubs. Not there yet. Might be. Not yet. You've got a few "problems" in the way of it, and to one's particular surprise I'm just going to helpfully point them out for you. Mostly they've got to do with one point - when it comes to your art, you seem to be exceedingly lazy. I don't mean that in a conscious sense, but theres no real sugar-coating it - it seems that 90% of the time you'll pump out some lineart, slap on a colour or two call it done. Well no, it's not done at all.

Completely an artwork is taking a simple artistic style and plugging so much detail and love into it that in the end you've got a saturated plate of awesome. It's like comparing a classic cartoon movie - say, Sleeping Beauty - to those cheap-ass Saturday morning cartoons. Same basic style, but which one would you call the masterpiece? What I'm saying is that while your style is unique - dark fantasy twixt innocence - your level of detail and commitment and effort isn't. It takes a lot more than raw talent, minimal effort and an encapturing view on the world to take it to masterhood. You've got to get in there and add some bloody detail - say, on the above piece, double sided glass on the candle - a candle inside, textures on the wood, a frayed dress, saddlestraps, engraved eyes, signs of multi-levelled propaganda on this world of yours - just, as an idea of lateral thinking - bruises on the girl to suggest a hurt mind escaping from a harsh reality.

Just saying. Love your ideas, concepts and style. Don't level your execution of them.

Another fairly disappointing flaw that a little effort that could be rectified with a little effort - backgrounds. Dreaded word, I know. But most works nowadays need them. Starting off simple would do - in this piece, again, clouds, floating isles, canyons, stars, planets, all kinds of background accessories could have been added, given this artwork much more depth than the level which it currently owns. Going from there, you could work up to the point where the background is much more illustrious than the foreground, having the potential to be artorks in themselves. Just going with this one, you could have (in time with mountains of effort) entered a multi-level gothic metropolis altering with the flow of the ghost thing, acting as a focus point and eye candy. Level of complexity could have been added, and this piece could have been an outright winner. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

Now, last point, but really just an afterthought because it's really something that has to be worked into - your colouring. On this piece, good, but you didn't do it and I'm just going to really ignore it, but take heart in it. Colours matching your styled drawings, with levels of opacity (I'm guessing) to create that digital painting look. Pretty. He forgot to soften the lineart itself, but what the hell. Try searching tutorials on colouring - it's a right bloody asset in drawing, can adds depth of awesome never before experienced. But that's up to you.

Anyway, finishing off, the piece is great and nobody's perfect. Keep it up, loving the style, etc etc blah blah blah. Luxembourg really is a catchy name, mint gum is annoying, waterbottles aren't so ravishign once they get dirty, using "Wicked Lovely" as both a book title and series title is cheap. Whatever.