I'm gonna go for another critique... thingy.


Firstly,
...woah. Those wings. SEXAH!


Dang a fully rendered original image. I give kudos! I just love how you've made vector images your primary medium; you've certainly made Flash your bitch as you bend it to you every will. Seems like every image is an improvement from the last, keep it up!

I have not read/heard of this manga series but I'm definitely interested in now. Because of those wings. MMmmm wings. Love how the birds have those mechanical wings too, humorous and cute. The way you spaced out each feather and with their shape... ohoh you nailed a great design. Is that the style of wings in the series or did you have a little bit of artistic freedom with? Either way I really love the simplicity and idea of fragileness behind it. Those things are awesome as is, but that highly effective silhouette screen is gorgeous! I think the screen is just the right amount of light/shadow. It really helps focus some illusion of depth in the room as it reacts to the light effectively.

I love the feeling of movement in this picture: just some subtle elements that give you a sense of actually being there, alive. The hair, the pose, the back/foreground elements. Your character is done nicely as well, the eyes are the defining element. Even though this is supposed to be a simple picture, I think you could still go back and really accent details with advanced light and shadow; I'd love to see more depth with such a beautiful piece. Little things here and there could add so much: The face would do well with more feeling to it through use of light and shadow as well as the hair. Also adding more apparent folds in clothing and the overall feeling of a glow from the environment of the setting sun. Perhaps I could just blot my major critique/what I want to see more of in this piece into a category of just having "more contrast" and it could pop even more.

The interior of the house would do well with a little more life to it... don't make it busy or overcrowded, but giving it more lighting elements (such as everything just kind of fading into the background) or adding some individual light sources casting all sorts of neat lighting effects around the room would add to that depth I was mentioning earlier. Love the floor color to balance out the intense amount of red in the image, but it seems a little too bland as there's no lighting. The roof texture is great; excellent use of the gradients there and it compliments the sunset very well. However I suggest more shadows or detailing underneath the tiles on the siding of the house; it feels like something is missing there in that gap.

It could be just my computer screen but as I would think the four leaf clover is the focus of the image hence the title, I'd make it stand out a little more because it is extremely dark; almost black. Brightening/saturating that up a bit and then possibly desaturating the rest of the picture would allow it to make more of a statement I think. Experiment with that and see what comes out of it; I believe it will really enhance it. The cherry blossoms also are very effective as they bring a different color to the scene. However they sort of fall out of nowhere and I'd like to see just a hint of a tree branch up in the corner or perhaps we could focus the view of the "camera" as if we were up in one of these trees and would have an out of focus branch in the foreground? The out of focus effect on the blossoms is great but even though you wanted to show off the detail in your birds, I think that the picture then starts to argue with itself... you need to bring the focus of the birds down just a tad, or perhaps because you still want to keep that clover standing out, I'd maybe just make the other bird more out of focus than the other. Also since they're in motion it would make since for natural blurring to occur anyways so I'd really give it a shot to see if it completes the picture a little more.


Overall the stylization of the picture, especially evident in the birds, is highly effective. I've always loved your style but I think this is just a tad different than your usual work. I totally encourage you to revisit this piece some time because it's definitely one of my favorite originals you've done. I'd also love to see more stuff from you like this. It's got some real potential.


*proceeds to add to favorites*

Well done!