Blrglthrg…I’m so sorry. I kept thinking to myself all these months “I really ought to comment on Ptyra’s art thread”, but for one reason or another I kept procrastinating, forgetting, finding myself too occupied or depressed to visit the forum at all, or being distracted by things that I was under oath to do. For some strange reason, I also had a hard time thinking of comments for the pictures at all. :huh: Anyway, I feel awful about it, and sincerely apologize.
I’ll try to comment on as many pictures as I can, but I don’t think I can do them all in one post. So I’ll just start with your latest one of Dalek X and his Heir.
(Oh, great, I just imagined misspelling that last bit to read “Dalek X and his Hair”, which led to a mental image of Dalek X wearing a wig.
)
Though it’s hard to beat the “Dalek hat” concept in terms of funniness, I think this is my favorite Dalek picture you’ve done so far. When comparing this picture to your previous Dalek drawings, one can see a marked (and very impressive) improvement.
I like how the picture is lit so darkly, with Dalek X’s eye and the Heir’s entire body standing out so brightly. The Heir’s bright pink color gives it a sense of “newness”, and of being very vulnerable and delicate. Similarly, Dalek X’s illuminated eye, so clearly gazing at his Heir, invokes a feeling of his connection with his Heir. Strangely enough for a creature with supposedly no emotions besides hatred and virtually no face with which to express them, there’s a lot of emotion in that gaze. (Or maybe I’m anthropomorphizing.)
It’s a little hard to make out details throughout much of the picture because it is so dark, but for the most part I think you did a great job drawing both Daleks. The tentacles look very natural, just as if they are sprawled out on a flat surface. (Creatures with many appendages are always a challenge to draw.) The one pointing to the upper right-hand corner is a bit oddly shaped, though. Compare it to the tentacle directly across from it on the other side of Dalek X’s head: both tentacles are curved in an ëS’ shape (though the left one is flip-flopped), but the line that denotes the inside curve of the upper half of the right tentacle’s ëS’ is too short, giving it a crudely drawn appearance. (Sorry, I’m not sure if I’m describing any of this well enough for you to understand what I’m talking about.
)
I would also make Dalek X’s brain larger in proportion to the rest of him, though I think you did a good job drawing the brain as being slightly “dislocated” from the rest of the head, in keeping with the appearance of the New Who Dalek mutants.
I wonder how many people would consider it bizarre that I actually find this picture rather cute. Ironically I’ve always found the Dalek mutants to be rather endearing. Well, given that I find octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish absolutely adorable (and think of cephalopods in general and beautiful and fascinating creatures
), my reasoning is that it’s not
too much of a stretch that affection would extend to a creature that resembles a cyclopean octopus with an exposed human cerebral cortex.
It probably helps that the first time we got to see a Dalek mutant in the new series, it was an emotional scene with said mutant in an unusually vulnerable and sympathetic state for a Dalek. …Sorry, rambling again.
Hope this review was satisfactory, and sorry again for not posting one sooner!
