Need opinions please

[TigerEye]

I've recently got started on this webcomic of mine, Dimensions. I would like opinions on a few possible problems with the first couple of pages I've done. I'm starting to think that I'm putting two large of a space between the panels themselves and that maybe shortening the distance will help bring the comic together a little better. Second how is the inking itself looking? I'm doing all of it by hand except for the lettering itself. The anatomy itself is looking a bit off, even though the characters aren't human but are based a little upon human anatomy. Though I am working on improving my anatomy skills and am thinking of taking a life drawing/human anatomy for artists class.

I don't have alot to show currently but here's what I got uploaded on my computer and lettered. Thanks!

[Oualawouzou]

The gap between panels appear large... but your pages themselves are quite big. Personnally, I'd shrink them down a bit (you may have to redo the lettering to keep it legible), so it makes it hard to comment on the gap between panels at the moment. Maybe they just *look* too big, but are actually on scale with the rest of the page...

[TigerEye]

Sorry about the large picture size, I went ahead and edited my first post and put up smaller images. Are those better?

[Allan_ecker]

This work reveals a few weak areas in your artwork, but so far the pacing and story elements are already plenty mature to keep telling the story. As such I'd just start with these and keep moving forward, letting your art improve as you go.

First page: I'd recommend letting the artwork "bleed" right out to the edges of the image. As it stands, the lines end well before the edge, creating a "greeting card" look. In general the title page is less detailed than the first panel of the next page and so doesn't really advertise how cool the artwork is going to look well. Basically-- a competant page that could use some gussying up to show off the fact that there is going to be a world in this comic!

Second page: First panel, this establishing shot is GOOD. We learn, right away from this one image, that this is an underground world, homes are hewn into the rocks, and artificial illumination is likely the only source of light. Also we can get a good idea of the density of this neighborhood: roughly equivelant to suburban or urban life, with dwellings moving into multiple stories but not skyscrapers. My only complaint is that more might be done to show this landscape off, perhaps involving forced depth of field stuff (big rocks in foreground, stalagtites and stalagmites fading off into the background, etc) but the lack doesn't hurt the impact of the panel any. The next two panels do a good job of zooming into the scene, although the staggered gap makes for a confusing transition; is panel three the one below or to the left of panel two? The bottom two panels deliver story well and get the job done. They also reveal that you've got some practice with anatomy to do, but hey, who doesn't need practice with the figure? It's HARD. The last panel's radial burst effect works really well, although I'd do something to improve the character of that speech baloon, such as making it a rounded rectangle or even (and this could get to be a pain) drawing it by hand.

Page three: The first panel has more of that textural richness that I'm enjoying in this comic, but the pose is a little static; lean that character forward, show some distance between arms and legs, emphasize the speed. (Once again, speech baloon needs tidying up.) Next panel is pretty much good, and we get our first close-up view of those artificial light sources: crystals! Nice touch! Next panel could use a different perspective or some more clutter. With so few objects in the one-point, it looks...excessively diagramatic. Last two panels, I'm not sure whether the character in the dwelling is supposed to be eccentric or merely forgetful, but either way the interaction is charming. The artifacts in this dwelling just overall seem too small or too few: one gets the impression of a large nearly-empty space in which there are small areas of clutter, rather than a single, unified mess which I think is what's inteded here.


Overall:

Your strengths are getting a story clearly communicated, the use of establishing shots to create a firm picture of what your world is like, and rich textures which evoke an almost tactile response.

Your weaknesses are the figure (especially in motion), "blocking" aka composition, and word baloon design.

This is above-average for a starting Keenspace artist (certainly better than MY first comics) and I wouldn't recommend doing these over again. They're plenty good enough to tell the story, and in the beginning that's all you need. I feel like there's a lot of potential here; this looks a lot like the earliest efforts of some of my favorite webcomic artists.

[TigerEye]

Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful critique!

About the cover page, I admit I've not been terrible happy with it and I am concidering compltely redoing it/ Possible using a landscape panel that I amde a sketch of and liked quite a it and maybe adding in one of the characters in the foreground. Possible using the same character and maybe the same pose but with a much more interesting background. It might come across as more detailed and professional looking then and hopefully will catch someones eye. At the very least I might be more happy with it. First page, when you say to allow the artwork to bleed out to the edge do you mean have the panels go right out to the sides of the paper?

Second page, I really like that first panel myself. It's one of the ones I'm the most happy with esspecially since I was experementing with a few things too. I will keep in mind the forced depth of field things when I do more distant landscape type panels. Which I plan to be doing quite a few of those. The second two panels in the page, the third panel is suppose to be the one to the right of the larger panel, but I can see how their might be some confusion in that. It's bassically a zoom in of the little "cave" or dark area to the bottom left of the second panel.

The speech balloons, when you say to vary them or more character, do you mean to vary their shape more and size more? I can see how that might be an improvement, maybe to enhance the radial stripping I did with its shapes. I will say those radial stripes were a pain, I did them all by hand, hehe. My other speech bubbles I have been drawing by hand, though that one I did do in my computer (I made a mistake with the strips that I didn't notice until it was too late, ehhe).

With the scenes inside the "house" or dwelling.. I see what you mean by more clutter, I think I am going to add more "junk" and things to try and make the dwelling look more lived in and maybe a bit more chaotic. Since the character of the adult/owner living there tends to be a bit chaotic and forgetful. The next page will hopefully reveal a little more of his (second characters) personality and I plan to show more of that as time goes on.

[Allan_ecker]

I mean, specifically, that the speech baloons are mostly empty because they're ovals.

If they were tightened up, they'd show off more of the artwork, look more professional, and fit better with the rest of the comic. I actually write dialog into my strips in pencil, then draw baloons around them as tight as seems reasonable, then I add text digitally. Sometimes I'll even re-write the dialog slightly to fit in the baloons better.

While we're on the subject, with so much hand-drawn detail, every computer-generated thing you have in there is going to be noticable. The CG baloons stick out like a sore thumb, although that can be a good thing if you need to make sure the reader can find the speach in the clutter...

[TigerEye]

Ahhhhh I see now what you mean.

I actually write dialog into my strips in pencil, then draw baloons around them as tight as seems reasonable, then I add text digitally. Sometimes I'll even re-write the dialog slightly to fit in the baloons better.

Hmm thats a really good idea, I think I'm going to take that up as well. It will give me a better idea of how large my text can comfortable too. I did start incoorperating the speech bubbles, or at least where they are going to be located, more into the artwork. So I'm not crambing them in, and hopefully not finding out I don't have enough space. With the CG stuff, I suppose thats a downfall of doing so much inking by hand . I think if I do tighten the bubbles up and make them more of a part of the artwork then I won't even need to put them in via my computer. One thing that has been a challenge, though a fun challenge, is trying to find that nice middle area between too much detail and too little.

[Duralict]

I like your environments and the line style!

As far as improvement goes, your anatomy could use some work (practice and running yourself through tutorials'll probably do the trick). And you really need to proofread.

Another day of collecting ingrediants. what does Master vignar need with these this time. Hmmm... what time is it anyways?

Doing nothing but fixing grammar and spelling, it should look like this:

Another day of collecting ingredients. What does Master Vignar need with these this time? Hmmm... what time is it, anyway?

One of the biggest turn-offs for comics is consistent spelling and obvious grammatical errors - they make it look like you slammed out the comic and didn't look at it again before posting it, which doesn't bode well for the story being coherent later on. Better to take the extra few moments to make sure it's correct before you post it!

One other thing I noticed while copying that quote is your composition. You seem to have a good feel for panel layout and black/white balance. Looking good!

[Siabur]

I like the art. Detailed without being overwhelming and not busy. The speech balloons are one of those things you'll have to experiment with. One trick I've used with digital balloons over hand drawn art is to use dark greys instead of black for the words and balloon outlines. This helps elimate the drastic differences. Spaces between the panels is subjective to the creator. Some use big spaces, others none. Experiment with various styles, then one day you'll just pick what works for you. Characters will improve with time. Don't fret over the first few pages with them. One piece of advice I recieved many many years ago was this, keep drawing, perspective and size will look right over time, practice will make it better. You already have the mechanical part, use of shading, cross hatching that sort of thing. The rest will come over time.

[TigerEye]

Thank you for the suggestions. As far as the proofreading goes I totally missed that stuff, I'm going to be more careful about it in the future and possible ask a family memeber to proof read before I "publish" the pages.

Anatomy is something I struggle with, though I hope with plenty of practice, tutorials, etc it will improve. I'm thinking one of the biggest things though is to just continue forward with my comic while I am trying to improve on things. Nothing like good practice .

Thanks!

[TigerEye]

The new cover for chapter one. I'm happier with this one than the last cover page.

[Allan_ecker]

Now THAT'S the stuff!

Open compositions are very key to what makes your style work, so showing one of them off here is bang-on. Foreground work is amazing here.

Maybe throw in some white flecks of texturing in the back? You've got a great sense of debth here; a few flecks of white in those black fields could hint at a cavern that goes on into the distance.

Very cool; keep it up!

[TigerEye]

Thanks! The flecks of white are a good idea... I'll have to look into doing that.

[Pencilears]

i like your inking and your backgrounds.
they're beautiful

your word balloons on the other hand look like they were a second thought thrown in afterward, don't think of them as something apart from the art they are integral to how we read the characters speech the large amount of whitespace you leave makes the voices "sound" tinny and distant.

also comic sans cannot beat decent handwriting for seamlessly flowing with the artwork, unless you're like me and have terrible handwriting and thus cannot help using fonts.

[Allan_ecker]

That's Arial, not Comic Sans.

Comic Sans actually might fit a little better, but eh.

[TigerEye]

Thanks! I am trying something different with the word balloons. Varying their shapes and sizes to try and fit the text better. I would like to do the text by hand by my handwritting isn't the best and might make it difficult for readers. So for the moment I'm going with putting text in with my computer.

Actually the text isn't arial or comic sans, it's "Franklin Gothic Medium." Though it does look similar to arial.

[Mobi]

I dont think theres anything better than a nice looking font. Handwritten text is OK - but sometimes it takes away from the comics value, rather than adding to it. I'd look for a nice "relaxed" font that suits the comic style.

Lovely art though, as everyone else has said.