Pitching! "Private School Boys".

Prapim · Post by **Prapim** » Sun May 08, 2005 3:53 am

Hi! My comic actually doesn't have that many pages just yet (a measly 10 pages) but hopefully, it has enough content to be of significance.

The title sounds a bit implied but actually, it's not...so, here goes my synopsis:

Basically, there is a 17-year-old boy called Ethan Anderton. He happens to come from a well-known, wealthy family (has his own chauffeur, etc.) and attends the most prestigious private school in the region.

Also attending the same school is another boy called Cerin Thomas. The comic doesn't show it just yet, but Cerin's taken an interest in Ethan. Problem is, it's hard to show affection for someone so guarded of themselves- or when there's many girls asking him out continually. Being the school soccer captain doesn't really help demote his status.

That's the basic storyline (a boy/boy romance)...sounds a bit soppy, I know...but there are other themes in the story too. And female characters that aren't just there to ruin the plot.

Anyways, please do tell me what you think!

The link is here:

http://ethancerin.keenspace.com

A sample image is:

Thanks!

DancingChaos · Post by **DancingChaos** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:29 am

I like your style. Did you use watercolors?

It's a very unique way of comicking (SP?). I think you have a great comic going there.

Some of the proportions are wrong when you draw your people, though. It's mainly in the side views of the faces. They don't look like the same people that face directly at you.

Also, the necks are REALLY long!!! But that's your style of people, so I shouldn't go crazy about that ^_^

I'm sure each and every comic takes you a LONG time!!! (Like mine...) I'm glad you are putting a lot of time and effort into each one ^_^ It means a lot to the fans!!!

Well, I love your comic! I will try to read it if I have enough time!!! ^_^ (SO BUSY!!!)

~DC

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Sun May 08, 2005 9:35 am

The extreme length of the necks kinda scares me.

KODAMA · Post by **KODAMA** » Sun May 08, 2005 11:16 am

seems interesting and all hmm..
the speech bubbles are sometimes confusing to follow, and there need to be more emotions Xd

...mmmmm.. it's hard to say anything else without having it sound really really offensive. :D so uh, keep trying!

Sput · Post by **Sput** » Sun May 08, 2005 11:30 am

you've got a pretty style, though you need to work on anatomy a bit more. Looks promising, I'll add it to my list to check.

Legmuscle · Post by **Legmuscle** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:55 am

I think you've got a good start here, I like the stylish look and the offbeat sense of humor. The art style compliments the story nicely, my only suggestion would be to go with a little more contrast here and there to keep everything from looking too muddled.

I do agree with the other posters who pointed out that while your characters faces look great straight on, they sometimes tend to look kinda squooshed in profile.

Still, it's an enjoyable comic. Can't wait to see more.

RemusShepherd · Post by **RemusShepherd** » Mon May 09, 2005 9:09 am

It's a very pretty comic, even if the anime stylings don't directly appeal to me. Keep the long necks, it's a unique style.

I wish the text was as pretty as the art -- I'm guessing you hand draw/paint the pages, scan them in, then add unaliased text using something like MS Paint. That's a shame. The few instances of hand lettering look better, in my opinion. If you want computer lettering, find a program that will do text aliasing for you and choose a softer font.

Ryuko · Post by **Ryuko** » Mon May 09, 2005 9:38 pm

I like what you have. It's a little short so far, and I'd like to see more before a pitch, but the art is pretty and has LOTS of potential. I do have a few comments, though.

I agree with Remus about the text, it's very unpretty. Even if you don't want to change the way your comic is put together, you could change the text, to something a little bit more eye-friendly. If you look at http://www.blambot.com you can find a lot of free comic fonts, some of which are really cool. I recommend taking a look.

Another thing that bothered me about it was that oftentimes it was almost impossible to see what was going on, because your lines were so light. I understand not wanting to ink, before I drew Green Avenger, I'd never inked at all! (as you can tell by the early comics) But inking does a lot for a drawing that pencilling can't. If you don't want to ink, there's always darkening your pencil lines, which I recommend, for making details easier to see.

I also had a problem with the bubble layouts once or twice. I couldn't tell which word bubble came first. This is fixable with practice, though.

As for the manga style, as a fan of manga, I think you're doing well. You have an interesting style, and it's obvious that you're learning and improving. Just keep it up! Your characters are interesting so far, I want to see where this goes.

Prapim · Post by **Prapim** » Tue May 10, 2005 4:31 am

Heh...I'm a bit embarrassed actually. Thanks for the suggestions, I really do appreciate them

I never actually noticed that their necks were that long...but I think they look alright...so I'll keep that for now.

Yes. I'm very aware that my profiles are extremely unanatomical (is that the right word?). It's something I'm not very good at, and I've tried drawing them many times. I will improve! I know I can do it!

As for the font...what font would you suggest be the best? (My handwriting is actually quite small. My teachers all complain that one day they'll go blind if I continue that way).

Anyways, yes, I do draw them first in pencil then use Photoshop on them. Each page takes around 1-2 hours (so much time for a page???).

I will do my best to improve. That means making the frames easier to read. I will press down my pencil as hard as I can. I will find another font (or I'll try handwriting it and see how it goes...I'm clueless with fonts)....

Once again, thanks very much guys! I'll be watching out~

RemusShepherd · Post by **RemusShepherd** » Tue May 10, 2005 6:35 am

prapim wrote:Anyways, yes, I do draw them first in pencil then use Photoshop on them. Each page takes around 1-2 hours (so much time for a page???).

If you're using Photoshop, just choose what font you want and make sure the antialiasing is set to 'smooth' or 'strong' -- anything except 'None', which is what you have now.

1-2 hours per page? Now I'm jealous. I spend about 8 hours per page on my comic, and it doesn't look half as good.

Ryuko · Post by **Ryuko** » Tue May 10, 2005 7:02 am

Time is not a concern, really. As long as you keep it up, you'll get faster.

I hope. My comic takes me at least three hours to draw, and at least three additional hours to panel, bubble, flat, and shade.

KODAMA · Post by **KODAMA** » Tue May 10, 2005 7:29 am

bah. I draw a page in two hours. Time is not a very critical part of comic drawing... unlesss you're on a dead line (such as your auto-update time, or in my case, conventions. whee).

I suppose keeping an eye on time would be useful eventually, but getting the basics down, like anatomy, clothing, or backgrounds (perspective), is probably more important than producing x number of pages every x hours.

So this time I've actually bothered to read all the pages in your webcomic, and I've finally woke myself up enough to figure out how to word the things I am about to type:
If you're aiming for a "manga" comic, try to put less frames per page and do try to draw the characters from more than one angle. Try to place certain characters closer to the viewer's eye or further than the viewers eye, so that your comic feel more three-dimentional than it is now:

http://ethancerin.keenspace.com/d/20050420.html
It is a little awkward how everyone is facing foaward and crammed into that one box on the bottom right. Don't feel afraid to make a box that spans the entire width of the comic's page.

http://ethancerin.keenspace.com/d/20050504.html
You might have felt this yourself, but there are way too many greys here. Part of what makes manga so interesting to look at is the high contrast of black and white and the use of negative space. Try to ink more and tone less.

http://ethancerin.keenspace.com/d/20050502.html
Experiment with various layouts. The usual six-box pattern doesn't seem to be doing your comic any good in this page.

http://ethancerin.keenspace.com/d/20050505.html
There seemed to be a lot of crowding, as I would call it, in your comic. Please consider speech bubbles when drawing your comic. They can't be tacked on at the end after you've already drawn all your characters. You need to incorporate speech bubbles into your layout, and do use a bigger font.

And finally, read more manga! Trace and imitate it like the way it's meant to be plagerized XD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with copying a manga book as long as it looks nothing like the original. And really, most manga creators learn off of each other and stolen work is considered a compliment. You will need your basics first, before trying to find your own style.

Prapim · Post by **Prapim** » Tue May 10, 2005 8:39 am

Yes, I was working on a page and it just got posted. I actually have lots of free time on my hands...which explains why I'm still here.

I tried smoothing the font and changing it a bit. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit smaller and cluttered than I had hoped...but at least I hope it looks a bit better now.

Thanks once again! Oh...when I said 1-2 hours I actually meant that it took me that long to colour it in with Photoshop. It takes me 1-2 hours to actually draw the thing. I'm a very sketchy person- you can probably tell by the massive amount of lines surrounding everyone's shoulders.

RemusShepherd:

Don't be so hard on yourself, your pages are much better than mine! 8 hours is quite a lot though...you don't obviously do it all in one go?

KODAMA:

Thanks loads for the suggestions (things my art teacher never told me...) ! I'm not actually really trying to make a manga though- I'm planning on the characters being drawn in manga style but not necessarily the layout. I don't read that much manga actually...(but..how to beat you? Your art's so good!)

I should be getting to sleep now. Heh.

KODAMA · Post by **KODAMA** » Tue May 10, 2005 10:00 am

XD art teachers teach art, and not how to draw comics.
Your best teachers are probably going to be other comic books/creators.

Ryuko · Post by **Ryuko** » Tue May 10, 2005 10:34 am

I disagree. Art teachers teach you how to draw, and you can use what they teach you to draw comics. They don't teach you how to draw comics, but that's not their job. I do agree that being smart and looking closely at the comics you read can help, though.

RemusShepherd · Post by **RemusShepherd** » Tue May 10, 2005 12:02 pm

KODAMA wrote:bah. I draw a page in two hours. Time is not a very critical part of comic drawing...

Sayeth someone with artistic training. It takes an amateur like me two hours to get a single barely passable human figure.

I am slowly getting better, though.

prapim wrote:RemusShepherd: Don't be so hard on yourself, your pages are much better than mine! 8 hours is quite a lot though...you don't obviously do it all in one go?

No, I do about 2-3 hours per night, maybe a little more on the weekends. Note that my comic is done from start to finish on the computer, so it's going to look very different (and to my mind, inferior) to a comic scanned in from pencil drawings. And when I say '8 hours per page', I mean from start to finish. I can't easily separate the time I take drawing lines, laying flat colors, and shading, because I do them all at the same time.

KODAMA · Post by **KODAMA** » Tue May 10, 2005 1:01 pm

RemusShepherd wrote:
KODAMA wrote:bah. I draw a page in two hours. Time is not a very critical part of comic drawing...
Sayeth someone with artistic training. It takes an amateur like me two hours to get a single barely passable human figure. :P I am slowly getting better, though.

Training, maybe. I've done pretty well in all the art courses I've taken so far, which is just an intro to art class this semester (which was boring as fuck with all it's "expressionalist" garbage) and a few years of art in high school, but art classes have been quite unhelpful in any kind of "artistic" development. (what is art anyway? Aren't comics more closer to storytelling than "art"? ...and why does everyone suck/confuse me with their art/produce garbage out of good material? XD)

On the other hand, staying up 30~40 hours straight trying to get a comic done before the end of the contest or beginning of a convention, after meditating the comic idea for one to three months ahead of time, has taught me a lot and a lot quickly. I did say that time doesn't really matter, but mind you, I used to actually practice drawing on time because my initial goal was to become an animator. (And at the time, which is 5th grade, I figured being able to draw good and draw quickly would be key in becomming a successful animator)

I honestly don't think I am developing my "skill" anymore than the skill itself developping as I grow older. For some reason my ability to draw seems very strangely proportionate to the years I've been alive..... so...
XD I look foward to how my "skill" is going to change.

*almost at 10th year of somewhat seriously determined drawing :o yey!*

Prapim · Post by **Prapim** » Wed May 11, 2005 7:28 am

I'm back! I apologise if I sound stupid now ...I am really actually extremely fazed by all the feedback (I didn't really expect people to really reply- or bother spending time at my comic- that means I appreciate the feedback!)

No, seriously. My art teacher is crazy. She once accused me of plagiarism; since I'm Asian she automatically assumed I was bad at English therefore unable to write an essay regarding crests. So she discredited my essay...until I told her I hadn't copied it! Wah!!

I am insanely jealous of you guys.

It takes me an hour to actually attempt to (and fail miserably) place the nose on the right part of the face. Most of the time I move the nose around the whole face before deciding the next day it looked horrible in the first place anyway.

By the way..I've been drawing comics since I was 11 (which was actually only a few years ago!!!)

Oh yes. I'll be shameless yet nice now. My sister loves drawing way more than me. It wouldn't hurt to post her site here, I think. She never updates anymore though.

http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/c/h/c ... hutap.html

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Wed May 11, 2005 9:51 pm

prapim wrote: By the way..I've been drawing comics since I was 11 (which was actually only a few years ago!!!)

Good. Head start. Keep at it and soon you'll rock. Don't worry if it takes a while.

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Thu May 12, 2005 6:16 am

I'm not a big fan of manga of any stripe, but this has an interesting art style. It looks like something that could grow into a unique set of visuals over time. My one suggestion would be to do something about the lettering. I'm viewing on a 17" screen at 1024 x 768 and I find the text a little difficult to read. Or is that just my old eyes?

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