Comic Genesis Forums

Station V3 is up for 'Weview' on the buzzComix forums this week, and one thing every review seems to agree on so far is that the art could use a little work. There have been some good suggestions on things I could try (different angles, a little more detail in some places). I was wondering if anyone here might have any additional comments or suggestions - how would you improve the current look of the strip?

Your writing is good. I find Station V3 to be consistently funny but there isn't much in the way of deep storyline or plot, just themes that follow from one comic to the next. This makes it easy to pick up your comic from wherever and still understand what's going on. It would make an excellent newspaper comic.

True, your artwork could use some work. Your characters look the same from comic to comic. It does look like you're hand drawing them but you're TOO consistent about it. Your style hasn't significantly changed from panel 1 comic 1, though you have refined the style a bit.

The problem is, you have between two and four poses for your characters. There is only the one camera and it's always pointed the same direction at roughly the same place in the panel. Occasionally you use some wide shots but this is usually just the camera zooming out from the same position.

You shouldn't need to add more detail to your characters. The detail level is simple and easy to understand. I would suggest working on your pen technique. Try working much larger than you normally would and play with the thickness of the lines. If possible, try using a brush just to see what happens (they're a pain so don't expect good results the first few times). Or, just use several pen thicknesses. Practice will tell you what looks best.

Take a good look at the way these are drawn:
http://www.ucomics.com/bloomcounty/
http://www.elfonlyinn.net/
http://thedevilspanties.keenspace.com/
http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/

While the styles of these are very different than yours they all have a much better line quality than Station V3. It's the kind of thing Penny Arcade and White Hydra emulate digitally (and in my opinion fail to achieve).

Using some perspective and foreshortening couldn't hurt you either. It would give your panels more depth without requiring a large amount of detail and shading. Think of your comic as a movie with you as the camera man. How does a movie create drama by using camera angles and bringing the focus into the character speaking? Don't be afraid of perspective. It's just a technical drawing method that can produce awesome environments within a panel with a minimal amount of effort.

i'd pretty much agree with everything faub said above and with what al said over in the weview.

your comic has great potential but i reckon working on the art would be the thing to benefit it the most. in addition to the other comments (especially the perspective/angle) try changing the thickness of the lines - especially the outlines. do you draw by hand or mouse? if by mouse why not try by hand? if by hand, get a few pens with thicker nibs and perhaps use some more solid black areas. try working on a few varied expressions... if everyone is bug-eyed it makes it harder to tell the difference between their normal state and shocked state. one last thing, and to be honest, it's the only thing that has really bugged me with station v - and that's the comments you sometimes make about the jokes at the bottom of the strip - it almost seems like you feel the joke isn't funny enough or needs explaining... but i've always felt you've never had to do that 'cos the humor stands up well enough by itself. hope that's helpful!

I dunno'...

...the simplistic art seems to be part of your style...I have no problem with it.

It works for Dilbert and Hello Kitty. I think it can work fine for your. You art is cute and lot of people go for cute.

However, if you desire people to really talk about your art as something other than a vehicle for you writing it probably needs work. It's clean and clear but it just lacks visual interest. As someone else said, some line weight variation could help, even if it's just using thinner lines for background and thicker lines for people close to the "camera". Different camera angles are a nice tool, though you already don't just do talking heads which puts you ahead of a lot of strip. I also don't think extra detail would be right; more nuance on the details you already have would be good.

I think you need to ask yourself what you want your art to convey; tell us that and we might have some more ideas.

faub wrote:Your writing is good. I find Station V3 to be consistently funny but there isn't much in the way of deep storyline or plot, just themes that follow from one comic to the next. This makes it easy to pick up your comic from wherever and still understand what's going on. It would make an excellent newspaper comic.

Newspaper comic is the style I'm going for, so that's good.

You shouldn't need to add more detail to your characters. The detail level is simple and easy to understand. I would suggest working on your pen technique. Try working much larger than you normally would and play with the thickness of the lines. If possible, try using a brush just to see what happens (they're a pain so don't expect good results the first few times). Or, just use several pen thicknesses. Practice will tell you what looks best.

I do use a couple different pen thicknesses, but I'm probably not doing enough with it - the first panel here would probably be one of the few places it's noticeable.

Perspective is one thing I've always had to work on, so I guess I should stop putting it off...

xmung wrote:one last thing, and to be honest, it's the only thing that has really bugged me with station v - and that's the comments you sometimes make about the jokes at the bottom of the strip - it almost seems like you feel the joke isn't funny enough or needs explaining... but i've always felt you've never had to do that 'cos the humor stands up well enough by itself. hope that's helpful!

It is, and I generally haven't been doing that recently since I redesigned the site. The daily comments were also filling the site update news function, but I didn't want to just have the 'vote and see the new bonus comic' and 'visit the forum' bits there, so I usually put a comment about the comic in too. I've gone through the archive and removed a lot of them, but there are still some there.

I agree that it would help you to change the position of the 'camera' in the strip more often. Just including a close-up of a character now and then as they speak would be an improvement.

And I've never liked the look of the station's interior after it underwent that upgrade/repair a few months back. I'm sorry, but the "dotted ceiling/rectangles on the walls" scheme is just ugly. (Although I do like the relentless robot pinchers...)

Overall, however, you do a great strip, and I enjoy reading it every day.

Stephen Henderson-Grady wrote:As someone else said, some line weight variation could help, even if it's just using thinner lines for background and thicker lines for people close to the "camera".

I used a couple different line thicknesses in today's strip - especially in the third panel.

[geoduck] wrote: And I've never liked the look of the station's interior after it underwent that upgrade/repair a few months back. I'm sorry, but the "dotted ceiling/rectangles on the walls" scheme is just ugly. (Although I do like the relentless robot pinchers...)

I'm thinking of changing that look, but I'm not sure yet what I'm changing it to! (It's being worked into the strip, anyway, with the station busy taking itself apart)

Overall, however, you do a great strip, and I enjoy reading it every day.

Thanks!

I like it. There's a much better illusion of depth in the last two strips.