Maq#041: A sorry excuse to draw school girls!

[Maq041]

Maq#041 started out as a joke. I never intended it to go very far. However, after awhile of sketching and poking around in the new (to me) world of comics, I decided to give it a go. The first version of Chapter 1 was all in black and white, and it was terrible. I decided to start over and work in colors, since I had so much time on my hands. As time went on, I grew more adept in drawing and coloring. Now, at the closure of Chapter 1, I feel it's now presentable to a wider audiance.

Maq#041 is the story of Maquellan, a modern-day teenager who just happens to like wearing japanese school-girl uniforms. The poor girl ends up following a shakey trail to find the truth behind her and her mother's past, after a terrible incident leaves her without a home. Naturally, there's plenty of wacky hijinks along the way ;)

Since only the first chapter is up, I feel like I can't go into too much detail. But all in all, I feel good both story-wise and art-wise. After Chapter 1 is complete, the comics will go back into a more detailed black and white, with a colored page here and there for special occassions.

Anyways, make sure to give it a go. If you have any suggestions, coments, or if you just want to verbally beat me with a fish, leave a post ^_^



Be warned: Strong language. And tight outfits. Ha-cha-cha!!

[Mo]

I better start my comment off by saying that I'm... uh... not really into the whole manga style much. But you said you'd like suggestions and comments, so here we go.

(Hope I'm not moving too much into TT&T territory here.)

That said, the art is really cute, even if it's not my cup of tea personally. Inking, colouring and the speech bubbles are nice and clean, that's more than I can say about the majority of webcomics out there. Some pages / panels are a bit confusing so I had no idea what was going on at first glance... Like the near-car accident scene. Drawing "action" scenes isn't easy. And it didn't happen a lot otherwise, though.

The comic follows the ways of manga not only in the art style, but also in the writing / story. So while this may appeal to manga-fans, I found it unfortunately kinda predictable. (There are just sooo many manga-ish comics that start out with the main character oversleeping and barely making it to school in time!) o_o
However, the story has only just started, and what you mentioned about the future of the story sounds much more interesting than what we've seen so far... so, guess we'll just have to give the story a bit more time.

Anyway, I think there is definitely potential. The main problem I see really is that you only update monthly now. It's just really hard to follow a story and get to know the characters (which is essential if you want the readers to really care about the comic) with that few updates. And even with so few updates, there are a lot of fillers. I'd recommend you to move past fillers into an extras / art section as they are annoying for some people who read through the archive.

Hope I didn't come off as destructive. I criticise because I care!

(Oh, and kinda off-topic: Your gen-chan's cute.)

[Trialofages]

Your title caught my eye... Who doesn't love school girls? *L*

I have to say I am definately a fan of your work.
Your art style is lovely, a nice mix between serious and chibi expressions...
And your coloring is very nice. I hope I can get my coloring to be so pretty in the future (though I'm not going to do full color pages.. at least not for a long time).

But yeah, all around... terrific!
I'm going to add your site to my links page list! ^_~

[Maq041]

Cookie: Yeah, I know the whole oversleeping and getting to school just in time is very cliche and overdone. I just couldn't think of anything else at the time. Now that I've done it all, I full of ideas. Figures, eh? As for the manga style, it's the only style of comic I've really learned how to draw, and even then I'm still getting used to it.

The action of her getting hit by a car though? Yeah, I know it didn't quite work out like I wanted. I'm gonna have an occasion in either chapter 2 or 3 to work on those kinds a sceens. Hopefully I can work it out. If you have any suggestions on what I can do to improve it, they'd be very welcomed.

After this chapter is done, I'm going to switch to just a black and white format, and I'll try and get pages up much fast. My ultimate goal is one or two pages a week. Here's hopin'.

Anyways, thank you so much for your feedback. I really appreciate the crits, and I'll work hard to try and improve.

trialofages: Thanks so much ^_^ I'll make sure to add a link to you in my links section as well! And don't fuss too much about the coloring. It takes alot of practice, but in the end, it's simple and easy. If you want, I have an (extremly outdated) coloring tutorial on my other website. It's not much. The link is: http://www.mhho.com/Galleries/Tutorial.shtml . Hope it helps!

[Trialofages]

Ahhh... Maq, I joined your boards and tried to post the fanart that I just whipped up... but I can't get it to work. Err.. so I just uploaded it to my site instead.

Well, there you go, anyhow! ^_~()

http://trialofages.comicgenesis.com/images/Maq.jpg

[Maq041]

Yes, I saw your post there. I'm currently trying to figure out why it's doing that. ^^; Silly proboards, giving me and my members problems! *shakes fist*

Anyways, I love it! Thanks so much ^___^ It always makes me so happy to get fan-art! Would you mind terribly if I added it to the fan-art section of the comic page?

[Trialofages]

Would you mind terribly if I added it to the fan-art section of the comic page?

Well of course not! *L* You need s'more stuff there to fill it up. I'd be more than happy to help you out with that. ^_~ Go again and post away, I'll make me feel special.