COMIC: The Adventures of Kanira Baxter

[Alias Pseudonym]

Bah.

Alright I read the thing, here's your plot critique.

First, Karina is not a Mary-Sue. She is also not the most original character, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. She does come across as quite bland when she's doing her Starship Captain thing, but she's at least a bit more interesting out of her job role. Sometimes she does feel spouty, mostly when she's talking about her ideals (like about how bounty hunters should behave.) Here's a tip, that stuff generally feels preachy if someone just outright says it (even if it's stuff that nobody would ever disagree with.) It works better if you slip it in some other way, like someone else talking about her or just show her beliefs based on how she behaves. Some characters can get away with talking about the way things should be, Karina doesn't really feel like either the ranting or lecturing type.

Second, I want to know more about the talking rat aliens. That's not really a critique but still. Gimme some more background here, that's interesting stuff.

The plot over all so far has been ok. I had a bit of trouble getting into it but I caught on about where the giant enemy crabs popped up. That plot was relatively interesting, and Karina's confliction over the outcome gave us some characterization for her. And now we seem to be setting up your basic star trek exploring the universe thing, that has a lot of potential. Again not original but that's not what you're going for, right?

Finally, I've got to say, the models do need work. The eyes are ok sometimes on the female character, but from a direct frontal view they dominate far too much of the face. You should either shrink the eyes or widen the faces. The male characters look bizarre. Even in anime you'll notice that grown men never have huge eyes like that, you really should shrink their eyes down. Karina's dad is particularly weird looking. The hands also sometimes look funny, sometimes they seem tiny and sometimes huge, and always the wrists are like straws. I think the wrists at least need to be a tad thicker, the arms in general are thin but that's probably ok. I dunno what to do about the hands.

None model related visual complaint: sometimes it's too dark. I like this comic a lot better when I can see all the characters and backgrounds properly. I particularly liked that image of the base on the side of that island or whatever. It did look pretty fake, but I liked how the sky and the textured rock face looked. Especially the sky.


You probably shouldn't base anything on that Tsubasa Chronicles drawing >.< The crouching guy's head is absolutely minuscule.

[BionicDance]

Bah.

Alright I read the thing, here's your plot critique.

First, Karina is not a Mary-Sue. She is also not the most original character, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

She's meant to be your typical adventuring hero type, it's true. Luke Skywalker meets Jean-Luc Picard, basically: warrior and explorer mixed into one.
But she definitely has her flaws, and if she ever falls in love, well...I have every intention of giving her a fairly normal relationship. Possibly one in which extraordinary circumstances make it end up all kinds of @#$%ed up--maybe not one party being frozen in carbonite or nuffin', but we'll see how it can be made...interesting *rubs hands together evilly*--or, who knows, maybe she won't ever find love; this is not something I've decided yet. But she won't get Mary-Sue'd with regards to romance...or anything else, if I can help it.

She does come across as quite bland when she's doing her Starship Captain thing, but she's at least a bit more interesting out of her job role.

Well, that's kind of the idea, really. She's all business when it comes to being the captain, but there's more to her than that below the surface.

Sometimes she does feel spouty, mostly when she's talking about her ideals (like about how bounty hunters should behave.)

Interestingly, I have conversation like that with people in real life all the time. Hell, I just had one last night with a friend of mine; we were discussing (of all things) why the running lights on ships and planes have the red on the left and the green on the right and the tradition behind it...and why it should be the other way 'round. It got silly after a while, but...it felt a lot like how Kanira and Dare were discussing bounty-hunting.

Some characters can get away with talking about the way things should be, Karina doesn't really feel like either the ranting or lecturing type.

Hmm...can you elaborate on that a little more? I'm actually quite interested in how Kanira seems to other people; I've got a personality profile of her in my head, but...

Second, I want to know more about the talking rat aliens. That's not really a critique but still. Gimme some more background here, that's interesting stuff.

Ahh, the Myanai, Meglen's people. Humanity's first contact with alien life.
I DO have a back history for them, actually. It's mostly just an outline, but I've come up with some of their evolutionary path prior to sentience, and a fair bit about their culture. (And there's what I think is a quite amusing page coming up on December 20th, where Meglen talks a little bit about being an alien amongst humans. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/ ... 091220.jpg Fair warning, there'z a minor spoiler in the first panel; not sure if anyone gives a rat's booty, but just sayin'...)
Don't worry...more will be said about them in the future. I'm introducing certain things slowly, over time. They're actually meant to be sort of like a cross between a newt and a flying squirrel (hence why Meglen makes a good pilot), but "talking rat" will do for now.
Personally, I'm proud of the fact that they walk on all fours; you don't see that much in sentient aliens in sci-fi...

The plot over all so far has been ok. I had a bit of trouble getting into it but I caught on about where the giant enemy crabs popped up. That plot was relatively interesting, and Karina's confliction over the outcome gave us some characterization for her.

That entire adventure was actually just set-up for two future plot elements down the road, one of which has already panned out, namely losing Zirtru as a bounty agent and being short on cash. The other thing, well...that'll just have to play out later.
The crab monster, well...I was going for cheesy retro pulp sci-fi with that one; pure self-indulgence. Heh.

And now we seem to be setting up your basic star trek exploring the universe thing, that has a lot of potential. Again not original but that's not what you're going for, right?

Well, no, not really. I mean, the premise for this comic started out as, "What about Star Trek needs to change in order for me to like it?" I love the idea of exploring the galaxy, but I always found Starfleet kind of annoying, and the fact that we never really get to see much of what civilian life is like in the Trekverse...not really. So the idea of taking a civilian crew (originally I thought of it as Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon...then I saw Firefly and realized I was headed in more of a Serenity-and-her-crew direction) and making them the explorers would be, well...pretty bodacious.
So I came up with the idea of bounty hunters with hearts of gold, captained by someone who'd always really wanted to be an explorer, but who found classroom, academic science quite dull. Someone who'd dreamed of basically being "Indiana Jones" in space. Kanira's basically been offered that opportunity by Professor von Lingermeyer. The plot has always, from day one, been headed toward making Kanira into a kind of Malcolm Reynolds meets Captain Kirk...it just took about 80 pages to get there. Heh.

So, no...not original. Not completely. My own universe, my own characters, but a VERY familiar premise. Or rather, several familiar premises merged into something (hopefully) new.

Finally, I've got to say, the models do need work. The eyes are ok sometimes on the female character, but from a direct frontal view they dominate far too much of the face. You should either shrink the eyes or widen the faces. The male characters look bizarre.

See, I try and I try, but I just can't see what you folks find so bizarre in the models. No, they don't look quite like ordinary humans, but they look pretty all right to me, neither creepy nor bizarre. Maybe it's because I grew up reading ElfQuest, I d'know...but huge eyes look just fine to me. I hear what you're saying, I understand the concepts being discussed, but I just can't empathize with the reaction toward these characters.
Maybe part of it is that I've seen these characters animated, I can rotate 'em in 3D. I've used Kanira's 3D model recolored as the main character of a series I did for YouTube and nobody really told me that she looks creepy. Maybe it's just different if you only see the models in 2D...I d'know.
But whatever it is you guys are seeing, it's just not registering over here.

None model related visual complaint: sometimes it's too dark. I like this comic a lot better when I can see all the characters and backgrounds properly.

Yes, this is true; I'm still playing with finding a decent lighting model. Been kinna trying to light the characters separately from the backgrounds, or at least adding extra lights to the scene that illuminate only the characters.

Thanks for giving it an actual review; I care more about the plot and the characters, but all anybody wanted to talk about was the models. So I really appreciate actually getting a story review.

[Alias Pseudonym]

Well I'm not sure you really need to get the complaints, just understand that a lot of people are going to take one look at the characters and decided not to read this based just on that. And, like I said, adult male humans are never drawn with eyes that size. Children sometimes and women, but not men. I think what's really creepy is the fact that the eyes fill so much of the head when you see the head straight on from the front, so like I said, widening the head there might help.



See, Haruhi's eyes are enormous but there's enough space around them and between them to make it look ok.

As for the personality, that anecdote you gave about the running lights, that's what I mean. If you establish that your character talks like that about all kinds of things then it won't come across as odd if she does it about personal beliefs.

[BionicDance]

See, Haruhi's eyes are enormous but there's enough space around them and between them to make it look ok.

Actually, THAT looks quite creepy to me; there'z actually TOO MUCH space between her eyes. She looks walleyed, frankly.

She might as well be the fellow at the microphone here, for my money:

As for the personality, that anecdote you gave about the running lights, that's what I mean. If you establish that your character talks like that about all kinds of things then it won't come across as odd if she does it about personal beliefs.

Well, how about the conversation Kanira and her parents had at dinner? The one about scientists versus captains on EBSE vessels?
To me, that's pretty similar, at least in style if not subject.

[Alias Pseudonym]

I think it's more the lack of a nose to fill all the space but yeah, Haruhi's art style is an extreme of anime and can look a little weird. But here's Kyon from the same show.



See? Guys always have much smaller eyes, unless they're meant to be young (or sometimes just immature.)

As for that conversation I think it happened after the one I was thinking of. I think. And of course my perception of her spoutiness might just come from me being accustomed to much less idealistic characters and worlds than this one >.<

[BionicDance]

All of your examples are from anime so far. Got any non-anime examples?

Me, I grew up on comics like ElfQuest...check out the main character, Cutter:



His eyes are ginormous, and no different than the eyes on the female characters, with the possible except of eyelash length.
That's kind of the model off of which I'm working, one of my formative influences.

[Hazardswake]

I find it a little disappointing when artists use "style" as a reason to avoid improving their art. One can always improve and still stick to the same style.

I'm a far way off from where I need to be artistically, so I'm not exactly the best judge in the world, but I'd like to try something.

I can't see the Cutter pic you've posted, as it seems to be a broken link (or an anti-hotlinking deal) but I'm assuming it looks something like this?



Now, if we look just at his eyes...



How about one of your characters?



And, let's, again, just look at the eyes in relation to the rest of the face...



I think this is where the "Bug Eyed" feel people seem to be getting comes from. Not from the size, but from the shape and placement. I'm no expert by any means, but they seem to loom too far towards the outside of the head and have a bit too much width to them.

Look at a photograph for reference:



And with just the eyes:



No matter what style one uses, one can improve and make the artwork more pleasing to viewers without sacrificing style. If you really truly think that your art is exactly where it needs to be, then that's fine. But I think you could do some amazing work with a little practice. Looking at real life pictures really helps.

Regardless of what you choose, you seem to have potential and I wish you well in your webcomicking. ^_^

[Furikku]

The basic difference between what you're doing and what Pini does with Elfquest is, Pini has made an effort to keep things in proportion: the human(oid) face is generally 5 eyes wide, with the space between the eyes being the same width as one eye, and the space on either side of the eyes also an eye's width each. She's actually made the faces wider to accommodate the larger eye size, so everything still looks naturalistic. (The same thing happens in a lot of the cartoony Japanese stuff- the heads are stretched proportionally to make the eyes' size and placement look "right.")

OTOH, you've got a fairly typical human face, just with the eyes magnified, without adjustment to the underlying structure, which tends to make the whole thing look kinda wonky and Uncanny Valley. If you'd stretch out the head size to match the eye magnification, it'd probably look less off.

Proportion is often more important in making something look good than actual realism. There's nothing inherently wrong with doing big ol' eyes, but it works a lot better if you keep them in the right proportion to the rest of the face. (Particularly if you're working with a medium that does naturalistic modeling.)

[BionicDance]

I find it a little disappointing when artists use "style" as a reason to avoid improving their art. One can always improve and still stick to the same style.

Well, I hate it when people use what they'd RATHER see--as opposed to what they're getting--as if it were an objective measure for "correct" or "improved".
It's ART, and art is subjective; just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's wrong.

I like the eyes the way they are, I do not see the creepiness that you folks are harping about, and that's the end of it. Seriously.

[K-Dawg]

I find it a little disappointing when artists use "style" as a reason to avoid improving their art. One can always improve and still stick to the same style.

Well, I hate it when people use what they'd RATHER see--as opposed to what they're getting--as if it were an objective measure for "correct" or "improved".
It's ART, and art is subjective; just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's wrong.

I like the eyes the way they are, I do not see the creepiness that you folks are harping about, and that's the end of it. Seriously.

Seems someone can't take constructive criticism, but I'm not gonna say who. I'll let you decide who that is.

[BionicDance]

Seems someone can't take constructive criticism, but I'm not gonna say who. I'll let you decide who that is.

Seems to me that someone can't take no for an answer and gets huffy when their opinions aren't treated as sacrosanct. I'll let you decide who that is.

Besides, once again, I'm much more concerned with the plot and how the characters are written, more than their @#$%ing eyes. That's what I really want to hear about.

[Mercury Hat]

But maybe the fact that everyone's focusing on the art instead of the story should tell you something...?

[K-Dawg]

Besides, once again, I'm much more concerned with the plot and how the characters are written, more than their @#$%ing eyes. That's what I really want to hear about.

Write a fanfic then, not sure if you realize this but you're doing a webcomic. They tend to have drawings in them, many of which people are telling you that you need to improve upon.

[Darkdetective]

How about you just edit a model with smaller eyes to see what it looks like. Who knows? It may look worse.

[Turnsky]

Seems someone can't take constructive criticism, but I'm not gonna say who. I'll let you decide who that is.

Seems to me that someone can't take no for an answer and gets huffy when their opinions aren't treated as sacrosanct. I'll let you decide who that is.

Besides, once again, I'm much more concerned with the plot and how the characters are written, more than their @#$%ing eyes. That's what I really want to hear about.

you should realize that at this point, it's far easier to actually give constructive criticism to artwork with any accuracy than it is with writing.
That said, it's a LOT harder to really do a unique take on CG-based comics without it coming out like "poser comic #34553-c".
I'm getting a "thunderbirds" vibe stylism wise, anywho.

not everybody can be "pro" at their CG like Dreamland chronicles, anyways.

However. Be very wary that the "that's my style" excuse doesn't tend to wash well with some folks here, due to the fact some in the past have used it to hide behind otherwise shoddy artwork, and even more shoddy attitudes.

now for some crit.. since the 'eyes' thing has been pushed over, beaten with sticks and sold to the glue factory, then beaten further with sticks, i'm gonna go with anatomy on this one.. just a minor nitpick, you might wanna have a look at how a human skeleton works, the wrists for example, don't twist like that. Infact, if you twist your own wrist around in its normal motion, you'll find the bones in your forearm also move accordingly. this may alleviate that "stretch/twist" effect you seem to be getting.

[BionicDance]

But maybe the fact that everyone's focusing on the art instead of the story should tell you something...?

Well, it doesn't, not given what I know about human nature. People like to show off, which I see all the time; you could crack a hilarious joke about Einstein or Mother Theresa, and someone will go, "Ooh, I know about that!" and explain the scientific or historical inaccuracy of the joke to everyone, completely missing the humor. They're showing off...and in the process, completely missing the point.
I see this venture as an exercise in storytelling, regardless of the medium; THAT'S the aspect that matters to me most...and it's been like extracting teeth to get anybody to talk about it.

So look, I'm done, okay? I don't want to hear any more about the artwork. Honest, I don't.
It's not that I don't want to actually improve the art, it's that I'm DONE. Over-saturated.
I like to think of it in much the same way I think of the Star Wars Saga. In the original trilogy, there was a certain amount of balance: we saw some Jedi/Sith/Force stuff, we saw some Rebellion stuff, we saw the seamy underbelly of the Galaxy Far, Far Away...there was something for everybody. But when the prequels came around, we had a lock-focus on the Jedi/Sith/Force stuff, while my favorite part of Star Wars was actually the fight for freedom against an oppressive empire, which was getting ignored pretty much completely...and I found myself starting to get REALLY ANNOYED with the Force-based material. It was just too much, like getting sick of an over-played song. There was something I cared about deeply which was getting ignored, and I began to quite seriously resent what it was being ignored in favor of.

...in other words, if all anybody is willing to talk about is the artwork without actually discussing story and characters, enough. Seriously. It's like writing a book that means a lot to you and having everyone do nothing but criticize the binding and the feel of the pages. It's like painting a picture and only being told that the frame needs work. It's like cooking a gourmet meal and being told that the plates are ugly.
It's quite deeply frustrating, honestly, because from MY perspective--which I realize nobody is obligated to give a crap about, but still--you're all ignoring what I consider to be the much, much, MUCH more important aspect of a project that means a lot to me in favor of carping about trifles. Seriously.

[Mercury Hat]

But you specifically picked comics, which is a visual storytelling medium. There's more to making comics than sticking talking heads into panels and slapping word balloons on top of it. If the art is off-putting it doesn't matter what you wrote; people will be too focused on the bad anatomy and bad layouts. The artwork shouldn't just be a frame for your story, it should all be PART of the story as much as the words.

And it is bad anatomy, it isn't just stylization. Everything that's off about the models, not just the faces, shows you don't seem to understand how the human body works. Or perspective. Or lighting. Or comics.

A better analogy would be writing a book, printing it in yellow on white, out of order, with half the pages printed upside down and some of the pages glued together, and then getting huffy when people find it unreadable. You made a book, they should read it! Who cares if you don't understand the basics of book making beyond "print it on paper".

[Turnsky]

...in other words, if all anybody is willing to talk about is the artwork without actually discussing story and characters, enough. Seriously. It's like writing a book that means a lot to you and having everyone do nothing but criticize the binding and the feel of the pages. It's like painting a picture and only being told that the frame needs work. It's like cooking a gourmet meal and being told that the plates are ugly.
It's quite deeply frustrating, honestly, because from MY perspective--which I realize nobody is obligated to give a crap about, but still--you're all ignoring what I consider to be the much, much, MUCH more important aspect of a project that means a lot to me in favor of carping about trifles. Seriously.

maybe, but presentation is also part of the package, to use your cooking analogy; no matter how ''gourmet' or "tasty" the meal is, people are gonna be hard pressed to taste it if it looks like something the dog's sicked up. There is a reason that good artwork is oft-referred to as "eyecandy" after all.
While it isn't everything, Presentation as far as ANY visual media is concerned, is that hook that gets people into it in the first place before they decide for themselves whether it's the best thing ever, or something so bad not even Uwe Boll would touch it.

[Darkdetective]

Many say that comics are a marriage of drawing and words. While that may be true, you can still make a comic with just pictures. A comic with just words is prose. The images are just as, if not MORE important than the writing. You see it all the time. Good artwork can save a badly written comic, but a if you have a well written story and the images are poorly drawn, the book wont sell. If everyone is saying it, and you haven't found one person on this board who likes the eyes, it may pay to change it, at least temporarily for a trail run.

[BionicDance]

But you specifically picked comics, which is a visual storytelling medium. There's more to making comics than sticking talking heads into panels and slapping word balloons on top of it. If the art is off-putting it doesn't matter what you wrote; people will be too focused on the bad anatomy and bad layouts. The artwork shouldn't just be a frame for your story, it should all be PART of the story as much as the words.

And it should also be PART of the criticism...but it's ALL anybody seems willing to talk about; shouldn't this artwork-is-part-of-the-medium thing go BOTH ways? Can you understand why it might not go over so well on MY end that people will only talk about the one, especially given that I've explicitly and repeatedly stated that my focus is MUCH more on the narrative?
You're definitely not going to get what you want from me by shoving harder when I say no; that just makes me dig in my heels. Maybe if people were reacting to the story and characters TOO, I might not be quite so defensive right now, but I've ALREADY stated repeatedly that I DON'T see what you see, that I like it, that I don't want to change it, that I'd really like to hear reactions to the characters and situations...just what do you think browbeating me is going to accomplish?

And it is bad anatomy, it isn't just stylization. Everything that's off about the models, not just the faces, shows you don't seem to understand how the human body works. Or perspective. Or lighting. Or comics.

Oh, please. I go anywhere but HERE and people tell me they think it's rad.
Hell, I just went to another webboard where one of my own favorite comics just moved, mentioned Kanira Baxter, next thing I know people are bandying about words like "talented" and "awesome".
I think you're just going overboard now because I'm not immediately going, "Oh, you're all so right, let me do EXACTLY what you're telling me and make my own comic 100% to your liking."

The images are just as, if not MORE important than the writing. You see it all the time. Good artwork can save a badly written comic, but a if you have a well written story and the images are poorly drawn, the book wont sell.

Well, I could NOT disagree more; if anything, I've had exactly the opposite experience.
There are comics I've read--both online and in actual book form--where the artwork is complete and utter shit...but because the actual content was good, I kept reading anyway, because it was the characters and situations onto which I'd latched.
Take, for example, Knights of the Dinner Table:



I mean, c'mon...that art is barely a step above stick-figure, really, but because the characters and situations had appeal, the book sold.

Or how about XKCD:



This literally IS stick figures, yet it's one of the most popular comics out there...because of its content.

I don't care if you've got the best artwork in the entire Western Universe, if it's airbrushed and anatomically correct in every way, a masterpiece in every panel; if the story is crap, I'm not reading it. And vice versa; if the art is crap but the characters and situations are good, there'z a good chance I'm in, regardless.

If everyone is saying it, and you haven't found one person on this board who likes the eyes, it may pay to change it, at least temporarily for a trail run.

But it ISN'T everyone...it's just everyone HERE. I haven't gotten one complaint about the eyes outside of these boards, and I've gotten more than a few messages--mostly from my YouTube peeps, though on other message boards as well--that they really like my comic.
I think the people HERE have blown it WAY out of proportion, presumably because I didn't immediately jump to and change EVERYTHING to suit what they're telling me to do. And frankly, on my end, it looks a lot less like people trying to help at this point and more like people trying to gang up on me until I do what you say. Your concerns have been noted and rejected; please drop it.

And the fact is, this is the last time I'm going to address it. I like it, it ain't changing, and I have concerns that I feel are much more pertinent, like the plot and the characters....and on which only one or two of you have been willing to weigh in. Once again, can you understand how frustrating that is from MY end? From this perspective, it seems like every last one of you has completely and totally missed my point, my entire purpose in making this comic.
Fortunately, the rest of the world doesn't appear to be quite so overly-critical, as my readership is slowly but surely trending upwards if Google Analytics is to be believed.

still, I sure would appreciate it if a few more people would actually READ the damn thing and tell me whether they like the characters or the plot instead of focusing on one thing and one thing only. But at this point I'm not holding my breath.