Sigh...might as well.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 2:42 pm

Alright. I've been exparamenting with a new style, and I guess I might as well ask for an in-depth critique.

PLEASE please please PLEASE do not critique the ART of the rest of the comic. If you want to do the STORY go ahead, but the majority of the earlier pages suck and I know it.

New style begins <a href="http://freakofnature.keenspace.com/d/20050104.html"> here</a> and goes until the end. Tell me what you think of it.

And yes, I know it's only four pages. Sorry.

CW

KathleenJ · Post by **KathleenJ** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:42 pm

Your use of chiaroscuro is quite nice, especially on faces and hair. It shows a good understanding of how to use light and modelling to give things depth, volume and weight. The detail is lovely - I especially like the face in the third panel on the second page.

The weak points are anatomy, proportion, and figures in perspective. One particular oddity I see happening multiple times is the way heads connect to necks and shoulders.

I think this new style is definitely worth experimenting with - the fact that it's a little different and relies on chiaroscuro while doing away with comic-book style inking is what grabbed my attention when I took a look.

Anywherebuthere · Post by **Anywherebuthere** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:23 pm

Wow, I really like it. Different, very unique and quite eye catching.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:46 pm

http://freakofnature.keenspace.com/d/20050104.html

It's really weird. This new style, while it does give depth, flattens the characters more than before. They look quilted. It's interesting but extremely odd. This is especially true in the last panel of the page. There is no foreground or background.

As kathleenj pointed out, you do need to work on the anatomy. Notice in the first panel of that same page, her left hand has the thumb on the wrong side. What she said about the necks and heads. Also, the lines in their necks are very deep. They shouldn't be. Instead, you will often have a chin shaped shadow across part of the neck (at least you do in direct light. Your lighting IS more diffuse.)

http://freakofnature.keenspace.com/d/20050106.html

In panel 3, her eyes are not parallel to her nose and mouth. You picked a hard position to draw and I've done the exact same thing but that doesn't mean it's not wrong. You should take the time and make sure the pencils are done correctly before you ink/color. This will solve many problems before you can't solve them.

Also, you should try to make an edge between the character and the background. You don't actually need to draw the edge, just make the boundary be a little sharper. When it's so fuzzy, the characters look out of focus. The hair is good the way it is. Hair is meant to be fuzzy. This is also good for sweaters. Smooth cloth like khakis or a t-shirt should have an edge but it doesn't need to be quite as sharp as with the skin. Plasticy fabrics should have a well defined edge. It will let the reader know what kind of fabric they're looking at.

Your flesh tones and hair look REALLY good. The clothes don't quite have the same quality of color, though. I think part of this is because you've smoothed out the wrinkles. A wrinkle or fold in cloth will usually have a sharp contrast. It will be much darker on the side that his hidden from the light, especially in deep folds. The deeper the fold, the darker it needs to be to show the depth. Also, the crisper the edges on the fold, the deeper it is. Since you've made everything so fuzzy, the folds flatten out.

http://freakofnature.keenspace.com/d/20050108.html

The text is very readable, but you should try to keep the word balloons from touching the characters. If you just can't do it any other way, cut off the parts of the balloon that touch the characters so it looks like the balloon is behind instead of on top. Another interesting effect is to cut off the balloons at the panel edges. This tells the reader that the dialog is confined to that particular panel. Overlapping word balloons mean the characters are talking while the camera moves. This is usually okay for long monologues where it would otherwise be boring to watch the character spout that much info. For short dialog you should try to confine it to the panel. I started doing this fairly recently and it's made my pages look so much better, more professional.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 2:07 am

I hesitate to give you advice. You're moving away from what one would conventionally call a well drawn style. But what you're moving toward is unique and eye-catching. These are images you can't ignore. They're almost frightening.

Is that bad? I can't say yet. I'll tell you this though: your people are looking much less people-like. If you want to fix that, work on anatomy A LOT, and don't accentuate every little crevice on the body in such a way, particularly on your younger characters. The more lines it takes to draw a face, the older the face will look. The way you build color makes it look like you ink with playdo. It makes the characters look grotesque and removes a lot of their humanness.

Which isn't to say that you should necessarily work for a more conventional style. What you have is definitely yours, and a real honest personal style is hard to find these days. I guess you have to decide what you want.

Phalanx · Post by **Phalanx** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 3:28 am

Like I mentioned, it's kinda creepy, but eye-catching and cool at the same time. I'd advise you to stick with it, because it looks unique and memorable. And as we all know, that's half the battle already.

The anatomy problems are probably the reason for the creepiness. It might help if instead of envisioning the human body as a construction out of different parts (head, torso, limbs etc) you draw one vaguely man-shaped blob and whittle away at the figure until you get a human figure.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:34 pm

Thanks, guys. That's the kind of imput I needed...what's working and what isn't.

*sighs and starts searching for another copy of her anatomy book.*

I'll pay better attention to the clothing from now on. I haven't really figured out a good way to draw them, though, let alone color them. The best fabric I've ever done was in a still-life, which is probably long gone, sitting next to my anatomy book (Can somebody invent a way to move without losing stuff, please?).

I'm concentrating more on the perspective, now. I've been spending about two hours laying out the pages...basic sketches I can correct easily...and most of the first hour or so is spent on perspective. Half to draw it, half to correct it. Some of the second hour, too. I'll try to work it up better, though.

And yeah, yeahduff (...you know, I REALLY did not do that on purpose) I was a little nervious about stepping away from doing it hand-drawn. My biggest motivator was that it was taking WAY too long to draw AND color a page--I could get one and a half done a week, which REALLY sucks when I'm trying to keep up three UPDATES a week--and I really did not want to give up coloring.

Well...thanks, guys. Now I know where to focus and where not to...or rather, what can be put on "hold" for a while.

CW

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 3:30 pm

christwriter wrote:Can somebody invent a way to move without losing stuff, please?

If you find out, let me know. I'm missing two remotes. One is for my stereo and the other is for my good VCR. I've practically turned everything inside out looking for them (among other things) and have yet to find them. At one point, all the remotes were together too. I only have 5. You'd think they'd be easier to keep track of.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 5:53 pm

You mean...you actually know how to keep track of remotes under normal circumstances? I only have one, (bedside TV) and that's already gone.

I use the five-fingered remote now.

CW

That guy · Post by **That guy** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 6:04 pm

Well, faub made most of the suggestions that leapt to mind to me first... and then some - smarty.

Along thoses lines: What I think would look stunning in your comic is to use your old style for everything/everyone in the foreground. Outline hair, faces, everything, and then use your new style for backgrounds.

An art tidbit I've learned (mostly from http://catlegend.keenspace.com's Kat Santoro is that thin lines/faint lines give a sense of being farther away, while thicker/darker lines bring something forward. (So - even if you have two foreground and you want one to appear behind the other, you can do this by giving the front a thicker outline.)
I think the combination of your new style as background with you older style as front would give your comic as a whole a dramatic sense of depth and would still showcase some really innovative artwork.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 7:51 pm

That is a pretty neat idea...although it brings up the other reason why I decided to go with completely computer art.

The old way--drawing and inking on paper, scanning and coloring, made it a little bit harder for me to see the Really Big Screw-Ups until after it was colored. On the computer it's a little easier for me to catch my mistakes and modify them without having to re-do the entire panel--or worse, page.

A case in point would be one of the earlier pages, where I screwed up Lucy's face horribly and didn't see it until after I put the flats in. I re-drew the panel, scanned it in and saved it, but it was a stupid mistake and it cost me a little time.

But I'll defenately keep it in mind...maybe if I can ever find my ******* anatomy book, I'll go back to drawing&inking, at least for SOME things.

CW

Driving Without Pants · Sat Jan 22, 2005 9:47 pm

That's a very unique style you have going there, although in some places it seems more blurred than it should be. I'm sure that as you do it more you'll work out the kinks.

It's great, it looks like it's done with pastels or an airbrush.