Line weight isn't an exact science, but really nothing is in illustration. It's all really more like a social science I geuss? Since you're trying to figure out how people react to stuff. Line weight is used for emphasis, though what it emphasizes isn't really set in stone. Maybe it's how close or far an object is, maybe it's how heavy or stiff an object is. Maybe you thicken up to make an object seem immovable, while thinning a line on a normally heavy object to show that it's moving quickly. All of these and more could reasons why you increase or decrease line weight. I geuss you could say what you get out of line weight is very context sensitive, and that's what makes it difficult to understand at a glance.

     I always like the ctrlpaint videos, because I think they're very clear and straitforward. He doesn't go over everything, it's more just trying to demystify the process. http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/the-power-of-line-weight

Puzzle, thanks for the critique. I will experiment with that. Lineweight and use of blacks has always felt foreign to me, like there's no real science to it that I could figure out and a lot of it is random guesswork. This probably isn't the case, but that's how it's always felt to me. It's not a strong suit for me. My Jane Blonde comic and my Crackman comic are about my most serious attempts at applying blacks and such, but you're right, for the most part I tend to use thicker lines for the silhouette and thinner lines for everything else. Do you by chance have some tutorials or prime examples of line weight that I could take a gander at and try to improve?

Hobbit        -

              The way you use gutter space feels kinda haphazard? Like you'll just have random large spaces between panels, and they don't really have a positive effect of the pacing or composition. Like the weird  isolation of the uppermost right panel on both pages 1 and 2, and the way a lot of your panels won't line up even thought there's no reason for them not to.

                 I still think you could be more interesting with your shadow colours, but if you don't wanna that's totes fine. You could totally make your shadows a little darker and distinct though. They're so faint in most places that they might as well not be there.

            The stuff in the background is a little flat, but it's nice to see you making an effort to keep it interesting. Even when it's just a coloured void you work something in to help the emotions in each panel, and I always like your line work. It's so clean and swooshy.



Cherubas           -

                     I'm pretty sure LeFred just speaks french, so he can just strait up read it. I ran it through google translate and just started laughing.

                 I think that sometimes there's too much disparity between your outlines and your internal contour lines. That sort of thing can work okay in more 2-dimensional cartoony work, but your stuff is realistic enough that it messes with the sense of space in a weird way. There should be some spots where (due to mass, proximity, or just emphasis) lines within the silhouette of the characters would be heavier and bolder. I think sometimes you get a little too light and delicate with your lines as well. Some of the faces are so light that they lose some of their oomph, and that's a shame because you seem to really love drawing unique facial expressions. Strengthening the line quality there will totally draw more attention to the work you put in.

                   Hell yeah on the finished comic dude! The whatev's joke was really well set up, and I like to think that crazy furry on the tricycle is totally the official Void Welcoming Committee.

Oh wow. I'm sorry, dude. XD

That's a pretty big oversight on my part. I feel dumb now, lol. Let's just pretend Meredith mistook Boek for... An imp or something. Sprite? Incubus? Changeling? Centaur with horribly deformed legs? I dunno.

Really though, I do apologize. I have a tendency to... Kind of... Alter the personalities of the characters I'm up against for the sake of making a funny story, but I usually try to keep it within the realm of possibility (even if homicidal maniacs adopting 10 year old idiot is a bit of a stretch). I completely did the "don't do this one thing" thing here. Ugh. Please know that I didn't do it out of spite or anything, just stupidity.

When I loaded up the void main page and saw that icon I laughed so hard! Thanks for the smile.

FREEED: I suppose you're right about the lack of comments. And yes, I put my foot pretty deep in my mouth with that color comment. I forgot I even said that, but it'll make a pretty funny cut when someone makes a sitcom of my life. The second page was actually kind of a hasty change after I finished the first page and realized that, realistically, I wasn't going to finish a 9 page color comic. Originally, the date was mostly going to be Boek trying to act suave while he took Boom to a fast food pizza place and irritated everyone along the way. There was going to be a slower buildup of Boek and Boom getting to know each other in a way that, hopefully, would have been touching and sweet up until the punchline. Had a joke involving monopoly money and a thing with Boom showing Boek her wand and stuff, but cuts were made in favor of, as you pointed out, FINALLY finishing a comic. As for the French, I threw that in there cause it's the language of love and wanted to show Boom surprisingly enthusiastic about their upcoming PG-rated peck. As for what it translates to, admittedly that wasn't for anyone but me. The idea of some reader actually taking the time to translate it and then immediately wishing they hadn't, made ME laugh and, as I'm sure every one of my comics up to this point has shown, honestly I write to make me laugh first and everyone else laugh second. I don't for a second think Boom would ever say something like that, hahah. Thank you for the comment, sir!

Thanks for all the notes you guys, I really appreciate them and agree. I'll make a comment after voting is done but thank you too, Cherubas for the challenge!! I love seeing these guys drawn by someone else for a change lol.

A quick thing though... I THINK YOUR COMIC IS REALLY CUTE, bu~t I have to say, Meredith is super prejudice against humans for killing her and Boom's parents (and more) so I'm not sure she'd be cool with Boom going on a date with one. I wrote a chunk of it in the bio, and it isn't a big problem or anything, but I was surprised to see it.

Also, I am totally changing my icon to Boom's "whatevs" face omg

Hobbit: I'll echo Mintley in that the plot is fine, your characters are exciting and full of potential, but it all falls flat yo. Your people just don't act like people, they act like plot -furthernersnerswhat- they serve the plot, when it should go the other way here. Meredith is all reticent and then it's her turn and she's had a change of mind between panels? and she's all 'my pleasure' and COLOURS! happen and that's a show, really? You have the 'show' happen a couple times, but it's not a show, it's just a MAGIC COLOURS panel, which is kind of disappointing! And then Boek comes out of nowhere and talks in this weird expository way, he's not a character, he's a stolen spot. You do have some good expressions in there, but they're undermined by the lack of emotional content and the flat delivery. (although a bit of facial subtlety could serve you at times, especially the first page is kind of awkward, with that wink-wouldn't she wink with the other eye?- and the teeth thinking and whatnot) You've got some really good potential, it's right there where you can touch it, you just need to inject some soul into it.

Cherubas: Not controversy, drama. But you don't want that, it's idiotic and unproductive. Also, these are hard days in the comment economy, some comics don't get any critiques at all! They all have to fight for a loaf of comment bread, and spend the day looking at the comment job board, only to go back home comment hungry... though times.
YEAH. You're fucking lucky there was that really distracting distraction there. But hey, you FINALLY got a finished comic, so I'm not gonna complain too much for now.
I didn't notice the face either, at first, but that's a cool detail, don't give up on it. If you'd got the eyes a bit higher and the mouth a bit less curved, it might have done the trick. You could use to have a more solid foundation for your characters, as they tend to shift and distort in sometimes strange ways. Be careful with your shots, like in p3, pnl 6, that's just a floating head. A good trick to keep in mind, is to not cut the frame at a body intersection, like the neck or waist or knee or whatevs, cause it'll look like the rest's been cut off. I didn't care much for the second page, though I understand it's purpose, but it felt very 'this happened and then that happened' and was ultimatly not super important to the plot. I did dig the characterization of the two kids, they were kinda cute and super lame (maybe a bit cliche?), though "Je pourrais sucer la couleur de vos mamelons" is a super creepy thing for a kid to say. And the 'whatevs' punchline was indeed very well delivered. Anyways, complete more comics, they're pretty funny when they're complete.

I guess you need controversy to get comments... So let me tell you guys about the time I challenged Jongbom to a battle and he didn't accept. I challenged Jongbom to a battle and he didn't accept. True story. He's scared. Or noticed I never finish/win my battles. Or didn't check his messages in the 24 hours before I cancelled the challenge. Doesn't matter, he wears girls' underwear.

Hobbit: Thank you for battling me. I like the way you drew Boek, and you wrote him so well. You gave him a lot of the little kid charm that I sometimes struggle with. Also, you colored your whole comic. I LOVE colored comics and, as I know a little too well, getting the whole thing colored isn't always easy. XD

Kudos, amigo.

Both were very cute stories, congrats on a story the begins and ends! Also, I had no idea who Boek was, but the way you both drew him in the comic made perfect sense of the character, +2 to clarification! yay!

hobbittastic: I wasn't quite sure what kind of expression/feeling I was supposed to get at the last panel, but it had a very cute buildup on the way to it. Congrats on making it full color throughout the entire thing, it's a really tricky thing to do! The way you draw things sometimes makes it hard to tell the difference between foreground and background due to perspective or that the vivid colors aren't distinguished in the back/front. Two examples I can point out is page 6/panel 1, and page 3/panel 3. Perspective is a tricky thing, I'm sure if you look at some photo references it'll make sense. But color wise, you have an incredibly vivid palate. To indicate depth via. colors, usually the objects in the back/not emphasized are slightly different. For example, background objects might be muted, foreground objects that aren't the main characters could be darker. You did a great job on page 5/panel 2, but the rest have very bright colors throughout. Easy hack is to select all the objects in the background/foreground, and just adjust the color saturation/levels. If you have photoshop, they have a great tool called 'adjustment layers'. If you don't you may have to adjust everything individually. Also, it doesn't have to be too obvious either, just a slight change is all you need.

Cherubas: I had no idea about the frowny face thing either, i just thought you were being creative about the panels. That derp face in the end though, haha. You did a great job making Boek seem like a ten year old, I wasn't too fond of the explanation in the quality drop thing. I think it would have been better if the very last page was back in full color to complete that joke.   Sometimes i feel it would have been nice to have more backgrounds too.

Yeah, I was a bit worried that the angry face wouldn't come across and people would just think "why is he using these stupid shapes?" (On one end of the spectrum are panels that look like a face but leave no room for content and on the other are panels that have plenty of room but look nothing like a face, I tried to land in the middle.) But since Void is all about learning and improving I like to get a little experimental here sometimes, so I figured if the message didn't come across you guys would let me know not to repeat that in the future. Thank you for the comment, Mintley.

Good work both of you! Cherubas even if the whole thing wasn't coloured glad to see you got to the final page and were able to deliver your punchline.

I think the biggest factor between the two comics was the entertainment value:

Hobbit: I dig the characters, I dig the situation you put them in, but somehow the story felt a little one-tone?  Like the conflict and resolution didn't have as much punch.  They made sense, story-wise, just maybe a little lackluster?

Cherubas: is page 2 supposed to be an angry face? I didn't notice until I finished reading and came back to comment.  It makes sense, though I was totally confused at the 'mouth' when reading it up close.  Your punchline though, man, you got me laughing pretty good.

Oh snap! That's good, I was behind schedule. Now I can color the full comic rather than awkwardly doing just half.

Congrats on the new job!
Good luck on the job search!

(choose whichever one is appropriate)

extension cause who knew getting a job took up so much time??

aaa