[heylins]

Hey, it's a new Incubator thread! I'd be surprised if I ever tried putting more than one character in here, but hey! Whatever, let's get on with it!

Meet Lyra! Lyra Dobbins. 20 years old. Star Sign Leo. Not quite professional hammer swinger.



Lyra is a little pink firecracker of a lady, but she's a rather silent one: she's completely mute. It's a rather long story that involves a terrible spiteful ex-boyfriend, but we don't have to get into that right yet. In any case, her muteness doesn't mean that she can't get a point across. Lyra doesn't hide emotions well, and it's pretty easy to tell who or what she's thinking about if you have enough context. And if you can't tell, she'll probably spell it out for you! She's upfront and honest about her feelings, and really doesn't ever try to keep them a secret.

Because of this blunt honesty, it's easy to say that Lyra looks a lot cuter and gentler than she actually is. That isn't to say she's outright mean or a bully, but she certainly isn't a pushover or someone to dismiss as weak. Her giant hammer* is a perfect match for her: cutesy and bubbly looking... but still packs a powerful punch when it needs to be dealt. This might cause people to experience some whiplash with her, but she doesn't seem to care enough to change. In any case, she actually is pretty friendly when you get used to her approach!

She's come to Void City following a tip about that aforementioned ex... the entire situation being a pretty sore subject to her. The short of it is, though, that he has something of hers and she has something of his. She wants a fair trade, but we'll see how well that goes! I guess I'd have to add him in here before anything even happens with that, so yeah! The guy doesn't make himself easy to find, though, so Lyra spends a lot of her Void days taking odd jobs for food-slash-rent money... and maybe taking a couple odder jobs for shots at more info. Her morality isn't at stake though, she doesn't mess with bloody business... That might change, though! Seriously, who knows with Void City?

I'm sorry if any of this post seems janky! I'm pretty nervous about coming in here, but I'm really super excited and would happily flesh out anything anyone is curious about (I didn't want to slap a giant wall of text on my first go... hahaha...). I'm working on her intro comic now, so hopefully I'll have some rough layouts posted soon!

* Actually a note about that hammer... This needs to be re-written on the sheet, but it doesn't really weigh anything to her. It's a Mjolnir kind of scenario... But being worthy has nothing to do with it. If anyone besides Lyra (or... any other human, specifically) tries to lift the hammer, they're in for a super tough time because it weighs around 450lbs. I just didn't want anyone to wonder why such a tiny girl has no problem lifting a mega-hammer... Sorry for any confusion!

[Cracking Skulls]

Hey there, welcome to Void! I'm gonna say it outright, Oh my gooooooosh she is precious! I absolutely love her already, and I'm super looking forward to some WIPs of her intro comic soon! Your design sheet and bio, to me, are solid enough to progress to the comic stages. I am a little curious to her age, since you state she has an ex-boyfriend, and she looks pretty young on her design sheet, but that's literally all I can think of for now as a form of getting to know more about her

[Animeshen]

oh my god she is so cute i could die i want to battle you
....shes how old?? XD

[heylins]

Ah, I'm glad ya'll think she's cute!

She's 20 years old. I do have a pretty... cutesy art style, so I should probably tone it down just a little bit in her case, yeah? It's probably the eyes... She's got some big ol' eyes.

[Red]

Don't you dare tone down the cuteness.

[heylins]

Oh! W-Well, with that icon, I can hardly refuse!

I come bearing more images. A sketchy first page of her intro comic! That handwritten text will be replaced with an actual nice looking font at some point in this process, I assure you.



I really welcome any critique at any stage of this, but I would especially love any pointers on pacing and flow. Those are my biggest issues with comics, and I always struggle to make things just... go in a natural way. I have problems in other areas too, though, so like I said anything is fair game, haaaa.

[Kozispoon]

Heyo hey and welcome to your first incubator post! Take a breath, take feedback in stride and enjoy the excitement of folks giving your idea a looksee and their two cents. We're always stoked about new concepts and submissions.

Right off the bat, I found myself surprised she was 20. Granted, maybe she's a vampire, or has a Gary Coleman condition, but there is nothing wrong with submitting a kid and/or young character if you had misgivings. I do like the design though (anyone else getting Sugar Rush vibes? ), and immediately like a gal whose the strong silent type who carries a big ol' mallet. As a fellow comicker who has somewhat of a mute missus, I'm always keen to see more. Nice idea with the ASL too. I am super interested to see how that translates into comics.

A sketchy first page leaves me assuming there's more pages to come, so I await with bated breath for more. Rock it and roll it, Heylins!

[Red]

I would pick a better establishing shot, maybe the exterior of the train heading down the track? I think the pacing is just fine for this page, honestly. Looks good so far!

[heylins]

Thank you kindly for the feedback, both of you! I promise you, she's not a vampire, but she could be the victim of Baby Face syndrome! I know the feeling of that personally... But! I'm glad you like the design, and I really will try to make her seem a little more mature in the way she carries herself. HOPEFULLY that will go smoothly.

(Random Note to Kozi: I love Mimi! She's so cute, and I really love how you use the signs, it's really clever and makes me laugh!)

Anywho, more pages! Well, the edited 1st page (because hoo boy you're right, Red, a better first panel really goes a long way) and then the sketchy second one. Void City has bullet trains now! They're actually pretty fun to draw... And much easier than the big clunky trains I've ridden on...

[Charlie]

Hey!

I too was kind of caught off guard by the character being as old as she was due to the style, but I also don't really see anything wrong with that as long as everyone else in the comics fits that same super deformed/chibi style you have going on here (not sure if I am using the right term or not, but I hope you know what I mean!).

I agree with Red that the establishing shot is a little confusing but seeing as its a sketch I am assuming a lot of the details just aren't there? I think that is the train running along the tracks but again I am not 100% certain as to what I am looking at. I think the pacing actually looks fine and the panel layout isn't bad at all, but I am going to bring something up that I recently learned doing a job that helps make things look a little cleaner. You have a bunch of panels that reach out to different lengths. I was really guilty of doing this myself until recently, so here is a diagram to kind of show what I mean.



I hope that clarifies some things? I highly recommend using ka-blam's template to at least kind of get a grip on it if you so desire! Different places have different specs, and web fortunately has no real format restrictions, but like I said in that diagram thing I feel like adhering to some of the things print has to makes for an easier, cleaner reading experience (plus if you ever wanted to print a book you're all good to go!). Here is a link to the standard comics template from kablam which explains what each thing is better than I do: http://ka-blam.com/printing/front/?p=119

One more thing too - your page size looks gigantic to me when I view it full size, maybe it could stand to be a tiny bit smaller just so we can see it all (and for people with smaller monitors as well). Maybe reducing the width by about 200px or so to be around 1000px might be better

Anyway I hope that helps somewhat. I also don't claim this to be the only way/right way as well so take it as you will, but I like your art, it's cute, and oversized weapons are always cool so I am excited to see more!

Edit: damn I got ninja'd haha. Most of this still stands! That new establishing shot is much better though!

[heylins]

Hi, Charlie! Sorry I ninja'd you, never my intent, hehehe.

It was a train running on a track, but it was super vague and I don't blame you for being confused. I'm glad you like the new shot better because I really do as well! And super-deformed is a perfect way to describe this style, so I get what you mean. I'd like to think I draw characters in a somewhat consistent way. Thankfully, there are a couple other randos in this into comic, so I'll see what you guys think (and take it into account of course)! :^3

Thank you for the diagram! My big thing in the sketch stage is that, since I use PTS, I don't have a great shape tool to let me panel. I usually fix that in the inking stage (take it over to CSP and make some pretty boxes) so the boxes aren't all janky and wobbly all over the page, but please don't think of this as an excuse! I appreciate these tools a lot, so thank you very much!

And oh jeez, I didn't even think of people with smaller monitors. I'm so sorry! I'll resize them a little big next time so they're not so god awfully huge. ;_;

[neens]

this is real good and I love it, I'm excited to see her in void! I agree with most of the other things said already, such as pages being a bit big, page format, etc. you seem to have acknowledged that stuff tho so, thumbs up

[heylins]

Wooohooooo I feel like a jerk!

A lot of stuff came up in my life since I posted, so I'm really sorry for dropping out like that. But, I'm back again, and I come bringing a new intro sheet and ~~new page sketches.

Lyra hasn't changed much other than the amount of pink in her hair! I also wanted to try and make her look a bit older (in the face, at least), so I hope that comes across somewhat!? Please, do let me know what ya'll think!!



And, with her slight changes in mind (and some advice from a friend on here), I've scrapped her old intro idea to focus on a new, shorter one. I really struggle with conveying ideas in a small amount of frames so I was hoping to practice that, uh... in my intro.





I will happily gobble up any feedback you throw at me! Thank you and sorry again for just disappearing in the middle of such lovely critiques! ;_;

[heylins]

Inking DONE! And speech bubbles all put up. As always, feedback on anything is welcome with open arms.

[E.W. Schneider]

Nice to see you returned. You've got a cute character and you've got alright panels and set up for your comic, and your comic looks alright for that matter. However, there's a few things that stand out to me that you could do to improve it.

Mostly looking at your comic, I noticed a lack of backgrounds for the most part. Even our train interior is a little simplistic and without any flourishes. I think you could do with maybe looking at some interior shots of a train and adding those in to comic? Your pacing feels alright, but she's mostly sitting in an empty void without anything but the chair she's sitting on If I didn't have that first panel of the train, I wouldn't know where she is at all based on the rest of the comic.

Without some establishing shots inside of the train like this or this, I don't really know the status of the train. These little background clues could tell a lot about her, too. Little things like that could help a lot! So, maybe give us some page or panel with the train moving towards the city so we can see the city being drawn and/or a shot of the train interior itself.

The other part is also kind of important to note, but that pink in your font is super light, I can barely read it. I think plain black would work just fine, we're not going to get confused as to who is talking in this comic or in general. If you do want to keep the pink, I would say make it the background of those text boxes and keep the font black. I would also thicken your speech bubbles a bit so they're not so whisper thin. I'd also try to put some anti-aliasing on them so they're not so pixelated?

All in all, this is a really solid looking set up and as long as you keep at this, you'll do just fine here. Nice work so far! Love the character!

[Red]

^ I agree, I know we talked about an establishing shot the last time you posted, you are still lacking that.
Pull back the camera a little bit, this is basically all drawings of her face at almost the same size in each panel. In some ways, I find your old pages more visually interesting because there is more variety. You might be hesitant to draw a big ol' background, but it's worth the effort. Your lines are good, your art is cute, I don't think you'll have any trouble getting approved, I just think you need to take backgrounds and establishing shots into consideration more. Google is your friend, just search photos for inspiration to make your environments more interesting.

[heylins]

Thanks, both of you, for the feedback! I had to step away for a bit to work on other things for a little bit there, but now I can focus on this again! And... lots of focusing I will do.

I made a new sketch for a new first page (meaning the other two will just be shifted to 2nd and 3rd page, respectively, and probably a new final page). I guess it's kind of silly to post the sketch, since there are more details (the actual dinginess of the viewing car, specifically, as well as the progression of time with the bottom panels... and of course the people) I plan to put in during the inking and color stage, but I just felt that I should post at least the plan so it doesn't look like I just blew everyone off, ahaha.



I was really hoping to see if the "large train station platform" was conveying well, if nothing else? If anyone has any particular thoughts on that, don't hesitate to let me know!

[Red]

Nice, this is looking so much better already. Keep going!

[Sean]

These new panels are vast improvements from your older stuff above! Keep at it! That train and station is coming out fantastic!