Long time coming: Serephina

Long time coming: Serephina
« on: Jun 30, 2015, 05:48 PM »
Soooo I joined AGES ago (six years ago fml) and I posted a char here but then chickened out. Then college happened yadda yadda yadda and I am back. I'm hoping to bump up my comic skills and work on my confidence and maybe make some cool awesome friends in the community. I've been looking up to a bunch of artists here for forever! I'm giving it my best shot again! ÒuÓ9

This is a character I've had for a while but haven't done anything much with, so I'm pretty comfortable with her established design. I do have some (very rough) thumbs I'd like people to look at for flow and composition if my current scribbles aren't too unreadable. I'm currently working on lining the ref sheet but I'll clean up the thumbs if people need them to be more readable before giving critique!

Sheet/Bio:

Name: Serephina Lynch (not common knowledge)
Other names: The Gold Witch, that bitch in the cat mask
Bio: Trapped in another dimension with her only access being through a cat mask that takes over and converts the bodies of anyone who puts it on to her own. Sere is mercurial and unpredictable, and just as likely to be a harmless annoyance as a deadly killer. She's easily bored and almost certainly addicted to adrenaline, but has an extreme soft spot for small children. She's become the most recent mass thief in Void city, amassing gold compulsively and in as large quantities as possible for unknown purposes. Her favorite past-time is harassing random strangers and takes particular fun grossing them out with her contortion abilities and generally being a discomfort. She seems unable or unwilling to speak very much, and generally only does so for the greatest of emphasis and in single small words, but is very expressive and willing to communicate with body language.
Powers:
- Mask takes over bodies, can make short jumps unprovoked and move on its own a little but must be near someone pretty much.
---- Its hold can be disrupted by a firm hit to the center of it's forehead (the dot is a good place to aim,) but good luck hitting her.
---- Sere can choose to keep the original body if she finds it particularly useful, usually due to supernatural abilities or skills, but does so rarely.
---- Damage does not carry over to either Sere's form or her host's. Sere's body is essentially new each time unless an attack can reach her true form in another dimension through the connection somehow.
- Telekinetic control over Gold, which can also fuel more complex spells and magic but she seems extremely reluctant to do so.
- Can lengthen/broaden her sleeves and use them like tentacles
- Insane acrobatic ability
- Reaction times nearing precognition
- A disturbing amount of full-body flexibility.

And here are the current rough layouts I have for her intro! \ovo/











rip me apart so gently. I'm mostly concerned about the last page atm...

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #1 on: Jun 30, 2015, 07:20 PM »
welcome back!

looks like you got a solid idea where you wanna go with the pages, it'll be easier to critique once we see cleaner roughs!

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #2 on: Jul 02, 2015, 10:45 AM »
I would try moving the "camera" around a little more. Everything is basically at the same eye level, and for the most part it's kind of close to the action. Try some variation with angles, and try to think about the shape of the panel in relation to what's happening inside of it. For example, second to last panel on page 2 ... Well, I can't really tell if she's swinging her legs or arms because it's rough, but it seems to be cut off with that panel's size and shape. Give your figures plenty of space, if necessary, so we can see some of the environment that they are in as well. I think you're on the right track, but I'd take the time to bang out a few more roughs to see what works.

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #3 on: Jul 02, 2015, 02:25 PM »
Oops, I had these cleaned up a little before I saw your post oHo; These are cleaner so hopefully you guys can tell what is actually going on (the answer to second to last panel on page 2 is that she's swinging her arms AND her legs technically!) After seeing your critique I agree that panel may definitely need to be pulled back a little.






I do have one more cleaning sketch pass I normally do before going full inks where I add (more) clothes and details and stuff. I have the panels all seperated in these so I'll play around with resizing the drawings for a little more space!

Also here, a color ref 8U



The Gold Witch really refers to her powers rather than her color, but the purple's supposed to pop next to the golds and yellows she'll inevitably be hoarding OvO

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #4 on: Jul 02, 2015, 04:36 PM »
Alrighty I can def say now that I agree with Red, if you can pull out a bit more  on some of these shots they'll feel less cramped, page 2's first panel revealing the transformation is probably a panel you want to give more importance to so I'd make that one larger than the second panel. panels 3 and 4 on that same page also suffer from the up-close camera, it'd be great to see more of her body with her acrobatics. panel 3 of page 1, and the last panel of page 2, these shots would be more interesting in more 3D angles rather than the flat 2D shots you chose.

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #5 on: Jul 11, 2015, 12:22 PM »
Aliases include, but are not limited to: The Gold Witch, and That Crazy Bi+<# with the Cat Mask? Besides the mask, should the character's outfit have some gold in it? Or is The Gold Witch reffering to the lust of gold? lol just wondering. 8)

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #6 on: Jul 12, 2015, 02:22 PM »
I don't know if it's just that my monitor is wide, but I do think you can afford to make your pages wider. This would give you more room to make wider panels and have clearer shots. Also, careful with your text placement. Readers generally read in order of left to right, top to bottom, so try not to make your dialogue zig-zag too much. Simpler is better.


Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #7 on: Sep 02, 2015, 10:08 PM »
I ended up inking page 2 before page one |U I'm sketching pages 3 and 4 and one is in the process of being lined. Two is done save for populating some of the objects in the background a little more though!



Quote
Aliases include, but are not limited to: The Gold Witch, and That Crazy Bi+<# with the Cat Mask? Besides the mask, should the character's outfit have some gold in it? Or is The Gold Witch reffering to the lust of gold? lol just wondering. 8)
Yeah, it's a reference to her power to manipulate gold magically, and also her lust for it as it fuels her more complex spells so she collects it rather obsessively. A witch who has powers over gold, not a gold colored witch >w<
« Last Edit: Sep 02, 2015, 10:09 PM by Inksword »

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #8 on: Sep 02, 2015, 10:28 PM »
Looking great! you've improved the page with pacing and it reads much clearer than what you had in your previous sketches! Your backgrounds are also looking nice so far, keep it up!

Re: Long time coming: Serephina
« Reply #9 on: Sep 07, 2015, 01:02 AM »
Posting these all together to see how all four pages flow when put together. Still missing dialogue and sound effects obviously. I struggled when I was first making the comic, trying to get a good demonstration of most of her abilities AND show her personality, both the sort of playful/harmless parts and the murderous, I'm not sure how much I succeeded. ANYWAYS I'm mostly concerned with layout on the last two pages and making sure it reads properly!






Though I'm a also bit worried about how slow I've been going. I'm not going to be able to have anywhere NEAR this much polish on timed battles, though my impression is that intros are supposed to have a lot of time put into them to sort of show max potential? IDK coloring will take a bit and probably the next time I post the intro will be done! Have a finished ref sheet too!


 


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