i'm really going to work on that monkey squirrel you might see or hear about it in the next work man i really appreciate the crit man. And yea chi doing the background seven thousand times is crazy
Fox - HUGE improvement over your last battle. Ambitious length and yo resolved most of the technical difficulties. I enjoy the blurred backgrounds and the depth it implies (but don't overdo it). I am little disappointed there was no half monkey/ half squirrel in this story bur you did a good job with the sheep.
Carlito - I enjoyed the "less-is-more" storytelling but the face of Patent in p. 2 is not pretty and her legs throughout the story had real anatomical issues (looks like she is half duck). Trees were great (can't believe you re-drew them every time instead of just copying and pasting - I mean I DO believe you, but copy past would have been so much easier).
fox, your pencil work's nice, but when you start adding gradients & rasterized speed lines & blurs & arial text & obama poster in photoshop, you get something that doesn't look consistent. when you use photoshop, the idea's to be subtle. dialogue's already been mentioned, but yeah dude. seriously. and while you should really show more than the one brick wall as a background, throwing in the obama poster once & then never seeing it again in longer shots of the wall seemed odd. i mean at first it was good to see something break up the monotony of the wall (although it did just seem to appear outta nowhere) but as the action continues, we should keep seeing it as it acts as a frame of reference during the action. otherwise you're just showing brick texture for the sake of showing us brick texture. you know?
carlito, nice background. if you plan on reusing it like an animation back drop though you should really draw it super large. that way it doesn't pixelate when you zoom in for tighter shots. story works but i still agree with the others saying to work on your anatomy. you still need to tighten that up. also, check out the coloring tutorial on the forums. a method's been posted in there that gets rid of the white line seams when coloring line work. it stood out a bit in the trees.
Fox: Once again, I like your dynamic layout and figure work. The gradients are certainly toned down from last time, but of all of the panels where you use it to back your figures, the only one where it seems to fit really well is the fourth panel on the page 4. Try making the same look by hand one time, and see what it looks like. The pixeled, blurry look is jarring against your nice clean linework.
Also, surf the web for some free comic fonts. Using Arial with lower case letters for your comic text is a little jarring, I think.
Carlito: I like the pace and the feel of the entire thing. Background is lovely and the figures are expressive. My only concern is the eyes are a little too large and pushed to the outside of the face. Otherwise, excellent job.
Fox-Your style kind of reminds me a bit of Tomb Raider, I like it! My advise though would be to use guidlines-sometimes in your comic heads would look a bit squished, and the style fluxed. Good backgrounds from what I saw, I'd like to see more of them too. Love the Obama nod. Very interesting story and dialogue
Carlito-It almost feels like you are creating an animation storyboard more than a comic. To me, the pace seems quite slow. I like how you have the sheep sit next to her, and how they both just kind of nod towards each other. My advise is to work on anatomy, with special attention to female. I liked the atmostphere of your comic very much.
Hmmm....
Fox: I think you have the fundamentals there you just need to solidify those skills...you enderstand anatomy, renderings, form, shape..blah blah blah..all that shit...you just need to work on it a bit more...you have one thing that a lot of voiders are missing and thats good pacing and panel control...so I would say you are on your way to being a good illustrator/cartooner...keep it up...I would work on your dialogue though...something that works for me..is I pretend the characters that I am writing dialogue for are me and my friends...then I write the dialogue as we would speak it so it has a more realistic and natural feel...I look forward to seeing more of your battles
Carlito: Since you beat me I have been reading your battles and wondering why....hahah..and this one I feel is your best entry yet...you are getting much better at drawing and your story telling is becoming more sophisiticated...the silent story is the hardest to do...and I think you had a successful time at creating the mood and such. I still think you need much work on your anatomy...but the general setting and "story" was well done...I would advise you into using reference for your BGs they felt very flat I believe you could have created more space with different perspectives and camera angles...good work though...
Fox: Some interesting layouts, and for the most part, the action was easy to follow.
I wasn't real sure who was suppose to be speaking a different language from whom. One universal comic book indicator for different languages is to put the dialogue that's in a different language between these signs:
Yeah, the dialogue does need some work, and the suggestion of saying it out loud is a good one. Also, listen to and note how people talk. And pay attention to how other writers write dialogue...what makes it work, what doesn't. Examples of some of my favorite dialogue come from Brian Michael Bendis and Joss Whedon as a couple examples. Oh, and Quentin Tarantino. Their dialogue flows, feels natural, and it's fun to listen to and/or read.
Also, practice that anatomy and foreshortening. A few good books out there too: probably start here
It might help if you darkened your pencils some in Photoshop, change the levels or curves or whatever.
Whew..after all that...well, I wouldn't have written it all if I didn't think you had potential.
And..maybe try hand lettering, depending on how neat your writing can be. The difference right now between the art and your lettering is pretty stark.
Also..heh..well, it was nice to see other people in the background, but I felt like some of them should've been reacting somehow to the fight. I mean, body language-wise.
Carlito: I really like the idea and the execution here. Thought it was funny too. Nice line work and coloring. Generally a good entry.
Fox23: I really could've done without the dialogue. I know you were trying to be funny, but, that got painful.
Otherwise, I can see you were really trying to get in some good action.
Carlito: It's nice to see some colour, for sure. But my attention could've been held by a little angle and panel variety.
Chris(fox) ok- looking at these a second time, i can tell that some of your stuff IS inked. my mistake.
i think the areas that are still "penciliy" are throwing me off- maybe use photoshop to "grey" in those areas.
ok guys interesting reads both of you- i'm going to point out the good stuff- then the bad stuff
FOX- definately a huge improvement from your previous outing. the pages were much more clear and readible and your penciling has improved even since your last fight.
i really think you might need to start inking your pages however, the contrast between the shady penciling and the stark/dark lettering is a little distracting. also- the dialouge needs some work, it's a little disjointed.
still like a said before- a big improvement, and your stuff is showing lots of promise.
CARLITO- my hat's off to you for being ambitous enough to try and tell a story with no dilaoge, that's a very tricky undertaking. also, it's not your typical "fight" sequence which is nice. your pages have a very finished look to them and are easy to "read"
however, i feel the story could have been a little more interesting by varying up your panel anglels and composistions. i see what you were going for- but one page of the same backgroud would have been fine. also the opening page is a little awkard- it might have been better to have the girl either a little bigger taking up more of the page, or on a 3/4 angel instead. still- nice booty shot.
it's an interesting take, but also not much happens in the way of story progress.
both stories were good, i'm sideing with Fox's, but good job to you both.
Fox24 - Patent was actually a much more charming character than I was expecting. I think her dialogue was actually pretty good. But like it's already been said, Chia-Hui's dialogue was kind of weird. It kind of read like you found some really bad 70s/80s 'toy commercial' cartoons and decided to rip their dialogue. When you're writing someone else's character, it helps to think about how you would write that character if they were yours and you loved them. You wrote Patent with love, so try to write everyone else that way, too.
The best way to go about dialogue is to write it all down first before you even draw the comics (This also helps with panels so you can leave some dialogue air for word balloons and stuff), second thing to do is to read everything and say it aloud, page 6's first panel for example: YOU SHALL PAY FOR THAT!
...
*snicker* Seriously, say that aloud without trying to sound like Snidely Whiplash. No ex-monk would seriously talk like that. Personally, I like to not rely on text and dialogue often, and usually after I speak my dialogue I'll try to trim down things that just don't need to be put in. It's hard to do really, but the basic mindset you gotta put yourself into when it comes to dialogue is asking yourself "Does he/she need to say this?" "Can I get the point across without dialogue?" etc...
Personally for this comic, I would of trimmed down on almost all of the text, one reason being is that it's kinda hard to realize that Chia is speaking a different language when there's nothing that shows that the text is being translated for the viewers and it kinda seems like Patent is hard of hearing. Second, you really didn't leave yourself any room for the dialogue in half of these panels, that's generally a very unwise thing to do in a comic. And third, you don't really seem to need most of the dialogue during the fight (this could just be my opinion right here). That's all I can tell you about the subject of dialogue, when in doubt say it aloud. Anywho, the comic was OK, I won't dive into the art since others have done that already. My vote was for you.
Fox- Much better! Some anatomy issues with the male figure, and Patent's proportions seemed a little screwy(looked like a dwarf on page 3!!)
Carlito- Some figure referemce for the first page would have helped. I don't think the background issue is important, but I would have liked a little more interaction between the characters. Liked the sheep!
Thanks for the comments, i tried really hard to go very basic in my paneling and the dialog is my weakest step. So if anyone can help with that that would be great. Thanks for reading.
Fox-- You have good panel versatility here, and I wasn't bored while reading it, but you need to work a bit more on clarity and timing. I should be able to understand what's happening in the panel at first glance. There were several panels that I had to look at for a moment to understand what you were depicting. I would recommend upping the contrast between the characters and the background.
Also, I would recommend doing some extra study in page composition. Your story here could be better portrayed if the content of Panel A led the reader's eye into Panel B, then to Panel C, and so on.
fox: the paneling in this is very messy (i have a lot of trouble with that myself). in your next comic, try using a simpler paneling style. a great example is Squidman's Angent Black vs Ben. it's one of void's best stories, and it's told through a simple 3x3 panel layout. doing this will help you get the feel for how a story is told through paneling. then you can do crazy shit like any of Jho's comics.
carlito: this is is a nice step up in your backgrounds. placing your characters in a detailed, living world will give your viewers a more visceral reading experience. i would suggest taking the time to redraw your backgrounds instead of trying to learn how to photoshop your way around it. or better yet, learn how to photoshop your way around it, but redraw the backgrounds just because you can.
Z formation meaning the direction your eyes go as you read the page. In comics as you go down the page most layouts have it to where you are reading the comic in the shape of a Z if that makes sense. Felt that was something necessary to explain since michaelharris brought it up
Fox-I really kinda hated the story. It seemed like just another, "Hey nice to meet you! let's FIGHT" stories. There seemed to be excessive and cliche dialogue. I would write how people actually talk and not like a bad action movie. I really liked the art. On the second to last page the panelling got confusing. Do you understand the "Z formation" and on the last page you just kinda rushed through it with a bunch of silhouettes. I appreciate all the foreshortening you tried, I would keep working on that. Also I would suggest you pull back the camera fromthe fight every once in a while.
Carlito
I liked the simple story that lets you kinda know what happened but lets you guess a bit. I don't like how you drew one back ground and reused it over and over again. A story without words is fine, even a story without changing angles can work, but it just seems a tad lazy. But I don't think most people would have noticed that the backgrounds are exactly the same.
wow big step up,Fox
Fox:more readable,cleaner.
grammatical errors and there was some in and out with the background investment.
Carlito:First panel was quite impressive(the J-Lo booty) I could read she was fatigued and setting with color was good stuff. and it was quaint and subtle.
But yeah just that...quaint.No dialogue and barely interaction (if any) and to be honest,Patent was an ugly chick.
nice quote, i'm sure it's great man. I see it as i can only go forward from my debut so i'm looking forward to your great pages carlito. Bring words and wrath!
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