Rikun:
I liked your story more, and feel like you pulled it off pretty well without words. Although I think it's kinda odd that she is tumbling around right next to a cliff.. but ovderall clear narrative, just would've liked to see the inks.
I think your page layouts were well composed.
Sailor:
The inks you had looked really nice, so just try to give yourself enogh time and you'll do good in the future. I appreciate your ambitious layouts and dynamic poses of acrobats, keep studing your anatomy too and practice drawing stick figures and gestural poses to compose your figures before getting into things like detail.
On layouts, the "tent format" was cool, but maybe overdone, think you could have saved it for just a couple pages to give it more impact. in general maybe try to use more standard layouts and once you get good at those, start playing with different page designs for important moments.
Thanks for the crits and comments everyone. As to the "mermaid knees" controversy, that was just a clever Mel Gibson ploy I used. >]
Mr.Duel & Mr.Davis: Thanks for noticing my little people, I like doing silly bkgd fun~ I'll keep working on my anatomy (ie posing in the mirror >.> ), I know my foreshadowing especially needs some help.
Squidman: Did I at least make you dizzy with the circus act? >] I tried to up my clarity from the last battle, but it looks like I still need major work on that. And the idea behind your suggestion for my first page sounds like really helpful advice for the next time I battle. I know this time I mostly based my decisions on how much information I could convey in the least am't of panels as possible since I knew I didn't have enough time to do too much.
Mel: Thanks for noting page three. It helps me to know what I'm doing right when towards the end of battles I start only noticing what I'm doing wrong. ^^; And I also think this round didn't turn out as good as my last battle in terms of story and completion and I'm sorry about that. I thought I had plenty of time for a decent battle, but it turns out my course load was a lying whore. (I don't even qualify as a full time student!)
Bending in the tail around where a human would have their knees is fine, makes them more human like. http://www.impawards.com/1989/posters/little_mermaid_ver2.jpg
Drawing the tail so it looks like there is knee caps under the flesh like what was done here? That just looks strange.
Rikun: I am dissipointed that you did not finish and to be honest, I am not surprised at all. I think your huge problem here is your time management and pacing. Too much in a short amount of time that you get out of your life just doesn't seem to work with you since you are STILL learning. Instead of continuously asking your peers to look and critique every little thing, worry about getting it done. Stop worrying what others may or may not think and do it. We can help you out later with flaws, etc.
ANYWAYS. What you have is okay, it's at least some form of a story. The beginning I found a bit too random since no setting is established and its just "POSE! Here I am!". A shot of the necklace falling off might've gave the reader some idea of what was going on.
Lonestar, I found your comic to be a lot less interesting than your first and it didn't feel like much of a strong entry from you at all. My eyes did not want to focus on the panels at all (though the shape of said panels were very creative!). It was merely a bunch of jumping around from here to there. Repetitive is all I can use to describe the entire thing. I will say this though, the inking on page 3 was nice. There was a lot of nice contrast.
(also, many mermaids are depicted with knee shapes in their tail. It's just a simple matter of how the artist wants to interpret the tail. I for one use the knee shapes sometimes.)
Rikun: Cute story... some panels and sequences were a little confusing, though. If her necklace is going to be important to the story, it may help to have a panel or two close-up on it in the beginning. For one thing, that would let the reader know it's there (when I got to page 2 I was confused, because I hadn't even noticed that she wore one)... it would also tie the story together neatly by telling us, "oh by the way, she has a necklace, this will be important later."
It might also have helped to establish that she is working out or something on the cliff... the first two pages seem very random because at first it's like, Itami is posing, then she's flipping in the air and suddenly there's a cliff... it all kind of comes out of nowhere. We need a little more info.
And I'm not sure why page 4 is shorter than the others.. but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. XD
Sailor: Clever layouts :3
Maybe it's the fact that everybody is swinging and falling and jumping every which way in every direction constantly, but I found it hard to get my bearings in this comic.
I think sometimes the figures get too small.. such as in the places where they're little more than stick figures... like maybe there's a better way to show Itami swinging on a trapeze while the lolita tightrope walker falls to the ground than simply zooming way out on it all in one panel. Instead, maybe it would have been better to have one panel where the lolita is falling and another where Itami is swinging away. We already have an idea where Itami is in relation to the lolita, so it's redundant to have another panel establishing where they both are at that point... I think.
Actually, Fowlie, lots of mermaids are depicted with somewhat leggish fish-tails. In particular, Ariel from Disney's Little Mermaid had moments where her tail was posed in a way that suggested a knee bend.
Just one thing to say before i go to work:
Mermaids wouldn't have knees. You made it look like that tail was some sort of skirt over human legs. Look fish tails up and see how they work, Sailor.
Rikun: Obviously this would have been much better if it'd been inked. Looking back I can see you've improved in the anatomy department, but otherwise this seems like a step back. On a positive note, bravo for pulling off a story without dialogue. Your pacing was just right, and you kept everything very expressive.
SLS: My only complaint here is the incomplete nature of the work. I love how much marginal activity there is, and your layouts are excellent. Keep an eye on your body proportions, though. Specifically the hands on the bottom of the second page are a little on the large size. Otherwise, kudos.
Well first thing, I can't help but notice the incomplete-ness of both works but stuff like that happens. While Itami's entry was sort of sweet in nature, not much really happens. Your anatomy is good though and demonstrated well through the various poses and from looking at your last entry I mark this as an improvement. I think you need some help with composition though as there seems to be a lot of negative space in some of your panels.
Lorelei's entry suffered in some places because of the incomplete nature of it (like the little quotes and such) but I think those little things and the characters at the top of the page add a whimsical quality to the story. It's like extra stuff to look for, which is sorta fun, but since it's in pencil here I couldnt really see all of it. You need a little more practice on the anatomy during the various perspectives as Itami's limbs seemed out of proportion at times. Overall I felt it was a more dynamic piece and I really enjoyed it.
Comments (19)