Energy: As mentioned by a few others, it's nice to see that you're on the steady road to improving with each of your comics! It's amazing to see your progress. I just have a few notes of constructive criticism to lay on ya'.
1. Your poses come off stiff. Some gestural, flow studies could really benefit you. Along with the DEFINITE anatomy studies. Your limbs are rather long as well. And I'm sure some studies on human proportions could really help you.
So to cut that down.
+ Study human proportions
+ Study flow and gesture
+ Study movement.
Those things will help immensely in ensuring your humans are proportional and anatomically correct. As well as making sure they don't come off as stiff.
2. Your lines could also use some polishing. Varying your line weight would help make the things you draw more interesting and captivating to look at. Having almost every subject in your panels relatively the same as far as lines go, is boring. SPICEN it up!
3. You could also polish up the line and coloring work some more. There are quite a number of panels where you have the coloring and/or lines going beyond the panel that could be easily fixed.
4. Smooth the edges on your shading to prevent your shades from looking choppy and distracting. As well as adding more values to it. It'd really help make your work pop.
5. You add shading on the iris of eyes, but not the sclera and it could be quite jarring. Add shading on both.
Never the less, congrats on finishing your comic! I hope that you take these critiques and apply them to your future works.
You can do it!
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OtakuTaylor:
1. Add some hard edges to your shading. It'd really help with the weight of the fabric or objects in your work. At the moment there's a lot of airbrush like shading going on, and some cell-shading could really help push your work.
2. Some varying lines on your backgrounds could help make sure your backgrounds more interesting to look at. Shen touches it well on her critique.
Those are my main gripes. Aside from that, I enjoyed your story. I loved the fact that Kazue was able to be coached by Tsumi for this. It was a pleasant read. :)
Energy: You are improving with every comic as of late. sometimes more then others. But its always there, which is heartening and inspiring to see. I will repeat this for every comic though; Sit down and draw basic anatomy, muscle, bones, proportions, shapes. A lot of your bodyshapes are same in that they are lanky and a little boneless.
Tsumi: I'll be honest, I have not been very impressed with your building and cityscapes the past few comics. The houses are just basic shapes with little to no detail to them. In some panels ,they are a direct detriment to the scene, as they offset the scale and perspective with just being blank, feature less blocks. I realize this was a one weeker, and I think you lost a day or two? So I will give you a soft pass for cutting corners. But I know you can do a lot better, channel some of that bobross thinking!
On the positive side; I love the way you drev Kazue in this. And I really like the way you work with expressions.
energy: dang tho this is a super complete comic good job! my biggest gripe is the background is that bright, saturated yellow during what should be a gloomy scene, i think a colder colour would have set the tone better. I think you should try more 3 page challenges, I think it did a lot of good on your level of completion.
Tay: I agree with kura that the black particles in the fire make it look more like magic, and the lighting could have been pushed more. I know youre working on your buildings and cityscapes but they still look a bit boxy and lifeless, and the colours are a bit dull. In terms of writing I like how you did kazue I thought it was very in-character. I think the biggest problem is the final joke about subbing for science sort of throws the tone of the rest of the story- you dont really have enough pages for a throwaway gag. Instead i would have liked to see that monster burst into flames lol. Poor Tsumi looks so tired I want to take care of her!
Energy, props for drawing tsumi having to duck to fit in the door. ^_^
Thank you for the comments everyone. I guess I'm not realizing just how much of what's going on in the comic is in my head instead of on the canvas. I'd try and explain, but if its not how it's reading right then that's the bigger issue. I haven't found a middle ground between way too much exposition, and not actually explaining what's going on enough, but obviously this side is working out far less than the other.
Energy: hey now hey now, there's some good *finished* polish in these pages! But the empty spaces are way too large, especially in page 3 where you have the heads cramped up with the word bubbles when there's so much space above them to fit said bubbles. It's nice to see a quiet character moment from you
Otakutaylor: REALLY brief feeling even compared to the other past 3-4 pagers you've been pulling off, but I'm not a fan of the fire effects nor of the "science" Tsumi uses to bat a fireball to skyscraper heights (with her untransformed state no less?)
keep on comicking
I think it's time I kind of got to another critical critique on this one:
Energy: I know you struggle a lot in terms of quality, so I'll make this short: Please practice more into shading, anatomy, and general perspectives. I don't want to seem harsh right off the bat since I actually like where your characters are going with this. This moment of seeing the despair of having powers that aren't strong enough to withstand a stronger foe (I read the previous one). I just really you would benefit a lot if you learned more fundamentals on these three things. I'd recommend a fellow by the name of "Proko" on YouTube, he helped me a lot on trying to draw human figures, bodies, heads, and faces! I'd say be careful with your negative spaces like in page three panels one and two, but it's already being told. Also, dialouge bubbles: I've been told that making your own looks better than using the circle marquee tool. Give it a shot if you want, just a simple round brush and stroke effect on the layer would do the trick. I'd like to see you improve, and I know you can do it.
Otakutaylor: Okay right off the bat you're giving us some good perspective shots and keeping it different each time, really love this! Not much action was given but that was because of what was happening before in your last battle, so it doesn't really bother me. The one thing I'd say is I'd like to see the actions drawn out a bit. Three pages are fine, though really it causes this case of "I want more" syndrome. So in terms of quality and creativity, it's really good, and it was entertaining. Short, but entertaining nonetheless. I'm interested to see where these battles with one continuous story are going.
Energy, this was the most complete comic I've ever seen you put on this site. Looks like one weekers were better for you in the end, although you really should watch out for all that negative space about your characters heads on page 3.
Taylor: I'm really not digging the fire effects. I know I used to do something like that in the past, but the black particles make it look less like fire and more like dark magic. Tone it down a bit, it's supposed to be a light source after all.
@Energy
I loved the movement on your second page, that's perhaps one of the best and most clear actions I've seen you make! But aside from that, I only see one other panel that really seems to have any movement to it. Even when talking people are likely to have some movement in their mannerism, and I think that may be a good think to play with. But even more so, Energy, I think you may want to consider working a bit on your anatomy. A lot of your characters tend to have a bit bizarre proportions, throughout their body, and commonly their face as well. I just know that trying to work on something like that could massively increase the quality of your work, possibly more than pretty much anything else I can think of. Overall though, I thought this comic you made was nice, you showcased some really good emotion in it, and your storytelling was really nice! Good job!
@Taylor
Your comic was very impressive art wise, however... I thought the story was going well, but I don't feel it met a very good end, as that ending was confusing at best. Overall you have an amazing grasp of anatomy, and the characters all look very pleasing to the eyes in your comic, however... I do think if you want to continue doing colored comics, you may want to practice with coloring a bit more. A lot of your colors can clash, and at times make the whole comic have a completely different mood than it seems like you're going for. I feel like learning how to do things better with colors, will mean the world for your comicking! Overall though, you have great motion, and I love how dead Tsumi looks.
Overall great job both of you!
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