The Rainbow Connection / Darren J. Cardinalis vs. Gale Garland

The Rainbow Connection — Darren J. Cardinalis vs. Gale Garland

This comic has been rated suitable for all ages by its creator(s)

Icon for Darren J. Cardinalis47%
261 points
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page 10Page 11Page 12Page 13Page 14Page 15Page 16

Crit level: Open to any comments or critiques
tags: darren j. cardinalis, Dio Holy Diver, Flying Monkeys, fun times, gale garland, Rainbow in the Dark, Singing, the rainbow connection, Void University


by Rikun

This comic has been rated suitable for all ages by its creator(s)

Icon for Gale Garland53%
294 points
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page 10

Crit level: Open to any comments or critiques
tags: darren j. cardinalis, gale garland, the rainbow connection




Critiques & Comments
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Kozispoon
Artist
1211 comments
# 11   Posted: Feb 20 2021, 07:46 PM
RIKUN- I hadn't realized this was your debut back into Gale comics until Pita said so in the entervoid server VC. With that in mind, it definitely makes some of the hiccups make more sense. You're re introducing yourself to this character again, her world and general persona. I'm confused as to why a 15 year olds first move being lost in a city is to sneak into a club, but I guess here we are?

You have some great first stabs at adding dynamic lighting and value to your scenes. Granted they're a bit slapdash, but I think your quality and precision will come with practice. I especially love the bottom of page two. You start off this comic with a great concert scene, but it feels like such an incongruous pane las we never see the stage or Xia rocking out ever again. The entire resto f the comic within the interior of the club are body silhouettes. This works great when used sparingly, but it definitely helps the scene to flesh it out with physical elements other than shadow people.

Your opponent was pleasant, polite and admittedly boring. I found myself more entertained by your opponents comic as both characters felt dynamic and were giving a good verbal tug of war page to page. If you're stumped as to good rapport and tit for tat, I'd give that a looksee.

PLATINUM- I'd love to pow wow with you and discuss your world bubbles and choice of font. I think if you found a type that matched your line work it'd definitely fit better on your pages. As it stands, this bold type seems unnecessarily big and draws attention away from your inks which are pretty thin.

I do love your stabs at environment and setting. The university buildings the pair tour hold promise. Keep goin! :D

I think  Darren flying in on page 4 was a missed opportunity. A panel of him swooping in for a landing from the air would've been so much more interesting than Gale having to SAY that he did that. The Beauty of comics is to show more than tell! :D Additionally, we don't see a build up or reveal of these flying monkey's sneaking up to ambush the pair. We get a close up on Gale's eyes and then monkeys. Use your pages and panels to build up to your action so elements don't just appear without rhyme or reason.

Still, this was great effort on both parts and I hope y'all keep pushin!

Cab
Artist
153 comments
# 10   Posted: Feb 8 2021, 09:21 PM
Cocks and Pussies in this comic I see, great job both of you two, I can see you both had fun making these and in the end I can't complain too much, if you had fun thats what really matters. Did you two enjoy your comics, if so than congrats.

Fluffsamasprime
Artist
567 comments
# 9   Posted: Feb 8 2021, 08:58 PM
Great job you guys!!
Got to see birds and lions!

Footini
Artist
359 comments
# 8   Posted: Feb 8 2021, 08:30 PM
Good job both of you
Rikun giving Platinum the welcoming comic slapdown

Flutterbyes
Artist
299 comments
# 7   Posted: Feb 6 2021, 11:38 AM
Platinum: Wow, 14 pages of story PLUS a full color cover image? That's ambitious. That said, I send the comments that you could have trimmed some fat from this story so your attention isn't stretched so thin. Your characters are cute and appealing, but they get a little lost in the panel visually without tones and with inconsistent line hierarchy.  I don't think I've never been taken to a college by my school itself, so the setup took me a few times to read through to understand. It was sweet resolve with them singing like that, but I do agree you could have gotten to that point a little better. Ooh, and if you moved that album cover image to that scene somehow, and made the musical number your "wow" sequence with all the extra oomph and color and special imagery I wonder if that would give the comic the punch that's needed to make up for the fact that you can't hear a comic.


Rikun: It's good to finally see Gale in action! I do agree that a very relatable idea (teenage awkwardness, posturing as overcompensation) got a little vague in execution. What about Gale transforming makes enough of a racket to hear during a rock concert for a fellow concert-goer to turn around, investigate, and try starting a conversation, especially when the crowd and the bouncer mysteriously vanish (did she beat them up? Scare them off? Without resolving that arguably greater threat, what makes Darren not only the greater threat but the person in charge of taking care of the situation?). There are probably a few possible solutions. Perhaps Darren and the bouncer could have been the same person, for example? It's also good to see you branching out with different types of situational and dramatic lighting, but I'm wondering if your workflow needs some changes so you can do simple and efficient lay-ins without so many missed spots and rough edges, which are very distracting. The hard round brush may be tool that can do everything, but it's not good for a mark to LOOK like it's a hard round digital brush, you know what I mean?

Kilcra
Artist
75 comments
# 6   Posted: Feb 5 2021, 08:10 AM
Sorry for the text wall guys! I really liked the comics and I had some notes!

Platinum: Good job on your first submission! My favorite part about the comic is the expressions. Like Cy said, you made Darren expressive while maintaining his bird-like movements. I also think the body language was full enough that the characters felt convincing. If there's anything that takes me out of a comic, it's when the characters look like bad actors, and you did a good job making their body language match their facial expressions in a big way. You can use some practice with how you draw that body language and how much movement you can get into each pose, but I like to see that you're thinking in the right direction. Arts' suggestion of doing figure drawing sessions is perfect. That'll make the body language read clearer. I also recommend Mike Mattesi's youtube tutorials for moving force through the body. He's a former disney animator and a savant at making expressive bodies. He did one for Proko's youtube channel that was really good.

Cy did a wonderful job with his writing critique, so I won't stay on that long. The premise didn't set up for the plot in my opinion. Having Darren be her chaperone could lead to a lot of different plot possibilities, and flying monkeys bumps up against your premise too much. It doesn't create an interesting dynamic between what the characters can do and the initial conflict you presented. I feel like Darren's singing and Gale's transformation are completely incidental and don't matter to the plot of this comic, and it's because those abilities weren't used to deal with the conflict. The solutions to the plot conflicts didn't work either (throwing a ham at the monkeys and singing a song to deal with social anxiety). I'm also not sure why she turned into a lion at that moment, and it left me wondering what the circumstances are that trigger her transformation. I think singing could have been used to deal with Gale's social anxiety if you'd made it clear that the social anxiety is the trigger for her transformation from the beginning, and the plot was focused that. For instance, if Gale was causing a ruckus as a lion, and the only way to calm her was through Darren's beautiful voice, I think that creates a much more interesting dynamic between the conflict and the character's abilities.

Rikkun: I really liked the fast pacing, and it felt appropriate and well timed. I didn't read this as a drama, it felt more like a heartfelt comedy. The quick bursts of anger, anxiety, fear, and comfort from Gale emphasized the character's turbulent nature, and shows that she has miles of growth to make as a character. And that's a really good thing, I found myself rooting for her the whole time. The moments of levity are well timed in my opinion, since every time Gale wants to be taken seriously, she's shown how silly her outbursts are. I think there's a great message here about letting go and trusting that not everyone in a new place wants to hurt you. I get the sense that Gale isn't very self assured, and that maybe she feels threatened by strangers because she feels too chaotic to be loved by other people. I'd like to see that concept explored more, if I'm reading her correctly that is. I really like your composition, and the comedy works for me. I love the "plop" on page 9 for instance.

One thing that I'd like to see is consequences for Gale. She's caught being underaged in this club, but she isn't thrown out, she storms out. She's confronted by the bouncer, but then Darren appears and the bouncer isn't there to do his job. The crowd gathers around her, but they don't really do anything. Also, Gale focuses on Darren when he's the least antagonistic person in the room, and I think that could have been handled better. For instance, if Gale tried to run away from the bouncer and Darren was carelessly blocking the exit, that would have given Gale a reason to get aggressive with Darren, even thought it's a poorly justified reason (which is part of  the fun of making a chaotic character!).  I feel like Gale should be overreacting to a small transgression, not attacking Darren because he happened to be near her (especially since the rest of the crowd was also near her).

I love Darren's pure optimism and Gale's utter chaos in both comics. You guys did great!

TheCydork
Artist
606 comments
# 5   Posted: Feb 3 2021, 11:08 PM
Platinum - I second Arts, it’s really impressive that you got 16 pages out on your first battle! I still struggle with that quantity now. You stylised Gale well and I really liked how some of Darren’s poses, he’s cocking his head to the side a little like an actual bird. I also appreciate that you tried out an action sequence rather than keeping it to all talk. Gale’s lion running pose on page 7 was great.  

Arts covered the visuals pretty well so I’m gonna focus my crit on the writing. The story overall didn’t teally flow for me. The dialogue on page 6 felt extremely forced, as if you needed to have a conflict and just kind of shoehorned it in. I don’t believe either of these characters would be this defensive so quickly - Gale is scared of Darren from a simple attitude change, and Darren basically tells a child “this is why you don’t have friends”. It seems uncharacteristically callous and a huge overreaction to what she said. I also found the way Darren talks to her later on a little condescending (“How about we sing a song”), as if she’s younger than she actually is. Remember she’s 15, already into her teens and not a little kid anymore. It is definitely a tricky age to write though, so to me this isn’t as big an issue.

Something that might help is thinking about what the characters would do and building a plot from that, as opposed to writing a plot and adjusting the characters to fit. Now obviously I’m assuming here, so sorry if I’m wrong, but the way this reads and the way I’ve heard you brainstorm future comics, it feels like your method is somewhat like this. I’m gonna guess that you went into this battle thinking “I want Gale and Darren to be friends and sing at the end”. But think about how Gale would see Darren in the first place, and would she want to be friends with somebody like him? Is she the type of person to sing with a complete stranger? If you really want them to sing together, think about what scenario she WOULD sing in. Maybe she’s known him since she was younger, they have a reunion in Void and go out for karaoke. Maybe she’s forced to join the school choir and begrudgingly warms to it. Etc, etc. Really hope this helps!

Rikun - This was pretty fun! I enjoy Gale’s gimmick, her lion form is very cute. You adapted Darren to your style nicely, and I noticed you used a variety of different angles here pretty well. Gale seemed to cycle through her emotions very quickly here though in a way that just didn’t feel believable. She gets scared into being the lion just from being asked for her ID and then trusts Darren very quickly too. The story in general felt pretty rushed tbh, not in the quality sense, but in the sense that none of the moments were given time to breathe. Something happens, immediately the next thing is happening. I guess my advice on that front would be to simplify the story further while using the same number of pages, or giving the story more pages so that the pacing is better.

ArtsandGoodies
Artist
566 comments
# 4   Posted: Feb 3 2021, 04:09 PM
Platinum: Great job on the comic, 16 pages for your first panel all inked is a fantastic accomplishment great job with this comic. As you do more comics you should spend some time doing warm ups and practice to increase your draftsmen skills. Two things you should start with is starting much messier as well as experimenting with shapes.
I saw some of your sketches as you streamed them and they were mostly singular lines with balanced shapes. It looked like you were scared to get messy with your sketches and I think that comes from seeing other artists do the same. the issue is there is little gesture in these sketches and they lack energy. You need to do some figure drawing sessions with 30-60 second drawings and get messy with your lines and don't feel precious. Try drawing long lines fast and if that line doesn't look great just do another one without deleting the previous. you need to get into the habbit of making more lines and making more mistakes so you can learn quicker from them.
This leads into the second issue in that you often choose balanced shapes like circles and even ovals. These shapes don't accurately reflect proper anatomy and more importantly you can't learn as much from them. You need to try making lopsided triangles for limbs, or similar type of shape. When you do this you will more clearly something that either looks good or really off, and then you can learn much more from that. Also these mostly balanced shapes aren't dynamic and you want to try to have the limbs and body be dynamic as those uneven shapes more accurately convey anatomy.
For your next comic I would recommend doing a shorter length so you can spend more time getting loose and messy with your sketches as well as time dedicated to practice warm ups, Even just spending 20 minutes a day doing 1 minute figure drawing poses will add up quickly. Also your expressions show the most energy and feel much looser than the figures so try playing around with the figures like you do the expressions.

Rikun: Great job on the comic. It's nice to see you get some more lighting and full colors in your comic. For future ones you should push your lighting further (and clean it up a bit more). In a place like a club the shadows would be heavy and likely would have some blackspotting as well. There is something off about the dialogue to me (there also seems to be a bubble missing with gale saying "let go"). I think the issue is the pacing, with a drama there needs to be some room to let us experience the characters emotions. In this comic there is dialogue bubbles in the majority of panels so we don't get anytime in the middle of the comic to let their emotions sink in. So either adding some more panels to give us time to experience emotions or taking out some dialogue for the same effect would be good.

Platinumartist
Approval Committee
177 comments
# 3   Posted: Feb 2 2021, 07:36 AM
A Couple of things I would like to clear out a bit. The Splash page is a homage to Dio's Album Holy Diver in which the song Rainbow in the Dark comes from. and Here is  the Song if you wish to listen -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G0u13COALA

Anywho I hope you guys enjoy!

Cab
Artist
153 comments
# 2   Posted: Jan 24 2021, 01:36 PM
I been seeing both yours and Rikun's progress in the discord channel and I can't wait to see you guy's finished pages, the hype is on like donkey kong !!!

Platinumartist
Approval Committee
177 comments
# 1   Posted: Jan 20 2021, 12:11 AM
This one will be Darren's First Official Outing in Void City and I can't wait to show everyone what I have in plan for this one.

I'm sure that my Opponent is going to bring their all and so I will try to do the same. I just hope everyone has Fun reading these!!!

Comic Details -

 
Regular Match
Drawing Time: 4 weeks + 1
Ended: Feb 8th, 2021
Votes Cast: 16
Page Views: 1607
Winner: Rikun
 

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