arrow_back
Great Escalations 2022 Round 1
by
Lucky Nothin
gasp a swear
No critique desired, comments encouraged
This comic has been rated suitable for teens and up by its creator(s)
Uploaded October 04, 2022
Comments (8)
Platinum
Composition and Blocking Throughout the comic, I often don’t know the characters’ positions in relation to each other. On the first page, there’s a great establishing shot of Symone looking menacing and being framed by the moon. The second panel though, has her facing the opposite direction of Darren. We don’t know she’s supposed to be looking at him. This isn’t helped by the different lighting in the area Darren is standing in, and the lack of a landmark linking the first and third panels. I think it would’ve helped to zoom out further in the first or second panel, so we can see the building Symone is on overlooking the park. And adjust the colours in the clearing Darren is singing in, because there isn’t much indication it’s night apart from the black poking through the trees in the distance. Dim the character's colours. You don’t need to colour pick and keep them exactly same. Alternatively, if he’s supposed to be in a well lit clearing, that will still look different to neutral daylight. The lighting would be harsher, the characters more exposed, and the area out of light would be darker. Just gonna briefly run through the other pages. Page 2 - the cafe Zeke is at appears kind of randomly. Instead of a clearing with hills in the background, you could have placed Darren on a promenade, showing both the skyscrapers and the cafe. Page 3-4 - from page 1, it seemed like Symone was looking at Darren head on, but when she attacks him it’s from the side. Then Zeke appears hiding behind a statue that wasn’t shown earlier. Page 5 - good, clear blocking in that first panel! Showing all the characters in the same space, at different sizes indicates how far away they are from each other. Choreography is also pretty good if you ignore the knife jumping sides (more on this later). Page 6 - Again, Symone is facing the outside of the comic. This part is tricky though, because Zeke is to her left (our right). So why is this still a problem? Well generally, characters should face towards the center of the page. I would’ve suggested a front view here, maybe a wide panel, to make Symone feel really unfathomable and immense. Page 7-8 - Explaining this later. Page 9 - Top panel has a very strange composition. If you wanted to emphasise how insignificant and weak Zeke is, I think you could’ve made him smaller and exaggerated the angle of Symone‘s shadow. If you want to focus on his pain, a close up would be better. Right now he’s in this weird in-between with a bunch of empty space. With the character’s positions, it helps to have a clear picture of the location in your head. If this is too difficult, sketch out the location beforehand and mark where each character is standing, or any significant landmarks. This doesn’t have to be anything complex, honestly just a bunch of shapes will do. Think about what would be visible at particular angles. Drawing a “camera” (simple rectangle), and a quarter circle coming from it, with the point coming from the lens, might help visualise this. Here’s an example: