Everyone has pretty much hit on all the major issues already so I won't repeat it all. I enjoyed both comics, but I really liked Amanita's story, it felt more developed to me.
@ Amanita: Sometimes it gets hard to read the dialogue because they get crowded together in some of your pages, you could spread it out a little more. For the shot of the city, I think you could use a smaller width pen to ink some of the buildings in the back to give a sense of depth with the front most buildings with the heavier outliines. It will also make some of the interesting shapes you've got for the cityscape stand out a little more.
Good luck on the future comics you two.
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
John, a lot better than the last time around, but still needs a bit of work. There's still a lot of negative space on or between panels that make the pages feel sparse. Whether it's a portion of the background that's just left blank or big chunks of gutters between oddly off kilter panels. Along with that, it doesn't feel like you're thinking through your layouts in terms to how it will effect the mood or impact of the overall story or even overall page composition. It's like you're drawing strictly one panel to the next & it feels disjointed. Also, the fonts still don't really compliment line art & the word balloons you're using sit way too tightly on the text. Look to use the pen tool to give them all some breathing room.
Give some thought/work on some of that. It's still leaps & bounds better than the last now that it's not getting murdered by photoshop effects. Glad you curbed all that this time around.
Theo, slow down. Give us more with less. If you're doing speedlines, it's always best to lift the pen off the page. The back & forth motion you've got with the train or the ocean makes things look rushed & sloppy. Also from a tangential sense, if you look at the first page, flipping the top three (maybe the fourth as well) panels horizontally would make the page read a lot smoother. When things flow from left to the right, it goes with the natural flow of the eye as it reads. With this, the right to left isn't quite as smooth. It feels a little like going against the current. This is after, of course, you go left to right rather than left to down to then to the right or whatever. That's not so hot.
And here it felt like you were trying to pace the amount of dialogue out amongst the panels but you packed way more panels onto a page rather than actually spreading it across pages & balancing it with action & different angles (there's a lot of neutral flat angles in this).
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Thanks for the input guys. If I get bumped out of the tourney, which as of now that's how it's looking, I'll get to go into normal matches and be able to put more work into the comics, instead of having to come up with a story, then story board, then draw, etc etc in such a short amount of time. Once again though I have to hand it to my opponent, he really did a bang up job on my character and his story was way more involved and of higher quality. And Orange, if we don't get a chance to battle in the tourney, we must afterwords. Two moon based heroes must inevitably cross paths;)
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Pretty much everyone has said a lot of what needed to be said, but I just wanna say that I really enjoyed both sides of this fight. I'm glad you two got a chance to fight eachother because you both did great with one anothers characters! Heres hoping to fighting one of you two later in the tourney, and outside of it too :)
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Nice work, guys!
John, the main problem I understand is that you made a short comic with a long pace. The story is a nice complement to the last and could make a cute transition between two fights, but the way you tell it is slow, which makes everything ackward and jammed because of the lenght reatraint. I think if you managed to fasten your pace and put more into less, you'd get a better result.
Amanita, loved the story, the flow was nice and the characters great, but a few things here and there killed the rythm. Philip already mentioned the bottom of page 7, there's also the three bubbles at the top of page 3, make sure to make things go in a constant order so we dont have to search what goes first and after.
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
PhillipC: Thank you very much for your vote! Looking back, I can definitely see how I could have combined the handshake panels. When you say the art's cluttered, do you mean like there's too many details? Or are the panels squished together?
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
lol we both have handshakes only they are mirrored images of the other.
PhillipC: Agreed, for the time frame we are given on this, adding color would be way too much work. There was an entire page explaining Leland's hostility, unfortunately it was removed due to time constraints.
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Not bad! Leveling up one round at a time.
John: OK, stick with greyscale from now on, trust me, it's looking good for your comics, however, you should also remove the colors next time, you don't need them really. The story was a bit too awkward for me, mainly because I don't know why Leland attacked Blackbird and the character is described as being "Extreme pacifist". Best thing to do is to maybe have Blackbird start the scuffle and have it resolved rather quickly. Anywho, level up on your part, just be careful on how you handle your stories.
Amanita: Not bad, the art is a bit cluttered honestly and I think you should try to combine your panels more often for some cause and effect all in one scene, the handshaking scene for one could of been done in a single panel, speaking of which... you should be extremely careful of where you place your panels dude, I read the comic entirely from right to left, bottom of page 7 confused the hell out of me until I realized you mixed up the panels. Still though, your story out of the two was the strongest, you portrayed Blackbird nicely, and included the two characters in a story together quite nicely. You got my vote.
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Uproarious applause for you Brian, I literally got chills when I saw Blackbirds face and the command room of the moon base. You did a wonderful job and portrayed my character uncannily. Double applause for so many pages in such little time, especially without forgoing quality. I Really enjoyed drawing Leland, and I hope I did him as much Justice as you did Blackbird:)
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Haha, weird thing is my comic's twice as long as my last one and I'm trying to push more detail and better inking/lettering. This was mostly due to the fact that I've been working practically nonstop from 9 AM to midnight on the pages, but hey whatever works. Definitely not gonna be able to keep up that pace once school starts, but I hope this round will be worth it. Looking forward to seeing your story, John!
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
Everyone knows superheroes are a damned bunch and they will all go to hell for all that saving-of-inocents-and protection-of-mankind madness.
Unless they can find a demonic being with a kind enough heart to offer them potection, of course. p.-
Posted on Invitational Tournament 2010: Round 2battle
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