This is a good first comic. There are some weak areas for sure, but you've also displayed some strength as well. Your work is kind of paradoxical to me; on the one hand it kind of looks like clip art but on the other hand the body language feels natural and fairly lifelike. It's cool. I like your varied use of different shades of gray and your dialogue is nice.
I like your commitment to drawing backgrounds; they really do help tell the story and help anchor things in a way that makes it easier for the reader to relate to and understand the characters. I think it can be easy to forget that. However, your perspective needs work. You mentioned that you do not know which angles would suit a scene/panel best; I think working on your perspective will also help you with that. I also tend to struggle with placing the horizon line at times as well.
It can be rather daunting to stare at a blank sheet of paper trying to figure out how to make it a city street or something. My best advice is to work from photos. You don't want to use them as a crutch, but they are invaluable in knowing what details to add to make things look more authentic and copying them or even tracing them will help you get a better feel for perspective. Just make sure that when you trace them you're still taking the lines to their vanishing point so you can identify how it works. If you don't have a light table, get one. Then you can start your perspective small and blow it up to trace onto your final art later once all the hard work is over.
An additional tip for picking out suitable angles to help you tell the story is to pay attention to camera angles in movies. If you're watching a movie by yourself you may even want to pause interesting or dramatic angles and draw them quickly. Professional photography is also helpful for this as it will help you to train your eye on how to best frame a scene.
My final critique is this: Your character should have been in her costume for the final panel. You could have made the first panel of her opening the closet doors smaller and wider (like a movie theater screen) and drawn the clothes and the costume silhouetted on the hangers in the foreground. Then the final panel could have been much bigger with the Gossamer Swan in all of her glory being shot from a worm's eye view to make her look more heroic. It's a cool design that actually reminds me more of Gatchaman than Sailor Moon personally and I wish you would have showcased it in the comic.
All in all I think this was a good comic and the Swan is a fun character. Your dialogue is good and I like that your character is foreign as it makes her more unique. I look forward to your work in the future.
Tatsura:
I've never been good at drawing different camera angles, mostly because I do not know which angles would suit a scene/panel best.
But thanks for point them out.
this angle is good I I'm just saying if you lowered the horizon line, it woulda look a bit better for the character.
Tatsura:
I've never been good at drawing different camera angles, mostly because I do not know which angles would suit a scene/panel best.
But thanks for point them out.
this angle is good I I'm just saying if you lowered the horizon line, it woulda look a bit better for the character.
Tatsura:
I've never been good at drawing different camera angles, mostly because I do not know which angles would suit a scene/panel best.
But thanks for point them out.
this angle is good I I'm just saying if you lowered the horizon line, it woulda look a bit better for the character.
[quote]Panel 2 and the last one shoulda have been in the back view. I say this cause you broke the 360 rule on the second panel by showing your character in the front then commencing to show her back on the forth, plus it makes us feel interested in seeing what this character looks like so it gives us incentive to click the next page.
page2
on panel 3 this woulda looked good if you lowered the horizon line a bit, in other words lower the camera.
I've never been good at drawing different camera angles, mostly because I do not know which angles would suit a scene/panel best.
But thanks for point them out.
time to do the first round of page by page break downs.
page 1, I recommend you make these ares easier to base it on your own town's market street. use refs on google, facebook even streetview.
One thing I'd say is that you should use that shift key but make a pen tool under-drawings for buildings. Look at your favorite comics to get a feel on how they work lines for buildings.
Panel 2 and the last one shoulda have been in the back view. I say this cause you broke the 360 rule on the second panel by showing your character in the front then commencing to show her back on the forth, plus it makes us feel interested in seeing what this character looks like so it gives us incentive to click the next page.
page2
on panel 3 this woulda looked good if you lowered the horizon line a bit, in other words lower the camera.
page3
try to find some brushes on dA that imitate the thought bubbles in manga and I suggest you shrink your image a slight bit (75%?) so that the bubble doesn't get to blurry in the case you have to resize it.
page4
loved the use of lighting.
PyrasTerran:
Don't fret that this comic's low on new critiques; alot of people already saw and critiqued your work back in the Incubator. Next match you do should have a healthy dose of comments :)
Don't fret that this comic's low on new critiques; alot of people already saw and critiqued your work back in the Incubator. Next match you do should have a healthy dose of comments :)
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