Thanks for all the crits as well guys! I'll do my best to take them into account for next battle. The majority of the problems were there due to my procrastination but next time that ain't happening. Tsumi was a wonderful character to draw and write and my only regret is that I slacked and failed to show Tsumi keeping her dino. Until next time!
SABUALIVE- this was a very fun comic. Madcap adventure, dinosaurs and gunslingin'! I even dug how you brought both opponents together within your story. Seemed believable, as opposed to the 'chance encounter1' deal most fighters use. Miffed Veronica was also pretty hilarious XD I think your use of chibi-fying the characters for certain panels helped your humor along- especially the scene where the ladies are arguing over whether or not the creatures in the warehouse are dinos or chickens. All in all nice work!
OTAKUTAYLOR- did Tsumi beef up for this battle? She seems so much more buff this time around. I feel the buffness is starting to make regular things like her arms bent on the cover page and her body moving feel awkward and strained. I do admit being someone who just strolled into reading, I felt a tad lost, playing catch up who Tsumi's sister was and why the glasses were important. Giving an explanatory recap of events is hit or miss as it can bog down your pacing, but I'm not quite sure what else could be done to make sure your readers are all in the know. Much love to your inks though. Your work is always silky smooth and right on point.
Thank you all for your support and critiques! I'm so glad you guys enjoyed my comic and I'm honored Sabu drew such a brilliant comic for our match. I don't think I'll ever top laser chicken dinosaurs, hehe. You got Tsumi perfectly girl, I can only hope I didn't futs up johnny, ted, and brute too much in return. ^_^
Pocky: This was my first real experiment with panel effects and that kind of shading, so I don't deny some serious error with them. But I will try and look into discovering new ones (or better ways to draw ones) And I hope manga studio's tutorials will show me if they have any good ones! And yeah, I'm just plain not that good at hair. I'll see if I can't find a real good reference for her hair sometime.
Kinu: Sorry for the cliffhanger man, heh. As if I haven't said I'd work on it before, I'll try and add more backgrounds in the next one. I know I started off showing them because it was required to show where they were at, but I didn't even realize I skimped on them so much as I neared the end of the comic. I got used to only drawing the exact outlines of objects, so I'll try and experiment more with drawing them more creatively and with more shading/toning effects and the like.
Animeshen: Glad to hear you liked it, and I made sure Tsumi punched a dino for you! hehe. As if that wasn't going to happen anyway... I'm really glad to hear someone is interested in Tsumi's sister, Sasami. I'll hope I don't dissapoint if I end up using them both together more often.
Atomicfish: Hehehe~ I'd have to agree with you and Tsumi there. Never again. ::shudder:: Thanks for reading!
Neeners: The bar rail is rather a case of "I know what it is." and not quite realizing other people might not. But that's really true for a lot of my comics, Thanks for pointing it out and I'll try to catch that more often next time. I do have something of a problem with close ups since I usually (stupidly) refuse to use a different size tool to draw different panels, and some cases really deserve it. Plus it's easier to get "clean" lines with smaller lines. Thankfully I have a new tablet that's much bigger than my previous so I can really give those large lines on close ups some practice. Glad you liked it!
DrasticFantastic: Sneeked one in there as I was posting, hehe. I'm glad the angles and such didn't lose you anywhere, and I do apologize for the lacking expressions. I'm just not all that good at drawing and conveying emotions that much since I focused so much on drawing faces and bodies "correct" in boring poses. hehe. I'll also try and work on more actiony action shots, and hopefully stop being scared to twist angles with foreshortening.
Thanks again everybody!
*Cracks Knuckles* Ok lets dive into this one!
Sabu: The dialogue and action to action panels were done well along with some of the face faults I saw. They weren't overused which I see often so they were more funny when they WERE used. Your grasp on anatomy and proportions seems to hold up just fine from panel to panel as evidenced by drawing such a ranch of character types in one comic, and portraying a "tricky" character like Tsumi in a well done way. The backgrounds deal was already brought up by some other people so I won't just repeat the same thing. Another thing I will say is the quality of some panels compared to others seemed to fluctuated from page to page and even panel to panel on the SAME page. For example that middle panel on page 9 is done in a far cruder way craftsmanship wise than the other panels on that page. Same with the first panel of the last page. That hurt the overall quality some I gotta say (especially regarding the time you had to do this battle). Your sharpening up and its looking good!
Otaku: Your line quality and attention to detail in terms of clothing and Tsumi's anatomy is impressive but seeing as she's your character I wouldn't expect any less. Your variance of shots is good too, mixing it up with various angle and distances to the subjects, you managed to do that with me still knowing what was going on and being able to follow all the character's positions. You also did the dinosaurs up great as well, very impressive! Backgrounds were also already brought up for you so I'm gonna skip that. The range of emotions the character's faces had were sometimes rather limited, the most prominent example I can point out is the last panel of page 8 when Tsumi is obviously very distraught and ramped up at the same time. Her face in that panel was't quite as intense as I'd expect (eyes widder, mouth larger, nose and eyebrows scrunched heavier with more lines). The body language was there, just the expressions weren't quite yet. The action panels were solid too but you could maybe stand to mix them up a bit with some dutch ("tilted") camera angles, foreshortening, and less straight-on, or flat profile shots. Your growing really fast and I'm looking forward to where you pick up from this!
fun stuff!
sabulive: first thing, not a fan of the black bars on page 3. I also wish your buildings were a little more detailed, like in your establishing shot(?) on page 6. bgs in general could be "more" as well, they're very sparse in some pages. I also don't feel like they're in the dark at the second half either. I'd recommend putting more tones in your work, I think it would really benefit. overall I enjoyed it though, you have some decent lines and some great expressions. I'm curious to see where you're going with this!
taylor: more bgs for you as well! like on page 3, sweet appears to be leaning on a floating rail, and then at the bottom they are at what a appears to be a very tiny bar surrounded by nothing. some pages have no bg at all. you have some tones in this, but I wish you'd actually tone objects and people to make stuff stand out. there's also some tiling of your tone, like on page 13. I also find your inking to be generally very good in this, but in some shots (close ups mainly) the lines look crooked and uneven, where you've gone over them again. on the very last page I really can't make out what the gray stuff is. overall though this is pretty good!
Nice, ya'll
Cool! A chick-fight with chickens! As well as propane and propane accessories.
Taylor: last panel on page 8. That's what i said when I got out of high school. :I
Seriously though, it's a good high tension/emotional comic. Plush the dinosaurs look great!
laser shooting dino chickens! lol oh my god Sabu that cracked me up! Your expressions are looking good I think, and I like the black and white contrasts! Tay, your lines get more and more beautiful! And thats a wicked cool dinosaur! I can't wait to see more about whats up with Tsumi's sister!
I enjoyed both of your entries. I think both of ya can stand to push backgrounds a bit further. I see Otaku was on the right track with the bar interior. And you as well, Sabu, but the outside of the warehouse was a bit weak. Don't be scared to use references. (Though you said it was more cuz you procrastinated. Haha, just manage your time a bit better. It shows in the end result.) That being said, I loved how your story unfolded. You seem to have a knack for storytellin' and honestly that's the most important part with comics. And Otaku, I REALLY dug your line variation. You're getting there, bud. I'd like to see you try adding a bit more toning/texture/blacks since my only real gripe with your comics is that they're too flat. This current one, however, is a step in the right direction.
Curse both of you guys for leaving me with cliffhangers. Ha, can't wait to see more.
Sabu: I noticed that Tsumi's face kinda changes a little here and there. Before you draw the comic, try drawing the characters doing different expressions and angles. And whatever the good ones are, circle them, and if you need a nice reference when you're drawing your comic, just look back at the ones you circles. Also noticed that some lines are very black and clean, and some lines look like scanned drawings, because I see inconsistent fuzzies. Quick way to do it is to 'sharpen' the blacks (in photoshop there's a quick one in filters>sharpen>sharpen edges). However, you must decide if you're using soft gradients or cross hatching--if for any reason there's soft gradients, you have to mask that part out before you do it. Also, to keep womanly characters from looking a little too manly, you may want to soften up or avoid putting so many lines on their faces--they end up looking more masculine, or older/wrinklier because of that. It's a hard habit to sacrifice, as I see you do a great job drawing the monsters that way, but for characters that don't look so rough, you just got to avoid drawing those extra lines.
Otakutaylor: I like your new gradient/textures, although it does have a weird square pattern. But just seeing shading like this on your work really gives it a good oomph to it. Maybe try comic tones next? Since you have Sai, I believe you can import jpeg images, desaturate them (turn them into black+white), and set them to 'multiply' mode over your linework. It will give you more leeway on different designs and stuff. Also, some images you might be interested in for your comics (from looking at this) would be grain/sand, concrete, rusted metal, and a neat one that is commonly used is watercolor/coffee blotches (also called 'stained paper')--all of them have a somewhat consistent texture, for shading mostly. On page 11, Tsumi's hair looks unnatural when she was running. I think it should look different, since her hairband gives her two bangs in the front and pulls the rest out in the back.
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