I know you're both so busy so I'm just glad to see you were able to pull this off!
I agree with Will--the characters had a lot of intriguing personality in both their facial expression and behavior. I liked when the Magical Girl Bullies showed up -- my new fave NPCs. I thought it was an enjoyable comic that could use a little polishing up. Coloring will get better with practice, but this was a fun read with a nice story nonetheless! Keep it up you two :)
Man, I think Will totally knocked it out, so I don't really have much critical stuff to say, except that I think it's sorta odd how you're doing the gutters. It's like the panels are on a black page, that's then isolated on a white page. I would say just go for one or the other, just so your gutters are less noticeable.
I really liked the designs and powers for the other magical girls, and I've always enjoyed any of the stories involving Lady Vanity's magical girl school. They're always fun and heartwarming. And don't worry about colouring being hard Pocky, it totally gets less stressful as you get used to it.
Kudos on the storytelling. There is a clear beginning middle and end. The characters` personalities are clearly defined and its fun to see them interact. The art does not hold up though as it is messy and inconsistent all the way through. The linework is slapdash and resembles basic scribbles like you guys were sketching ideas and forgot to go back and clean up the linework. Were you guys going for something more expressive? It doesn't hold up because of the lack of defined shapes. This comic resembles more the backbone of a storyboard than an actual comic. Let's look at the coloring. For those of us in which color theory is akin to complex math, it is hard to grasp. My suggestion would be to find online one of those websites that chooses complementary colors and whatever palette you get, work strictly with it. This comic is awash in oversaturated colors competing to stand out. Usually I don't recommend gradients to people not advanced enough to use them but it's the only thing here separating out the backgrounds. A recent example I can think of is the Invincible comic by Image which frequently uses gradients for skylines because of the brightly colored heroes. Along this vein I also want to point out that the messy highlights also detract especially with the inconsistent shading. Rarely some shadows are solid, other times they are odd hard shapes or soft shading. My advice is to concentrate on a set rules and be consistent. If you are going for thin lines, use hard shaped anime coloring. If you're going g for high contrast color with flats. If you're going to the expressionist route, practice digital painting or look to the work of such pro artists like mixed media artist Ashley Wood.
One more thing, kudos also to the character expressions. Try to exaggerate body language to match that expressiveness.
Really enjoyed this one. The style is pretty loose though, so I'm not sure I'd agree with NRG for additional background detail. I think that might make the pages look a bit cluttered given it's a pretty simple setting. My only complaint really comes down to the variety of perspective, or lack there of. The characters are very expressive and it would compliment them, as well as the showdown theme,l if the images didn't come off so static. Most panels seem to stay on a single plane of perspective with the characters mainly varying between profile and front view. I can't really give any tips on colors though, I still haven't successfully completed a comic in color, it's a serious pain.
Shen and I met for lunch one day, and spent about two hours just talking about it. We pretty much had a really similar idea for both our battles, which was why we decided to collaborate. Shen scripted and penciled. I inked and colored. But if you closely though, I had to redraw two panels and fix up one drawing. The style is a bit different, can you find it?:P
Everyone wants their character to ship with Lilyfeather, huh?
Nice job you guys! I am super curious how you two broke up the workload on this collab. I honestly can't tell where Animeshen's hand eds and Pocky's begins. The meeting between these two fighters felt really organic and just the right amount of silly. It helps that poor Lilyfeather adds the right amount of creep and gore with her sugarplum fairies. XD
Florence can really hold his own around magical girls which is no mean feat! I like that it wasn't the typical 'boy saves the damsel' formula either as they both appear to pitch in to save each others skins with good ol' teamwork. The panel where Florence goes super bishie had me laughing. I admit after reading this I totally ship it. Here's hoping something sparks between these two because they seem pretty great together Loving these types of battle submissions. Moar plz.
I'd like to point out this is my very first full-color comic (even if it's a collab) on Void, and it was hell. Anyone who does full color comics, you have more admiration from me than you did before. This was hell, and I pretty much died out at the end. So if anyone has pointers on keeping consistent colors or organizing layers for this, would really appreciate it.
man this was alot of FUN and It was also nice to see Lily progress more on her magic. In her intro the zombies just kill and eat but now they seem to obey her completely and don't attack till she gives the word. Excellent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkIzPExYOjg
I've been liking her more and more with each comic showing that she's not oblivious to her situation but looking at everything with positive optimism.
I loved Florence's attitude and face with the bullies getting mad over the "magic fight" with him fighting melee. It's just hilarious that they see a guy with batons, pull out the batons, go to fighting stance, and then suddenly become shocked about USING the batons.
Plus I liked how he could have totally socked the girl on page 11 yelling at him but instead showed restraint and let her leave, what a BOSS.
All in all a fun story, can't wait to see you guys team up again
Comments (13)