[OberGoat]

Hello EnterVOID!

Let me start off by telling you just a bit about myself. Back in high school, which feels like forever ago, I drew all the time. I met and became good friends with Shen and we used to draw comics all over each others' sketchbooks. It was good times.

After high school, I discovered webcomics, and have wanted to do one ever since. Sadly, somewhere along the way I lost all my confidence in my drawing abilities. It was to the point where I believed I had no talent whatsoever and completely gave up.

For about 6 years, save for the occasional sketch here and there.

Then, about a year ago I started to get some shred of my confidence back. I realized the dream of having my own webcomic never died, it just became dormant for awhile.

So, I started drawing again, and little by little I started to get back into the swing of it, after I started posting things to various social media, Shen contacted me and was all "Join EnterVOID!" and I said "Alright, I'll check it out." and because I'm such a great friend I put that off for about 6 months.

Well, earlier this week I finally did check it out and ho boy am I excited, and super anxious, about trying to become a part of this community!

Anyway, enough about me, let's get to the meat and potatoes.

I give you: Lawson!



I'll keep things pretty brief here, I'm still working on his actual design sheet and intro story. But the long and the short of it is, 6 months ago he woke up in a smoldering crater on the outskirts of Void City with amnesia and super powers. The only thing he could remember is the name Lawson, and he's not entirely sure it's even his name, but he started going by it anyway.

He was later taken in by the owner of a small arcade named Jonas Winter (He'll be on the design sheet too.)

His powers are: Super Speed, usually running around 200 mph but can push himself upwards of 500.
Increased resilience, he's basically made to absorb enormous impacts. Handy if you happen to run into a bus running 200+ mph.
With this increased resilience, he also has increased strength, by no means super human, but stronger than an average human.

Weaknesses: While it takes quite a bit to injure him, when he does get injured it takes much longer to heal.
Can't swim, he seems denser than most and has almost no buoyancy. He sinks like a rock.

[Radji]

Your Lawson is SO cartoon network ! I approve !
A super speed character, good, not enough of them in void city

[Dumorte]

awesomme! and i agree. very reminiscent of cartoon network! haha. which is greeaaat

[Animeshen]

AAAA YOURE HERE, YOU CAME, IM EXCITED!!!
so whats can you tell us about Lawson's personality? whats he like?

[Sean]

Give me comix!

[OberGoat]

Quick and dirty scan of page 1 intro story!



I'd never heard my art looks like Cartoon Network stuff before, but I think that's awesome, so thank you!

As far as Lawson's personality, he very positive. Just about everything is a new experience for him and he loves it. He's not actually actively seeking out his memories, he's just taking life as it comes to him. He loves living in an arcade and has fallen in love with video games, especially fighting games. He's always willing to make a new friend and won't hesitate to jump into danger if it means helping innocent people.

This can be a bad thing though, he doesn't always take the time to assess a situation before rushing in. Thankfully if he finds himself over his head his speed usually allows him to get out of danger quickly.

I also forgot to mention in my previous post that he appears to be in the age range of 19-22, though due to his memory loss his exact age can't be determined.

[Red]

First thing I noticed with the comics is that your backgrounds are a little wonky. Luckily, I'm prepared with tutorials! Try to think of your characters as being inside of an environment rather than thinking of the backgrounds as a backdrop.

Perspective brush up: http://entervoid.com/index.php?topic=10652.0

Background love: http://entervoid.com/index.php?topic=12151.0

I realize you have a very stylized way of drawing, which is totally fine, but I also want to encourage you to practice drawing realistic figures as well. It's only going to help you in the long run, even if you prefer to do stylized stuff.

I'll comment more once  you get out of the "quick and dirty" phase of that page

[Rose]

I think you've gotten great critiques already, so I'll just say WELCOME and I'm impressed at how you've just jumped right in! I promise you, if you keep drawing and take the good advice of the awesome artists here, you'll get SO much better. Just look at the older comics of anyone who's been around for a while and compare it with their newer stuff, and you'll see what I mean!

And just to reiterate: WELCOME TO VOID!!!

[OberGoat]

Backgrounds and life drawing have always been two of my weakest areas, thank you for those tutorials. I promise not to take 6 months to finally look at them!

And thank you for the warm welcome everyone!

[Animeshen]

my current advice is your word bubbles seem a little crammed in the panels, i didnt even see the bottom word bubble on the third panel until i got to the fifth panel. you need to give them a little more breathing room, let them be a part of the art. I look forward to seeing more from you!

[OberGoat]

A wild inked page 1 appears.

Oh God, so many crooked lines!!



I tried to play around more with the backgrounds, perspective is still something I need to work on for sure and I'll be honest I have no idea what I was trying to do with the building to the right in panel 1.

[Animeshen]

Thats already a little better! Glad you take critique well! The buildings in the first panel are still a little, like.... cardboard, like a bit empty you know? like the use of the line tool is a bit obvious. but still looking forward to seeing the rest of the pages for some context!

[OberGoat]

Okay, that first panel had to go. Here is the finalest version of the page.



Hoping to have everything ready to submit by Wednesday!

[MyHatsEatPeople]

That is a MUCH better building in the first panel good job.

[OberGoat]

Thank you! I was worried about shaky and/or wavy lines causing me to go way too overboard with the line tool, but now that I look at the two versions of the page, I like the newer one waaaaay more, shaky lines and all.

[OberGoat]

Whoops! I slipped and drew a second page! Have some back story.

[JCee]

He kind of reminds me of Goku crossed with Sonic. I really don't know why, but that's just my imagination. Nonetheless he seems like an interesting character.

I'm not a huge fan of using the pen tool, as I find it doesn't feel as natural as using a tablet pen, but if you have no tablet at this time and only have the pen tool to work with, then I can look past that. However, try and set the thickness so that it looks a little more even and smoother. It slightly bothers me when I see lines that look nice and bold on one end but become very thin and almost faded on the other. See parts of his hair for example.

[OberGoat]

No, the Sonic and Goku comparison actually makes sense. Sonic and Dragon Ball Z were two of the biggest things I was into back in the day, I've always been a big fan of super speed characters and have always wanted to do one of my own.

I see what you're saying about the line thickness thing. I just recently got a Huion H610 Pro and I'm still trying to find my groove with it so to speak. I'll fiddle around more with the brushes and try to find something that works for me, I also feel as though I need to mess with the pressure sensitivity some more. It doesn't quite feel 100% perfect for me just yet.

[JCee]

Okay, so I wasn't going crazy then XD

I feel you have more liberty and expression when drawing with a tablet pen, feels more natural and allows more control of your work. It takes a bit of practice and some getting used to, but it'll become second nature before you know it.

Then again, I used to use pen tool a lot when I first started out with photoshop. Once I got my Wacom and became more comfortable drawing with it, I've never (or rarely, at least) gone back to the pen tool as my main method.

[OberGoat]

After reviewing what I had done so far, I decided to take Lawson's story back to the drawing board, the art and pacing were all just way off. So here is a reworked version of page 1. No dialog this time, though I do have it all planned out and can add it if you all would like to see it.



Quick question to Manga Studio users out there, what brush do you recommend for inking? I started with the G-Pen but the line variation was too all-over-the-place currently using the turnip pen.

[JCee]

I use CLIP PAINT STUDIO (which basically is the same as Manga Studio) and my inking pen is usually the G-Pen set to brush size 5.0 with an opacity of 90.

Turnip Pen is pretty good as well, but hey, whichever works better for you.

[OberGoat]

I still live! Things have been kinda hectic for me the last week or so, and I haven't gotten much drawing time in.

As I said in my last post, I've decided to go back and rework the intro as I just really didn't care for how it was looking. Here's an early rough of page 2. Soon I'll be doing touch ups.