opinions on efx

jas

Haven't posted up much work so far though I've been busy drawing away. So here's some and an introduction...
This is what I put up yesterday, the 34th page of a strip I've beenw writing set in the world of modern crime. This scene places two smugglers on the road to the spanish-french border which is supposed to be quiet... The girl's taking advice from their partner whose as much an amateur as you or I....



I'm drawing the old fashioned way, pens and markers and scanning in. though I wonder whether to drag this through photoshop to add airbrush efx to street lamps, car lights and the like.O_o


(The rest is up at www.smugglingvacation.co.uk)

Davoid

I can't offer suggestions, but I will say that I read through what is up, and I highly enjoyed it. Great work.

jas

C'mon - I'm making final decisions on saving artwork for printfiles. It's a big decision cause I'm going to be printing it in a few months time and when its out there I'm gonna be a little pissed if people then shake their heads and say,"You know what I think it needed..." So go with it as it is or add a little postproduction?O_o

ph00l

I find the lowercase i's rather distracting, though they do make the dialog more distinctive.

NightDragon

What's with all the dashes? And you even have a dash right next to a comma. I think the lowercase i's would work fine if the text was more consistent...the letters getting squished beneath the T's are also a bit distracting, and make the text look cluttered.

ManonvonSuperock

the lowercase i's are annoying as hell. i would veto the photoshop airbrushing that you are considering, though.

Brolo

I can't follow what's going on. Your characters seem to take turns going between being happy and normal and EXTREEM ANGER for no real reason. You've also got lots and lots of text on your pages, to the point where it seems to be hurting both your writing and the art, and makes everything a little distracting to look at. Being succinct is important.

I like the old-timey feel of your artwork, so I would stay away from adding special effects to it, since they have a tendency to both look out of place when merged with traditional work and also make your drawings look flat. What I would do is a bit more digital colour correction - right now you have one messed up colour palette going, where your blue shadow tones are closer to your highlights than your blacks, with some elements like sound effects being super saturated, which is nice for contrast but really distracting.

Jeak

READiNG WiTH ALL THOSE CAPS AND LOWER CASE i'S, SQUASHED UP TEXT AND, RANDOM, PUNCTUATiON iS: LiKE READiNG WHiLE A WOODPECKER MAKES - A NEST iN YOUR FOREHEAD.

But then I remember that being said before by someone else and nothing was done about it.

jas

Hyphens - some need pulling out from this latest page. Agreed.

Art - keeping it as it is seems to be the right thing. So no post-prod then.

Content - many get, some don't. Am planning to print and sell in the U.K, Netherlands and perhaps France/Belgium.

Lettering - quite traditional a style. Perhaps a little difficult to read on a screen but I'm sure'll be good on the print copy.

Thanks for the feedback. You live and learn.;-)