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Jpr's attempts to art! (Critique appreciated)
Jproductions
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Thanks everyone who commented on my comic! While I continue to slowly work on it in the shadows, I'm no longer looking for feedback on this particular early version. This thread is now about my art in general!
The original first post can be found in the spoilers:
The original first post can be found in the spoilers:
Hello everyone! New guy here. I'm an aspiring webcomic artist, and was wondering if you guys were willing to give me some crits and stuff. The people I usually hang around haven't been very good in that department.
So I'm working on this comic right now and my dream is to have a website dedicated to it one day, once I actually have enough content for one. The thing is I'm really self-critical and self-doubting at times and this has been greatly hindering my progress in the past. Anyway my goal here is to tell fun stories and make a webcomic that is fun to read, because not all webcomics are. I've come across many that have really good art, but are a huge pain to read, either the page layouts are confusing or there are walls of really tiny text crammed inside the speech bubbles. Whenever I have to go back to the previous panel because I missed a speech bubble that I didn't initially see, I'm sort of disencouraged to continue reading. Now I have no idea whether I've actually succeeded or not, I'm not entirely willing to trust my own judgement on the matter because I'm highly biased. So maybe some of you could tell me what you think?
Anyhow, without further ado, the comic. It's about two guys who live together and play videogames build stuff in sort of a futuristic sci-fi world. I have no name for it yet but that's probably irrelevant at this point. What I'm showing here are the first seven pages of the first story, so they're supposed to introduce you to the characters and to some extent, the setting. Please let me know if it makes sense on its own or if additional explanation is needed. So, yeah, here goes:
I hope you enjoy it and thanks in advance.
So I'm working on this comic right now and my dream is to have a website dedicated to it one day, once I actually have enough content for one. The thing is I'm really self-critical and self-doubting at times and this has been greatly hindering my progress in the past. Anyway my goal here is to tell fun stories and make a webcomic that is fun to read, because not all webcomics are. I've come across many that have really good art, but are a huge pain to read, either the page layouts are confusing or there are walls of really tiny text crammed inside the speech bubbles. Whenever I have to go back to the previous panel because I missed a speech bubble that I didn't initially see, I'm sort of disencouraged to continue reading. Now I have no idea whether I've actually succeeded or not, I'm not entirely willing to trust my own judgement on the matter because I'm highly biased. So maybe some of you could tell me what you think?
Anyhow, without further ado, the comic. It's about two guys who live together and play videogames build stuff in sort of a futuristic sci-fi world. I have no name for it yet but that's probably irrelevant at this point. What I'm showing here are the first seven pages of the first story, so they're supposed to introduce you to the characters and to some extent, the setting. Please let me know if it makes sense on its own or if additional explanation is needed. So, yeah, here goes:
I hope you enjoy it and thanks in advance.
Jproductions on
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The thing that gets me is the design of your main characters. I kinda wish you had used different shapes for them in their construction. When I first saw the 2 dude, I thought he was a clone of the first guy. Maybe brush his hair differently, change his eyes a little... Just a little something. Also I'm not a huge fan of the dudes skinny mo. in some of the smaller drawings, it starts to look like his mouth, and his mouth looks like his chin
I do see where you're coming from with the characters looking a bit too similar at first glance, and I'm pretty sure the hair is the main culprit, since they both have these silly bangs. I'm definitely going to look into that. As for the skinny mustache, it has been bothering me for a while and if others are going to confuse it for a mouth, that's probably a good enough reason to just get rid of it altogether.
I also agree that the colors are nice. Layouts are pretty good, and the word bubbles are placed with thought. I think the line width could use some work still, and having more thickness here and there, to emphasize space in a 3D world, would help punch things out a bit more.
INSTAGRAM
Anyway I quickly whipped up some silhouettes to illustrate that I'm not in fact just crazy:
Also, I agree about the line width, and it's something I've been trying to work on, but also something I often just forget about.
Take for instance the facial silhouettes of Hey! Arnold . Each character with a very distinct shape. I think that is more about what he's getting at. Hell, even penny arcade does it with their recurring characters. Round, square, teardrop, pointed etc.
I'll play with the design of the characters a bit and see what I can come up with.
Anyway, like I said, I played with the design of the other main character, and it took a while to get it right. I think I did though and I'm very happy with the result, and I do think this was important, so thanks all who gave their opinion on the matter. I think it took the redesign to really fundamentally understand what you were talking about.
I updated a page with his new design and here's how he looks now:
I think there's a nice contrast between the main characters now.
I DO think you are crazy with those silhouettes though, because when I squint my eyes, they all look pretty much the same except the middle one has slightly more puffy hair.
INSTAGRAM
I'd like some comments on whether I should have each page stand on it's own a bit better. I'm planning on having a couple of stories ready before I launch my site, but after that I'm probably going to be updating one page at a time. So what I'm currently pondering is, whether the current format would work or not. Because I could concievably edit the script to have each page feature some sort of a punchline.
The only thing that came to mind for me was refining your dialogue. It's pretty good, but there are spots where you could afford to cut it down a bit. Example: "You can't expect me to support the both of us by myself forever!" It feels slightly forced and redundant. Just removing the "by myself" part would be slightly more to-the-point. It's a little nit-picky, but you don't want to hurt the flow of your comic! The best tip is to read your scripts out loud so you can see if it feels natural.
I love this format. Cucumber Quest is my favorite webcomic, and it is set in full-page form(versus the three panel jokes). If you take a look at a random page you can see that there's no "punch line" per se, but something at the end of each page that leaves you wanting more. It's a format that works really well, and I think it's truly a matter of preference.
Only complaints are: ditch the color scheme word balloons, I agree with MD's critique of your dialogue, aannnnddd for some reason I just don't like a single thing about that Irene character.
The colored word balloons are kind of an eyesore and you could use some white in the panels anyways. The problem is they don't always mesh with the colors of the backgrounds and it detracts the viewer from the rest of the art.
As for Irene...I don't know, her expressions and design just kind of feel forced to me for some reason. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way.
Oh, and I think you could cut down on your use of speedlines just a bit, you've got them like every other panel as it is, for stuff that doesn't really need that kind of emphasis.
I dunno, I suppose the current format works. It'll never be a three panel comic that's for sure, but I was thinking maybe something like a mix of the two? I'll see if anyone else has differing opinions and think about it while I edit the existing pages to match the new character designs.
Since I wasn't very far into this yet, I'm going to redraw all the pages, I find that a better solution than a whole bunch of editing. Production so to speak is a bit slow right now though, because I'm in the process of trying to get into architect college or whatever it would be called in english, and I have to practise for the exams. Conveniently though, it's also practise for everything else. So I killed two birds with one drawing and did some world building or something:
I'm trying to get into painting but it's something I never really had any idea how to do, so please excuse my not-so-great attempts. Those are all based on photos, some more loosely than others. I should probably do some black and white studies first before getting into color, it's pretty complicated. Honestly though I don't think they're that bad for a beginner. Feedback would be appreciated.