Created my first comic, need advice/criticism

[Dark Spider]

Hello everyone. I just started getting serious about my comics and aspire to start my own webcomic. I have a link to one of my finished comics, could one of you give me some constructive criticism. I highly value other people's opinion about my comics.

Here are the comics...

Here is the actual comic (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/16987198/) which is at DeviantART
(I apologize for its small size, but I can't seem to resize it at all.)



I'll tell you a little about the comic...

The comic is essentially about a group of 3 orphan kids that decide to travel the world because they have nothing else better to do. The silver haired boy, Zoan, is very strong, but simple. The little girl with the blackish hair, Trina, is the group's sly jerk character. The small girl with the red hair is Kaira and she's a fairly smart fairy. Both girls fight over Zoan's affections in hilarious ways...with Zoan oblivious to the fact.

The comic went though a few stages of development. First is the script stage where I plan the dialouge and what exactly I want happening in the comic. Then there's the thumbnail stage where I plan how the comic will look, in terms of expressions and compositions. Next, there's the pencil and inking stage, where the final product gets drawn and inked. Then there's the clean up stage where I scan it into my computer, run photoshop, and clean up my lines and whatnot. Then finally is the coloring/finalization stage where I color in the piece and prep it for viewing (in Photoshop 8/CS).

This particular comic marks my first time that I used Photoshop for comics. I used Photoshop before in my Computer Design classes and whatnot, but I generally winged through that class and didn't learn how to effectively use Photoshop. I did a piece before this actual comic that I call my color guide (which can be found here (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/DarkSpiderZero/TrailblazerscolorguideFinal.jpg)). The color guide consists of a drawing of the 3 kids in my comic in color. It took me 4+ hours to go through Photoshop and to effectively color that it. The comic itself only took about 1 and a half hours because by that time, I developed a routine in Photoshop to do comics in.

My Photoshop routine is first I scan the drawing in at 300dpi. Once I loaded it up in Photoshop, I do Edit>Adjustments>Replace Color to whiten the page and to darken my line work. Then I use the eraser to touch up some of my line work. Next, I make a duplicate layer so I have 2 layers of the same thing. I use this duplicate layer to do my actual coloring stuff on. I have my coloring guide for my characters on hand, so I can use the eyedropper tool to copy colors and use them on the comic. To fill in large areas closed areas, I use the Paintcan tool. To fill in broken in areas and do some detailed coloring, I use the pen tool. For colors that need to go on top of other colors (like the highlights in Trina's hair), I use an additional layer. I use the brush tool to patch up spots of missing color. After my coloring is done, I multiply my duplicate layer so that layer and my original layer with the original line work can show through at the same intensity. This process makes the line work even more darker and easier to see. Afterwards, I'm ready to save and go on from there.

For my first attempt, I think I did pretty good. I see alot of areas where I could improve in both line work and Photoshop work. Its good to note that I skipped the cleaning up stage for this comic, so some of my line work looks rough. For the comic, I just went for the simple coloring in stuff, without doing anything fancy. I'm sure as I use Photoshop more, my results will look better and better. Already through this second run through of Photoshop, I found some nifty things that I could do to improve the overall quality of my artwork.

What do you guys think of my comic? Give me a detailed analysis like composition, color, characterization, dialouge, and whatnot. Also feel free to give me some tips for the comic and Photoshop in general.

[James]

I've moved this to the Workshops with a redirect left in the main forum as your post seems a bit of both.. a look and comment on what you've done AND constructive/technical advise. Hopefully you can get both!

It's hard to comment on it as a comic when it's SOOOO small! :p As for the process, sounds okay to me. Since I ink and tidy on the paper myself, once I scan in at 300 dpi, I just adjust the balance of brightness and contrast to kill the tonal "damage" to the scan.

Not sure on the font you are using - hard to see from here, looks very thin and vertical against art which is very curvey.

The reason comics have lettering that is more curved and friendly like "comic sans ms" as a generic example is as it's letter forms relate to the shapes in the page. Comics have very curved characters, so it's good to choose a font which does the same.

Colours are good and clean - though of adding an extra layer of colour and "multiply" it to create some cell shading? Could add some depth to the art.

My final critical comment would be perhaps to think some more about frame shapes and using frames to help the story. Frame 1 being an establishing shot might have been nice as a long rectangle frame, as if the camera pans over to the characters on the far right... ideas like that. Comics are as much about visual direction as films. Worth watching a few films to get an idea of how you can use such ideas to strengthen the strong foundations you are already creating.

[Outlander00]

Well you wanted it, DS... you got it :p

First off, there isnt much to comment on in terms of charicaterization, storyline or dialogue since it is one page and not a lot of dialogue.

The line work, overall, is good but the rendering gets very clumsy on panel four and the last one. check your proportions on # four while try playing with different poses and angles on the last panel with the girls.

The colors are kinda mixed.... The coloring on the characters are alright but certain things (like the bear or the background on the last panel) are left to be desired. The brown is too dark on the bear whereas the background on the last panel the pink and orange colors are the same value on the color charts... not to mention they arent pleasing on the eye together. Color is a VERY hard thing to grasp... and its not without its problems to even the best artists out there. My advice is to rethink your palette, using the info from all the color workshops that we have put together. Also, like SJJ said, you may want to toy with the idea of cell shading as well.

The frames, as SJJ said, are a bit wonky and its worth while to study a few films you like or even comics or anime to get an idea in terms of the story telling. As he said, comics rely on the same thing that any other sequential media do: visual direction. You have to remember when doing anything like this that its not you that has to follow the story but your audience.

Overall you have a strong start but there is more development you have to do with this before you get it to where, I think, you want to be :)

[Harley]

Slight disagreement on the larger establishing shot. I thought what you have there worked fine. I thought your second shot needed the extra space to really establish the location of your character to the bear(?).

(I'm also minorly anti-splash page, because it's so overused at this point and generally to make up for a lack of actual story to fill that space... so that's likely heavily influencing my opinion here. For once I'd like it to not take me three minutes to read through a three or four dollar comic.)

In panel 5, I can put 2+2 together, but it's not visually apparent as to what's happening to the bear. Also, from Zoan's pose, I don't get that he's actually as badass as he says he is.

Perhaps it's me being nitpicky (panel 3-4), but I've got a minor physics qualm. With knowledge of how high the tree feels in your comic page, momentum and with my miniscule white belt level of experience in karate... I've got to say that I don't think there's enough time in that drop for him to entirely reorient himself mid-air from a belly-flop position to a flying side-kick. It might be neat to see him already in his kick position and flying *towards* the camera in panel 3.

Although, why is he hurting that poor bear??? :mad:

As far as the color goes, there were places where it could have been used better utilized.

In panels 1 & 2 you have two main focus points. Zoan and the bear. In panel one you might have been able to keep the focus on them moreso if the tree silhouette was a shade of green (with Zoan remaining in that blueish color or perhaps reddish since the color isn't being used in that panel). In panel 2, Zoan really doesn't pop out as a focus point. Since the rest of the panel is so light, perhaps darken his silhouette?

Zoan's color scheme is very muddy. His pants and his shirt are too similar. If you removed the color and were just left with shades of gray I'm fairly certain the two would be indistinguishable. In fact, try throwing your pages into grayscale every now and again. That'll help you in deciding if you should change colors around to really make your characters pop.

In panel 4, I think the red makes the panel too violent. (Why's he beating down on the poor bear? :crying: )

In panel 5, the gray background really takes away even further from Zoan's badassness. Pose and color could really make that panel pop and feel victorious.

In panel 6, the orange and pink are just a little too similar.

Sorry. I didn't mean to write quite this much. :sweat: I do help it's of some help, though.

And this was a good early attempt. I was suprised that the page flowed as well as it did. It pulled my eye right from panel to panel as it was supposed to. That's what people have the most difficulty with. It's a good sign when people leave the most vital aspect alone and flock to nitpick on the other ones.

Thumbs up! It'd be nice to see some backstory and continuation to what's going on there.

[Dark Spider]

Thanks you guys so much for your critiques. What the average critique seems to be my coloring, and I agree. I've been drawing for a long time, but I never took the time out to work in color. This comic is pretty much my first serious attempt in color, thanks for the advice. Harley, the reason why the character is killing the bear is because it's going to be his dinner. I have the comic finished up to number 6 and the character eats the bear around comic 4. I'll definitely keep all of your critiques in mind when I rework the comic, thanks! :)

[wolverine1892]

Well, the comic is small. I had same problems with my comic. I think that the ides is good though. I have few advices. Try to delete the pencil before you scan the comic. Never, and I mean it, never use the ink on both sides of the paper. Also, if you never tried it before, try using the Save for web option in Photoshop. It alows you to see what colors you'll loose, the time needed for it to show through the net. And the best thing is that you don't have to resize it if you chose the right option.:anime:
You can see the way I did my comic here (http://www.alto.co.yu/Marta_Strip/strana-oo1a).
I hope I'll be able to read it soon.

"That should definetily shake your rep as the made-in-Hong-Kong version of me." Wolverine to Sabertooth in Ultimate X-Men, Return to weapon X, part 6