Exchanging feedback/critique

[Zhengo]

Hi guys, I recently finished up the first arc of my comic. I'm interested in getting some feedback on the story so far. In exchange, I can provide feedback for your own comic/novel if requested. Thanks all in advance!

Read Luma | Tapas Web Community

[jwabeasley]

Sure, I can do a critique! Might take me a bit. In the meantime, feel free to give me the same level of critique that you would like:

Read Etherwood | Tapas Web Community

[wolflu66]

Hi, may I provide feedback on the visual aspects rather than the story?

Actually, your art is really great, and I'm not sure if my perspective is correct.

I was thinking that currently, the proportions of black, white, and grey areas in the panels are very similar, which sometimes makes it lose visual focus.

So controlling the distribution ratio of these elements might help make the visuals more eye-catching.

And here is mine. If you want, please take a look and subscribe to it
feel free to give me some feedback.

Read Roars and Whispers | Tapas Web Community

[jwabeasley]

It'll take a little while for me to get through all 20 chapters, but my impression is very positive so far!

[heyroxi]

I can do the same, but mine is not a comic but a novel so let me know if your interested.

Read Dominance of Viled Hearts | Tapas Web Community

[Zhengo]

Thanks for taking a look. I just finished up what you have in your comic so far, and I quite like it. The art and coloring are very vibrant and charming and create a nice feel for a fantasy story. The worldbuilding so far is intriguing and how the forest seems to have its own civilization and leadership. The characters themselves all seem to have distinct personalities and dialogue quirks and I like that we slowly learn about them through the events they encounter instead of having some kind of big backstory drop.

For some critiques, I think some consecutive panels may need some more transition, as sometimes it is a little jarring when jumping from one panel to the next. For example, when Veronica is standing by the door, and the next panel she is hugging her father. I think that it feels like a bit of a skip because the panel before we see her with her father, it didn't seem to indicate that she noticed him outside the door.

I think another area of improvement is to try to keep some connecting subjects within the same panel for better clarity of how scenes are flowing. For example, the scenes with the bird spirits and the lightning, while I can assume the lightning was coming from the bird spirits, it's hard to tell how exactly they are controlling the lightning. Are they calling it from the sky, or are they shooting it from their hands? Most of the time, the lightning and the birds are on separate panels.

I also think in action scenes you could have more instances of having the opponents within one panel as to give readers a better sense of where each characters are positioned spatially. Such as when the fox jumps onto the bird, we could try to have one panel of the fox jumping towards the bird. I think the break up of the panels of the fox jumping, then the next panel of him on the bird, makes it feel more like he jumped and then teleported on top of the bird

I hope this feedback helps! I think the writing and art is quite nice and most of the things stated are relatively small things I think could be improved on to have a better flow between panels.

[Phantomobservant]

I love the cover, the fiery orange contracting the deep blues looks present to the eye,
The world-building is interesting. After reading the first couple of episodes, I already want to read more and see how Zessen struggles with not really being her own person and technically being someone else. I'll write a proper critique in a bit.
here's my novel if you are interested

Read Inferior The world of Enterex :: The terrible summer | Tapas Community

[Zhengo]

Thank you for the feedback! I agree that I need to work on having better foreground/background values to have better visual focus, which I'm trying to work on to improve in the chapters I'm working on.

I took a look at your comic, and I really like the designs of the characters and the ink wash art style. The world and story seems very high stakes and has potential to create a lot of thrilling moments. The characters have clear motivations.

For some areas of improvement, I think that beginning action panel of the Nekoto dashing past the zombies and seeming to slice them up could use more clarity and impact. Also, while I see the intention of having the main characters in more detailed colors while the corpses are in black and white as to put focus on the main characters, I think the black and white corpses could use maybe some kind of additional simple shading or color wash at some moments, as sometimes it comes across more as unfinished, so I think adding a little bit more polish there will really bring the visuals together

[Zhengo]

Yeah, I don't mind providing feedback to novels. Yours seems a bit long so it may take a bit for me to get back to it but I'll try to read the whole thing

[Buggirl13]

Read Pretty Much Paradise | Tapas Web Community

here's my comic!

Ok here's my criticism for the first volume, will probably read the second one too but that may take a while so....
First of all, I love the artstyle, especially the full color pages at the beginning of each chapter and the cool prologue at the beginning! The fight scenes are really dynamic and impressive, the characters are likable and have very recognizable designs, overall I was invested in the story and thought it was very good.

For criticism, it was a little bit difficult to follow at the beginning, though I did get the general idea of what was happening. Also idk if this was just my bad internet or something, but the pages took way more time loading than normal, maybe making the page size smaller considering how big the updates are would be helpful?

[jwabeasley]

@Zhengo

I made it through to the end! You have an excellent comic, I enjoyed reading it the whole way through. It reminds me a lot of the game Indivisible, which is a very positive comparison, I think.

Your greatest strength is the amount of energy and movement you put into your panels. They especially shine during the action moments, which are gripping and engaging, and even if I sometimes get a bit lost in what is precisely happening, I never lose track of who it is happening to and how everyone feels about it - and its clear that both of those things are your priority in those moments.

Your themes of identity and freedom are crystal clear, and all the characters and events provide strong contrasts on them. Nobody has precisely the same take on them, and the contrasts between characters drive the story.

The characters are very strong. Zessen is a good lead and the comic overall does a good job of presenting the world as she sees it. The other characters play off her well and always seem distinct, nobody is reacting to the situations the same way. The main cast is wisely limited, giving plenty of room for each one to grow. I would like to see more variation in their diction but it is not necessary.

The mystery plot unfolds very naturally from the motivations of the main characters, and I never felt like anything was shoehorned in or there was any deus ex machina involved.

One section that could use improvement, though it isn't a story hindrance, is backgrounds and establishing shots. Most of the time you only have a hint of a background in the panels, but even when you go for it, they tend to be rudimentary. While more detail and texture could help, the main thing is that each of the environments we visit look so similar, they might as well be the same town. You have a godly realm, a holy city with wind gliders, several villages, a record-keeping city, and a town of mind controlled zombies - they could all look wildly different if you wanted them to. It might be worth looking at the environments from Indivisible (since you're so similar) and seeing what they did to keep each zone visually distinct. The built environment is a character too!

If you felt more confident in your backgrounds, you might be more willing to bring the camera out a bit when the story calls for it - but the comic is excellent as-is.

Also, you could stand to post your Patreon link around a bit more, if you want people to use it. We won't get sick of it, I promise. Where is it?

Overall, you have an excellent, focused, and very dynamic comic with great movement, fun action, and great characters. It ought to have twice as many subscribers as it has!

=======================

Maybe we should collab some time since it seems our comic strengths are in different directions. I know action sequences and limiting the story scope are weaknesses of mine that I need to improve on! In any case, there's a lot I admire about your work.

[Zhengo]

I just finished all the chapters currently in your novel. I think the premise is quite unique for an isekai and that kept things unpredictable and kept me guessing of what would happen next. The isekai idea of a girl having to use her wits to survive a hostile environment without any help from steadfast allies or any powers, all on top of being disguised as a man makes it quite interesting in the current isekai landscape. I think overall, the plot so far has been quite intriguing and doesn't fall into predictable formulas, so things come off quite fresh.

I had a few critiques on the early chapters telling how the character feels instead of showing it, and also feeling like the overly comedic voice from Tuk detracted from the stakes or any stress or trauma they might be feeling. However, I do think that does improve in the later chapters and the ones focusing on Leon or Michaelli's character was very interesting and tries to use descriptive language to show his current emotions instead of just stating his emotions. I actually think currently the prince is the most interesting character in the story. The dynamic between him and Tuk is very compelling to read as there's a balance of danger and strange comradery between the two. Making the protagonist asexual and dealing a bit with how that impacts the character was also a welcome change of pace from the typical isekai and opens up a lot of potential for interesting scenarios.

One thing that kind of confused me in the story was how the different POVs are handled. Most are narrated first person from Tuk, but I feel as if there are a few POV chapters that are in third person but still feel like it's basically third person limited from Tuk's POV. Then there are the third person chapters that are decidedly not through her POV. And then there's also a few third person chapters that feel like it's third person omniscient. There's also instances where the POV would switch between third person and first person within the same paragraph. I think you should probably make a hard decision between what third person POV should entail. Is it third person limited from a non-Tuk POV? Is it third person omniscient? Personally, I definitely think that if the POV is limited to Tuk's thoughts, it should not be in third person and to keep it in first person.

I'm also thinking that if the third person POV is not from Tuk's thoughts, that the character should regard Tuk with he/him or they/them pronouns as to illustrate what gender the character views Tuk as currently (this is in the case if the character is not aware of Tuk's true gender). I think this is becoming especially important in the latest chapters as her identity is starting to be found out by some of the characters. The reason I am suggesting this is because having those POVs outside of Tuk refer to Tuk as she/her makes it confusing on whether that character knows about Tuk's true gender. It's not as big of a problem in the early chapters since basically no one knew her gender, but it will start to get very confusing as some characters find out and some characters are still in the dark. It will cause readers to have to rely on only their memory to recall if there was a point in the plot that a character found out, or even make readers think that the character had already guessed her gender off screen.

The last thing I want to suggest is more minor and maybe a little subjective. I feel like I've read a lot of descriptions of Michaelli smirking or grinning. While I understand it's to illustrate Michaelli's cold and somewhat cocky confidence, I feel like you might want to vary the descriptions of body language beyond just his face. Maybe talk about the way he walks, his hand movements, how he talks?

Overall, I think you have very cool and unique ideas and your plot has a lot of potential for interesting events that keeps people on their toes. You also exhibit good improvement in your skill and I have confidence you will keep growing.

[Zhengo]

Thank you for the detailed feedback! I've always been struggling with backgrounds but have been trying to improve it and use more references. I'll keep working on it! I'll also try to link my Patreon more

Also thanks for the collab offer! Sounds like a fun idea and I'd be interested

[Zhengo]

Thank you for taking a read of my comic and giving me your first thoughts. I look forward to the proper critique later.

I read your novel and I think you got a good hook going on. You did a good job at making the setting of the story feel dangerous with the first chapter and the ended on a mysterious cliffhanger of how the boys' father died. I personally felt uneased when the two were traveling through the sewer.

For some areas of improvement, I think that you should work on the grammar and proofreading the story. I spotted a lot of punctuation mistakes. Also, when writing dialogue, they should generally be in their own paragraphs. And dialogues from two different characters should be in their own two separate paragraphs.

[Zhengo]

Thanks for the feedback on the first volume! I also read your comic and I think it's cute! The art style is charming and the characters all look unique from each other. The dialogue bounces of each of the characters well.

For improvements, I think you could try to vary the camera angles for each panel. Right now, in every scene, there is not much variation of the composition of each panel. It's usually a straight view of all the characters, or the panel individually focuses on the character that is talking. It makes it a little stale visually. Even though most of the scenes currently are just characters talking to each other, there are will ways to vary the panel composition. You could focus on a specific body part to convey some kind of body language from a character, change the camera angle to more interesting viewpoints, or even focus on certain surrounding objects that you think might show relevance to the dialogue.

[NewAgeComics]

Read ALPHA SQUAD | Tapas Web Community

Read Through Mortal Eyes | Tapas Web Community

Feed back please
The last chapters

[Buggirl13]

thank you for your feedback! i will definitely take it into account when making further panels

[heyroxi]

Oh my god! Thank you so much for this! You pointed out exactly what I’ve been struggling with—especially showing different perspectives. xD

I’ve always been a reader, so this is my first time trying to write. Honestly, I’ve had a lot of struggles here and there, so your feedback is definitely helpful! I want to improve but just lost on how to properly do it.

I’ll get back to you once I’m done reading yours—or I might just comment directly on your comic since I usually read on my phone. Thank you 🪶