3 / 11
Mar 2019

If you get minute, find a novel or comic of mine.

When you leave it, tell me what about it you did not like.

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    Mar '19
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    Mar '19
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Hi Cynk!
I've just read your comic "Huntress Princesses" and I'd be happy to offer you some feedback. I know it's super frustrating to not to get the response you're hoping for with your work. A disclaimer before I do so: I am just one person, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I know you are specifically seeking critique, but first something I enjoyed. In part 6, I quite liked the example of a mirror dimension with swapped gender roles. It was well executed, when you introduce the idea it makes the reader begin to speculate what that would be, and when it's revealed that our world is the mirrored one it's surprising. Good twist!

Story

  • While I think you did a good job of establishing the genre of your story as a big space epic early on, I was confused by a lot of the jargon used ("pinion", "galactic conduct circle", "planar rift gates") and felt like there was a lot of information thrown at me. It's a tricky balance between trying to set your stage and overwhelming your readers with extra information. I think it was a good choice to split it up into different places and interactions, though.
  • I'm a little unsure who your main characters are? The female in the thumbnail appears to be the title character, but she has yet to make an appearance, granted the comic is still in it's early stages. The first character that gets introduced is Hec, and it initially appears that he might be the focus. Then Cape gets brought in and so far the comic has followed him as the main character. I think giving your characters clearer personality will make your story more compelling. I find that my favorite stories are ones where I somehow get attached to the characters, and care what happens to them.

Art

  • The combination of 2D and 3D graphics certainly gives a unique look. I don't think it's necessarily bad, look at tv shows like the Amazing World of Gumball that purposely mash together a ton of styles. I think it might be helpful to make those styles mesh a little more. Your characters are in a realistic style, so I think if you could give your drawn background perspective that would help. For example in your second episode, one of the characters appears to be sitting at a computer, but if he was really looking at a screen it would be turned at an angle instead of being a rectangle. I think adding more detail to the backgrounds will help give an idea of where your characters are. That said, I think the flying through space shots work relatively well.

What do you use to make your characters? It's a cool efficient idea to have 3D models that you can position for each panel. I hope my feedback was helpful and I hope you enjoy your comics! Keep telling your stories!
~Skittish Smile

I've read the beginning of "9-C Droid, 'Girl Sleuth' (Original 2018 version)" and the most of "Bikinis And Blades Battle Arena", so I will talk about what I've seen in these particular comics firstly.

The main flaws in my opinion:

  • There are TONS of text and huge info dumps, and, in the same time, very few illustrations in general. So reader gets tired very soon. It reaches extreme degree in "9-C Droid". In "Bikinis And Blades" this flaw is represented in less degree, but we still can see it here.
  • When characters communicate, the same pictures are repeated many times, while only text in bubble changes. As the result, the comics drastically lose expressiveness, reader's eye can't catch anything new, so their attention is scattered and, eventually, reader becomes bored. Again, this flaw is stronger in "9-C Droid" and less strong in "Bikinis And Blades".
  • Faces of characters have almost no emotional expressions. In "Bikinis And Blades" they have just the same standard face expressions most of the time, no matter what happens. In "9-C Droid" they have extremely simple, sketchy and discrete expressions, without any expressiveness. This dramatically reduces the reader’s involvement in comics events. People like to see not only events, but also emotions, which they cause.
  • There are no backgrounds at all in both of the comics. Which prevents the reader from feeling immersion.
  • A lot of attention is devoted to not significant (at least, in my opinion) things. For example, in "Bikinis And Blades", parts 1-2, the heroines talk a lot about details of game controls, which doesn't add much to the plot, and, to be honest, made me tired. Also I was confused by changing clothes scene in part 5. There are near 8 of almost the same pictures here, where she stays in the exactly same pose. When I've firstly seen it, I didn't notice the difference between them. Only when I've looked more attentively, I've noticed that heroine changes one part of the clothes at each picture. I didn't understand, why the new picture is devoted to the change of every wardrobe item. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Also I'll allow myself to drop a bit of criticism about your creative works in general, if you don't mind.
The most conspicuous thing about it is, that you strongly prefer quantity over quality. You have a huge amount of comics series, but most of them consist from just a very simple, repetitive art and info dumps. :confused: It seems like you hurry too much to express your ideas, and add more and more and more new panels, instead of working through every panel thoroughly. In my opinion, it's better to have less comics, but more thoughtful ones and in a better quality.

It's noticeable, that you have a lot of ideas and like to tell your stories, which is great. :slight_smile: But unfortunately, you'll never be able to express them all, and should to choose, what to tell and how.


Hope my feedback was helpful and haven't discourage you. I've concentrated on the flaws in it, but totally recognize, that your works have good aspects as well. Particulalry, I've liked the core conception of "Bikinis And Blades Battle Arena" and would like to see, how the plot will be developed in the future. Also I was glad to see action scene in it recently.
Good luck with your creative work!

I use OpenGL software tools (like Blender and MakeHuman).

I agree with every comment you have made regarding concept description, panel quality & layout, and character introductions.

Thank You.

Thank You for these comments. I agree!

Too much is said in blocks. Overall, the panel quality is lacking. Poor background to character melding. Few devoted action sequences that spans several panels.

Right now, I have a list of new, unstarted, stories that is longer than everything I have. That does tend to push towards quantity (get this one done, so I can start the next).

I may make time for a quality change in the new stories.

Thank You Again.

Salutations!

So to start, a little bit of advice: if you want feedback you have to lead with links; if you are the one reaching out for help, you've got to link us to the where, so we know how best to help you. Without it you start off rudderless and that can make it hard for you to get the critique you want/need. Since you have so much work, I'd say provide the link to the novel you feel is struggling the most, and the comic you feel is struggling the most. That way, we know where you need our help concentrated. :slight_smile: This is just for future reference if you ever need to make another topic asking for help.

Anyhow, I decided I'd take a look at everything because, often, when you're struggling on multiple projects the actual trouble your having bleeds through to each one. I've identified some areas where you're hitting hitches and so I'll lay those out here. First thing I want to say is this: you have a good first person POV voice. You're able to keep your writing punchy in your novels (especially with your Love Whispers of Elementals) when you write in short form and first person POV is hard to maintain so, it's good that you've got a stronger voice in this manner. I will tell you, however, your writing suffers from a declination that becomes, essentially, reporting the weather. LWoE aside, most of your novels come to a point where they start just reporting to us, rather than making us feel like we're part of the world.

Case in point: A Place for Everyone has this problem. On the first page in chapter one, I actually had no idea where the protagonist was in the scene. They start describing a running demoness and a host of other things before getting to the point, which is that she was going to a meeting. Instead we get a laundry list of details that are unnecessary to the scene and throws the reader out of the moment, because they not only don't know where the protagonist is, in relation to what's being described until about half way down the page (it almost seems like the protagonist is running with her until you mention the being carried further down), but that the scene essentially has to stop in order for the descriptions to be made. Your story starts at her walking in the door before "Stay Put". Because that is where the relevant information begins.

When you start a story, that's essentially your hook, and you need to start with relevant information in order to get your audience on board. I was not on board from the off, because I couldn't make heads or tails of where the protagonist was narrating from or if the woman running was the protagonist. So, that's something to think about when starting a story, just make sure that when you're setting a scene it's relevant. The run in the beginning just feels like an excuse to describe her physical traits and while it's good to do character setup, chucking out details for the sake of doing so, can actually hurt your novel's pacing and be a turnoff. You're also in the position with that particular story, of being primarily in Passive Voice. This becomes a problem because your audience feels like they're being given second hand information, rather than being IN the story with the characters. This is something that is really rough particularly with the First Person POV.

Ways you can end up in Passive Voice are: using adverbs (ly words), or overusing filter words like while, but, seemed, has been, only, and so on. Note on filter words: they also gum up your narrative and slow down the pace of your work. This means that it takes more time to convey a point than is necessary and thus you lose your punch, something that you as an author are actually good at when it comes down to it, you just need to know when to employ that skill and how to use it while describing a scene. I've read a little of each of your stories and when you want to, you know how to use that quick clip and snappy descriptions, so just pair that with setting a scene and you're golden!

One of your works that you actually do this pretty well in, is The Travelling Lan's Galactic Tour. Since we know that we're in a big of a "blog" of sorts, the stilted reported manner of the protagonist fits, plus it also outlines that it might be part of how his species experiences the world, rather cut and dry and matter-of-fact. That being said, one of your old problems crops up: reporting the weather. "I did this, then I did that, then I did this," and on and on. While your protagonist is reporting, it would help if the action sequences were more action oriented, being that we are supposed to be IN them, rather than being told about them. That whole first scene with the shadow would've punched a lot harder, if we, the audience, were included. We need atmosphere in order to feel as if your character is actually IN the world and, if they're in any danger or in a good situation. Building that atmosphere can really shine up the good stuff in your writing.

I'll rearrange things in a snippet that I've edited so you can see what I'm talking about.

Original: I transferred myself to a large room on that other ship. I wanted a large space since only my sole transport field was available (not two fields). In the ship, I traced one life sign to a closet. I asked if anyone was there, and the reply was "please help. They have gone crazy. There's a thing." I moved her to the other ship, and likewise came back for three others.

Edited: I transferred myself to a large room on the other ship. The lights were low and flickered like dying sparks their electric buzz setting my teeth on edge. The room itself upset, tables toppled, chairs on their sides, and all manner of debris strewn about as if by a windstorm, didn't calm my unsettled nerves. Locking onto the closest life sign, traced by my systems to a nearby closet, I approached with caution.
"Hello?"
"Please help. They have gone crazy. There's a thing." said a rattled female voice from within. I took this as my cue and neared the sliding door, pushing it aside. Realization dawned on the frightened woman's face as I leaned in, I wasn't one of her crew mates. She relaxed a little as I teleported her to the other ship.

See the difference? As a reader, we can now SEE the room your protagonist is in. We can feel the room, which means that any danger that comes we can also feel and get excited or anxious about. I know that this is supposed to be the alien's retelling of a journey, but the thing is if it's just "I did this, then this happened" you're going to lose attention because your readers will get used to it, and the exciting place it's happening (Space!) will lose it's novelty. You do have moments where Lan isn't just reporting the weather, so I think that if you sure up those moments in the action, then when Lan IS writing about his journey it'll make both sides of your piece stand out for what's good about them. Keep the action solid, and then Lan's thoughts in Lan's voice (which, by the way, is well established so you did a good job here) it'll really brighten everything up.

You've actually got solid writing chops, you just have to focus on one story and make it the best in can be, rather than the shotgun approach you've taken thus far. You have 18 series out, and all of them are underdeveloped in one form or another. Now, I do understand the urge to just throw out every project you want to share while you're developing it because you love it. That really shows us that you care about what you make, and it's awesome. It's passionate about a craft and that's fantastic to see. However, the works of yours that could REALLY shine lose some of their luster because they're competing for your attention in this space. What you need to do is downsize how many projects you have going at any given time online. Don't stop developing your other ones by any means, but you have so much going on with all of your other works that the ones you do have that are fantastic are suffering as a result.

To that end, let me talk about your comics. Your comics are all the exact same format with a shuffling of plot and character models. Now, 3D comics are INCREDIBLY difficult to make. Part of the reason why is the Uncanny Valley problem. Another reason is variety. None of your models across all of your comics feel like they have variety. They feel like dress-up dolls. The women are all about the same height, weight, build, just with different clothes and hair. You also across the board have no adequate facial expressions so immediately as a reader I'm turned off to what's supposed to be the best part about a comic: the visuals. Your visuals are also confused as to what exactly you want to use. Sometimes you cut in with stick figures drawn with thick line art, or you'll draw over a model's hair1 but nothing else.

So, your visuals are confused which means your readers are confused. Primarily this confusion comes from tone. Because all we get are the large info dumps and large swaths of text that goes back to your reporting style of "This, than this" we as readers have no clue as to your tone. Is it humor? Is it serious? We're not sure because it could go either way. Since we can't read any expressions this also doesn't help because the text doesn't help. Reading 9-C Droid, I actually had NO investment in what was happening because it opens with "Well here's a droid and some technical jargon" and for the next several pages that's all it was. Huge speech bubbles, no backgrounds and no context for me, the reader, to figure out.

It's very messy visually which is off putting, again because of the large speech bubbles and swaths of text. What you need to do, is decide on a comic panel format/layout that would work for you and then find a way to organize your scene. Yes, this also includes making backgrounds. Your characters just float around aimlessly, we have no context of where they're going based on visuals and in a visual medium this really hurts your story. You might have the best story in the world but, if there's nothing to look at in a comic, people won't look. Your writing in these sections has also suffered tremendously because you're trying to include visual information as well as general information and that really kills the story. With the link I've put here I shared a section of 9-C Droid where, one of your lines is thus:

"Hello Officer N'EEDDEE. Running around. Trying to be noticed. Maybe bumping into girls."

Why are you telling us this, instead of showing us this? This could make for a GREAT visual gag. Instead of people around him narrating what he's doing, he should literally be shown zipping around the street bumping into girls. (It could be that he's clumsy or just careless, or trying to hard! Having it happen in a scene instead of everyone around pointing and saying that he's doing it, makes a HUGE difference) Draw or make a 3D model of a street and a robot, you can show the robot in 3 different places just so long as your visual cue is showing that it's meant to convey motion, and you could show him bumping into 3 different people if that's literal. Instead, we have a flat picture with no emotion and no real scene to convey to us any story.

Now, you ARE a good writer, and you can write dialogue convincingly. What you need to do now, is learn how to create better 3D models and 3D backgrounds using the program that you have at your disposal. You could even look into learning Blender (if you're not already) for your backgrounds. Now, I know that it IS hard, but if 3D is the medium you truly want to work in, you have to sure up your skill with that medium enough to convey a scene or, again, you run into the problem of people being too put off to give your story a chance and that's a shame, because you're clearly passionate about what you want to create and you're a good writer. You really do have what it takes to make something awesome and you have a lot of good ideas here in general, but in this case what I'd recommend is to pair down.

You can still keep your stories and your great ideas, haha they're yours! But instead of taking the shotgun approach and having a heap of stories all requiring your attention, focus on three. Just three. My recommendation for the 3 stories you could focus on for the attention are these: The Travelling Lan's Galactic Tour, Love Whispers of Elementals, and Chameleon Sheep. Now, you might ask, why Chameleon Sheep? For one simple reason: the visuals are uniform and more easily digestible. Your text, though still in huge chunks, is less intrusive to this comic, for one, the ideas are more easily digestible because you've included more succinct visuals AND we get to SEE things the sheep are doing conveyed by the art itself (and how they're changing). You still have the problem of no backgrounds and I'll suggest that you study backgrounds and environments. Also, on the whole the style for the comic, even though it's that sort of stick-creature style, actually plays well with the tone of the writing, so the two aren't at odds with each other. This is good! It means you've done the hardest part already, you just need an environment to put them in that makes them pop! (And also makes them more visible to the viewer. You have lots of environments across your comics where the background and the characters are almost the same in color and thus if they didn't have dots for eyes, they'd be near invisible.)

Ultimately, you can have all of your other projects on the back burner, but focus on 3 to really develop. That way you can have more than one story out there but give love and attention to those that you're focusing on more exclusively, so they become the best they can be and you can build an audience around them who can come to care about the characters and the world you created. Like I said you HAVE skill in writing, you're good at punchy when you've given your work love and attention, you really do have what it takes to make each of your works something great! But in order to do this, you have to choose a few of them at a time to really put your efforts into. No, they don't have to be the one's I suggested, I just suggested those three because of all the works you have, I remember those boldly. They stand out to me when I look at them, hell I REALLY enjoyed Lan's perspective, that's a story I know people would love if it had a little bit of editing and even more attention thrown it's way.

You've got lots of great ideas, a very creative mind and perspective to share, so if you pair down and focus on just a few projects instead of 18 across the board, your work can improve with the extra attention. Like I said, it doesn't have to be the ones I suggested, I just wanted to give you an idea from someone who read some of each of your works, what really stood above the rest in my opinion in terms of skill on display. Also on a larger note: these criticisms aren't to discourage you, far from it, it's to encourage you to use your obvious skill to sure up your already interesting work. Don't feel discouraged at all, because everybody tackles these exact same problems one at a time in their own way and at their own pace. EVERY author/artist has to overcome these obstacles at some point so that's not unique to you in the slightest. I think you can do it and polish your work, it's all just a matter of focus. :smiley:

I hope the links and advice I included help you and I wish you all the best as you continue your creative journey. :slight_smile:

There is just so very much to be grateful for in your reply.

Yes, the biggest flaw is an often discovered writing problem. Telling and not showing. That flaw is augmented by over use of passive voice and 'plot dumping'.

Art issues are glaring at this point. So every thing you mentioned is a topic for me to improve.

"The Travelling Lan's Galactic Tour" is one of several stories that lead into "The Sprites Save The Universe". I have four stories in that series completed on WattPad.

I will take your ranking of my stories to heart, but I will proceed with "Depth" and "Huntress Princesses" until those are done.

"Chameleon Sheep" will pickup as top priority after that.

Just one quick question: Am I producing novel-unique-innovative stores? Or are these simply derivative?

Hey no problem!

Well there's nothing wrong with completing a project. If you've got a few you'd rather finish first than that's awesome! Just focus on those and polish what makes them brilliant. :smiley:

One thing I'll let you know, every story starts off with "used" motifs, it's all in how you put it together. I think that your approach to stories is interesting because you start a story from unique perspectives (such as the way elementals talk to each other and how each story they tell is self contained, or an alien writing a blog. That's interesting!) I wouldn't say they're derivative, you just have to pick the ones you're focusing on and put all your skills into crafting them so that they can strut their stuff. I will say I am going to keep reading Lan's story, I want to see where it goes. :slight_smile:

Moved to ‘Feedback’. Good luck!