I've made a start on a short comic. How can I improve the artwork?

[E_Streak]

I've decided to make a short comic adapting a poem by Goethe, Der Erlkonig. I've been chipping away at the art during my spare time, and I'm mostly happy with how it's going, however I've got this nagging feeling that I'm missing something and that it could be better. So before I continue working on the next pages, I would love to hear some critiques of the artwork specifically.

The following images don't have text yet; I want to focus on improving the artwork. I'll write them alongside.

Page 1
TITLE: The Erlking
NARRATION:
Who's riding so late through the night and wind?
It is the father with his child

Page 2
NARRATION cont.:
He cradles the boy safe in his arm,
Holding him tightly, keeping him warm.
(Panels 2 - 5 have no text)

Page 3
FATHER:
Son, why are you hiding your face in such fear?
SON:
Don't you see, father, the Erlking there?
The Erlking with his crown and his shroud?

[Sunnyan]

The facial expressions and the eerie forest vibes are very good! They really suit the poem.

About the art, this might be a matter of taste but you could change some of the straight horizon lines to diagonals to get things more dynamic. Like, tilt the contents of some panels you want to be dynamic to some degree (sorry, I'm really bad at explaining this T-T).

As they ride faster (page 3), you could blur some parts of the images to show the movement and the increasing fear.
I feel like the top right panel on page 3 slows down the pace a bit; maybe a bigger closeup of the hooves with little stones/dirt flying might be good there.

You could add a long, vertical panel somewhere to show the height of the trees. But maybe on one of the following pages, I think the forest panels you already did are beautiful and don't need changing.

I hope this was helpful to you!

[E_Streak]

Thank you! It's a poem that I really really like, and I want to do it justice. This has given me a bit to think about.

About page 3, I was trying to convey the horse slowing down, which now that you mention it could definitely be portrayed better. I'm sure I can find a place for a vertical panel down the line, that's a good idea.

[Sunnyan]

I think you are definitely doing it justice! I like this poem too and your illustrations really capture the feel it has to me.

Ahh so the horse really is slowing down, in that case the panel definitely gets it across and I think you don't need to make changes!
Somehow I thought it was part of them going faster, but it makes sense for them to slow down to take a closer look at the forest.

[migxmeg]

Your artwork is perfect for this poem!! Facial expressions and body language are hitting all the right notes for me and I love the value choices that make the little boy stand out from the darkness. Dark and moody forest is lovely.

I’m going to say that the 3 panels that show the father reigning in the horse feel off to me - jarring and a bit confusing. My intuition is that it’s that typically the camera doesn’t move around so dramatically for a series of panels showing a sequence representing an action. When you have all those separate elements your brain has to kind of stop and piece them together to understand the action and it breaks the flow of reading. There are a lot of ways to do it if you feel like changing it - you could zoom way out and do three panels (gesture of stopping, stopped with dust cloud, stopped and cloud is gone), you could do just one or two panels with gesture of stopping, could have panels that only focus on horse’s feet, etc, etc. Or leave as is! It does make sense once you parse it.

[ZombieOwl]

I think the only thing I would suggest is increasing the values of your shading, ie making your darks darker and your lights lighter. The contrast will increase, making the art/shapes pop out more; at a first glance, they feel a bit flat.

Maybe experiment with the whites of the eyes being bright white, the sky behind the Erlking darker, and the Erlking has slight white outline for an eerie highlight. These are just some ideas that you can add to your current piece without having to redraw.

Play with the values and see what you can make!