Please Critique My Oneshot Comic

[Zpreader]

Hello!

Today I released a oneshot comic named Dragon X Rider today and if anyone is willing to give it a read and give me some feedback I'd really appreciate it. It can be on the art, story, lettering, coloring, or whatever else sticks out to you. Any comments you have concerning what you like, what you don't like, and what you think I need to improve on are all greatly appreciated

Dragon X Rider | Tapas

[DaisyYoung]

Hey, I checked out the comic. First of all: awesome job! I love the combination of the black and white monochrome color palette combined with the fresh cyan backgrounds, really makes the characters pop out of the page. And when the first yellow page appears? BAM, so visually neat!! The character design is unique and the perspective is chefs kiss, the only thing i would perhaps advise you on is to try and make the character a little less stiff. What can really help with that is sketching random poses from photo references.

I love how you tell the story without words and convey emotions despite the characters' faces either being obscured or not humane. The action plays out so well, I think this short being animated would do it so much more justice than the limited comic format! I feel like the protagonist's face being very heavily anime inspired does not suit the rest of the art style all that well, but it was just that i expected something else, definitely not a mistake on your part! Perhaps you could try to study more realistic faces though, it really helps with adding uniqueness to the faces of your characters!

I love the many many perspective shots and how you portray the action from all different sorts of angles, and they all look amazing, especially the aerial shots! The last shot is very lovely and comforting and gives of a lot of emotion, showing you can do other stuff than just action. I really enjoyed the read and will check out what you put out next, especially if you maybe study more about human anatomy and expressions. Amazing work and thanks for sharing it with us!! <33

[Zpreader]

Thank you so much for the review! I wasn't even thinking about the posing but you're right, I definitely need to work on that. And while I do love drawing in a more anime-esque style, there's still alot of room for improvement on my facial expressions too. I'll be sure to pay more attention to these things in my next story.

Thanks again!

[Dialusion]

Just finished reading Dragon X Rider. First things first, monochromatic comic with no dialogue is absolutely my aesthetic. Silent story telling is always interesting to me and I always up to reading stories that use it. Using blue for the sky and the Mana-Knight's eye is an (pun not intended) easy on the eye choice. I like to focus on Character Design since that's more my angle and only having 3 "characters" to focus on makes this simpler.

Mana-Knight: In full armor, I think it's solid. Simple but effective, I like how small and light she's designed so her Dragon partner doesn't have to carry more that it needs to. Something I would do is have a small design detail that's similar to their Dragon, either on the helmet or on shoulder. Something like a shared mark. Helmet-less, the blue-eyes are a nice touch. The best shot of her is that final hit near the end after closing in. Between her and her partner in that shot, that could be a great promotional illustration / cover.

Partner Dragon: Looking at it for a second time, I didn't realize how small it actually was. The little detail on it, especially in the face, made it cute. The little bits of it's personality shown through it's actions were charming. Like with Mana-Knight, a little extra detail that resembled/complimented their Rider would be a nice touch.

Bell Dragon: I say Dragon, but it's more of a Wyvern. Good design difference between it at the Partner Dragon. Very large, imposing and battle worn, a clear danger to our main duo. Not much else to say, I like it's design a lot.

Overall, fluid action, good use of the monochromatic art style, an easy and entertaining overall read. I like it! Good work, keep it up!

[ChaiKat]

Hi! I really enjoyed the comic so I wanted to leave some feedback.

I read it twice, and my first impressions: good setup for the story, with just enough environment shots. The limited colour scheme was great, and introducing different saturated colours later on really added some vitality to it, like having a different flavoured skittles candy piece.
The action scenes were great, I can hear the explosions everytime I see the smoke clouds and play out the scene quite smoothly in my mind overall. The last panel was pretty special too, so wholesome!

Now for the critique: I read it twice over because unfortunately I did not pick up on the significance of the bell the first time; I was on mobile so it appeared small to me and I glazed over it because the two panels were grouped close together? Gestalt!

There were a minor few points in which the immersion was lost for me because I was trying to figure out what was happening in the panel and it’s mostly due to technical issues like contrast and clear drawings in general. For example, I was confused with panel 5 -it appeared to me a giant hand as its size in relation to the background rocks is similar. It could also be fixed by adding a blade of grass or something else in the foreground piece just to compare. Another is panel 24 with the whistle - the background value in grey is almost, if not the exact same vaue as the armor and I had difficulty reading the image.
Finally, as pointed out earlier - anatomy is tough so I’m absolutely overlooking those areas because I know you’ll improve in the future as you keep practicing! Mine’s not perfect either anyway haha.

My favourite panels: 12-13 (in case it’s not the correct number - the knight getting ready to draw the sword, I just reeally like the perspective and how you used shadow!). Panel 43 (the bright orange and purple, lettering), and finally panel 56 (knight on the dragon with smoke in the bg. The lineart here is stronger and defined here in comparison to the rest, also I like that the colours are desaturated and coloured greys rather than total greyscale)

So overall, my suggestion is to take note of the clarity/readability with individual panels and its values and contrasts. Keep it up and thank you for sharing your hard work, I enjoyed it a lot!

[Zpreader]

Thank you for taking the time to read and review Dialusion! I'll keep your advice in mind and try to consider how my character designs complement each other in future projects

[Zpreader]

Thank you for your review, ChaiKat! I don't have the Tapas app on my phone, so it's nice to get feedback from a mobile reader

I'll make sure to pay more attention the readability of my images in future work.