Share your comic + how to improve someone else's comic

[FafasMcMelt]

@vothnthorvaldson
I've read pretty much the whole thing to get a good hang of it before commenting anything. Admittedly, it's not really my cup of tea, but still I don't find anything objectively wrong to criticize (I was afraid I'd be lazy if I didn't get anything tangible to talk about). I did have some trouble reading the prologue, the way not all speech bubbles pointed to the character confused me. But, by the time the first chapter kicked in, that wasn't an issue anymore.
I could try to be nit picky in order to appear to be participating more (and honestly I feel kinda bad for not having mucho to say), but that wouldn't help in any meaningful way. The things I didn't much enjoy come down to personal opinion, not anything really that would be meaningful to you.
All in all, good work.

Here's mine:

The Ghoul | Tapas

[CarltonIsaac]

Yes, but I'm not sure this might be the right way to go about it.

Agreed 100%

Constructive criticism is good, when it's done privately one on one instead of a public forum.

[Tanako]

Exactly LOL very bad idea.

[noenoh]

this reminds me a someone's post who wanted to badmouth others works even if hiding their works tittles. Its distasteful.

Im open to criticism, I even request it if it comes as constructive one, and I'll apreciate it much more if that person has the guts to talk to me directly instead on a forum as @CarltonIsaac mentioned but there are some ways are just simply old lady's gossiping(eating you alive) in a market kind of "criticism" that dont help anyone.Its sad ive been seeing much of this kind of stuff lately. This might be a hobby for many of young lads (or immature ppl) but its in fact a career and it also has work ethics in the field like respecting the work of someone's else even if you don't like it.

I think it could have been a less problematic post if the person sharing their comic also request the thing others didnt liked about their work, that way the "requested criticism" is given.

[thecrystalrook]

I can't believe that I have to clarify this, but this is not a thread to badmouth other's work. It's intended to help each other find problems within their work so they can address it moving forward. Public critique is quite common in art, and as you can see my response to the above comment was far from badmouthing, and that also goes for their response to mine. There is nothing problematic here. Again, you are free not to participate.

Now, I would prefer it if a thread that's intended as a public critique not be spammed by people expressing how they don't like public critique. THAT is distasteful. I will not be responding to further comments about this.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I will not police what thread people should make and should not. Just a suggestion, but you can change the title into "Share your comic + Critique the comic above you."

People communicate poorly and might misread intention in written medium, as there is no vocal and visual clues (happened to me). The word "What you DIDN'T like" might come too strongly and read more negatively to them.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Thank you very much!

Unsurprisingly maybe, I have a bit the same issue: most of what I could say is about.. your story not being so much my style (maybe not as, something I would not read but rather as, making it difficult to give criticism because I don't feel I have the expertise to do so).
I'd say the main thing I could say other than that, is that the way Tapas displays the comics is not very adapted to your comic. It's not your comic's fault thought. There are a few pages at the beginning, with a surrealist engraving feel, that would probably benefit much from being shown entirely on the screen (or even better, printed on textured paper but that's another story).
Also, the font is a bit small (especially if one zooms out to enjoy pages whole).

I really enjoyed the work on lightsources!

[Grhe]

@FafasMcMelt

The only thing I could think of is to make the characters pop out more from the background, so they don't blend in with each other. Aslo make the dialogues bigger to make it easier to read.

Here's mine

The Vending Machine | Tapas

[FafasMcMelt]

Yeah... I can honestly imagine how nightmarish it can be to read on mobile
Thanks for the heads up, my friend

[FafasMcMelt]

thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely keep those in mind!

As for your own comic, one thing I would say is that reading right to left can be sometimes confusing. It's fair enough that you have a disclaimer in the description, but it still cought me off guard a couple of times. Other than that, when you do draw the background, it's very beautiful and detailed, but if feels like in a lot of the panels characters are standing on the void. It's stylistic, but noticeable

[Grhe]

Thank you for your feedback! and I agree with you Any suggestion on how to fix the void part?

[FafasMcMelt]

You could just draw the background on some of those panels. Admittedly that's very time consuming, but I don't think you'd even need to do it for all of them, since it's just something I notice when there's a couple of panels with no background next to each other.
Take it with a grain of salt though, it wasn't really much of a problem, so it might not be worth spending a few more hours on each page for that.

[Grhe]

It would look better if the comic was b/w then I could easily get away with it but the blue in my empty panels has honestly been bothering me for a while...

[thecrystalrook]

Sweet jesus, that's some art style! It's difficult to find something I don't like here. I think maybe in your darker scenes like in the first episode, the characters all blend in with the background and it becomes a bit difficult to follow. Particularly when the knight shows up and comes after the ghost. I'd say maybe work on contrasting your darker characters against their background better so they stand out. Regardless, I couldn't resist subbing

[FafasMcMelt]

thank you a lot for the sub, and even more for the feedback

[TAMAnnoying]

Tbf people also only ever read title of threads and never the actual OP which drives me completely mad

[migxmeg]

I read yours too and this was definitely something I noticed (read it without checking the other feedback first). I was even a little more confused because on the cover the vending machine was in space, so I was wondering if we were kind of time/space shifting in an area around a magical vending machine.

I don't think you need to draw a background on every panel, but you could use a very desaturated/just a few sketch lines to suggest that the characters a not in a void or grab pieces from the establishing bg you already drew? You can fade/desaturate/blur them so they don't compete with your characters. I really loved the lighting you added that illuminated the sidewalk a bit that you did in some of the panels.

Though that was somewhat confusing, I think the choice to use the 4 long horizontal panels on every page gave me the most trouble. There's pacing, flow and focus that I think would greatly improve your comic if you opened up that structure. As it is it will feel like everything is happening at the same speed and the reader needs to do the mental work to understand if you are showing us moment to moment or a slower sequence, for example. Plus you will be restricted in how you can crop which I think exacerbated the feeling of a void.

Whew, as the focus of the thread is the criticism part I feel like this was tilted very negative so I've just got to say your artwork - lines, anatomy, expressions - looks really great! I absolutely love the environment you drew behind the vending machine and think you should find sneaky ways to keep using it. And the pets... Omg so cute!

I find that the negative parts of criticism are extrememly helpful and sometimes people are shy about giving them. Have at it!

The Purple Ribbon | Tapas

[Grhe]

Thank you!! and thank you for the tips on the "void" issue! I'll try to figure out how to do the fading backgrounds. when I do I'll add them in and reupload them. and YES the four panel standard page was a terrible decision I decided to do only four because I felt overwhelmed learning everything at once.

I really like your art style and compositions!
Don't take these opinions to heart as it's just my personal taste! I think a white background would be much better than the beige and maybe do different shapes for the speech bubbles, if not maybe make them a little bit smaller? In my opinion they felt a bit out of place. As for the ribbon Abirami mentioned, that part confused me a little as the ribbon wasn't shown at all.

I only read up to episode 6. I'll keep reading after I get some sleep.

[jcmraz]

Alright so I tried to read a bit into it but you jump around a bit too much in pacing. You start off with a prologue to lead into things then jump to a situation where one person is kind of a jerk without seeming cause at all. Then you jump to another scene which immediately jumps to either a flashback or lore dump. I got whiplash from all of this! lolIt made it very difficult to follow any of the characters very much and made it more difficult to care about them as people. My other issue more just comes from practice and that's the anatomy. You have a good start but it's distracting for me personally. btw I did look at later pages as well to not bring this up and have it not be relevant anymore lol There's definitely already improvement but I still find it personally too stiff and a bit distracting.

I liked the color scheme and tone that you were setting so far though and it DID make me curious what was going to happen moving forward. All the best moving forward!

Runner | Tapas

[migxmeg]

Thanks so so much for the feedback!! Can I ask if you were reading on phone or computer? And don't feel obligated to keep reading if you're busy since you already gave some nice feedback to fafasmcmelt <3.

I wouldn't go so far as "terrible decision"!! Especially as you said there's sooo much to learn it absolutely makes sense to focus and take it a few steps at a time!