The Tears of Ambercrest (Dark Fantasy Graphic Novel) Feedback Request - What do you think of this "artstyle"

[Typhoon1337]

The Tears of Ambercrest

Hey there,

Feel free to give constructive criticism on my work.
What do you think of the artstyle, which is based on 3D assets used in videogames?

Every type of feedback is welcome (on art, scenes, dialogue, etc.)

Thank you very much in advance.

Kind regards,

Ben

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

I really like how this art style has been applied to the backgrounds. The characters not so much though. I get that this style is supposed to be based on 3D assets from video games. But for the characters it kind of makes them seem inorganic with rigid expressions and artificial feeling textures. The backgrounds, atmosphere and lighting are great and really benefit from this approach. But for the characters it comes off as the worst of low res graphics without the charm you’ve brought to the rest of the art. But art is subjective so maybe other readers will completely disagree with me. I would also make the text bigger so it’s easier to read, I like the font you picked though it really fits the tone of the episode.

[Typhoon1337]

Thank you very much.
In the second episode, which will be released in a week, there are already more facial expressions. I know exactly what you mean.

[Kelheor]

Erm... It seems to me that using everything CDPR created for Witcher3 is not really legal? It looks pretty obvious like the filter on the screenshots, and not an "art style".

[Typhoon1337]

It is legal. I read trough their copyright forms. You can use their assets for non-profit use. Which is what I do. I'm not a professional artist, nor is this a goal of mine.

I do not agree with your second statement though. It is not one filter which is used. Show me the filter which would lead to this kind of effect. I edited every single picture individually to get this results. Clearly, it's less time consuming than drawing, but that's not the matter of dicussion. You can compare it with post processing photography. Which is art, in my opinion.
That said, I would like to ask you in a different way, as it was never my goal to make it "less obvious": Do you find it appealing to look at?

I get your criticism though, it's not like it isn't constantly going through my head.

[Kelheor]

Well, I obviously don't remember all the filters PS gallery may present I see no reason to say it doesn't look good, because it looks like screenshots from the good looking game, doesn't matter the amount of filters on it, because they don't do a lot of change. It looks just fine to me So yeah, if it's legal, I won't bother you about it, sorry.

I would say that the font is too small though, and speech bubbles are too tight around text, the text needs more space in between lines too

[Azifri]

I like the style! Been a while since I saw a webcomic using video game assets, and looks like you put a lot of effort into getting the right scenes.

My concern is with the presentation of your comic. Looks like you have this set up as pages, which makes it difficult to read on mobile and part of the detailed graphics is lost when you reduce the size of the images. Perhaps you could cut the panels and arrange it into a more webcomic/mobile-friendly format. The font is also small; it's hard to read on my computer so on the phone it's probably even worse. The text bubbles give me the impression of being out of place; maybe you could play with the shapes and color a bit, to make them feel more part of the page instead of pasted over.

This comic for example, has very detailed graphics but by separating the panels you can still appreciate the details.
(I love this comic by the way)

Etimadera | Tapas

[JeanGuillet]

my criticism would be the same as for the original videogame that the images are from. The light is all wrong. The shaders used in the videogame do not capture the natural variety of surfaces so everything looks like it's made out of plastic. If it were me I'd redo the light, give a greater range of dark tones not just crushed black like there is now, figure out a way to tone down the light that's hitting surfaces that are supposed to be rough, and figure out a way to do some kind of skin subsurface scattering & glossiness post-facto. Keep fiddling with the photoshop filters, there's plenty of ways you can do a lot of this with the curves tool.

[Typhoon1337]

The comic you posted is superb. Mad respect for the artist. It's insane how such talent doesn't get recognized more!

I will adapt some of the things mentionned by all of you. I had the same impression, that it was too small to read (especially for people with bad eyes).

For the post processing, I can rework the pictures with techniques I used in later episodes to see if it looks better. The speech bubble problem is not that easy to solve, it is because of the nature of the "not painted" colors. It always looks like it is pasted onto. I guess I won't find a solution for that.
The lighting problem doesn't bother me that much. I like most of the look I created with it, but I know what you mean. The crushed black is something I created because I like that look. It's one of the tools I used to try to make it look more like comic art and not like a video game screenshot.

Tomorrow I'll change some of the things and you may check back, if you want to.

Thanks for all the feedback.

[rajillustration]

It's kind of hard to read it and not think of video games that use these assets, although I think that the lighting and compositions are very nice. But the faces did not have expression, which is really crucial for a comic. Since we don't have descriptions like in written books, we have to over-exaggerate our facial expressions and our body language so that people know the tone in which the lines are being read. We have to be their actors. Everyone in this seemed very neutral because of it.

As for the rendering--I like the parts of the backgrounds that feel more like an illustration--where there's a blur contrasting with the crisp edges along treelines--I don't like the parts where people have very intense shadows in their wrinkles. Doesn't feel like skin tone, feels more like pottery. I have to agree with others that the characters feel too generic. I want to see some more things on them that make them unique and that make them stand out. Right now your backgrounds are far more appealing than the characters themselves.