Want feedback from a picky reader?

[miss.monocle]

Thank you for the feedback! Yeah, the issues with some things feeling rushed in the first scene is due to how it was originally written a few years back. I redid the pages recently to fix the pacing issues, but it was tricky to make things a little less rushed. Following scenes develop Kit and Tamal's relationship more smoothly while also adding details that shows they've been developing a relationship off screen. But it's good to know that all the upcoming relationship scenes will be worth it to fix reader confusion, even though it will mean the action will take a little longer to get to!

Thanks again!

[NotARealFox]

Thank you so much for the feedback! I agree with you on all counts; I'm not very happy with the beginning. I think it's confusing too, and I've been thinking about revamping it for some time, so this is really helpful as to how I might go about doing that. When I started GGD I wasn't really thinking about how to set up stories to convey info to the audience correctly.

Thanks again for your time! I really appreciate the thoroughness and honesty of your crit, it's right up my alley. Lmk if you ever need a critical eye on something of yours, too.

[drawnbyyannan]

You're welcome! It's nice to hear that my feedback was helpful. Let me know if you do decide to revamp it!

[drawnbyyannan]

Hi there!

Okay, so first off - I love your art style! The dappled light is so pretty. I think you have a great story here.

I think there could be some minor tweaks in the storytelling that would really take it to the next level. I had to read the Prologue Part 1 a few times in order to understand what was happening, and I normally wouldn't have the patience to do that if I wasn't reviewing it.

For example, in the line "if they discover we brought back someone blacklisted" it wasn't clear to me that this meant bringing someone back from the dead. And I think it's really important to make this clear, because if it had said "bring someone back from the dead" my interest would have been immediately piqued. In this case, I was interested enough to read the next episode which helped me figure out that that's what it meant, but depending on my mood I might not have bothered to figure it out.

Honestly, I am not sure how much Prologue Part 1 is adding to the story, because Prologue Part 2 was REALLY great. So much tension, so much conflict, and I wanted to know what happened next! Honestly, if you cut Prologue Part 1 and just started with Part 2, I think that could be a great way to hook in your readers.

My last suggestion might be to include more setting and time cues. For example, "Two years ago." or like "The kingdom of Whatever this place is" especially with the transition from the prologue to the first "episode" that would be helpful.

[drawnbyyannan]

Hi there! Thanks for checking out my comic as well.

I ended up looking at all four parts that you have uploaded! I like your art style and your panelling is in general pretty clear. However, I couldn't get invested in your story because I just don't feel that invested in the characters. What are the stakes? What do they have to lose and why should I care? I'm not sure what the purpose of the storm was in the first part, since that seemed to be a conflict that was resolved quite quickly in Part 2. It kind of feels like the story could've just started in Part 3.

Also, I think some more specificity with the character's personalities would help. Is the mom overprotective and strict? Is the little girl sweet but a little manipulative? Is the brother caring or annoyed by his sister? Is the dad attentive or absent? Maybe he doesn't really know how to relate to his daughter? I don't know - but developing these details I think will really go a long way in getting a reader to care and feel invested.

[Kardnull]

I would love to hear your opinion.

https://tapas.io/series/Manifest

[drawnbyyannan]

Hi there!

I really like your story concept! I only started losing interest around page 35, which is honestly really impressive, because like I said before, I'm a picky reader. Part of that is I think you've got a really great story, and you have done a great job telling the story without explaining everything - so many of your pages have very few words on them, which is a plus in my book. I think what made me lose interest though is knowing what is at stake with this specific adventure. I don't know the characters well enough to care if they live or die - so what's going to happen if they don't deliver the package?

I was pretty clear on what was happening in the story except I got a bit confused on page 25 - I thought the setting had change because the background was now orange, but I figured out later that that was intended for adding dramatic effect. I think maybe still having one panel of trees would've helped, because the page change was also what made me think the setting had changed. If you want to convey more intensity, I might also suggest with these action scenes to try some more polygonal, and not regular rectangular panel shapes. Diagonal lines help convey movement and impact.

[Macarenaoftime]

Thanks a lot! Your critic has been very useful for me understanding the sudden drop of views between prologue part 1 and 2. My original plan was to merge those two episodes together but I didn't fit in tapas.

For example, in the line "if they discover we brought back someone blacklisted" it wasn't clear to me that this meant bringing someone back from the dead. And I think it's really important to make this clear, because if it had said "bring someone back from the dead" my interest would have been immediately piqued.

Maybe I could try rephrasing some things. So far it's the episode that most problems have, I'll think about how to address some of the problems.

Thanks again! I love your style too and I'm a subscriber of your comic.

[maddmoniart]

If you have time this is my manga series that I've been working on for almost 10 years. I only have 11 pages available. I plan on making more when I return from my hiatus.

Bleakville | Tapas

Bleakville

[neardrive]

Thanks for the review!

I'm sorry to hear that, but i understand. There is a reason because i didn't develop the characters yet, but would be quite of a spoler xD
I also happens that this is an adaptation of a novel, so the timing may be somewhat wrong I hope that if you drop by in a few weeks or month, where the story is little more advanced you will get invested

Saying that, i'll take in consideration all you told me and if i have to do a revision i may change some timings

Thanks again for the effort!

PD: if you have curiosity for any decision i made and you want to know more, PM me

[jcmraz]

Thank you for reading so far still! From the beginning one of my biggest goals has been as much "show don't tell" as I can manage while keeping what was happening clear. I jumped in a bit prematurely with the comic to try and improve and accidentally wrote this chapter longer than I should have. I might go back at some point and see what I can cut. The majority of all of the things you mention start happening at the end of Chapter 0 and the story really starts in Chapter 1. I wanted to have drop the reader into the middle of it to start and then build from that baseline. Looking back I probably could/should have done that in 30 pages or less to keep things moving. I've learned a LOT in making this chapter though so I hope to see you back some day to give it another look when I have more to show what I've learned As for the package, it really isn't important. This is just a job. They're basically government mail couriers transporting letters and small packages between governors more or less. I wanted to start showing them doing the job itself with less stakes to give a baseline before I start explaining the inner workings of the government, possible conspiracies and what it looks like when things go really wrong. The idea was to not front load the worldbuilding and to build intrigue as well as to build some of the characters up a bit and give them time to not be overshadowed by the worldbuilding. I could have done better with that in some places for sure but that was the idea lol

yeah page 25 was for dramatic effect and I think you're right. I should have maintained background trees to make sure location remained clear as well as more intense motion lines Thanks again!

[drawnbyyannan]

Ah, that makes sense! I do agree tha Chapter 0 could probably benefit from being just a tad shorter and more condensed. But yes, great job showing and not telling, and dropping us into the action! I could definitely tell that was an intentional choice.

[drawnbyyannan]

Hi there!

So not much has happened yet in your story, so I'll just give you some advice on the art, if that's okay.

In general, simple is better. Here are some suggestions I have to make your work look more professional

1) Keep the font size the same - the same size, the same color, and no gradients.
2) White space! You should have some margins around the text as well as around each panel.
3) It looks like you are trying to go for a line-less style, but you don't have a strong understanding of shadows and lights yet. I would recommend keeping your colors flat, rather than using gradients. It's simpler, will look better in my opinion, and will probably also take you less time so you can get farther in your story!

From the plot summary, it sounds like you have a great story on your hands, so keep working at it!

[LadyN]

So I appreciate the feedback with the whole line less art stuff but the main problem is that if I don’t add any detail to it, it’ll look really bad. Like when I look at it without all the airbrush for detail it looks disgusting. The art doesn’t take that long (1-2 hours maybe), I just don’t work on pages every day (specifically why I did it line less because it takes less time)
I do agree with the whole lighting thing though. In my 4 years of art, I rarely done complete illustrations so I still don’t have a grasp on how shadows and lighting works.

I know I should REALLY add white space as a lot of comics add it but I REALLY hate it in comics when they just have a giant blank space with one frame in there and the text on the side. I don’t know why but it’s infuriating.

I’ll take what you said about the text boxes and text size. Even I get annoyed making them, as the gradient is really just for aesthetic choices.

I know this may just sound like me being a brat over getting actual feedback for once but I really do appreciate it!

[drawnbyyannan]

Hi there!

Okay, so I read the whole thing/what you've got so far and I think it's funny that you think my pacing is a bit fast because I find your pacing a bit slow. That being said, the art is really lovely, the storytelling is great because I read all 13 episodes easily, and you did a really great job of introducing us to the characters. However, I personally don't care about the characters yet. They don't really have flaws or quirks or distinctions. I'm sure you'll get to them, but I'm impatient. XD Romance is also not really my genre - nothing against it, but I feel like I've seen the tall, mysterious and beautiful and well abbed-man paired with sweet innocent girl too many times. (Again, nothing against people who like this! I like plenty of tropes and will read those over and over again, this is just not one of them.)

Also, as someone who loves digital painting, I have no idea how people have the patience to paint their comics. I almost went with a painted style for mine, and gave up very very quickly on that idea. In conclusion, I think what I'm getting at is that you seem like a more patient person than I am.

[drawnbyyannan]

Hi there!

Your art definitely has improved already from the first to second episode!

Let me tell you where I stopped reading...

If I see a giant block of text, I almost immediately stop reading. If you really need to include all these words, I recommend spacing it out, one sentence in its own rectangle at a time, accompanied by its own image, if possible.

[steffiemusings]

Thank you for the tip. I really appreciate it. Looking back, I did make quite a few amateurish mistakes and those boxes were too wordy.

I will mindful of that in the future, especially for future chapters and when I redo those earlier chapters.

[applescan]

Hi if you don't mind and have a spare time, here is my webtoon! I'm still new with the webtoon stuff, so any comments and suggestions are really appreciated!

True Winner on Tapas

True Winner on WEBTOON

Thanks a lot!

[Snickerdoodles]

The pickles Stacey. Where are the pickles.

[yondoloki]

If you still are up for some comic reading, I wouldn't mind you checking out mine I only post one page pr episode, so if you can make it through the first chapter I would be happy

https://tapas.io/series/The-Changelings-Sister