What's essential for an exciting webcomic fight scene?

[Milhamah]

Tapas readers and creators: What sort of elements go into making a powerful webcomic fight scene?

Today I revealed my comic's first combat sequence, and my goal was to make a battle between characters interesting while advancing the story.

I set out to do this by using a tried-and-true visual vocabulary: strong colors, manga speed lines, blur effects and different “camera" angles. I also tried to use the vertical scroll format to pace the panels and drive anticipation, adding in attack wind-up/release frames and reaction shots.

Which style elements would you recommend adding or doing differently as this fight scene continues?

I appreciate any analysis of my work. Also, post successful examples of fight scenes, or talk about what you've done in your own comics.

The fight begins in 'Aim for the Jugular' - Milhamah: Fighting Words

[jpnakashima]

Back in June we had a neat topic about this. Good opinions and ideas on that one!

So I'm wondering if there are any people who are experienced in fighting. Because I kinda need advice ^^' I'm drawing this Webcomic and it's with superpowers, and fighting does happen. The thing is I can build a scene, but I don't know a thing about fighting. Like I've never even slapped someone. I want the Scenes not just to look cool but also not be entirely stupid for someone who knows what they are doing. So do you have any advice about things to Absolutely avoid, or where I can learn …

[EntropicalForest]

I Would recommend to take a lot of the posts in that thread with a grain of salt, a lot of the posts give irrelevant and incorrect information. But a lot of theme mention movies and other media for you to study ,which is some good advice.

[jpnakashima]

I mean, I would advise for anyone to take any post discussion with a grain of salt haha
It's all opinions and suggestions, after all. Different ways to look at a subject.

[Stardust-clearwater]

try watching some movies with great fight scenes. They can give you ideas for shot panel compositions. But I think as a general rule of thumb. faster and lighter blows should be in smaller panels because the eye uses less time to take them in. Slower and more powerful moments should take up more of the page so that the impact has more time to sink in.

[droidmonkey1]

I think that no matter what you do in the fight scene, make it clear, understandable.

[OttoGruenwald]

It really depends on the context. Asking what makes a good fight scene is like asking what makes a good mystery scene or romance scene. Context context context.

Do you mean you want something with interesting hand to hand choreography? Take inspiration from the standards set by Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

What's essential is that you communicate personality through the fight.

That being said, not all fights need to be drawn out affairs. Take the super heroes vs energy dragon in my comic. It's supposed to be fast and brutal, and it's fast and brutal. The heroes don't spend pages trading energy blasts with it.

The Power of Stardust | Tapas

Ultimately, make fights for the story, not a story for the fights.

[Milhamah]

I love the value contrasts and the action on that page. The poses and pacing remind me of some of the old sci-fi serial comics.

[baasinsimple]

Go out of your way to make even the fighting style or power mean something. For example If you have two opponents who are in a similar mindset, but are frankly exact opposites, communicate that. Make one guy short or scarred, while having the other one big with a body without even a scratch. One guy wears black, the other one wears white. One guy has a power circulating around electricity or a fighting style similar to TaeKwonDo, have the other one have a power like metal or rubber and a fighting style like Karate, which juxtaposes TaeKwonDo in a number of ways. Do something similar with every fight you have that is an important part of the story should have the same idea. Which is just essentially, make your character's struggles, ideologies. personalities and experiences show in every fight. The Luffy vs Rob Lucci fight from one piece, the fights from hunter x hunter, and the more important fights from Grappler Baki encapsulate these ideas.

[Milhamah]

Right. I find that good fights are less about showing off techniques than representing the conflict in the scene or the overall story. That said, techniques can reveal a character's attitudes or personality, such as rigidity, cruelty and honor.

[baasinsimple]

Exactly. a fighting style doesn't just refer to special techniques or whatnot either. It can be a simple thing like how someone moves. Like Hajime No Ippo, a boxing manga, sometimes it has more straight-forward fights with basic forms and punches and when it does it goes out of it's way to show how the boxers are different despite that. You should read a highlight of it's best fights to get a better grasp on how to do that in a short amount of time.