"Why won't you read my comic?" A thread for getting honest reader first impressions

jcmraz 2020-01-02 06:17:23 UTC #147

Yeah I agree lol these things were actually pointed out as soon as I posted them to be looked at by another group of comic artists over at penciljack. I've been doing my best at keeping flow in mind since then. I'm certain I've missed the mark still but yeah those early pages were done before they were critiqued and hopefully I've been doing better than then lately. As for the first page I was trying to be a bit more high-minded back then than I was, or am, capable of yet lol The idea was left to right but with a focal point in the center panel. Problem is that I should have used the panel space to better suit the 9x9 layout xp live and learn from that one. hank you for taking a look I hope you'll give some of the more recent pages a glance as well to see if my panel flow has improved at all. If not then it's definitely something I need to spend more time studying! Well I do anyway but.. You know what I mean XD

antimekii 2020-01-02 06:30:35 UTC #148

I checked your last 5 pages and I can see the improvement when it comes to paneling. But it still runs to the spatial problem. I don't know where the characters are, relative to other characters. I'd suggest to draw backgrounds with lower horizon just so readers can see the clear positioning.

Pandastrophic 2020-01-02 08:25:05 UTC #149

(Sorry for the late reply I thought I posted this already)
I read until Boiling point. I currently don't have a lot of time to go back and check everything but the episode that I was thinking about while writing the review was "To be jaded like me" where I feel like the style jumps around a lot between linearted, more anime looking and kinda more american comic looking?. Like the panel where the guy bumps into her and it says "Worthless bastard" the lip shape looks more... realistic? then the panel right after that it's back to the normal lips, then the panel after that the eyes are bigger and it looks more anime. There was scene where girls were telling her she's small, when she looked angrily at them she looked more realistic, the panel after that looked way more anime inspired with bigger eyes and smaller mouth. I don't think you should go back to change anything, just try to find a bit more consistency moving forward.

Pandastrophic 2020-01-02 08:54:49 UTC #150

I actually wanted to post more reviews but I wasn't sure if that was okay or not since I posted quite a few already.

@rosiegh0st
Mirror Monsters (I read until chapter 3 then skipped to chapter 7 to review the art) I'm mostly giving a crit on the art because I don't think I'm the target audience for your story.
I think your style is interesting, especially how you draw noses and your use of colours is good too, the comic colour palette in every page is pretty balanced. Your anatomy is pretty awkward at the start of the comic, that improved a lot by the later chapters although I think doing more quick figure drawings might help the bodies look less stiff. There are some pretty awkward poses or hand positions, an example of this would be in Chapter 7 part 19, which the green lady holding the map and the hand position is like flipped, the same issue is in Chapter 7 part 20 which the green hood person holding the map. Try mimicking these hand positions as you're holding a folded piece of paper and you'll see that they're not correct. It helpful for me to have a small mirror on my desk as I draw certain poses, especially with hands, where I mimic the pose to see how my hand is exactly positioned.
I'm guessing the overlapped panels are a stylistic choice, at the start of the comic the flow can be confusing at times, it has gotten better but I'm just not a fan of the panel overlaps. I guess I find it a bit weird and breaks the flow of the panels for me, especially when the overlaps create these spaces:

@Awesomeness_Studios
The main reason is that gag-a-day is not for me really even though I found a lot of stuff I really enjoy after reading a few pages from your comic. I really like the characters, they're all very distinct and unique, really my fav is the blue one, Phlegm, who's super cute. Even though I do like the characters and some of the pages made me chuckle, I don't think the overall humor is for me.

I'm not sure who else didn't get replies/reviews, if you didn't I'm happy to give some so please let me know! Since I already got lots of reviews for my comic, there is no pressure to review my comic if you want me to review yours. (Unless you really want to review my comic, it's really up to you, I'd just rather people who didn't get any reviews get some too.)

JRHoch 2020-01-02 11:28:05 UTC #151

I think there is improvement in @jcmraz. It is subtle, though, definitely not big swing. And that's not always a bad thing, sometimes you have to keep knocking up against a level before you break through.

I went through a decade without much visible improvement, took a few years off, and then the next year brought big changes. Big changes often can be seen in how relaxed your figures are, how dynamic the composition, and how you can use color and texture in a more sophisticated way.

I will say I'm impressed at @jcmraz relative consistency. I vary so much depending on changes in the weather.

jcmraz 2020-01-02 18:15:21 UTC #152

Thanks I do think I'm knocking up against that level now. I've been doing this for a while here and there. I have an old comic where you could definitely see a big difference between then and now. I took a year or two off from comicking just to work on drawing people from redditgetsdrawn and some of the figure drawing sites. I definitely still have a long way to go but I feel like this year I really started climbing that mountain in earnest rather than just going through the motions.

jcmraz 2020-01-02 18:18:28 UTC #153

Thank you for giving it a look and yeah I definitely agree. The idea of spatial awareness is something I've noticed but something hasn't quite clicked yet. I think it doesn't help that the forest has changed as I've tried to learn to draw it better as well but I should still be able to make relative positioning more clear. I will definitely work on keeping that in mind as I design further pages

JRHoch 2020-01-02 18:24:42 UTC #154

Those levels can be bitches to break through. What helped me was working in a completely different style and medium--the things I learned ended up translating into my older style as well after a few months. Good luck.

jcmraz 2020-01-02 18:56:21 UTC #155

Funny you should mention that lol I actually have a project I'm working on scripting for right now that's going to a companion thing to Runner that doesn't upload as frequently or regularly (because I want to try out the scrolling chapter style of comics you see nowadays) that will be an entirely different style and way to approach drawing a comic altogether! Aside from just wanting to try something different too I was hoping that approaching essentially the same concept from a different angle here and there would give me a new perspective on the main story

Awesomeness_Studios 2020-01-02 23:04:07 UTC #156

Aww thank you for liking my comic. I totally get it if you're just not into the genre. I feel the same way with many other (especially more serious) types of comics

jcmraz 2020-01-02 23:20:14 UTC #157

I do like the concept It's not particularly the type of thing I look for in a comic but I do enjoy it and the idea of creating characters based on the 4 humors is clever

personaghost 2020-01-03 02:54:43 UTC #158

Thank you I'll work on it more

jappy0572 2020-01-03 03:08:38 UTC #159

This forum is actually a good concept to get a constructive criticism
This is my comic Dimenxion and I just need some feed back, so I can improve on what to do in the future.

Despite The confusing beginning and my old artsyle, I planned to grow more and get some feedback.

jcmraz 2020-01-03 03:34:40 UTC #160

Going to start with some honey I can tell you've improved on your line art and coloring since the first pages and you do a good job putting a lot of characters in frame and keeping them generally properly proportioned next to each other and consistent.

I will say that the beginning was nigh impenetrable. I just couldn't follow what was happening or who the characters were so I would consider making that a bit clearer because it really left me more confused coming out of that and going into the intro than I may have been with none of the character intros. I always personally recommend that people leaning heavily into anime/manga styles for art that look like this is early into their artistic development spend real time and work practicing gesture drawing and real figure drawing outside of the anime/manga style. There are certain anatomy issues that crop up with a lot of people that go straight into that without a strong real life foundation and I can see those things here. I would also work on the pacing and paneling to make what's happening VERY clear. There are books on the topic or you can ask people to take a look at a thumbnail drawing of a page to see if they can follow the story without you explaining it to them.

Keep at it and as someone I know in another forum says 'Keep that pen moving'!

jappy0572 2020-01-03 05:09:19 UTC #161

I see, thank you so much for the info. I'll do what I can. I thought about re-doing the episode but I guess its better if I change the dialogue and reduce the speech bubbles instead. Thank you so much this helps me alot.

Shadymeadows 2020-01-03 05:11:05 UTC #162

I'm just starting out here on Tapas. I have been trying to figure out a good way to go about this vertical format. I welcome any feedback whether about my story, art or how I should categorize my comic. I have read though conversations of this forum and have a hard time saying anything that someone else hasn't already said. I'll check out the few I haven't yet though.

Shadymeadows 2020-01-03 05:22:14 UTC #163

Your style has improved over the pages. I see a bit of in and out resolution clarity. I was also a little confused at times of who said what but generally good job! (I'm not a very good at critiquing lol)

jappy0572 2020-01-03 07:09:13 UTC #164

Yeah, it started of that way but my latest updates are now more clear and understandable but Thankyou for your criticism, It helps.

I like the way you use different colors to emphasize different characters, quality is good and art style is consistent.So keep at it

Shadymeadows 2020-01-04 00:19:27 UTC #165

Awesome, I can see that and I can't wait to read more! Thanks for checking mine out as well! I suffer most from being too slow!

Tthoroughman 2020-01-04 01:43:49 UTC #166

I've been working on improving it. But thank you.
Those are really old, from 2017, so when I go in to correct things, I'll keep these in mind. There's a lot left for me to upload to tapas, but I've been busy just trying to create an update for webtoons. So, as soon as I can I'll try to get tapas up to date to be able to basically update simultaneously when I can.