My webcomic ~ The God Stone~ critique wanted

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

Huang Tz-Chen

I enjoyed reading it biggrin The characters are all very distinctive and the expressions + dialogue that you give them mesh very well together!

Thank you for your kind words. I'm working very hard on making their expressions enjoyable which would mean I'd draw a draft, exaggerate their expressions, and then maybe even a third time.
I think I'm best at character interaction. What I'd like to know if there is anything you can think of where I need improving? art-wise, I know its a bit early to say but plot wise, etc.

[Celestial White Tigress]

0o Sabakku No Gaara o0

Huang Tz-Chen

I enjoyed reading it biggrin The characters are all very distinctive and the expressions + dialogue that you give them mesh very well together!

Thank you for your kind words. I'm working very hard on making their expressions enjoyable which would mean I'd draw a draft, exaggerate their expressions, and then maybe even a third time.
I think I'm best at character interaction. What I'd like to know if there is anything you can think of where I need improving? art-wise, I know its a bit early to say but plot wise, etc.

Uh, well, I'm not sure if I'm the right person to go to for constructive criticism.
The story is fast-paced and moving along very well so far. You did a good job with setting up your characters and letting a reader get a feel of them and the world that they live in. The coloring is great and I felt that it added a sense of realism(especially with the contrast of the snowy weather and the warm-looking coach and village pub). You really know how to handle lighting. I also get the feeling that your art style has gotten some influence from FMA and American comic art but that's obviously not a bad thing. Art-wise, you've pretty much got it covered. Basic anatomy, body language, backgrounds, lighting and whatever else that I've neglected to mention.

Wow. Now that I'm describing it, I'm actually starting to realize just how much work you put into all of this. So yeah, I think that you're doing a fantastic job and just need to keep on doing what you do, since it produces quality work. Keep up the great job, dude!

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

I do put in a lot of work.

case in point: I have gone back and reformatted a lot of the pages, which so far has taken about 6 hours only doing up to page 10, but that is party because my shite computer crashes all the time. New banners and stuff, I think its a better direction.

Also I added a new cover page and a new page one.

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

I've gone through a lot of edits, on te website and comic both. I can;t wait to finely get to the point where all I'm doing is the comic, and not fiddling around with the website or spinoff sites like tumblr pages and such. Still I think I've come to a good place and I have taken in all feedback and changed what I agreed with. Now what do you guys think?

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

Also I'm making a sketch journal kind of thing in tumblr. I've only just started doing it so tumblr itself is new and confusing to me. How important is the appearance and layout of the thing?

[IronSpike]

This looks like a mash-up of Der-shing Helmer's The Meek and Fullmetal Alchemist. You may not be tracing, but you're eyeballing them both while you work. Hard.

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

IronSpike

This looks like a mash-up of Der-shing Helmer's The Meek and Fullmetal Alchemist. You may not be tracing, but you're eyeballing them both while you work. Hard.

Then I'll take that as a compliment because I'm not. Hard.

I both love Der Shings work and I do know Full Metal but that was not my intention. My style is just 'not quite manga' but not fully American, and its taken me a while to settle on a proper style.

Lets raise our glasses to the millions of 'manga' wannabes who all look the same (Not that I'm saying its not skillful).

My main influences would perhaps be Otomo Katsuhiro, and Akira Toriyama and yes, The Meek and also Lackadaisy cats teaching me that expressions are the best parts of comic drawing.

Influences are how you improve.

[IronSpike]

0o Sabakku No Gaara o0

Then I'll take that as a compliment because I'm not. Hard.

I'd have a lot more faith in that assertion if I couldn't find the reference you eyeballed equally as hard for your animal drawings on the first page of GIS.

You don't improve by imitating others. You improve my practicing, studying from life, understanding what's wrong with your work, and improving on your deficits.

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

IronSpike

0o Sabakku No Gaara o0

Then I'll take that as a compliment because I'm not. Hard.

I'd have a lot more faith in that assertion if I couldn't find the reference you eyeballed equally as hard for your animal drawings on the first page of GIS.

You don't improve by imitating others. You improve my practicing, studying from life, understanding what's wrong with your work, and improving on your deficits.

I'm not certain what GIS is sorry?

I also wholeheartedly agree that you improve by practise and studying life. I do that. too much even. You also take influences form artists you love, as artists in question you're accusing me of copying, DerShing and Arakawa admittedly do. DerShing has even listed her influences.

Of course I referenced photographs of wolves. That is 'life study' as you mentioned because I want them to look authentic but its not a trace or a copy. If you can show me where you think I've copied from I can either say 'yes I referenced that photographs because its a wolf, and I can't see wolves on the street like I can people so I need a photo' or I can say no. I used a book, actually.

All this being said I'm taking on board your criticism, just vindicating the insult that I'm tracing. If you think my work resembles The Meek too much I am taking that on board, of course, and thanks for you input. I'm just taking umbrage that I'm being accused of copying or tracing because thats just not the case. However I'm not really going to argue any more. I've said my piece. It looks like the Meek, Great! The Meek is fantastic, I just need to work a little more on solidifying my own style, which if you'd followed me as an artist (which you haven't, of course, because I'm an obscure none razz ) you'll have seen my style has always been this way before the meek existed, which is I think roughly three years? Something like that.

TL; DR. Thanks, I'm an evolving artist and my style is American cartoon inspired.

[CB_Young]

Your coloring looks like you are abusing the burn and dodge tools, rather than actually coloring. Coloring digitally does not change color theory. Adding black is not always the way to make things look darker.

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

LostPriestess

Your coloring looks like you are abusing the burn and dodge tools, rather than actually coloring. Coloring digitally does not change color theory. Adding black is not always the way to make things look darker.

You're probably right, I'm terrible with the colouring. I'm still trying to find a way to darken without having it look like that horrible blackened thing, I've just not found a way yet.

[Kyousouka]

0o Sabakku No Gaara o0

I'm still trying to find a way to darken without having it look like that horrible blackened thing, I've just not found a way yet.

Consider the colour of your ambient light when you colour, and add it to your shadows. For example, on a sun-lit day, the shadows (which do not receive that yellowish direct sunlight) are lit by the blue of the sky, so they're bluer. Alternatively, you could choose a single colour to mix into your shadows as a stylistic touch. This is less realistic, but you could use it to help carry your story/set the mood. Either way, you'll need to think about the setting and mood of your story, there are no shortcuts or formulas.

Here's a tutorial on light in general. It doesn't talk about choosing shadow colours exactly, but by familiarising yourself with the theory, you should be able to figure out how to apply it to your work.

It helps to think of colour as HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value). You're creating shadows by modifying the value (darkness/lightness) of the colour. Instead, you need to modify all of the different parts. The hue should change by mixing the hue of your ambient light into the shadow, the saturation should change (low-saturation key light means saturated shadows, saturated light means lower-saturation shadows), and the value should of course change because shadows are darker due to there being less light.

Edit: Also, GIS = Google Image Search.

[0o Sabakku No Gaara o0]

Kyousouka

Consider the colour of your ambient light when you colour, and add it to your shadows. For example, on a sun-lit day, the shadows (which do not receive that yellowish direct sunlight) are lit by the blue of the sky, so they're bluer. Alternatively, you could choose a single colour to mix into your shadows as a stylistic touch. This is less realistic, but you could use it to help carry your story/set the mood. Either way, you'll need to think about the setting and mood of your story, there are no shortcuts or formulas.

Here's a tutorial on light in general. It doesn't talk about choosing shadow colours exactly, but by familiarising yourself with the theory, you should be able to figure out how to apply it to your work.

It helps to think of colour as HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value). You're creating shadows by modifying the value (darkness/lightness) of the colour. Instead, you need to modify all of the different parts. The hue should change by mixing the hue of your ambient light into the shadow, the saturation should change (low-saturation key light means saturated shadows, saturated light means lower-saturation shadows), and the value should of course change because shadows are darker due to there being less light.

Edit: Also, GIS = Google Image Search.

That is so helpful, thank you! My 'learn as I'm going along' technique defiantly needs to be pointed to better tutorials than I have already found. I'm gonna paddle around the 'colouring'tutorial pool, continuing my bounced lighting learnding and defiantly trying more mute, less heavily saturated colouring.

[Kyousouka]

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the majority of tutorials out there do more harm than good. I recommend focusing your time mostly on tutorials/articles that focus on theory rather than techniques, at least at first.

Here's another tutorial that's very good, to save you some time. Between this and the light tutorial, this has pretty much everything you need to know to get started.

The next step is really to just look at how light/colour works in real life, and look at great photography and paintings and figure out what it is about their colours, values, composition, etc that makes them look good. Learn to think critically about everything you see, that way you'll be able to learn from everything.

[Deamus]

So far, and I might be completely wrong about this, but....

********, ********, feck feck feck feck ******** ******** ******** was really, really distracting. Cursing is fine, but it feels like he was cursing just to curse?

Other than that, the female that was introduced feels very underwhelming in terms of design. The two males that were introduced are pretty personable and their interactions are entertaining, but she just falls flat and generic.

Otherwise your art is really very good and the comic overall was enjoyable <3