AuthorTopic: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2  (Read 811698 times)

Offline Rosse

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #690 on: September 02, 2008, 07:55:41 pm
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Do you want comic art critique for these?

If you'd like to take the time, I'd love to hear some crits and would be very thankful. Critique are always welcome as I'd like to learn as much as I can. Even when I can't or won't address them in this piece, I will learn something for the future. Feel free to critique everything you'd like to!

Offline Helm

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #691 on: September 02, 2008, 08:08:04 pm
First of all I would suggest taking the care of drawing the panel borders with a ruler. If you don't want them to look mechanical, you can draw the line with pencil, and then trace it by hand with ink to get it a bit wiggly but still correct. That token bit of appreciation to the form tells the reader that the person that made this comic loves his art. It's a good point to start reading a comic on.

High contrast inking is very difficult and in my opinion it doesn't work when the 3d spaces and volumetrics aren't properly realized. This is a general comment in how you chose to work here. Also for a story that hinges so much on characterization, a fullback children room is a no-no for me. Where are the toys, the posters, so on. I need to know more about this child to care about what happens to it. There are many ways to do this, but you're not trying any of them here.

Purely on the level of how this reads:

page1, panel 3: it is not clear to me that this imp is in a poster. It could also be a doorway. This sort of vagueness is not a strong point if I don't have anything to go with.
pane 4: more attention paid to careful lines that mean something, this goes for the whole comic. Contours and lines need a careful balance and almost musical juxtaposition. I don't expect you to get this down on your first comic, but just keep in mind there's a difference between placing a line just to convey localized information, and the function in serves in relation to the lines and shapes around it. The latter is equally important as the former.

second page: all panels: emotions unclear. Every facial expression must emote clearly, must make sense. Especially in a silent comic. Body language also suffers from this.

page 3 panel 1: this is my favorite panel. Good concept with the perspective, good division between black and white. Only the imp body language is symbolic and not very strong but that's a bigger issue with how you draw these. In panel 2 he's noticing he can go under the bed. panel 3 is superfluous, doesn't do anything for the flow. Same as panel 5-6. Choose one or the other, both are not needed in a row. It's like time stands still and that destroys the flow there.

Last two panels: bad crops, anatomy of the arm must emote right now it's flyswatted. Where does it end?

I'm sorry if this all a lot for a first effort.

Offline Willows

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #692 on: September 02, 2008, 10:02:36 pm
Hah, it never occured to me that this might be a place where people post their work without want of C&C! I'm a rude bugger, always cramming my nose in other peoples' artwork :)

So I'll ask. Helm, do you mind if I make an edit of your work in an attempt to illustrate my points?

Offline Helm

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #693 on: September 02, 2008, 10:04:20 pm
Sure, go ahead. Especially since I don't really see your critique as it is.

Offline Willows

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #694 on: September 02, 2008, 11:07:09 pm
- Original
- Edit

The two things I changed were the size of the shin and the position/size of her right buttcheek. The size of the shin-change was mostly an eye thing, though if I had to nail the eye-thing down to a science, I'd pin it on foreshortening. Also, it irked me somewhat that the top of the thigh was a near tangent to the belt. I don't like tangents much.

After a bunch of analyzing the whole hip-thing, I've still got nothing concrete upon which to base my opinion other than "it looks wrong". When looking at the piece as a whole, it looked fine, but as soon as I focussed on that buttcheek in particular, I couldn't see how it connected to the pelvis. The reasons I'm seeing this could be many, and at the mo' I've got three running theories.

First would be that your original seems right because it follows the same general perspective lines as the rest of the chica (I.E. it goes to the same vanishing point as a line drawn through the shoulders/bottom of shirt/top of hips). Though this makes it look right when looking at the whole, it doesn't look right when looking at the individual pieces.

Second theory would be that it looks wrong because of weight. Because of the stance, that leg would be supporting a fair amount of weight, and because of that a seemingly "drooping" buttcheek feels wrong. A lower buttcheek also implies that the hips tilt that way, and that also doesn't make sense when thinking about weight. The leg that's supporting weight would push the hip up.

Third is simple, but hard to explain. Whenever I attempt to envision the bones themselves, I see the femur floating a few inches below the socket it's supposed to connect to. This -could- be through a flaw in my understanding of anatomy, buuuuut I hope not.

In any case, I've posted what looks more correct to my eyes. Still not perfect, but in my opinion a (small) step in the right direction!
« Last Edit: September 02, 2008, 11:09:24 pm by Willows »

Offline Helm

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #695 on: September 03, 2008, 12:01:11 am
First of all thank you for taking the time to help me, I really appreciate it.
Also I think that by such careful observation you're also helping yourself become a better artist, and that makes me doubly happy.
On the case of this particular thing though, I think you'd *want* the shin to be longer because a lot of the art we look at has abnormally long shins. We are engineered to like tall and thin. I prefer petite and roundy and whereas this particular girl isn't petite, she has normal length shins. They could be longer, in that she could be taller, but I wouldn't call it wrong. Perhaps what is throwing you off is where the sole rests off-panel.

Here's an anatomic paintover of the leg in question



It's not very good but it gives you a sense of it more or less, right?

Similarly the buttocks are not so much wrong as not Willows Ideal, and that's fine I think. I exaggerated the midriff and pelvis region for frankly... fetishist reasons, but I tried to keep it mostly plausible.

Offline Arachne

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #696 on: September 03, 2008, 12:05:10 am
I think the problem with her face is that the nose seems to be placed at a different angle than the rest of the face. I also think her head and chin look too big. I'd go for something more like this:



Where's the light supposed to be coming from?

Offline Helm

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #697 on: September 03, 2008, 12:15:02 am
Hm I have to disagree for various reasons.

Also light, it's from the top naturally but keep in mind this isn't charcoal fine art shading, this is comic art. This is not a cop-out, I mean it: shading for this sort of work is not just rational but also symbolic. For example check out what's going on on the arm where the hair falls over. This isn't strictly realist, but there's reasons for it to be as it is. Also, I meant the hair to have more volume, to be tangly and wild. I am not fighting critique, I swear!

Bit about the nose is probably right though, I didn't create a perspective schema for the face, so it's a small wonder it came out partially alright improvised.

Offline Willows

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #698 on: September 03, 2008, 12:19:46 am
Thanks for the anatomy paintover! It clears up a fair amount, an' shows me that the problem I was having is that I picture the femur as centred in the thigh, based on the reference of my own leg, in which I can't poke myself deep enough to find the damn thing :D

Offline Rosse

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Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

Reply #699 on: September 03, 2008, 07:03:16 am
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I'm sorry if this all a lot for a first effort.

Not in the least! To be honest, apart from the internet I don't get any critiques at all. And when I was in school what I got was seldom in-depth. So I'm very very thankful to get such critique!

I see now much clearer where I didn't succeeded to communicate the story and where it lacks in tension. To overcome that I have to practice futher, that's for sure. But I think it lacks in something different (and maybe most important) which you probably noticed but didn't persist (because not to insult me?). It's the lack of love or passion which I didn't or more precisely can't add into my work (not this comic only but everything I create).
You said I didn't add any toys and stuff into the children's room. Is that because I'm not versed enough or too lazy? Maybe, I'm not sure. But to be honest, I didn't even think of that. I didn't think of creating a mood, to empathize the reader into the boy. You say the second page don't communicate any feelings. I totally agree. But I have no Idea how I feels to be that young boy. Is that something which can be learned through studying gestures and facial expressions? Or will that automaticly occur if there's enough life experience which you can depend on?
Now, when I look back at this and other works I see, that these were created plainly with logic and no single feel. Logic is always limited where feelings are the language of the subconsciousness and therefore unlimited, independent and free.

I think I have to work really hard to express feelings first and put that god damn logic out of my head.


Yesterday I read a interview with Hayao Miyazaki where he said, that he belives, that classic animation will die some day. And that's because of the childrens, which grow up in what he calls a virtual world. Nearly everything which they consume are artificial produced, the pictures they see don't really exist, no real connection to the nature, no experience with it and less close communication with other humans. But exactly these experiences lead to masterpieces like his animation films (and I think art in general). And when the experience dies, the art dies too. - These days I really feel like I'm a virual human.

Don't feel responsible Helm. I don't feel such because of your crits. But I think now I can mention it here and maybe some of you have a "cure" for that "new illness" (which just happend to be my life experience)