Round 2: Wilfredo Torres

[mightyfineline]

I guess I'm walking point tonight...

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Cheers!

[jameslucasoni]

Wow, Wil, you're a chameleon! I thought the last batch of stuff was reminiscent of some of Phil Hester's work but the work here has a completely different, yet still very impressive, feel. I really like the brush work here. It's very evocative and appropriate for the story. And the tones are used very well, giving each panel an added dimension.

That said, I think the jump to inks forced you to cut some corners and I'm not sure the figure drawing here is as strong as the work I've seen in a lot of your other samples. A lot of the figure faces look sloppy or slightly off—consistency is one of the toughest things to achieve when you're on a deadline and I worry that with these pages you tried to do too much and it ended up costing you on things like the character emotion in page 1, panel 1 and floating, neckless head on page 2, panel 4. I think page 3 has even more cheats, including the lack of people in panel 2 and the profile shots in panels 1 and 3. I like the idea you had for the last couple panels but I think in execution they're a little too abstract.

Overall, Wil, I think you have some serious chops and I like the style you went for with these pages, I just don't think you had the time before the deadline to execute it in the way you needed to.

[C.B. Cebulski]

First off, as a general note to everyone here, thanks so much for taking the time to put in all the hard work on illustrating this script! Reviewing all the pages from every contestant was a joy! And my apologies to my fellow judges for having to look at 24 pages of art featuring my ugly mug. Sorry!

So I'll start my comments here with Wil since he was first and work my way up in the order they're posted...

I love how you went with the pencil, ink and wash look for these pages, Wil. It added a nice "classic" feel to the story. But as James mentioned, I think that also hurt you a bit here. I think you sacrificed a lot of detailed in doing so.

My one overall comment is that it seems you filled the panels with as much of each character(s) as you could only to sacrifice backgrounds and scenery, which is just as equally important in my mind. In the script, I mentioned that setting each scene was going to be extremely important to this story, so a big part of what I wanted to see come across in the art was a sense of the time period, to which the backgrounds were on crucial importance. And that was something I feel was lost here in your pages, I'm sorry to say.

You did a nice job in clearly laying out each page, and the story was conveyed well through your work. However, I do feel some of the expressions and emotions didn't come through as clearly do to some of the heavier lines your brush laid down.

Looking forward to seeing more from you!

Take care,
C.B.

[Ryall_IDW]

Page One
Well, this is certainly not a style that I’ve much experience in using on IDW books, but I think on the right story, it can fit nicely. I like that your proportions seem realistic, although if you’re ever going to play up the mammaries in a comic, an opening scene with cheerleaders, remembered through the writer’s mind’s eye, might be the place for that. You do manage a lot with a little, effectively communicating expressions with minimal linework—that’s a nice skill. The stoners in panel three seem a bit wonky, but so do groups of stoners in real life, too. The wink in the inset panel needed to come through a bit more clearly, but I like the way the reveal panel leads into the final two. Panel five, the faces could use a bit more care, but the final panel works well, and the grey wash gives it all a nicely nostalgic feel.

Page Two
I see what you’re doing with your style, but the hair on the girl in panel one feels just a bit too straight and flat to feel like real hair. Keep in mind again that I’ve been coming from a more realistic style of art the past few years, only ever reading this sort of style in Oni or Top Shelf books. So I might be full of it. And I do like this style in this type of story, I just feel like using few lines on a face means a facial expression can fall apart that much quicker if you’re not careful (like panel 3). But then again, the opposite happens in panels four and five, which work great.

Page Three
This page makes me think quiet moments play to your strengths but scenes with action in them, like the slight fender-bender or the slap, need some more work. I do like the simplicity of panel four, the legs in the rain, that really communicates things nicely. And a silhouette in panel five is also nice, but six could’ve used some brightening to send us off with a bit of light, not darkness. Your style is certainly pretty specific, and it’s well-suited here, which makes me want to see you go further in the competition to see what else you’re challenged to draw.