Round 2: Charles Paul Wilson III

[CPWilsonIII]

Page 1
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Page 2
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Page 3
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[jameslucasoni]

After these first two rounds, I think your my pick to win this thing, Charles. While Dan McDaid's gorgeous work is more in tune with my personal aesthetic, I think your style is more in the mainstream of the direct market.

Starting off with the good—your page layout is clear and easy to follow and your figures are almost always on model and naturally posed. All of your characters are expressive and even when you deny us much of a facial expression (like on page 1, panel 6), you make up for it with evocative body language that communicates as, or possibly even more, effectively than a more detailed face could. I think your shot selection is extremely appropriate for the material, giving the proper amount of focus to what's important in each panel. I think you do a good job of fight off the urge to over-render or get too detailed when it would be inappropriate or unnecessary.

Now on to the nit-picks! The last page has some shot selection issues that the first two don't. The car crash in panel 2 is well drawn, but I think you could have gone tighter in on the couple to give a better feel for the situation. I also feel like panel 3 on this same page is a little awkward. Your stuff isn't very cartoony and it makes the hat popping straight up seem a little too over the top for the tone you'd previously established. I'm also not sure about the angle of the hand. It seems like the whole motion and blocking of the panel is either off or too zoomed too tight to give a good feel for it.

Small stuff, Charles, and not nearly enough to take away from the fantastic work you did throughout these pages. Take a bow. You deserve it.

[C.B. Cebulski]

First off, you definitely scored bonus points for lettering the story too, Charles. Way to suck up to the writer. :) But seriously, your pages were some of my favorites. You have a clean, accessible style that's rather detailed, visually exciting and easy to follow.

Your first three panels on page one set the scenes nicely, not overdoing the detail but also conveying "fun" in all the poses and faces. You also create a nice balance between the characters and the backgrounds, not skimping on either. On page two, I liked how you included me in both the panels by use of a shadow and a hand rather than a full figure, thereby keeping the focus on the girls. Cool choices. However, I felt that your decision to have me coming up from behind the girl for the hug on panel three didn't really capture the "smell of her hair" intention as well as it could. And while I love the way you have the girl posed kind of curled up with her hand on my chest in panel five, I don't think my look captures the real uneasiness of what is happening. Little complaints, I know, but I want to be honest. On page three, I think all the panels work well and get their point across clearly. Nice touch including moving boxes in panel four, thereby adding to the story even! I do think that in panel two though, you're pulled back too far when you should be going in tighter on me and the car's driver there. And for the closing shot, you went widescreen on the hands, which surprised me at first, but now, looking at it and thinking about it, I do think it works nicely!

Wonderful job, Charles! You definitely have a future in comics!!

Take care,
C.B.

[Ryall_IDW]

Page One
You know, bad lettering in a sample can make a good page look much worse… but nice lettering on a sample can really help, too. And on this page, I really like it. I’d want to see it more refined on a finished page, but for sample purposes, I like the notebook treatment, and especially like the way you handled the title and inset panel, too. It also serves another purpose, in showing us how you fit the art in the panels while still leaving proper room for the captions. Your facial expressions—the inset panel, the mouth on the girl in the final panel—could use some tightening, but overall, I like your approach to the page.

Page Two
You really did a nice job here as well. You’ve given the girls different appearances, which includes more than just differing hairstyles, and that’s an important if too-rarely-utilized skill by some artists. You made some good choices on when to pull in tighter and when to let a long shot tell the story. The final panel, with the figures sitting on the other side of the porch posts, is a nice artistic touch, too.

Page Three
I don’t know, Charles, I think you might’ve just nailed this assignment. You bring a bit more than is asked for to your panels, which I love to see—the flying hat in panel three, the boxes and bike tire in panel four. Those little touches just really make the difference between an average page and a page that gives you pause while reading. Strangely, I couldn’t get my left hand to make the same pose that C.B.’s hand holds in the final panel (not quite sure why I tried, actually), but it still works for me—there’s a tenderness to the way she holds his hand that comes through in the positioning. And it might sound odd to say that I like the way his fingernails stand out amidst the shadowed side of his fingers, but then again, those sorts of details really only stand out on a well-drawn panel. Good showing, sir.