Comic Book Idol: Play At Home

[DKBingham]

It's awesome to see so much participation in the play at home thread! Good work guys! It was also cool that Chris Ring graced us with his presence again, lol. Good to see you doing the challenges!

[luv2pencil]

Well, first and foremost I would like to congratulate all of those who made the deadline. It's a good thing I was'nt chosen as a finalist because I was sent out on a business trip at the last minute. I started on my stuff just last night not to mention I have a 10hr workday everyday. I hope to at least have my first page up by tomorrow and hopefully be back on track by next assignment.

Well now for my general critique. It will be general because I have noticed that mostly everyone has been making the same mistakes. I will list the exceptions at the end. One thing I have noticed from most contestants and Play at Home folks is that there isnt much contrast between characters and backgrounds. I think this is due to the lack of confidence in succesfully executing the human figure. Many have trouble keeping their figures consistent. I notice Some start off with a realistic looking figure in panel 1 and by the time it reaches the last panel of the final page, it's a manga or cartoony looking figure and vice versa.

As for backgrounds, I notice everyone is doing an excellent job at drawing the exterior of the beach house. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the interiors. In many cases they are not consistent to their exterior and poorly referenced. Some of these houses have this wonderful exterior post modern look and a backwoods cabin interior look.

Everyone has been doing good job as far as layouts are concerned.

"When in doubt, leave it alone" I notice there is alot of poor and careless rendering where it isnt really necessary. There is alot of scribbling to represent blacks, grass an other things. It really has ruined some pages for some potential work.

Inks do not improve weak pencils they only seal your fate!

My word of advice is too "keep it simple" (I will leave out the "stupid" part because I feel we are all intelligent on here and have somewhat of a grasp on what we are doing). Keeping it simple makes it easier to identify and correct mistakes. If something does not look right, do not try to ignore or disguise it with inks, shadows, smoke, or other elements. A common mistake many artists make is that they will draw let's say a face they really like. They tend to build their figure around that face and thus seem to forget or ignore other elements that are not drawn as well or to their satisfaction of the face.

Furthermore, there has been a few exceptions. The following 5 artists are not perfect though they seem pretty comfortable with their craft and the closest to professional that I have witnessed so far.

Dan_M
CP Wlson
Warren_0
Wilfredo Torres
Sami (play at home and far superior to the latter)

[kamgates]

Here's my Round 1. :)

[polystyleneman]

Very nice kamgates! (I could have sworn I responded to this already...) You definitely show one of the better understandings of anatomy and perspective so far.

[Maresk]

Awesome, Kam! Better than half of the official entries. Only the last page seems kinda rushed and a little bland compared to the other two, but overall impressive.

(And you actually followed the script! :D )

[elheffe]

I don't know much about Aspen. But judging from you guys' pages she can turn into water, right? Then why is she showering? Isn't that kinda redundant?

[polystyleneman]

I was wondering about that a bit myself, but then I figured it's probably meant to challenge certain skills of the artists.

[kamgates]

I don't know much about Aspen. But judging from you guys' pages she can turn into water, right? Then why is she showering? Isn't that kinda redundant?

Haha, yeah... and if she's wet and turns into water, and then she turns back into flesh again... is she STILL wet, or did that dry her off? :p

Thanks for the comments polystyleneman and Maresk! Yeah, I agree about page 3. It was pretty late Sunday night and my sleepiness seems to have convinced me it was fine so I could go to bed. :rolleyes: I'll probably redo that page if I end up using this for my portfolio. Find more interesting angles and not be as stingy with the backgrounds.

[Inazuma Tiger]

I know I'm going to get spit roasted on these, but here's some partial pages from the Round One script. I worked on them all weekend and ran out of time before the Monday deadline. My boys suggested that I at least post what I had so it wouldn't be in vain.

So here goes. I'm looking forward to the Round 2 script and doing a better job at meeting the deadline with finished pages.

Peace.

[BParker]

really nice stuff everyone! i'll echo the congrats to those who got theirs in on deadline, (and among moving for Josh) as well as all the participation. this thread looks to be a lot of fun.

my pages are done, i should be able to get them scanned/posted tomorrow and leave some comments.

[junbobkim]

Well, when I didn't make the cut... I was heartbroken that I couldn't even follow the news anymore... last night thought I'd swing by to check on the stuff and decided I should just suck it up and at least join the play-at-home version.

Of course, the first script is late but will definitely get started with Week 2 script on time.

[bong]

kamgates--this is actually better looking than the other contestants' entries (no offence :) ) and closer to the script

[the goddamn batman]

Kamgates,

Page one, Panel 1, only problem here is that the house is kinda hard to see. Colors might help with that, but in B&W it's a bit swallowed up.

Last panel is a bit ahrd to tell that it's a helicopter firing the missiles.

Page two, this is one of the best explosion panels I've seen in this contest yet. Total kudos!

But then you lose it in the next panel. The perspective gets a bit lost with the line weights being the same in the foreground and background. Then you regain it with the last panel. Great work here, only a small problem with line weight.

Page three, Nice follow up panel to the last panel of page two. The perspective works here, but again, the line weights are a bit off. Thicker in the foreground, thinner in the background. Samething with the next panel. i think working on line weight would improve your work a LOT. So far, that's really the only complaint I have.

Ok, the last two panels just don't look finished. You've used a good amount of spot blacks in the previous panels/pages, but it's completely gone here. Maybe you wanted to get it posted sooner than later, but I think it would have been worth waiting a little longer for.

Also, I think your line weights are a bit inconsistent throughout. But these are simple things to improve upon. Look forward to seeing what you do with the next script.

[the goddamn batman]

That is one of the most confusing explosions I have ever seen. It's really hard to pick out where the character ends and the explosion begins.:(

Going off the rest of your work, I think you can do way better than that.

[the goddamn batman]

I know I'm going to get spit roasted on these, but here's some partial pages from the Round One script. I worked on them all weekend and ran out of time before the Monday deadline. My boys suggested that I at least post what I had so it wouldn't be in vain.

So here goes. I'm looking forward to the Round 2 script and doing a better job at meeting the deadline with finished pages.

Peace.

Ok, this is another really confusing explosion. If I didn't already know what I was supposed to be looking at, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell what I'm looking at. Also, it was supposed to be viewed from inside the house.

The figure in the last panel isn't working for me. neither is the fact that you went off script. Trust in the professional writer.;)

I don't want to spit roast you, because you made more effort for this than I did, but I hope my comments can be helpful to you in the future.

Don't be afraid to take more time than the deadline allows to do solid work. You'll do better work for it, and you'll get better at speed from doing it every time. Also, if you're not going to make the deadline, maybe just focus on one page and do that one page really well. You're not in the contest, so don't be afraid to work at a pace that suits your work better.