CBI 3 Submission Round Public Comment

[Brandon Hanvey]

This thread is for public comment on the CBI submission entires.

Please keep it civil.

[MartinRedmond]

Since there's a whole month, if I may so suggest, that some contestants take a week or so of their time to make some sequentials before applying.

[Brandon Hanvey]

I tired to warn them with the advice thread.

This is a comics art contest, and pretty much all the assignments in the finals will be about creating comic pages. If you can not show that you can make sequential art in your samples, most judges will pass you by.

[KSBrennan]

I agree with Martin.

Here are some other tips for creating a good online portfolio.

1. Only have your best stuff in your portfolio. The judges don't care about your progress as an artist. They want to know what you can do now. Do the singers from American Idol bring recordings of what they sounded like when they first started singing?

2. One web page is all you should use to display your work. The only clicking the reviewer should have to do is to enlarge the thumbnails.

3. Make sure your thumbnails are large enough for the reviewer to know what they will be looking at. Also, don't crop the images in a way that makes them difficult to understand with a quick glance.

4. Limit your portfolio to a maximum of 10 strong pieces. If you don't have 10 strong pieces you probably shouldn't be entering the contest. If you are going to exceed this limit make sure the best stuff come first. See rule 1.

5. Have fun with the design of your portfolio but don't let it overpower the art work.

6. Label your artwork accurately. Give the image files clear names. Use Alt Text if you can.

7. If they are sequentials (as the majority of your work should be) they should be shown in order. Duh.

8. The first image they see should be your best. Make them want to see more.

Good luck to all the contestants. It's going to fun to watch.

[J. Torres]

Yes, sequentials, Sequentials, SEQUENTIALS!

It should only take two clicks for the reviewers to see an actual comic page in your submission.

Never mind the animated intros, forget the menus and folders, have your link bring us directly to at least a handful of comic pages that show what you can do as a comic book artist.

While there's a lot of interesting illustration and design in some of the portfolios posted so far, that type of stuff could actually work against you here...

[Gonzogoose]

I concur with everything in the post by KSBrennan above.

That said, so far I've seen one really good artist and another potential. This is going to be fun to watch unfold. Best of luck to everyone.

[davidbovey]

Yeah, I think some of the entrants so far don't have a grasp of what this competition is about and are wasting their time (and the judges) by posting links with no storytelling pages at all.

Out of the submissions up to this point, I'm liking what I see from Mr. Blankenship!

I'll have an easy gallery up and running shortly :evilsmile

[Odinwolf]

So far: Lexs, Blankenship and MikelWhelan have all submitted some good stuff, including sequentials, which, as everyone before stated, are the most important aspect of the competition. I hope all the other artists hoping to enter learn from these early entries on what should and should not be included. Good luck everyone!

[J. Torres]

I've noted two artists that I personally think have what it takes to compete in this thing, possibly even win, and maybe one other who might almost be soup. About half of the posters don't show off any comic pages so I can't say how they'd fare. In any event, I'd say that we're off to a pretty good start...

[gmsalpha]

So far I really like DaFu Yu and Lexs' stuff. I really like how DaFu does architecture and buildings. It's the little things a lot of the time that matters in artwork and I love how he drew the Witchblade/Darkness script on the Top Cow site. I started to draw that one at work, but...drawing at work isn't a good idea, let me just say that.

So good luck to you two. I think you've made the best showing thus far.

That's my opinion but everyone who threw up sequentials, I appreciate your efforts.

[frbarba]

yay! it has began! im not done yet!

[ScottDMSimmons]

Glad to see this contest started up again officially. Hope to meet some more friends this year, like I have in the past with Brant, Sergio, Jesus Antonio and more. Thanks to anyone who checks out my work, and feel free to e-mail me with any comments.

Scott

[m_trembley]

I've seen two as well that made me raise an eyebrow.

I'm pretty excited to see how this thing plays out.

[Lexs]

Few nice entries so far, it's gonna be a tough competition.
Good luck to everyone!

[sidkumar]

Wow..one day and already so much quality.... this year's gonna rock.

Personal faves:

Alexander Stojanov's pretty good....heavy Hitch influences.. damn young too. I dunno..maybe he should wait a year or so...could have better chances later when he's a more developed artist.

Andrew Huerta...damn nice..very consistant..probably the best so far. That Disney villians pin-up in particular....hell yeah!(wish Scar was in it)

Da Fu Yu's got some nice pages but consistancy and perspective are worries.


AS for me...can't spare the time to get a portfolio together (i know...lame excuse :D ) Looking forward to playing at home though.