Page from issue 2 WIP

[TheFightingFoetus]

http://webpages.charter.net/pencilpusher//Iss2Pg1Rb.jpg

[K.E. Woolfork]

For only four panels this page is cluttered as heck. I chalk it up to me not being into the cascading panel layout. I mean without that on this very page you wouldn't have to crop the woman's head in the last panel.

Panel two could stand to be flipped since the guy comes from her opposite side in the next panel. Isn't that called the 180 rule? It would also make his eye and her body face right for left to right flow.

The dead space around the floating boxes . . . there'a a LOT of it.

[Bruce Lee]

FightingFoetus,

I'm afraid I don't like your page thus far, and here's why:

If I were an editor (and heaven forbid that would ever happen), upon seeing your work, my impression would be that you seem to be a lazy artist. I'm not saying that you are lazy, I'm just saying that would be my initial impression. I might peg you as an artist who doesn't like to draw the human figure very much, but prefers drawing just heads.:confused: So why would I think such things? Well, for the most part, you've avoided drawing arms, legs and hands throughout the page. We only see one (very tiny) figure with a full body in the first panel, and only one hand appears on the entire page-- in panel three. Mostly, we only see head and shoulder close-up shots, and that seems a little weird. I'm afraid a page of heads is not very impressive to an editor. More panel variety is needed for certain. Here's my panel-to-panle and some suggestions:

Panel One: This is a decent establishing shot, but it doesn't get the storytelling accomplished, unfortunately. We need to focus on the action taking place inside the building, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have bothered drawing the two character's outlines in the window.

How to make this panel work: Why not move the camera in closer to the building and focus on the window a little more? A nice, dramatic wormseye that closes in on the window might be just the thing you need.

As it stands, we focus on the building, but not the area where the characters are. We notice the guy outside instead. That what you really want here?

Panel Two: Here, I think it would be best to have shown a little more of the room and the figures of the two people. You haven't established these two yet, nor their surroundings, and it's important to do so early. We know very little about the two at this point. The girl has a fur collar, weird hair, and the guy is bald. That's about all we know so far. Is she wearing pants or a dress? Couldn't tell you. We don't have enough info. Is this an art gallery? A bedroom? storage closet? Can't say. Is the bald guy naked? In a wheelchair? Well, I think you get my point. A good medium shot of both of the figures amont the surroundings of the room would be far better. Remember, as a storyteller, you have to communicate information to the audience with your drawing, and so far, the audience hasn't received a whole lot.:(

How to make this panel work: I might have gone for a similar shot here, but I would show much more of the bald guy's upper body, and would have probably shown all of the girls body in the shot, displaying as much room detail as I could.

Panel Three: Okay. The girl has a face now, and we now know the bald guy is a little chunky, but that's all the info we get here. You still haven't established much. What we still don't know: 1) what the guy is wearing. 2) half of what the girl is wearing. 3) What's inside the room (furniture, etc).

How to make this panel work:You can go for the close-up of the girl's head here (even in spite of the 180¼ rule), but you need to most of the bald guy's body in the background in order to properly establish things.

Panel Four: We're on our last panel of the page, and we as an audience are still in the dark regarding several things. Visually, we know that the characters 1)have heads. 2)The guy is bald and fat. 3) The girl is comely 4)has a fur collar, 5) and has an odd hair style. 6)There's a painting in some sort of room. That's all the visual information we've been given.

How to make this panel work: I suggest a birdseye shot of the room with the camera panned back so that we can see the layout of the place.

I hope I've been helpful, delivering the hard hitting kind of critique you wanted to hear. The draftsmanship on the page is good (really nice faces, dude!), but the layout and panel compositions aren't working to your advantage.

Good luck with the page,

Loston
http://www.lostonwallace.com

[Chris Piers]

I think Loston gave you some really good advice about how to make things read more clearly. I would like to add that I'm not too hot on the panel layout itself. I find the overlapping panels a little distracting, especially if you were to have finished the artwork because they don't have borders to separate themselves very well.

I think the overlapping panels would work for a dream sequence or a car chase but for a scene involving conversations, a more conservative and traditional panel layout would work A LOT better. Save the fancy stuff for when the story hits a climax.

Also, the girl's figure in panel two is very stiff and awkward. I saw practice some full figures, just sketching people you see walking around in real life for a little bit.

I do like the stone work on the ground in panel one and some of the faces you did. But in panel one I ended up staring at the guy standing outside and didn't pick up on the fact that there were people in the window until Loston mentioned it. So panel one to two confused me a lot. It sort of feels like things reverse too, because she's looking to the left and we read left to right. It's ok, but I think flipping that panel would have read more clearly.

[TheFightingFoetus]

I'll fix panel 2 with the over-head view of the figures, but I feel that if I pull in for a closeup of the window in panel one, I'm gonna get hammered with "where's the building at? confusion!" Besides, I wanted to show just a little of this city, including the guy who just seems to be leaning on the building. (I'm setting something up here, bare with me.)

And yeah Loston, your crits are tight. (They bum me out sometimes, but they're worth it. Aren't you supposed to be working on 'folios???;))

Oh, and thanks Chris. I try not to do too many "crazy" layouts, but I wanted the opening of this scene to feel odd, since something's about to happen. I'll work on that some in the future.

[Bruce Lee]

FightingFoetus,

Sorry to hear that I sometimes bring you down with my critiques, but I know you appreciate my bluntness also. I'll give you the straight dope whenever I can, because it's useful for us to see our weaknesses alongside our strengths.

And yes...I'm still working on 'folios, while also pencilling ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK stuff for Claypool. I have a big DC Comics trip coming up on the 20th, so I'm mindboggling busy at the moment, but I hope I'm never too busy to offer advice to guys like you. I know you'll actually listen to it, and hopefully, will learn from it. Anyone that says sequential art is a cakewalk would be lying. Sequential art is ultra-complex at times, and often requires a lot of thought (and even some rethinking) on the part of the penciller. Too often we it's easy to forget that we have to draw with an audience in mind, and not just to please ourselves.

Anyway, glad I could help. I truly am diggin' the way your drawing faces these days. Faces aren't easy to draw either, but you seem to be handling them well.

Well, back to work I go,

Loston
http://www.lostonwallace.com

[TheFightingFoetus]

http://webpages.charter.net/pencilpusher//Iss2Page1sm.jpg

Hope you like this layout a little more...

And yeah, thanks Loston, it is appreciated.

[Dash Martin]

...**** DUDE! That's sweet! I like it a WHOLE lot better.

[InkDrop]

Originally posted by Methane
...**** DUDE! That's sweet! I like it a WHOLE lot better.

Yeah what slappy said=P

Good stuff shane.

PEACE,
Drop

[Bruce Lee]

Shane,

No doubt about it--it's definately an improvement. :)

Loston
http://www.lostonwallace.com

[TheFightingFoetus]

Bump for the edited 2nd pic. I have to letter the sign yet, but I think it's done otherwise.

EDIT

May as well post it on this page, so you don't have to load both on page 1:

http://webpages.charter.net/pencilpusher//Iss2Page1sm.jpg

[EddieChingLives]

Wow. Great stuff, man. Definately pro-quality in my opinion. Definately better than the first. Great improvements.

[Jeremy Colwell]

FF, I'm really happy to see you make some changes to you page. I think some of the crits given could have been blown off by someone not committed to honing their craft. I think your page is much better because of them and, in honesty, your attitude towards learning shown here makes me believe your next pages will be improved too.

Loston, I know you love drawing, but I think you'd be a great editor. Those are the type of comments I would welcome. Actually I'd probably moan about the time it was going to take to redo the page, but then I'd be grateful. :)

Jeremy

[TheFightingFoetus]

Oh yeah, it always sucks to hear that something's not working. I kind of knew the first one needed something else, but wasn't sure what. Loston, thankfully, gives the best crits on the web.

So after licking my wounds, it wasn't too hard going back to fix this page.

[tomek]

Originally posted by J. Colwell

Loston, I know you love drawing, but I think you'd be a great editor.
are you crazy, man? don't let loston ever become an editor!!;) ;)

[TheFightingFoetus]

I don't know, maybe he could fix some problems at Marvel...