beasts prologe [Archive] - Penciljack.com

Cuddly

08-21-2003, 10:15 PM

Hi psychoheat,

there's some good stuff going on in your pages. The story is interesting and shows some promise. I like your page designs, especially the imaginative use of the energy stream with the glyphs in the middle of Page 3. I also really like your use of a "proper" comic book font to do the lettering. It adds a nice professional touch to the letters and makes the page easier to read. On to the crits:

Page 1
Panel 1 - Very nice use of perspective to illustrate the castle. Kudos on that. The only part that's slightly wonky is the rounded bit in the middle. You'll need to check the perspective there as the bricks midway down don't seem to curve right. Sketch in a cylinder made up of a few rings as a base drawing and you should be able to fix that.

What I don't think is working here, however, is the storytelling. Or it's not working to its full potential. I think you have the right idea getting the exterior of the castle as an establishing shot. Having an establishing shot early on is a very good idea and is solid storytelling. However, you always need to ask yourself "What am I trying to show here?"

You've shown us a castle, which is good, It sets the scene. But reading ahead, I can see that this is a cool, tension-filled prologue. The castle is under siege from some bad-asses with some seriously nasty looking pet creatures. The monks (?) are gathering their eldritch energies to defend the castle. Am I reading it right? If so, the goings-on should be as tension-filled as the moments leading up to the Battle Of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers movie. Pull back the shot, show us not just the castle, but the surroundings as well. Perhaps show some invading force surrounding the castle. What's the sky like? The energies being summoned by the monks could be creating strange patterns in the sky. In other words, let your establishing shot convey the mood, the drama and the urgency of the situation. The second caption of your script reads "...BROTHERS, THE TIME HAS COME, THEY ARE HERE!" - who is here? So what if they're here? What does it have to do with the castle in the shot? Show us, man!

Panel 2 - An adequate shot. You may want to check the perspective a little. Trace out an ellipse in perspective and position the monks around that. You need to spot your blacks in this panel. Give the panel a light source and shadows to make things more solid. Also, vary your line weights to give your characters more solidity.

Again, the shot does a somewhat adequate job of storytelling, but needs some sprucing up. At the moment, there is very little connecting this panel with the one before it. The use of the banner design in the background that matches one on the castle ramparts is a great idea for setting up that connection, but it needs to be more prominent in the shot. Also, the pillars in Panel 2 are very ornate and seem to have been sculpted with magical symbols and such, very oriental in design. But none of these design elements are seen on the castle in Panel 1, which seems very European in design. Keeping that a bit more consistent could have solidified the storytelling that much more.

Panel 3 - A good idea, but again, storytelling-wise, this panel loses its meaning. If I hadn't read ahead, I wouldn't know what you're trying to tell us in this shot. Now, if we'd seen some hint of any of these characters in the first panel and been shown them in relation to the castle, we'd be okay. As it is now, it's just kinda confusing. Also, if the areas indicated by the "x" marks were filled in, I'm not entirely sure we'd be able to make our what you want us to see. I mean, I just can't tell. It might work, but I 'm not sure is all.

Page 2
First off, I think the panel layouts could have been a bit better. There's a huge blank area up in the top right of the page that's just dead space. You can use dead space as a storytelling element to show isolation or to slow action down, but that doesn't jive with what's happening here. This is a drama-filled page and you need to make use of all the space you can to illustrate your story. I can't see any real need for the huge blank area up top.

Panel 1 - Action-wise, a nice shot. Also, it's shot from an interesting camera angle. The tilt of the floor is a nice idea as it adds to the chaos and drama of the events. Work on your anatomy and perspective a little here. Also, the helmet elements of the guard in the foreground is forming a tangent with the left panel border.

Panel 2 - The crashing action should come from one direction. Right now, the two guards seem to be reacting to two different crashes. The hand anatomy of the guard in the foreground needs some work. Pull out reference or look at your own hand to get it right. Hand anatomy is tricky and takes a lot of practice. The "AAAAAGGGGHHH" dialog needs exclamation marks.

Panel 3 - Good job drawing the splintering wood as the baddie crashes through. However, you could add a couple of guards fleeing to tie this panel clearly back to the previous one. The word balloon needs a couple of exclamation marks to heighten the drama and menace of the baddie. The dialog right now is reading as if the baddie is bored or whispering.

Panel 4 - From the dialog, I'm guessing this is a monk speaking? To make that point clear, show us a background or another monk in the shot. Also, the word "to" should be spelled "too".

Page 3
Like I said earlier, I like the design element of the energy beam here. The glyphs/sigils/symbols are cool, though I think you should have used circle templates and French Curves just to make them look sharper, cleaner and more professional.

Panel 1 - I get that the guards are under attack by the invaders, but I'm not too sure whether they're being killed on the floor or over furniture or what. You need to create a setting and give these characters some surroundings to work in. "Loose" should be spelled "lose".

Panel 2 - no real issues here. I'm not a fan of the "little x marks", but that's me. If you plan on inking this yourself later, it might be easier for you to stick to the x's. Again, this character needs some surroundings, a proper background of some sort.

Panel 3 - A good panel. Try to vary each monk slightly. I mean, I know a bunch of bald guys sitting in a circle can tend to look similar, but vary them a little bit (wider nose/features, more muscular, thinner, portlier, etc) just to give them some personality. Work on the backgrounds and shadows to lend more solidity to this panel.

Panel 4 - This panel looks a little incomplete. Either that or it's your scan or my monitor. You're missing some details in the flags and this shot needs a bit of texturing in general.

On the whole, a good, solid effort. I know it may sounds like I'm nitpicking in areas like the spelling and such, but it all goes to making your pages more professional. Your story shows promise and is certainly one I'd like to see develop. Hope you continue posting new pages as you progress.