Critique someone who's new to comics

[gevans1961]

This is the first comic that i've been brave enough to put on the web. Dont be too harsh. I just want a fair critique. It's called "Rocket Club". I know the grey tones are pretty messy because I used prismacolor marker instead of doing it on the computer but I promise to use screen tone for the next chapter.

[Momentosis]

http://rocketclub.smackjeeves.com/

[Loverofpiggies]

Well first off I got to say EEEK. Erase those pencil lines! They make the pages look terrible. The whole point of inking something is to fix up pencil lines and to create a smoother more attractive line. Sometimes this isnt the case, but you REALLY need to erase them here. You dont want people to see your messups do you? But here you can see every one, loud and clear.

Also your face anatomy is very off. It looks like one eye keeps pushing near the middle off their face while the other eye is falling off the other side. That or one eye keeps appearing above or below another. Infact the faces do look quite out of whack, one moment a face looks nice and unique in style, in another panel it looks like Picasso. I'd say before attempting style, try doing some realism, its good practice. It also looks like you're having a really rough time getting the pen to do what you want it to do. Lines are jagged, or lines are falling through an object (Chapter 1, Page 3, take a nice look at that book and her face in panel three http://rocketclub.smackjeeves.com/comic ... 2/ch1-pg3/ ) and line variation seems poorly planned. Also when you're doing digital word bubbles, like on the last two pages, you certainly dont want them that thick, or that black in comparison to your lineart. You usually want word bubbles to be the same size as lineart, so that they dont dominate a page. also since you're inks have turned more greyish, you'd do much better to have grey lined word bubbles as well. People's eyes are instantly going to look toward the thick black lined word bubbles then your actual art in these cases, which is exactly what happened when I looked at it.

You're playing with paneling and thats GOOD, at least with how your story is turning out. Since its obviously not a 4 panel comic, panel variation is a good thing. I also see that you're practicing with blacks, AKA shadows, and texturing, like cross hatching. These are all good aspects to practice and play with, and thats good too. I'm glad to see you're doing backgrounds, some people tend to ignore backgrounds (Which I'll admit to here but I'm working on it) or just shade them with textures or tones so a background wouldnt have to be drawn. You want people to know where your characters are and thats great! Its very important! But overall I would really suggest getting an anatomy book, and do some hardcore practice with human anatomy, with the face, arms.... everything. The practice will help and right now you need it. Not to mention there are some great artbooks, and websites as well, to help with anatomy, and perhaps you can look up sites that can help with making backgrounds and characters sit together well. Generally that would fall under perspective, I'd look that up too. Really I think right now practice is the best thing, but I'd defenitly use some perspective and anatomy help from books and websites right now.

EDIT: Also there is nothing wrong with using prismacolor tones! You just have to learn how to utilize them correctly. Also perhaps you should consider different pens? Nothing TOO special, but something that can move across the page easier.

A little bit of perspective help - http://www.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/pe ... awing.html
Anatomy help - http://odduckoasis.deviantart.com/art/A ... l-27484310

I'd defenitly say look for more then these two sites, but I tried to find ones that were simple yet got the point across for you.

[gevans1961]

Thanks, I really needed that. It's really helpful!

[Loverofpiggies]

Thanks, I really needed that. It's really helpful!

:D No problem! I'm very glad to help artists who want to improve. ^^