Finished comic book (20+ pages)

**Jamariquay** · December 8th, 2007, 08:34 AM

Been working on this for awhile. Yes, it takes it's name from a Spock's Beard song. I expect to be hearing from their lawyers any day now. And Showtime.

Oh right, and it has "furries." I shall be yiffing in hell from this day forth, apparently.

EDIT: Nevermind. It likes deviantart better than photobucket, apparently.

**Drunken_hand** · December 8th, 2007, 01:44 PM

Welcome to CA! ... and since I don't know how to stretch the greeting out more, so onto the crits!

This might sting, but try working with black and white values on your pencil. Right now what I'm seeing seems like you don't have a firm understanding of lighting or values, volume, or edges - soft and hard.

Your characters' body parts are lit inconsistently from each other and then again from character to character. The values you use on a character will imply a lot about the shape of their bodies and clothes, and you can find that you can probably do away with a lot of black lines in the body once you get it down pat.

Using a brush with soft edges makes it distracting and disjointed from the hard lines you've got going, and, sorry to say, but it comes off as amateurish. Using soft brushes will also hurt the definition of your characters' forms in a lot of places, especially if they're supposed to be muscular, but have a very soft flow to them. You can still use soft brushes, but you just got to know where to use them, just like if you can use photoshop filters correctly, they look good, not like somebody trying to polish a turd.

Lastly, you might also want to consider using varying line thicknesses, using the bolder ones for more important things, like figure outlines, clothing and what not, while using lighter ones for more detailed areas like the individual cloth folds. Having a uniform line thickness, though, will really hurt the piece.

**Jamariquay** · December 8th, 2007, 02:11 PM

Well, I used a ballpoint pen for the whole thing... There weren't any pencils.

On the other hand, you do make many valid points, especially re: varying the line width. Thanks for your thoughts, it is appreciated.

**Drunken_hand** · December 8th, 2007, 02:13 PM

oh right, pen

my bad

Well I suggested pencil because it's a simple and intuitive tool that can help you learn values and shading. Good to see you can take crits well!

**Stoat** · December 8th, 2007, 02:21 PM

Ballpoint pen! I wouldn't have guessed that. I was sure it was Photoshop because of the lack of variation. Can you get some felt-tip pens in several sizes? Or maybe even a variety of ballpoints, if that's what you're most comfortable with.

Because Drunken hand has put his finger on it. The lack of line-width variation is killing you here. And the soft brushes -- you burning and dodging? It gives everything a soft, squishy, shiny quality. Like everything in your world is a balloon animal. I haven't been looking at Photoshop art long, but I'm developing a real hatred for that look.

But you get bigtime points for completing such a lengthy project. I'm not being condescending, either -- a long, sustained effort with consistent quality shows a level of seriousness and professionalism that some people never reach. And it's not bad! Compositions are good, storytelling is good. Dialogue is funny. Keep pushing!