Hi guys I am new here. Never produced a graphic novel before. I have been slowly tapping away at it whenever I have extra time for the last year and only have about 50 pages to show for myself. As always, a man with a misses and a little baby boy, time is always short.

Please critique these pages, it's a random selection so none of it flows. Still not sure about copyright and what I can and cannot put up on here...to be honest I've been mainly looking at other peoples works on this site and WOW! Some amazing stuff going on, so any help or critique would be humbly appreciated.







hope this works...
I am useless with technology.

Cheers,

Myron

Jeez, now I look at it I am actually embarraced to put my work up here.
Maybe some explaining is in order? The first page is the prologue and is heavy with Aboriginal mythology, the last two are later in the storyline. You will notice a few filters common to photoshop which I hate doing as they cheapen a page and stand out to anyone with basic knowledge of the software. Sadly with my time constraints and lac of knowledge of photoshop I am reduced to using them.

...Actually, does anyone know how to get tapered ends to penstrokes with the WACOM pen? All my lines after my sortware reboot have gone back to default settings! So all my lines are thick and heavy. Any help with this would be appreciated.

Sorry for the rushed posts...I am really under the pump lately.

I think you're off to a great start! you have a pretty good grip on your style and layout, quick is key. My main cautions to you are these. First is to avoid using photographs as a shortcut for your backgrounds. Sometimes it works, but I think here, with the very specific style you've chosen, it reads poorly. You clearly have a good enough eye to draw your characters properly, there's no reason you shouldn't apply that to your backgrounds. Photos should be your reference point, not a substitute. The same goes for Photoshop brush effects - don't use them. The grass brush, especially, has a similar effect to the photos - drawing all the detail may seem like a pain in the ass but it is worth it, and you're clearly capable of it. Second, watch your shading. The soft edge shade you're using needs to be done with a closer eye to following contours or it will make the objects and characters look flat, like cutouts. Shade and shadow emphasizes depth and shape and needs a careful eye to bring it off. There really isn't a shortcut for this.

As to your Wacom issues I'd recommend downloading the software for your tablet and reinstalling it clean. Then check the pen pressure settings in Photoshop to make sure they are set to pressure sensitive and not overridden. Assuming you're using Photoshop, which it looks like.

All the best and keep us up to date as you do more!

--M

I'm so glad to get structured critisism for once, my mates keep telling me it's great. I like hearing that but I'll never get better unless some one with an analytical mind disects my work, so thanks very much for your help.

I'm figuring that mainly you're talking about the last pic and to a lesser extent the middle pic.

The last picture I put up as it's one of my worst from a terrible scene, nothing worked. It was meant to be a sniper team shadowing the two main charecters in the second picture, but none of it worked. I might redo the ghillie suits and grass from scratch but I can't really get whispy grass unless I can figure out how to fix my brush, I had a look in photoshop as you sugguested and I am lost as to where to adjust the brush settings.

Shading: I see it now, the shading on those two on the bottom pic is almost non existant. There was shading there but when I painted over with the mud I went over the shadow. There is another pic after this one that I made up which was so dissapointing that I'm thinking of cutting it out altogether and just have the scene ending with him walking up to her for a heart-to-heart.

Colours are not my strong suit. I understand that can shade with blue and highlight with yellow but I can't often make it work!

Thanks again for all your advice mate, it's always welcome.

Hey Myron, I agree you're off to great start and can completely sympathize with having a child and spouse… The panel that confused me was the last one in the samples where the blonde soldier is sort of floating adjacent to the military vehicle. Should she be encapsulated in her own panel? I'd try to stay away from the typeface C o m i c S a n s if you can. In design it's generally considered a novelty font created by Microsoft for children and sort of a parody of real comic lettering. A good resource may be Blambot which is not only professional but also has quite a few free typefaces for aspiring artists. Nonetheless keep up the good work!

...okay gang,

I've done a bit of work to the background, inked over the weapons, reduced the opacity of the mud and ditched the middle picture of the young female soldier thinking to herself as it was superfluous and non-essential anyway. A mate of mine said I tend to spoonfeed the reader so maybe this will leave more to sugguestion??

Your thoughts?

before


after



I spent alot of time re working my backgrounds and all my work since has original background work. You are right, it is much more worth it. Not just for looks but because within your self you know it's all 100% you.