batman pages

[rodrigo!]

damn i feel so crap about posting my art i mean theres so much increidble stuff here...but i finally mustered up the courage to post some recent comic pages i finished,
hopefully i will get some advice and be able to improve more
thanks for looking
http://www.renderosity.com/photos/ArtistArticle7372.jpg
http://www.renderosity.com/photos/ArtistArticle7654.jpg
http://www.renderosity.com/photos/ArtistArticle7662.jpg

[jasonpuppy]

Hey man, they look pretty cool. You gonna ink them, too? Also, it's kind of hard to figure out how Batman rendered the guy unconscious on the last page. Looks good, though!

[shortmikeshort]

I like your flow of action. You did a great job of breaking down the story into static images. And you have a lot of fun with panel layout. Your panel layout is your strength.

Your second large panel on the first page is the most dramatic, the most layered. Most of your panels, esp the first large one on the first page, don't have much Oomph. I know that doesn't help... um... like the straight on view of the guys running away from the bank. Kinda boring looking. It's straight on.

Yeah, I definitely like the second large panel on the first page.

Batman looks kinda swishy in the fourth panel on the third page. And I'm not sure about how he's carrying that one guy over his shoulder.

Also, and this is just a story point, but Batman would never let the bum have the money. Read Miller's Batman: Year One.

[Dahsramu]

Hey Rodrigo you shouldnt feel bad at all - this is very good work...

And because you asked, here's some things I noticed which you should work on...

The first panel of the first page is very bare. The composition of elements in this panel makes what should be one of the most exciting panel of these pages become the most boring. There is a big empty spot in the middle of the panel, and unless a huge word balloon belongs there, you should place something there to fill in the void. Try moving the bank robber that is closest to the viewer back some so that he fills up more of the panel and also move the robber furthest away from the viewer forward some (this will also make the car stopping more believable). Also the robber furthest away from the viewer looks like he's flying, not running - the foreshortening of his limbs is off (where are his legs?).

In the second panel of the first page, I think the silhouette of batman is placed too high in the panel and therefore leaves a chance that the viewer misses he's there. This can ruin the flow of the story, since it is important for the viewer to know that he was on top of the building before he attacked the robbers. I know you dont want it to be too obvious he's there but I think by lowering the panel a little (so that batman's not scrunched up near the border with the other panel) you allow the viewer to casually notice he's there without making it too obvious.

Finally, also in the second panel, the way you drew the robber closest to the viewer's right hand kind of makes it look like it's his left hand ... try reworking some of the folds in the cloth around his armpit area to show that his back is closer to the viewer than the arm - doing that will fix this ...

It seems almost all of the major things I noticed were all in your first page... probably because once you started working and got past that first page, you got looser and more confident (happens to me all the time). Most of the things I noticed had to do with layout and composition, so just work a little more on creating an interesting, exciting layout within your panels before you start drawing them... other than that, you're already great so just keep it up!

Anyways, I've already written too much... hope I helped!!

[DarkPheonix15]

:nana :barfing: SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTT good work:chug:

[warmblade]

Great work man! I know how you feel there are some incredible artist here....

[shortmikeshort]

Hey, I took a look at your website.

It's a cross between a portfolio site and a personal site. Which is actually not a good idea. You need to cut down on your liner notes, and stop saying "Hope you enjoy." I know you are a teenager, but lines like that make you sound like a teenager. Get rid of the Favorite this and favorite that on the bio page. If you want someone to hire you from this site, they'll be more concerned with what you can do and what you did, not what you like.

Work on your description of Mage Warfare. It sounds like you have no idea what you actually were working for. An employer wants to know that you will fully understand every in and out of their product. "As I understand it" just won't cut it.

Also, on an artistic note, your style is wildly inconsistent. You slide from Mcfarlane/Leifeild style over-rendering to absolutely no rendering at all. Take a look at the third Werewolf comic page and you'll see what I mean.

You're off to a good start. As a fellow comics artist, I do like what I see. I won't say sweet, but I will say nice job.

[FrankForte]

Rodrigo,

Great work! keep up the practice.

You need work on anatomy and the fgure in action. Get How to Draw the Marvel way (study the breakdown of the figure into simple shapes) and study books an anatomy. Don't draw from comics for a while and draw from life. Take a college course in perpective. If you ar still in high school, local art colleges usually offer night classes for teens. Take them...or take a sat class. If you live in LA or NYC there are plenty of these.

Buy a small sketchbook and take it wherever you go. Draw people, friends, lansdcape studies..everything.

Keep drawing and keep practicing.

[DanSTC]

I see a lot of issues going on with this that can be smoothed out by lots more practicing drawing from live figures and drawing from life, as well is misc. anatomical studies and so on.

Also, I've noticed that the characters eyelines have that awkwardly placed look to them---a bad habit that I often see in people who take influence from popular American superhero comic artists. I'm not certain if the artists who do it are ever really aware of it, but it hardly ever looks good unless the artist has a good grasp of how to draw an eye normally so they know exactly how to distort it.

Great effort though. Keep it up! Don't stop! You've got a good hand for drawing already, but now you need to learn and study as much as you can so you can do more with that good hand.

[rodrigo!]

whoa! this is awesome, thanks a lot everyone for helping me out.
i definitely agree about the compositioninal and layout points about my page being weak, that is something i will try and find out more about.
shortmikeshort, thanks for pointing that out about my site man, see i had no idea it looked like that because no one said anything about that. I will rework it over the weekend i also plan to get rid of the werewolf pages because i hate them.
i'll have a look around the local community colleges or tafe for life drawing classes too.
anyway i will keep working to improve and i will post my progress.
thanks everyone for all the great advice its hard to find people on the forums who will help you somethimes so yea its all good :)

[silva412]

good start man. The main crit that I have is that your bad guys have so much motion in their poses, yet your batman walks around and looks like the terminator in most of his. He seems really robotic. Like the scene where he is holding up the guy............also, you need to make it a little more clear as to how batman is suddenly carrying the unconcious bad guy away, how did he get that way exactly and how can he carry him so akwardly? Without getting into too much detail, those are the things that pop out me.....keep up the good work though. I'm back to my cereal.

[rodrigo!]

lol yea with batman i was trying to make this strong sort of boogeyman character who almost stalks the robbers, but i think i went too far and made him too stiff. with page 3, the 2 panels on the right at the top of the page are from the robbers point of view, hes supposed to be looking down at batman and then the next panel is black to show hes been knocked out. i hope that clears it up, silva, and enjoy youre cereal:chug: