TWCL

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

Salutations people of The Webcomic List!

Now that comic has reached Chapter 2 it's high time for some shameless self promotion!

My webcomic Ears for Elves is a story of self discovery following a young elf named Tanna as she figures out who she is and how she fits into an ever changing world around her.

It's a fantasy comic set an atypical fantasy world... although you may not be able to tell that at first; hint and clues will slowly be revealed in time.

Updates are posted every Mon/Wed/Friday at around 12am PST (give or take an hour or so).

I've been meaning to start a webcomic for years. AND NOW I'VE FINALLY DONE IT! This is my first time making a comic, I'm only a couple chapters in and already I find myself cringing at the first couple pages (YAY)! I almost feel like a real webcomicker...

EDIT
Looks like I forgot to ask for feedback. So, if anyone would like to give me their thoughts on any aspect of my comic and maybe some suggestions on how to improve/what to avoid in the future I'd very much appreciate it. I'd rather learn from past mistakes and improve as I go rather than get caught in a continuous "redrawing the first chapter to make it perfect/stack up to the later chapters" loop (those urges are hard enough to fight already!!).

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

New page up today! (And there was one added on Monday that I forgot to post about here on Monday so for anyone who last checked on Friday there are two new pages... Yeeeeeah)

Check out at today's post at: http://www.earsforelves.com

Monday's post: http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/238

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

Another page! Would you kindly check it out here: http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/250

Kail · Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 409

Looks pretty cool to me! Though it's still a bit early on to talk about the story, the art looks really nice.

If I had to criticize something (and I do, since I'm an asshole) I'd pick on three things:
1- The eyes look a bit high on the heads. Generally, in real life, eyes are about halfway up the head, here they look more like 2/3 of the way up.
2- The hair looks a bit sketchy to me. Like, generally, when you sketch a character, you rough in the hair at first and add detail later, but here, it looks like it's just the roughs.
3- The shading and texturing seems a bit loose. A lot of the time it doesn't mesh cleanly with the outlines. (Also, it doesn't seem to be a problem with your more recent stuff, so maybe you're already stopped, but the big checkerboard and polkadot screentones on the first few pages are kind of jarring to me)

Generally, it's a really promising comic and looks really good! Keep it up!

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

Kail wrote:

Looks pretty cool to me! Though it's still a bit early on to talk about the story, the art looks really nice.

If I had to criticize something (and I do, since I'm an asshole) I'd pick on three things:
1- The eyes look a bit high on the heads. Generally, in real life, eyes are about halfway up the head, here they look more like 2/3 of the way up.
2- The hair looks a bit sketchy to me. Like, generally, when you sketch a character, you rough in the hair at first and add detail later, but here, it looks like it's just the roughs.
3- The shading and texturing seems a bit loose. A lot of the time it doesn't mesh cleanly with the outlines. (Also, it doesn't seem to be a problem with your more recent stuff, so maybe you're already stopped, but the big checkerboard and polkadot screentones on the first few pages are kind of jarring to me)

Generally, it's a really promising comic and looks really good! Keep it up!

Thanks for the feedback!! Glad it looks pretty cool so far!

I don't mind the 'criticizing' since it's constructive. This is my first time doing a comic, after all, so I know there are many areas I can improve on. So, I'd much rather receive a "You should work on this part" than a "THIS SUCKS! YOU SUCK! EVERYTHING SUCKS!"

Sooo to respond to your points:
1. The eyes are too high on the head? Am I seriously messing this up? ARG! That's like figure drawing 101 here! I'm disappointed in myself. Is this an overall problem or something that tends to pop up more when I draw the head at certain angles?

2. The hair is something I've been struggling with from the get go. It's been hard for me to transfer my normally sketchy drawn hair into a clean comic page. I'm debating whether I should just do a flat fill on the hair with a single tone (like most manga). I was never really fond of the flat look but what I'm doing now is simply not working.

3. Yeeeah, the screen tones... Had a little too much fun with that in the beginning (Look TONES! So many... so pretty... MUST USE ALL OF THEM!! WHEEEE!!! I'm a comic artist!!!!!). I'm trying to ween myself off of them at this point... Thanks for pointing that out. I REALLY need to be aware of my use of them. XP

THANK YOU for the feedback. The first problem was something I didn't even realize I was doing (embarrassing...) while the other two I knew I was struggling with but never really gave them too much thought. NOW that I'm aware of them I can work on them! NO MORE EXCUSES FOR ME!

Kail · Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 409

NaarieKermie wrote:

1. The eyes are too high on the head? Am I seriously messing this up? ARG! That's like figure drawing 101 here! I'm disappointed in myself. Is this an overall problem or something that tends to pop up more when I draw the head at certain angles?

Well, the ruler says I'm overstating things a bit, so might just be a personal first impressions thing. The first page I saw was this one, and the first thing that jumped out at me was that big face shot of the blonde elf in panel two, where there's a lot of blank space between the eyes and the nose/mouth. The previous page or two seemed to show a lot of shots of Tanna with the same problem to a lesser degree, but the ruler says they're not that far off and she looks fine to me early on (when she's wearing the head scarf thing). So, I dunno, it might just be me. *shrug*

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

Kail wrote:

Well, the ruler says I'm overstating things a bit, so might just be a personal first impressions thing. The first page I saw was this one, and the first thing that jumped out at me was that big face shot of the blonde elf in panel two, where there's a lot of blank space between the eyes and the nose/mouth. The previous page or two seemed to show a lot of shots of Tanna with the same problem to a lesser degree, but the ruler says they're not that far off and she looks fine to me early on (when she's wearing the head scarf thing). So, I dunno, it might just be me. *shrug*

Well, it may not be off as much as you originally stated but it still isn't quite right. This is something I'll keep my eye on from now on.

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

New page up today! Very Happy

http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/253

CMorgan · ^_^ Joined: 29 Aug 2011 Posts: 47

You know, the eyes high up on the head don't bother me. I see it more as a stylistic choice than a anatomy problem. When designing characters having different proportions and placement of features makes things more interesting. As long as your consistent in your style i think it will be fine.

I can tell in some panels you took your time and looked at reference (for poses and hands)
http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/119
but in contrast its very obvious where you didn't reference (the people look slightly off balance or stiff, or the hands get to be more like gloves).
http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/234

I think your doing a lot of things right, i would just encourage you to really continue to reference everything as much as possible, it looks a lot more professional when you do.

Anyways, thanks for sharing, its so inspiring to see other people's stories.

NK_Nutter · Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:40 am Post subject:

Maybe the eyes are slightly higher up because they're elves? They only have to look human-ish, right?
Smile

_________________

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

NK_Nutter wrote:

Maybe the eyes are slightly higher up because they're elves? They only have to look human-ish, right?
Smile

Yeeeees... YES! Let's go with that. Totally intentional.

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

Here's another update for ya!

http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/257

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

New page!

http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/262

I also just got approved for PW (put the ads up last night) so there's plenty of free ad space available!

NaarieKermie · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 126

New page up
http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/266

halflight · Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 38

I like your comic and plan to keep reading it. I like the loose flowy lines you tend towards and the clothing designs and town designs have been pretty well done. (And these days I keep asking myself why o why did I decide to do a COLOR comic...)

Which brings me to constructive crit time!

I really like the expressions on your characters... when it deviates from the stereotypical anime expressions. You use a lot of different angles of head tipping and tilting, and there's a lot of movement in your line choice. I think if you can avoid going to the "default" faces your comic will stand out a lot more - and by default I mean ^_^ and =| and so on.

I like your characters and the idea of the cultures you're establishing. But, well, I dig elves and I like to see them well done! You do a decent job of spattering cultural tidbits in the dialog (elven "nobility", small cloistered villages, dangerous forest) and I think your choice of opening scene is decent and already tells us a lot about the character.

Cheers!