I've started doing a brand new comic called "The Legalease" a while ago and decided to use Inkscape instead of a traditional raster program. I think I've got better and better as I am comfortable with it. Only 4 episodes published so far, though I've created 9...

Take a look at my comic here: http://harishankar.org/blog

Link to archive: http://harishankar.org/blog/category.ph ... ease-comic

Any feedback?

Well, if you want feedback,
I will tell you why it didn't work with me. So, it's basically subjective, doesn't mean it won't work with many others.

+I find the jokes probably intelligent somewhere, but personally couldn't get much of the recent one with the 'wrestler' and the very first one was probably funny. But that is the story part.

+Getting to the graphics, I don't know what is best suited for comics, vector or rastor. But, again, I will tell you why I am not impressed by the graphics. If you look at things like Simpsons, there seems to be a childish look to those graphics, but they look polished nonetheless. The graphics in 'Legalease' don't look polished me. Little things, like the nose of the wrestler in the latest issue, look different in the same pose in two adjacent pics.

In short, Simpsons as an example again, you have to rely on one of the two if not both: strong script, or strong graphics. I would like Simpsons or Southpark because of the script. While some of the really details Hulk, Batman, or even DRUNAA! only due to the graphics beauty

So that's my feedback,
Lenin,
Bombay.

You're looking for perfection in an amateur's attempt at a comic.

If I could draw like the pros I wouldn't be asking feedback now, would I?

Also my attempts aren't to get artistic glory. I'm looking to develop the script further and get at least consistent drawing the characters. Thanks for the feedback.

1. Poor form to ask for feedback, resurrect the request three months later, and then get snarky when someone does give benign, constructive criticism.
2. You do a better job setting up you punchline than many webcomics.
3. You haven't established your characters identities.
4. In episode 6 the table legs are rendered with great detail.
5. The rest of the drawing lacks consistency and attention to detail.
6. Not sure if it's just my browser but I had to scroll around to see the whole comic in the frame on your site. Don't do that. Get the dimensions you need for a strip to fit in your site's layout and stick with those dimension when laying it out.

Good luck with the comic. As long as you enjoy it keep doing it. As long as you keep doing it, you'll get better. Go look at the early strips from Questionable Content, one of the most successful webcomics around. The art was horrible. But now, after sticking with it for a few years, the art is much better.

llogg wrote:1. Poor form to ask for feedback, resurrect the request three months later, and then get snarky when someone does give benign, constructive criticism.

I apologize if I came across as a bit churlish.

I had waited ages for feedback when every other thread has got a reply before resurrecting it and then I get evaluated like that - look at it from my point of view also. Also when a feedback is almost wholly negative, it irritates me a bit. Especially considering that it's been so long...

llogg wrote:2. You do a better job setting up you punchline than many webcomics.
3. You haven't established your characters identities.
4. In episode 6 the table legs are rendered with great detail.
5. The rest of the drawing lacks consistency and attention to detail.
6. Not sure if it's just my browser but I had to scroll around to see the whole comic in the frame on your site. Don't do that. Get the dimensions you need for a strip to fit in your site's layout and stick with those dimension when laying it out.

Good luck with the comic. As long as you enjoy it keep doing it. As long as you keep doing it, you'll get better. Go look at the early strips from Questionable Content, one of the most successful webcomics around. The art was horrible. But now, after sticking with it for a few years, the art is much better.

Thanks a lot. I know I haven't got some consistency yet, but I'm working on it. I do this part-time and it is so difficult to get a grip of the whole thing. If I could draw a bit more and get used to the characters, I'm sure I'll get better.

As for scrolling, what resolution are you using? If it's 1024x768 then it will fit in the main view properly but when viewing individual comics it won't. I didn't want to scale it down too much. I want to keep the image resolution down, but catering to smaller resolutions really forces me to scale down too much which I wanted to avoid.

Well, I didn't comment on it in your original topic, because legal humor is not particularly interesting to me. I have very little experience with the legal world, and would not expect to understand the humor. I thought I'd leave it to others more familiar to comment.

I know I haven't got some consistency yet, but I'm working on it. I do this part-time and it is so difficult to get a grip of the whole thing. If I could draw a bit more and get used to the characters, I'm sure I'll get better.

I've always wondered how cartoon artists can make their characters look almost exactly the same, throughout the cartoon. Sometimes I've wondered if they don't have like a stockpile of sort of templates of characters, and pull out the one they need, then tweak it to have the right expression needed for each frame. And here I'm thinking about the best comics ever -- like Peanuts, Garfield, ...remember Snuffy Smith Anyway, ultimately, I think they ARE each drawn new every time. I think they are just very dedicated artists, who have a lot of both skill and experience.

I think, like everything in life, the more practice you get, the better the result. I also think it's unfair to compare a beginning cartoon artist like you, to such world class comics as Batman and Simpsons. It's just not! I do think it's good in the sense of having something to aspire to, and for inspiration, certainly. But compared to what I could ever do, you're way more talented! So I think you've made a good start (even if I don't get the jokes)

Thanks for being so understanding , brynn.

About the humour, I'm working on it and I'd love to make it more appealing while at the same time remaining within the legal field.

Character design is a specialized area of cartooning/comicking and it requires a lot of effort and time to come up with consistency in a character. I think I'm trying too hard to work from frame to frame without this reference. That's why I come up short.

I think the pros use a "character sheet" for reference, where they have the character done in various positions and expressions. But ultimately everybody keeps evolving and if you notice Tom and Jerry over the years, you'll know how Tom was interpreted differently by the different artists.

Again, thanks a lot for your considerate feedback.

Hey guys,
I suppose I was being rude. However, I just gave my views as a end viewer, not as a critic. When you put something in front of the end audience, they don't care how long you spend on it, what technology you used, how much you spent on it. They just want the end product to be worth their personal tastes. What llogg and brynn gave to harishankar was much more detailed and constructive than mine. I am new eitherways, just been in digital art learning for the stuff for past four months or so.

But I will repeat, for new artists, encouragement is needed from people like llogg and brynn, but, that doesn't mean the end user will put up with low quality, they want their time or money's worth.

Anyways, I will add my voice to it since I also truly believe - keep up with it if you enjoy it, success should hopefully come.

Lenin

You're evaluating my comic in terms of people's time or money? I don't know where you get that idea from lenin.

I think you approached my whole request wrong. If I wanted to know whether my art was as polished as the Simpsons or Batman then I can answer that question myself. You should judge everything on its own level and perhaps understand the nature of critique sought, not on the highest scale. Most web cartoonists aren't there for the money. They do it to explore their own art and for fun.

It's like somebody who writes a play, asks for a critique and is told "Bah, not worth it, it's not as good as Shakespeare".

I'm sorry I got upset at your first critique, but it did come across as needlessly harsh and judgmental. Thank you for taking the time anyway to drop by my website and reviewing my comic. Appreciated.

Cool.