Before you post

Hi there!

I was hoping I could get some c&c on my comic, Moxie. I'm getting ready to wrap up Chapter 2, and I always like to take a step back after each chapter and asses how things are going. Aside from some wonky anatomy and backgrounds (both of which I'm still trying to get better at), any suggestions? Anything stand out? I'm already working up pages for Chapter 3, but I would love to take any suggestions and critiques to make my future pages better.

Thanks in advance!!

Hey sketchdoll!

It was fun reading your comic. I really love that you take the time to diversify your camera angles!

The parts that stick out to me most are mostly character posing. They tend to be stiff and stand awkwardly in quite a few panels, so they feel more like mannequins. I would recommend some gesture drawing practice and street drawing. Mainly focusing on weight distribution of the body and line of action.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/or ... d2b5d4.jpg

You can also use LOA in faces and whole panels/ pages to give your narrative better flow.

Ill see if I have time to get a better example.

Thanks Batichi! I really appreciate that you took the time to read and critique my comic. I notice that my characters lose some of that fluidity (did I just make up a word?) when I go to ink. Your suggestion to practice more gesture drawings is good advice, thanks!

Your comic is cute!! And colorful! And about a cat girl. I can't complain. It reads fluidly. And I really do like the way you color it. The different effects are really pretty--a lot of respect for the detail you put into your comic.

I find the yellow in the mouth really distracting; if I saw someone with a yellow mouth, I'd be seriously concerned for their health.

I also noticed that your characters tend to monologue. Bless your soul that it's usually just a page or two, but it sometimes seemed unnecessary, especially when Clover was explaining why she was mugging Mari on page 44???

Readers are really smart--don't feel like you have to explain everything. Speculation is part of the fun, and readers often assume a lot you don't even have to explain (ie, Mari doesn't even really need to elaborate on WHY she's looking for her brother--we saw that in the prologue he treated her kindly, so we assume she cares about him a lot).

In the future I'd also like to see a lot more of Mari's individual personality. I like her, but I want to see her personality pop as brightly as her costume does. What gives her the moxie she possesses? There aren't really any adjectives describing her in your About page, and it's those things that make her an individual what I want to see.

Looking forward to following your comic

k8a, thanks for your reply!

So, I never noticed the yellow mouths! My monitor isn't as bright as some of the newer computers, but I'm glad you mentioned it. Sometimes I worry about some of the color choices I make because I'm working on an older computer lol. I'll try picking a different shade for mouths

I'm also glad you mentioned the monologues. I recently read a forum convo on another website about internal monologues in comics. I didn't realize how often I was using it in my own comic (I think I watched to much anime lol). I'm starting to realize that I should be using this technique less and lean more towards showing emotions in the faces rather then explaining feelings etc. I'm always worried about readers being confused, but I should give them the benefit of the doubt. As you said, readers are very smart

Thanks again for taking the time to read and critique. Moving forward I'll keep your advice in mind, especially in letting some of the character's personalities shine!

Something that stood out to me and some others IIRC while reviewing Moxie was some issues with characterization. Mari is a bit of a tropy "naive magical girl going on first adventure" character, which isn't bad, but is perhaps overly familiar. Continuing to develop her and giving her a unique character will help a lot.

Your site isn't loading for me right now, so I don't remember drugger-thief's name, but his character felt weird. Like, I was wondering if he was going to be nice, but then he was rapey, but then he was just a thief, but then he was nice again, but he was also unobservant and didn't notice her really nice necklace when he was planning to drug and rob her in the first place, and then he was surprised to find her still where he left her drugged out, etc, etc. I'm guessing he's supposed to be a "loveable rogue with a heart of gold" character, but at the moment he's just confusing me.

So, working on clearing up and giving a personal stamp to your characterization I think will help a lot as you keep going forward. I did like your artistic style, and enjoyed overall the parts I read, the characters just bugged me a bit XD

Hey, thanks for your feedback DaemonDan!

Looking back on the first chapter makes me cringe a bit, especially since I felt like I was still trying to figure things out as well as the characters. I would probably re-write it if I had time, but I would rather put my energies into future pages. Starting this project, I had more of an art background then a writing one, so I have had to do a lot of learning along the way. I appreciate your thoughts on the characters though! Currently, I am working on script and buffer pages, and already feel like I'm starting to get the characters to where they need to be, so I'm hoping that moving forward in the story their personalities will shine better Thanks again for your c&c!

Bumping my thread for the upcoming application season and excited to re-apply!!

I can't believe it's nearly been 5 months since I first posted this thread. Man, time flies! It feels like last week!

So since the last time I got critiques, I've uploaded the rest of Chapter 2, a second Interlude, and started Chapter 3. I actually have all of Chapter 3 done, just can't post it right now unless I want to kill my buffer XD. In Chapter 3, I have tried harder to work on developing the characters more and I feel like my art is continuing to improve. My goals moving forward with the story is to make things happen at a faster pace. I realized my pacing was on the slow side. If I could time travel I would kick myself in the shins a year ago and tell myself to hurry it along!

I literally just finished scripting Chapter 4 today, so I would love to hear critiques and suggestions as I progress the story. Thanks in advance for all your help!

Thanks for stopping by! I enjoyed catching up on your comic and think you're doing a good job of developing the characters. Like Dan, I was a bit confused about Choco's motives, but I think the recent conversation laying out his motives really helped clarify that.

A lot of times with reapplications, the more change and development you can show the members, the better. If you're planning to reapply but there are pages you haven't posted publicly yet, I really recommend putting them in a private folder and including them in the sample links with your application.

This is more a website note rather than comic advice, but the background is making your comment section hard to read.



Hopefully throwing a background on there isn't too hard to do. It looks really great otherwise!

Hey delphina, thanks for commenting! I never thought about sharing a private folder with the application. What a great idea, I think I'll do that!

My comments are set up with Disqus and I just now realized that I could alter the background colors (Duh!) I've just changed it for light backgrounds, hopefully that helps? I would love if I could customize the colors more, but I think that will require working the coding some.

Thanks again!