Review, damnit!
http://www.drunkduck.com/Celebrity_Stalker/
Comic Review
DD Review of Celebrity Stalker
Eggbert
at 12:41PM, Dec. 5, 2006
last edited on July 14, 2011 12:19PM
Aurora Moon
at 9:34PM, Dec. 5, 2006
Art: Isn't the greatest. it's basically poorly done MS Paint Art. in the start, half the time the artist doesn't even try to erase some of the lines, etc.. granted it gets much better in improvements later on but but it still has an awful quality to it. sometimes the artist uses actual pictures of things, like an city background, etc.. and that just really clashes with the "art" of the drawn people on MS paint. The art doesn't just work.
My tip in learning how to improve your body figures as well as in giving your characters less stiff postures, is to create your own "doll bases". no, I'm not kidding. they're kinda like a bigger, better version of sprites or something, only they're basically blank body templates which you can use over and over provided that you don't write over the original. by creating your own bases, you can also experiment with whole different postures and make a much better comic using your own bases.
in learning what the fuck Doll bases are, and how they're basically pixel art, not just for girls, here's samples of some very talented people that you could learn from:
http://www.wayuki.nl/ [wayuki.nl] great tutorials for all those who are doing pixel art, especially for MS paint. also some tools for you to use. granted her tutrials are all about covering penicl sketches into pixel art, but I've found some of her methods to work great in using on ms paint only.
http://www.yumestudio.it/angychan/general.php?contenuto=tutorials/temp.php [yumestudio.it] has some great hair tutorials and stuff... that is if you can stand the bright pink layout. ^^;;
Characters: I hate to say it, but they don't really appeal too much to me at times. some of the characters look alike too at times which makes it hard to tell them apart sometimes.theyre good as just random people that play thier roles though.
story: not much to the story. it's all mostly humor and stuff.... which brings me to the next part of my review.
Humor: the humor is pretty good here... sometimes it's a total miss though. by that I mean that some parts didn't just make me laugh, while others made me at least smile or even giggle.
overrall, how would I rate this? 5/10. the 5 part is for the humor alone.
My tip in learning how to improve your body figures as well as in giving your characters less stiff postures, is to create your own "doll bases". no, I'm not kidding. they're kinda like a bigger, better version of sprites or something, only they're basically blank body templates which you can use over and over provided that you don't write over the original. by creating your own bases, you can also experiment with whole different postures and make a much better comic using your own bases.
in learning what the fuck Doll bases are, and how they're basically pixel art, not just for girls, here's samples of some very talented people that you could learn from:
http://www.wayuki.nl/ [wayuki.nl] great tutorials for all those who are doing pixel art, especially for MS paint. also some tools for you to use. granted her tutrials are all about covering penicl sketches into pixel art, but I've found some of her methods to work great in using on ms paint only.
http://www.yumestudio.it/angychan/general.php?contenuto=tutorials/temp.php [yumestudio.it] has some great hair tutorials and stuff... that is if you can stand the bright pink layout. ^^;;
Characters: I hate to say it, but they don't really appeal too much to me at times. some of the characters look alike too at times which makes it hard to tell them apart sometimes.theyre good as just random people that play thier roles though.
story: not much to the story. it's all mostly humor and stuff.... which brings me to the next part of my review.
Humor: the humor is pretty good here... sometimes it's a total miss though. by that I mean that some parts didn't just make me laugh, while others made me at least smile or even giggle.
overrall, how would I rate this? 5/10. the 5 part is for the humor alone.
I'm on hitatus while I redo one of my webcomics. Be sure to check it out when I'n done! :)
last edited on July 14, 2011 11:09AM
mechanical_lullaby
at 2:55AM, Dec. 6, 2006
Pshoooo... Celebrity Stalker.
It does what the title promises, which is stalking celebrities.
The art... yes, it's pretty bad to look at until you realize how very hard it is to draw on MS Paint. I think the creator must not have a scanner. I was doing it all on MS Paint in the good old days just before the duck went down. And though I understand about that, and the cut and pasting being done is also understandable, it slows down the storyline. The characters are rigid and virtually the same in every panel until you get to the recent pages where its very relieving to see someone raise their arms in victory and you go, "well, there's improvement there. I'm glad he's progressing." But it's little things in the art. The characters aren't looking at eachother, there's barely any expression at all. I do like, however, the movie obsessions and the random celebrity cut-ins.
The characters? I liked in the beginning how he shows all of the characters with their names. Many people already do this, but for strips like this, you can put a name to the face. I can't exactly connect with the characters, but they seem real and believable. They're based on real people though, which is a brave thing to do.
Humor? It's the witty little, it looks like I want sex but I want him to buy me a bag, that makes me nearly fall out of my chair laughing. Other jokes were definitely hit and miss. It's difficult to do funny movie parodies. It's even more difficult to target the audience who will get the jokes just enough to laugh. What he doesn't have on MS Paint, he makes up for in making us laugh.
It does what the title promises, which is stalking celebrities.
The art... yes, it's pretty bad to look at until you realize how very hard it is to draw on MS Paint. I think the creator must not have a scanner. I was doing it all on MS Paint in the good old days just before the duck went down. And though I understand about that, and the cut and pasting being done is also understandable, it slows down the storyline. The characters are rigid and virtually the same in every panel until you get to the recent pages where its very relieving to see someone raise their arms in victory and you go, "well, there's improvement there. I'm glad he's progressing." But it's little things in the art. The characters aren't looking at eachother, there's barely any expression at all. I do like, however, the movie obsessions and the random celebrity cut-ins.
The characters? I liked in the beginning how he shows all of the characters with their names. Many people already do this, but for strips like this, you can put a name to the face. I can't exactly connect with the characters, but they seem real and believable. They're based on real people though, which is a brave thing to do.
Humor? It's the witty little, it looks like I want sex but I want him to buy me a bag, that makes me nearly fall out of my chair laughing. Other jokes were definitely hit and miss. It's difficult to do funny movie parodies. It's even more difficult to target the audience who will get the jokes just enough to laugh. What he doesn't have on MS Paint, he makes up for in making us laugh.
last edited on July 14, 2011 1:56PM
gigatwo
at 9:04PM, Dec. 7, 2006
Art:
I'm not a big fan of minimalistic ms paint comics. The characters are very stiff, something that I often have problems with.
For some reason, I can't shake the feeling that you could produce decent art with a little practice. You just need to take bigger risks. I would advise getting a better program, and try fooling around with perspective, as well as going for a more dynamic look.
Writing:
The humor is decent. The only problem, is that the entire comic relies on it's writing to deliver itself. Like most comics, there are strips that force a smile or a chuckle, and those that just don't work. I will say, the majority of your strips are funny, but the ones that aren't have nothing to fall back on. The writing does still make the comic worth reading.
Overall:
It needs a lot of work as far as art goes, but improvement is evident as the story progresses. The writing is satisfactory, but doesn't always work on it's own. This isn't a terrible comic, but I'd like to see more done with it.
I'm not a big fan of minimalistic ms paint comics. The characters are very stiff, something that I often have problems with.
For some reason, I can't shake the feeling that you could produce decent art with a little practice. You just need to take bigger risks. I would advise getting a better program, and try fooling around with perspective, as well as going for a more dynamic look.
Writing:
The humor is decent. The only problem, is that the entire comic relies on it's writing to deliver itself. Like most comics, there are strips that force a smile or a chuckle, and those that just don't work. I will say, the majority of your strips are funny, but the ones that aren't have nothing to fall back on. The writing does still make the comic worth reading.
Overall:
It needs a lot of work as far as art goes, but improvement is evident as the story progresses. The writing is satisfactory, but doesn't always work on it's own. This isn't a terrible comic, but I'd like to see more done with it.
last edited on July 14, 2011 12:35PM
Kristen Gudsnuk
at 6:41AM, Dec. 10, 2006
I'll have to reiterate the previous reviewers' words. The art needs major improvement. First of all, it seems like there is one standard drawing of each character, and you just change the mouth in each frame. I think it would be worth your while to re-draw the characters per frame, because it gets to be a little static and boring, looking at the same pictures over and over.
Also, I really have to recommend getting a program like Photoshop, or even drawing the comics and scanning them in. There's something eyebleeding about MS Paint in general.
As far as the content of the comics go, they're pretty hit-or-miss. Some of them I found hilarious (the car's making funny noises when he starts it up... it's shouting "Please God let me die!" hehe) and others just weren't funny. But usually your jokes were cute. ^_^
Art is half of comic-making, and you can't just let it fall to the wayside. This comic would be a million times better if you made it a bit more visually appealing. And if you actually want to put in a sustained effort towards improving your art, I'd recommend "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" or the "How to Draw Manga" series. (I have a book called "2500 Poses Especiales" but I got it in Argentina so I'm not sure if it's available in non-Argentina.)
Also, I really have to recommend getting a program like Photoshop, or even drawing the comics and scanning them in. There's something eyebleeding about MS Paint in general.
As far as the content of the comics go, they're pretty hit-or-miss. Some of them I found hilarious (the car's making funny noises when he starts it up... it's shouting "Please God let me die!" hehe) and others just weren't funny. But usually your jokes were cute. ^_^
Art is half of comic-making, and you can't just let it fall to the wayside. This comic would be a million times better if you made it a bit more visually appealing. And if you actually want to put in a sustained effort towards improving your art, I'd recommend "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" or the "How to Draw Manga" series. (I have a book called "2500 Poses Especiales" but I got it in Argentina so I'm not sure if it's available in non-Argentina.)
last edited on July 14, 2011 1:22PM
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