Underbelly

Underbelly follows the story of Frank Marshall as he tries to survive life in the demonic apocalypse. The question is are the biggest dangers from within or without the nuclear bunker he finds himself in.

OVERVIEW

Underbelly is an action horror comic set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by denizens of the netherworld. As the title suggests, in addition to a healthy dose of demon-bashing whoopass, there's an unexpected bit of intrigue thrown in for good measure. This is not just a brain-dead shoot-em-up. When he's not slugging it out with demonic canines and other bizarre toothy monstrosities, our muscle-bound hero Frank Marshall is coming to learn that the human inhabitants of this bleak world are just as dangerous. The comic is a blend of genuinely tense and frenetic action sequences and human drama, sprinkled generously with dark humor.

Underbelly uses consumer grade 3D graphics to tell its story (it's a "Poser comic" ). You won't mistake it for a major Hollywood production, but the artwork gets the job done and can at times be visually impressive and even innovative. Ultimately, the artwork manages not to get in the way of the comic, though it may not be quite strong enough yet to serve as a major draw in and of itself. What sets this comic apart is that it is well written. The dialogue feels natural and is often very funny. The characters are well fleshed-out, and there appears to be a pretty good story brewing. Overall, this one easily makes the grade. It's a fun read, with enough substance in between ghastly thrills that it's not all empty calories. You can really sink your teeth into Underbelly.

Sorry, I don't do reviews very often, but this just happens to be a comic I've been reading. That wasn't so much an in-depth critique as it was a quick smattering of my overall impressions of the comic.

As for an in-depth look at the artwork, layout, what I think works and doesn't work, that would be a fairly lengthy post so I'll probably get around to it a bit later.

Review of Underbelly

I'll start out by being upfront and saying this is not my kind of comic, so I may be a bit unfair or unflattering simply because this is not the type of story I choose to read. That's a fault of my character, not the creator of Underbelly.

Art: The art is, as the creator admits, part of a learning process in using 3-D, but it seems he's a quick study as the art does a very good job of illustrating and advancing the story. There are a few muddy panels, and sometimes the action jumps jarringly (there's a strange disconnect between 'Fighting the good fight' pages 3 and 4, for example) but in general it looks good and is well laid out.

Language: The language is gratuitous. The opening pages have our hero talking to himself and his non-intelligent prey with a flurry of swear words and surprisingly sexist language (the demons are 'bitches' to Frank Marshall ... Frank has some issues). There's some unnecessary wordage (Frank likes the sound of his own voice) and a number of spelling, grammatical and capitalization errors throughout.

Storyline: The story has only just begun, and seems to be developing complexities, so it may be rather unfair to judge the strip based on what we have so far. However, I found the initial storyline to be cliched and even objectionable. Frank kills some 'bitch' demons, which he hopes will help him get laid. Inside the bunker a woman has been bitten (not really) and may be turning into a demon, so the female leader (who is portrayed as ugly and aggressive) wants her abandoned outside without protection. The reasoning seems weak here (even if we later discover it's a plot). Frank stays with the girl because she's "a fine piece of ass". Even he acknowledges this makes him an idiot.

Characterization: The hero, Frank Marshall, is a sexist muscle-brain ruled by his penis. He's not a nice person, and I found myself rooting for the demons rather than Frank. The best thing we can say about Frank is that he doesn't actually go through with raping an unconscious woman ... he just feels her up a bit. Nice guy. Frank may go on to redeem himself, but as thing stands I had no empathy or sympathy for him. None of the other characters have had a chance to shine through yet, but this is probably due to the story only just beginning.

Overall: While there may be a deeper, more interesting story behind this opening chapter (there are hints that this is the case) I can't review what might turn up next, only what has been posted so far, and that did not make me want to read on. While the art is well executed and there a nice flow to the strip, which shows the creator has genuine talent with the graphic medium, the main character and storyline left me cold. However, as I said at the beginning, this judgment reflects my character and personality more than anything else.

Thanks for the reviews, both have positives and negatives which is always encouraging.

@Gunwwallace, your review has been pretty helpful at making me think about showing some of the side characters personalities a little sooner than I probably would have. It's easy to overlook them sometimes.
You are correct that this is very much setting things up and there is more depth to come, I wanted a fairly straight forward action packed opening chapter. Personally I love Frank as a character, yes he's a bit of a mouthy jerk but he isn't a complete ass. The scene with the unconscious girl... what I was trying to show was that he didn't cop a feel but was sorely tempted, I guess I didn't quite get that across right. Either was they main point was that despite his primal urges and the bleak situation he was able to resist temptation.

@El cid. I think my 3D work looks good and then I check out the latest updates of some other poser style comics and feel humbled.

It was difficult reviewing something that is obviously just starting. Who knows, I may grow to like Frank later on ... but my initial reaction to him was rather negative.

You will have to excuse my odd way of writing and grammar mistakes in advance. My first attempt writting a review.

REVIEW of Underbelly

Let's see I like the flow and paneling composition. It was very clear and understandble in terms of action flow, and story telling.

-I also saw improvement in lighting, of 3d which I was very happy with. Keep working on your lighting since it will give your story more atmosphere. Light can be in multiple colors and many sources, so try experiementing.

- Now let see the story is remdinds me of a video game. This doesn't resemble a movie or a show. So I am not sure if that is what you where going for?
It's like watching a game in comic form. Reminds me of Resident Evil except with alot more fan service.


-The characters are introduced in a typical stereo type, but I don't see anything wrong with it, since it fits the video game scenario and feel. We have yet to see more of each character before making any judgement of who they are. I am sure that will be anyone first impression however the characters has alot of potential it all depends how you will develop them.


- My nitpicks are, is the pages look really messy (but improving), To me it looks like you are using photoshop or some other program. For instance I don't dig your word bubbles and the pixelation. Everything can be smooved out and much neater. Fonts are okay, your sound effects are actually the best in terms of fitting with the actual comic. Like you need to make it more appealing terms of 3d mixing with text. If you are beginner at the program that you are doing the text and actual comic graphics, I suggest to really study tutorials, like photo touch ups*, exportation with less pixelation, different approach to brushes and bubbles. Since to me this feels like the biggest weakness and it's something that will turn certain people. In any businness it's really important to focus on presentation.

-But keep doing what you are doing you are improving. Also you might think about doing something about the layout the green bloob thing is extremely not complimentary and pixelated. Also very distracting.

Just now realizing I never did get around to doing that big in-depth critique like I said I was.

Um... well, I guess I'll try to do a fast, condensed version right now. I already said generally what I liked before, so for the things that can be improved:

- LIGHTING: The lighting is all over the map. Sometimes things look too dark, with people's faces entirely hidden in shadow, and other times (like the latest pages) it looks overexposed. Actually, the last few pages have both too much light and too much shadow at the same time. Also, the lighting does not correspond with the conditions, which should be a nighttime (or just overcast) outdoor setting, with no apparent light sources nearby. You should try rendering your people separate from their environment to get better and more consistent lighting on them, and also it'd be cool if you did some more interesting (like "moody"/"spooky" ) light/shadow effects. I'm guessing you're a horror movie fan, so maybe you could try re-watching some of your favorite horror movies and pay close attention to what they do with the lighting. I'm guessing you've already done this to study camera angles, because you do a lot of really effective horror-esque camerawork in this comic.

- THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS: You tend to overdo it on the facial expressions, like to the point that it really distorts people's faces. You should experiment with more subtle expressions and also try to convey emotion through other means as well (body language, speech, suggestive lighting and composition).

- THE SPEECH BALLOONS: Like Pigtail Studio said before, this is the biggest flaw with your comic. I think they said the font is okay, but honestly I don't think it's a very good font for comics. Mainly though, it's the balloons themselves that look very rough and slapped-on. A lot of webcomics have issues with speech balloons, and I'm probably not the best person to give advice on how to fix your text issues. But it is a glaring blemish on what is overall a very cool comic. I do my speech balloons in a vector program to reduce pixelation. You could try that?

Okay, just those three things. Couldn't think of anything else. Mostly I like the comic. The plot seems to be going in a way different direction than I originally planned, which is a welcome surprise. Keep up the good work!

I kinda like this comic. The story is interesting and seems pretty well written so I can enjoy reading it. Sometimes the dialogue seems a little fake though. I'm genuinely interested in seeing where the story goes. I didn't find this comic too hard to get through and will try and follow it from now on.

Also, I agree with Gunwallace about Frank being kind of a sexist jerk. He kind of reminds me of the cameo character Will Ferrel did in 30 Rock.

Some of the art can be a little off sometimes. For example, Jamie's face is just so wrong, maybe it's meant to be, I dunno; it's weirdly small in relation to his head and it creeps me out. Also, a few of the early pages had some stretched out and distorted images, particularly with backgrounds. One page had the moon egg-shaped. Also, text-balloons look funny; this is kind of a problem with most 3D comics though. Aside from that, everything looks pretty good. I like the way the demon's voice is portrayed in speech bubbles after it's inside his head.

In conclusion, this is a pretty good comic.

Someone
Also, I agree with Gunwallace about Frank being kind of a sexist jerk.

He is a bit of douche bag, he wants to be Duke Nukem or maybe Ash from the evil dead.

Someone
Jamie's face is just so wrong, maybe it's meant to be,

It is, inspired by a guy I met a while back. Not the personality but the small face just stuck in my head.

First impressions of this comic is not good. The green dodgy background and the dark tones of the page doesn't make me jump with joy but as i start to read the story saves it luckily. My design views and the authors are obviously not the same so there are some parts that i have a hard time agreeing with.

Now to start, I'm not a huge fan of CG poser type comics as those usually come out as looking very stiff and unnatural as the characters stare blankly into space and rarely can express much emotion. It can be done though i have learned as the adult comic "Deadporn" manages to convey some pretty good facial expressions. (as well as some other dirty stuff..). With Underbelly unfortunately it is mostly odd looking faces and people usually look sleepy or knocked up on drugs. The faces of all the males are absolutely ugly, neanderthal warning, but the females look pretty good.
**http://www.drunkduck.com/Underbelly/index.php?p=781359

Some of the fault are perhaps on strange lighting as the shadows tend to make some parts of the face stand out more, but then there is this guy in the first panel and there's no excuse for that. That looks terrible.
**http://www.drunkduck.com/Underbelly/index.php?p=791981

Underbelly has a good mix of talk and action and it rarely gets boring. I can't say i really cheer for the good guy but he's ok. The monsters are all over the top hideous freaks, in a good way, and is for me the highlight of the title. The way the comic starts right away with action and a monster is also a good move. Made me interested right away.

Art and design wise the comic has some sketchy parts where the backgrounds looks bad, the fx are badly inserted and the speech ballons have sharp pixelated edges. On this page the moon is an egg and the alien blood look really cheap and is by the looks of it quickly made in paint or photoshop afterwards.

**http://www.drunkduck.com/Underbelly/index.php?p=763244

That does get better with the use of actual CG blood later on but added stuff always looks rubbish. Like the broken window in this page:
http://www.drunkduck.com/Underbelly/index.php?p=776387

The speech ballons all have sharp pixelated edges however which doesn't looks good.
Overall the design and background are a bit dull. It works but personally i would have liked to see some more crazy panels break up the standard blocks. Now and then there is some creativity like in this page with the text behind Frank.
**http://www.drunkduck.com/Underbelly/index.php?p=783604

So yeah, I'm a bit conflicted over the comic. I do like the story but i have a huge problem with the visuals. Chances are I'll be following the story to see what's going on but i which more time was spent on design and the overall look and polish it up.