Wow, both your grayscale and your color pages are beautifully done, and I like the layout too... actually, the only critical thing I can think of is the fact that the lines look a little blurry on the color pages. However, that only in isolated spots, so I guess it's just a consequence of the coloring process.

Blitzbrieg, I like the art. A suggestion, if you put it through vector before putting in the grey, it will smooth out the lines and make it more graphic design looking.

Anatta is awesome, the only thing I think need improovement is that on some of the pages it gets very confusing as to who is speaking and to who they are speaking to. Page 15 ecspecially.

A very unique concept is showcased in the latest update from bffsatan. Since I have to say something critical, I would recommend making your text a little larger and doing your balloons more traditionally, to help compliment the geometric shapes that you showcase in this update. The more simple, the more I think it will compliment.

###

@$$hole!: Trevor gets put in his place

Temple: Sophia and Selphi arrive at the West Bar in the mountains to confront Xen .

for ''The Temple of a Thousand Tears'' its well done, with good writing

For critique, Some of the inking is better on some panels than others
and can make a difference, some of it looks lighter when the lighting is
the same across all panels

Your combination of hatched shading and bloom lighting is pretty jarring.

If I was you I'd start filling the shaded areas with a darker colour on top of the hatching and lower the intensity of the the lighting.

On page 2 in the bottom left panel you've got a lighting efect that's actually darker than the area it's suposed to be lighting. If you're using photoshop set the layer to screen to avoid stuff like that. In general if you want to darken use Multiply and if you want to lighten use Screen, but it does pay to play around with the layer settings if you want to find the best result.

Your lineart is very detailed, but can get really messy. Also your colour sometimes spills over into the gutters.

I'm sorry if I'm being overly critical.

@monkeyshine

Great figures! I am intrigued! My only two crits are your gradients and lifeless panel layouts.
Most of your backgrounds appear to be a quick gradient, it doesn't really come to life. Adding in some simple details with a non-airbrush brush could do wonders. Also some deeper contrast colors(not black) could make your figures pop.

Since you've got action on this page layout is important. You could make that top panel stretch out and have the two below lay over it, and you could have the guy pop out of the 3rd panels boundaries. Panel 4/5 could have been diagonal showing movement to the reader.

All and all you're off to a great start tho :)

------------------

(crit the one in my sig please)

Absolutely stunning colors in the latest Plastic. For Crit, the POV shot in the last panel was a little jarring. You do a great job of setting up the location with establishing shots, and prioritizing your main characters, but the big hand in the last panel threw me a bit.

However, it does accomplish the goal of making me want to know who it is that's waving at Amy. Not sure if that's enough critique or not, but overall I just like your stuff.

###

@$$hole!: Susie returns from a long day at work

A$$hole:

I do like the humor. While it isn't gut-wrenching hilarity (which I can only take so much of), it is clever and entertaining. I also liked the photo-comics. Those were my favorite out of all of them.


I think one thing that would really help out is the anatomy. The faces seem askew quite a bit and their heads are too large for their bodies. While I'm not factoring out stylization, I think it would help out a lot to spruce it up a notch. References are your best friends!

The backgrounds, I believe, should be given some more love, too. I know it sucks to make backgrounds but it would really make your comic look so much better. While the frequent posters in the backgrounds are funny and likable; they are all around too gaudy and distracting. To tell the truth, when any comic artist does that, it makes the comic seem cheap. D:
Try adding some more detail and depth to them rather than Google images and gradients to save time.

All around, though, I do like your comic. ;) Keep it up, buddeh!

Doug N Exile seems to have a pretty good premise so far. At the very least it kept me reading, I'm interested to see how this one goes. :)

Critically helpful... well, there are times when you nail the shading and other times when it doesn't seem as well done. I think that was the main factor that distracted me when I read through it just now.

I really dig the art style and character designs of Pagan Zeotrope. My recommendation for improvement would be to include some backgrounds in your panels. I know I'm the last person that should be commenting on such a thing, but it really does help to establish location, even if you only put it in a single panel.


###

Temple: Portis attacks Sophia!

You're a pretty competent artist, and you've got a really good understanding of anatomy.

However, you need to work on your action poses. The third panel of your latest page is completely incomprehensable at first glance. You should read up on the line of motion and how it helps convey movement. You should also consider the placing of the axe, it looks like it's hitting her in the chin, rather than the forehead. The white hitting effect thingy (Seriously, what are those things called?) doesn't help either.
You could do with some practice on foreshortening too, the woman being hit by the axe looks like a dwarf in that panel. Her right arm looks like it ends at the sholder.

@ Monkeyshines, you style is unique and the coloring is well done also like the layouts but some of the staging and croping of scenes could use some tweaking maybe closing in more on the scene or angles used should be changed to make for more impact. In the current page the 2 dark panels make no sense in relation to the follwing panels of him landing and catching the cat. you see the cat run at the one guy but it doesn't follow that the cat fell to be caught Joel. something is missing.

@TheMidge28, I've been following the new Blood Hound pretty early when it was just the concept art stage. I've got to say I really like the style you have for these first 3 pages, especially the opening scene. However, I would like to see the pages look a bit more slick especially with the type of art you have. I am not that fond of the thick bold lines. Also, the position the girl is walking in on panel 1 of page 3 looks very awkward and unnatural. But I can't wait to read more of it!

The thing that stood out to me about the last page of Anatta was the mouths, they look funny, examine what someone yelling looks like better, they don't really do that triangle mouth thing that you have going there.
Also, maybe it's just because of the motuhes, but the eyes look a little off for the emotion your trying to convey.
So to sum that up, work on your angry face.

Holy crap, there's a lot of content on the latest update of BFF Satan. While I'm sure regular readers of the series appreciate an update of that magnitude, I know that it comes off a bit overwhelming for a first-time reader, like myself. The humor seems rather random, which can be fun, but some of the story's flow seems to be lost here to make way for very random encounters and characters. Perhaps a trip through the ol' archives will help eliminate some of that feeling, but the flow will not change. I wasn't quite sure if I should be reading across or up-down at times. Just something to consider.

###

Temple: The fight between Selphi and Portis continues!

@$$hole!: Although I haven't been mentioning them here, updates have been going up on time (Wednesdays and Fridays). Be sure to check them out here .

for temple of a thousand tears:

You may limit yourself to grayscale, but don't forget tone. Try to work in more contrast into your work-- 'hide' the linework layer in photoshop, perhaps, and squint, and make sure you can make out where your main focal points are per panel.

For The Optimist:

Your colouring is absoloutely wonderful, and your backgrounds are supurb!

Your figures could use a little work though, especially when you attempt complex poses. Check out Kazimieras' running pose in the second to last panel of the latest page, his left sholder is way too low, and if you imagine his left leg looks like it must have an extra knee to be shaped like that!

If you don't already, sketch out your characters poses on a seperate sheet of paper before you commit to them on the watercolour paper.

Thanks Phillby; I really appreciate your honesty! tbh I struggled with this page (it's the first dose of action in the whole comic; most other pages have been filled with safely static poses) and had to redraw that running panel more than once : ( (I even lightly sketched where his knee would be, just to try to get that angle right! grr! but I guess that's what photoshop is for.)

do you have any opinion on the earlier pages' lack of text boxes? it's an issue I've been wondering about (should I go back in and put the free-floating text into boxes?)

How about in terms of story..?? (that' one thing I worry about; that I'm boring people..)


Well, I just wrote a lot of questions. hehe!

Phillby, I read your archive. Pretty short, but actually fantastic!! I didn't expect it to be nearly that good, (that's a compliment!!) I think because of your banner. The banner font for "Monkeyshine" looks a little sloppy, and the colors in the banner don't really match (lavender and firetruck red, with a smattering of cyborg green?) So one thing I'd say is to make your banner (and avatar) AS good as you possibly can. (I'm one to talk though!) I love the line, "Once more, with Feline" and maybe you should work it in; it's a hilarious pun.
Also, I was surprised by how nice and fluid some of your poses are, like the ones on this page , and when he catches the cat. Great job. Also, the story is really intriguing, well-written as of yet, and BEST OF ALL, with these kinds of comics, often people love trying to confuse readers by throwing in too much extraneous info that will only make sense much later, but you didn't really do that. And good call, starting with an action scene.

Some critique: the inner monologue in the prologue: who is thinking that, Joel or the cat? I read through it twice and couldn't really make up my mind (tentatively I've settled on the cat.)
One thing that I think you can work on is color scheme. check out this website for help figuring out colors that "match", that harmonize. As of right now, the bright green of the cats' eyes on this page sticks out too much (I'd mute that down a bit) and the background colors are too drab (it's your comic, you can make this spaceship thing look AS COOL as you want it to!)
(I'd say that this page happily defies my color critique, so I know you can make your colors really sing!)
The in between page doesn't make sense yet-- it might in the future-- but more importantly (unless it's filler?) there seems to be a drop in the art's quality. The carpet is out of proportion; the colors don't match/seem like they were chosen arbitrarily.

Another thing, this is a BIG ONE, this is writing 101 (my writing prof, Faye Moskowitz, famous writer extraordinaire, published, beloved, an integral part of Washington DC's literati, says this too...) DON'T introduce a whole bunch of characters at once!! Hold off on giving us a thousand similar looking cats on one page (like page 6 ;)!) Also, it's not too late to make one of the cats tawny... why are they all black & white? They need to be identifiable! But back to the important thing, build up one or two (at most 3) characters at once, and THEN start introducing new characters. This is something that often ruins a comic for me-- when I have to go back and be like, "oh, that's John, and THAT's Rodney..." You know?

Well, anyway, keep it up. I'm looking forward to your next update.

EDIT: PS: having Joel's name tattooed to his face is a VERY CLEVER WAY of having me forever remember his name.

Oh, PPS: here's some general advice for anyone-- have your characters say each other's names more often in dialogue. I'm always forgetting characters names because often they're just not SAID enough. or I have to go back to when they're introduced to get their names. So remember that too!

ANOTHER edit: PPPS: the AWOOGAH in the last panel doesn't register as an alarm on first viewing... maybe have it coming more from his mouth or something?? (Although graphically I like how it is. you don't have to change it, just keep in mind for the future.)

Thanks for your wonderful advice! The colourschemedesigner website is now in my bookmarks. I should really bone up on some colour theory too.

The monologue in the prologue is the cat's, I was worried about that, but I couldn't think of a way to make it more obvious. Thought bubbles maybe?

The reason the cats are all black and white is because they're all based on real cats. I realise that's not important to the comic that Trevor looks the way he does, but it's important to me. Later on there will be other cats who aren't black and white (or based on reality at all), but that doesn't help with the 'too many charcters' thing. :(

I'll work on sme better icons too.

As for your questions:

The way the early pages are arranged I think it would look worse if the text was in boxes. It's not on top of complicated backgrounds, so it looks fine as it is.

As for the story, it's very unique, I love the strange family relationship and Kazimieras is a really interesting character. I'm not much of a history buff, but you've hooked me!

Phillby
Thanks for your wonderful advice! The colourschemedesigner website is now in my bookmarks. I should really bone up on some colour theory too.

The monologue in the prologue is the cat's, I was worried about that, but I couldn't think of a way to make it more obvious. Thought bubbles maybe?

I think the boxes work fine; just maybe add one more box that shows us it's the cat's perspective. Maybe like, "my fur is standing on end." haha, I'd understand if you didn't want to use that line per se, but something like that.

I'm glad the color scheme thing is helpful; Wyldflowa of rainbow carousel made a tutorial and mentioned it, and it's actually really helpful if you haven't figured out what color things should be. (Also it's helpful if you make a conscious effort to note when colors look really nice together, like in an ad or a piece of art. Right now I really like pink-yellow-cyan, although I've yet to use it in a drawing.)

It's really hard for me to say anything "critically helpful" about this story because I enjoyed reading it so much. The story and the art are wonderful and they complement each other wonderfully. It seems odd for me to give you a "tip" since this pretty much blows my stuff out of the water.

But, well, I decided that I was going to give it a try.

On some of the pages the lettering can be a bit tough to read. It often seeps into the colors of the narrative captions and appears muddy to the reader.

I would recommend using a font color that had stronger contrast to the colors of the page.

Of course, I wouldn't say that you switch to all caps or anything like that. The font really reflects the personality of the main protagonist and I would say that you should keep it that way.

I read the Air Raid Robertson one and I quite enjoyed it. The art is great and I love the feel of it, and the narrative captions too (=. Although the pages are not the best quality (not art-wise, picture quality-wise) and the lettering seems very msPaint-ish. Also, I feel like Ridley should be Air Raid Robertson, King of the Skies, because he looks older and more experienced, but that doesn't really matter at all. But overall it is a very good comic

The art is pretty good and I like that your doing it in pencil, but so far all you've done is zoom in for eleven pages. While this does build some suspense while reading it all in a row, reading this as it updates would just be boring. What you have so far should have been done in only one page, maybe two pages.
So to sum that up, don't draw actions out too long and put more then one panel in a page.

An interesting and somewhat comical jokes in the latest BFFSatan. I enjoy seeing different versions of the Watchmen characters, and you do a good job rendering them, but I don't know that the subject matter of the material lends itself to comedy. Perhaps I'm just too connected to the source material (loved the comic, wasn't as impressed with the movie as I would have liked). Perhaps my opinion is bias though. I think the idea if funny.

###

Temple: Two big revelations in the same page!

@$$hole!: Jeans don't make you play video games better

I really like the black and white style you have with Temple. I don't know what to suggest, other to keep it up and make it turn out good!

@$$hole: Style is also very good here. I really like this comic here. Everything looks good to me, although I only looked at two comics. Congrats on the 100!

---------------------
www.drunkduck.com/Bacon_Strips

Bacon Strip is what I would call 'organized chaos' artwork. The drawings are solid and the coloring is sharp and is intentionally outside of the lines. It's all well done and you can definitely see that the artist really is an artist.
The only critic that really jumps out at me right now is that you have panels with more than 4 sides! one of them even has 6 sides I think! 'no n-gons!' as my 3D modeling teacher would say.

Here's Contemporary Eclipse http://www.drunkduck.com/Contemporary_Eclipse/

Contemporary Eclipse: I like the flow of the page, but the pacing is a little off. After the guy gets punched in the gut he has enough time to say a few words and in that time the foot flying towards his face barely moves. Either she was moving in slow motion and has a lot of power, or he can talk extremely fast.

###

@$$hole!: A cat fight and live action Susie highlighted this week's updates.

@$$hole!: It's funny but a lot of the times the dialog doesn't make sense in my head, and I think that the pages could stand to be a little smaller without upsetting it.

My comic: http://www.drunkduck.com/Freaks_and_Geeks/

I think the art is interesting, but could be a little clearer, it's not always easy to tell what's going on. Also, I think it might look neater (if you want it to, that is) if the panels were slightly closer together.

Here's my comic, Dark Light: http://www.drunkduck.com/Dark_Light/