Sunday, January 25, 2009

While I've been away

Hey guys I was outside of Harrisburg, PA near Hershey (the park wasn't open) but the good news is if any of you have back pain I've been taught a really good method.

Ok stop yawning.

Across Time and Space
Art - As good as the panel was in the last strip I think the first panel in this strip was better. The grayscale continues to be used well in this strip until the last panel. The reason was I noticed that Jade's hair has been "colored"/shaded in as well as Cole's, showing they actually have a color through black and white means. My problem is that Skull is a light blue, and I think having him be a light gray with a darker shade would look better. Am I right or wrong on that?

Story - I liked the wrap up of the Doctor Who story. The only problem is for most of the weekend I thought Skull was saying "I love you too, Brent" and not Brent continuing the conversation from the dream. It was hard to see the squiggly line up to the thought bubble and maybe changing the speech bubble itself (fuzzy lines? etc)to show the same person was saying those two lines.

Post TARDIS Depression
Art - Ah Brent's new chin; it does give a good appearance to the man, but I'll reserve the right to judge after a few reproductions of his chin through the next few strips. The one thing I didn't like was the amount of shading, especially of Brent's face in the last panel. Since he is facing away from the light from the doorway shouldn't his whole face be shaded? By the way I like the fact that grayscale gives appearance of color to Cole and Jade's hair.

Story - This strip kinda of feels like a middle strip in that the next strip should used to expound on this further. Unfortunately, this is likely the last strip in this arc so there was no real reason for it. I look forward to being proved wrong and eating crow, because the strip itself wasn't funny.

2 comments:

Chris L said...

*art nerd alert*
There's ambient light in the room lighting his face as well. Also, if his whole face was darkened, it would just look like his skin changed color, not that it was in shadow. And you have to keep in mind that cartoons are shorthand for realism. If PvP was illustrated photo-realistically, then yes, we wouldn't see that much light on that side of his face. But by allowing the light to wrap around the head, you can improvise a sense of depth and roundness while using very simple, clean shapes for the shadows. A similar thing happens on the back of Brent's head in panel 2.

Basically:
Realistic shading = greater complexity = cluttered cartooning = weaker art over all.

Vardulon said...

I just wish he could have fit an S-word into the title so that the Acronym for Post Tardis Depression could have been PTSD.

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