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CoattailsOfJustice — Magical Things - Page 1
#comic #magic #magicalthings
Published: 2016-05-15 22:41:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 496; Favourites: 12; Downloads: 1
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NEXT: Page 2Possibly despite better judgement, I've decided to start posting this now. I finished the shading of the third page last night, since we ended up gettting rained out and not camping overnight at Mayfaire. This is Magical Things! The comic I originally got an idea for last summer-ish, I believe. The script is done, the thumbnails are done, all the pages are basically sketched out. Thus far there have been little minor edits here and there when it comes to finishing the pages but the biggest one by far is this one. I made an entirely new first page because I felt the original first page (which is now the second page) lacked context.
A lot of this shading style that I've got going on here is an experiment, especially some of the bits in what ended up being the title page.
My plan is to upload four pages this week, basically so it's up to the title page, and then every week after I will upload two pages.
Max belongs to yinyangswings
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Comments: 30
Hello
I'm here from Comment Wars. When I first looked at this piece, it was in fact the green object that caught eye first off. I thought it was a grass, but as I got to the fifth panel I was like: "Kryptonite? A living and walking/moving piece of kryptonite...? Now that's something". Going back up to the beginning, we have a silhouette of a girl playing ball. She notices the green thing, and I'll take a moment to expound what I like most about the second panel.
Despite the lacking of facial details, we definitely get the emotion out of it with the "comic expression" (not sure if I can call it that, but that's the only thing that comes to me at the moment). That is what I like most out of that piece/panel there. She then drops her ball, which frightens the green thing prompting it to scurry away with the girl on its tail.
Outside of the main focus, the background is full of detail. I hope you intend on colouring this and I assume you do because you mention in the description that you started posting this early. You definitely have the skill (based on your works in your gallery). So I'm definitely interested in seeing that (when this is complete).
Overall, there isn't really much I can suggest for improvement. Everything seems perfect for this stage (since it is incomplete). When it comes to anatomy, you are spot on (by anatomy, I am referring to the silhouette). When it comes to the woods, it's very convincing. The grass is tall indicating that it isn't tamed (much). The fence/gate seems to be like a portal that isn't what appears to be her back yard. The trees are well done. There is enough spacing between them, but not too much and the trunks are of varying widths. All small factors that (to me) contribute to it being a great small/large woods.
All in all, this is a superb start! Keep up the great work
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Howdy 
I love the air of mystery and playfulness in this, from the girl playing with a ball to the slight splashes of color and the black and white outline/shading
For the shading, it's looking great so far! As light filters through leaves of a forest, light'll scatter in different directions, which you showed with the various points of shading.
I think the aura in the last panel could use a bit more green like you have in the previous panels, it'll make it a little more clear that it's the aura shown before. Also, I know watercolors are a little tricky to keep where you want them, but there are a few trees that have the aura in front of them when it should be behind them. The only thing I can suggest on that front is maybe use a thinner brush and maybe use a dry brush to sweep the color once it gets closer to the tree edges?
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Thanks~ c:
This wasn't done in watercolor tho. xD It was all digital. I thought I got rid of all the color that went over the trees but it seems some hid in the shadows. OTL
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Oh wow! Well that's really cool you were able to get that effect digitally. I've seen digital pictures that look like they were painted, but not one that looked like it was actually drawn and watercolored. Very cool
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x//3 awww thanks~ I've seen a couple that looked watercolored but I can't think of them off the top of my head. I've seen some that look like oil paints or pastels and things too. It's really neat. ouo
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Hey! I'm from ProjectComment 's comment wars.
I really like looking at other people's comic pages/ paneled art and yours is no exception. Your selective use of color in an otherwise grayscale illustration is an appealing idea. I think the greenish-yellow is especially effective in drawing the viewer throughout the page and makes it very easy to follow from panel to panel. The magenta/violet doesn't really add anything as the green really outshines it and has a purpose, though, that's just my personal opinion.
You have a very nice technique with your lines and hatching. The backgrounds work well and are visually appealing. Panel one illustrates atmospheric perspective well. The closer objects are darker and more defined and while the character is framed in the center, they're still not as defined because they're further away from the camera. Your use of detail close to the camera in panels five and six, like the ferns and flowers, also follows this principle. However, these panels could be considerably stronger if you increased the contrast in value. Atmospheric perspective effects even densely shrouded forests. The trees further back should be lighter than the ones closer, while the trees and mounds close to the viewer are darker. If you look at this picture , the trees and flora nearest to the camera have the greatest value and saturation (if you were working in color). Further in the distance, the stalks, vines and ferns all become progressively lighter because there is more atmosphere between the camera and the object. All of your values fall into the light or middle range, but there are no really dark spots. You might play around with some tracing paper (or another layer, digitally) and see what it looks like if you add more dark, dark grays.
I think the even heights and widths of rows 1, 2 and 3 work well for this page. The consistent spacing but change in the green line is strong. Box two seems unnecessary in the story telling, as panel three alone indicates that the character noticed the ball. If you had an expression on the character in panel two (rather than just the alert lines), panel two would potentially serve more of a purpose. Currently, however, it tends to detract from the whole page rather than add to it.
Really though, this page is lovely all in all. Just some ideas for improvement.
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Hey the from the next War!
So looks like you're interested in exploring your own world in a story for readers, that's great! Comics are an excellent way to build a following of fans. Since this is a comic it takes more to critique than just looking at it frame by frame, so I'll be looking at it as a whole page.
I like your loose approach to the lines for the trees and vegetation scattered all around the image. It has a certain airiness to it that fits well with a fantasy setting. There's a sense of wonder in the last shot, but I feel like in you may have rushed this together to get it out to your readers for the story. I could spend time to discuss the shading and technique but I'm going to skip that this time. Since this is a comic it's very important consider is panel planning. It looks like how you lay out the panels could use some work, or just add some missing details to help connect things together.
FLOW
The first thing to note is that this is the very first impression without a cover title. You should think about panels as a way to pace a story. Just the order of them alone can make a big difference. Flow is highly important in comics, it's essentially how well your pages read. Not in writing, but in terms of a story that's easy or engaging to follow.
Panels 1 2-3 and 4 could use some more breathing room.
Each panel can tell us an action, but too many actions at once (IE too close together) make it more frantic, and in this case jarring. We see that a girl has a ball, notices something, then drops it and starts to investigate. These are all simple ideas, but smashed together there's very little time for us to adjust to the scene, it lacks an ease-in. One of the best ways to handle comic pages is to think in terms of screenplay beats. Breaking down a scene into essential events, with pacing in mind. As a story introduction, it would have been good to spend a little time establishing the setting before things start to happen. For example this top multi-panel could have been spread to a page, spending a little more time and ending on the beat of her noticing and dropping the ball. - This creates tension, so we want to know what she spotted (and turn the page) then save the wandering into the forest for page2. Basically try to explore the concept of buildup and taking your time, instead of rushing along.
Panel 5 is oddly disconnected from the rest of the page.
Compare all of the events that happened in the top, and now we only have a very faint green line to follow. A missing element is that the girl who was starting to explore, is completely absent on this panel which makes it look like it's unrelated. The scenery looks different enough that we don't know how far away this was from the park, it's missing an in-between. But you may want to look into exploring dynamic panels. All of your panels are very square, but you have a bit of overlapping so you're starting to think a little more beyond standard panels. For such an intentional attention given to the importance of the colored trail you didn't do much with it. Here would have been a nice spot to use a dynamic panel, connecting the green glow at the stones, breaking out of the panel and connecting to the middle one.
Consider reordering laying out your panels if it helps.
Even if it's different than your script or your roughs. Sticking to your initial plans can save you time BUT not being married to it will allow you to open yourself up to ideas that might work better. This works very well in establish your beats and flow. Digital comics are really easy to reorder panels when you can chop things up and move them around. For this page, it can have a better flow if the panels are rearranged that the big ones with the girl are near eachother without the huge empty panel inbetween, because these things with the girl are related so we naturally connect them with our brain as a flow of events.
Overall spend some more time thinking to try things out with finishing a page, instead of moving onto the next one right away. It will make a big difference.
Hope this helps!
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If you think this one was rushed, I would hate for you to see the ones that I actually did rush on. >.>
I see what you mean about the top panels appearing frantic. I ended up changing the idea for this page so many times (it was originally going to start with a wider landscape type shot, but I just couldn't quite get it to work into what I wanted) I guess when I found something that kind of worked it didn't occur to me to add more pages in since it felt finished at that point. I've been planning on re-working the beginning pages once I finish the whole thing, so spreading this bit out and adding something closer to the original new-beginning shot to start it off should be easy enough. I think also I didn't add more pages to the beginning was because at that point I was working backwards from what is now the second page which started out as the first so I was confusing myself sometimes with what was going on.
I had actually tried doing something with connecting the green aura to the middle panel~ It just didn't look the way I wanted it to, and sort of gave the appearance to me that this was still right up close to the house, which I didn't want. I do have a few ideas of how I could rework it though, when the times comes that should help them look more connected.
Thus far the only thing that's really been followed in the script is the dialogue, and even that's had little changes. Pages have been added and entire panels have been worked around. This page wasn't even in the initial plan.
Thanks! This was really in-depth and had a lot of things to consider in it.
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Just a followup, I'll actually touch on your technique this time.
The light sketchy lines look, along with no textural shapes makes this look like a rough draft. Think of it like a panel in a comic where there's suddenly no background, used at specific points you can create dramatic changes in mood BUT, IF every panel had no background then there's very little to get interested in, or it may confuse the viewer. Now applied to your lines, I think the sketchy lines look could work well if it was used at intentional spots, maybe a flash back of a fuzzy memory as an example but on it's own it's lacking some tooth to carry a whole comic.
Something to note.
If you're going to do a mostly black and white comic, you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing very light outlines only. There's just not much grip to that... When I say grip, you should be aware that our eyes see black and white first, and we're drawn to areas of higher contrast, so... if you have an entire comic of light sketchy lines, that's mostly blown-out white, you have very little for the eye to gravitate to. What I said about flow still applies, but you actually have more to work with here if you just fill in some areas with more contrast it can fill out nicely. The eye will bounce around at a rapid pace if everything is the pretty much the same, but you can use contrast to slow down or direct the eye, (IE control the flow), and then move around the page.
Well designed pages are built by using areas of your image to frame or lead the eye around. You have the groundwork laid out for this but the current messy crosshatching texture you used doesn't give enough contrast when coupled with the rough outlines only look. I attached a side by side example of how to start, and a little extra pushed one (using the same concept just repeated) that will maybe inspire you to put in the extra effort.
sta.sh/0e85uitame2
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There gets to be more shades of grey in the later pages, after I ended up abandoning the hatching thing to shade in other ways. The middle version of your attachment was actually one of the ways I was thinking about making it to start with and honestly I have no idea why I thought I could get enough shades with just the crosshatching brushes. ((Tho I did get more of a handle on it and manage to get a lot of darker and lighter bits on page 2)) A lot of the beginning of this is mostly just experimenting and playing around to see what works and what doesn't. c: I abandoned the hatching style by page 5.
As much as I am in love with the colors on the last example ((I don't know why I hadn't mentioned this somewhere in the artist comments; I guess I figured not many people besides my friends would even see it and they already knew soooo)) a lot of the reason I made the comic the way it is is because most of it was going to be in black and white with only certain things in color. The idea has kind of changed a bit in some ways and some parts I actually wasn't sure how to do it the way I had planned, but it's still kind of a core thing in this for me. If that makes sense?
And I get what you mean about flipping the middle panel to make it sit better with the one above it. I think I might have misunderstood the wording or something before. The only thing about that that I don't like is that it changes the direction of everything after it and kind of messes with my brain like "do I flip this too or just re-arrange some things so it works"
Thanks again. c:
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Instead of abandoning cross hatching all together check out this www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/07/h… . The method you're using it is more like a halftone but you miss out a lot if you treat everything the same. The trees for example flatten out when the crosshatching doesnt wrap around the contours. The only thing is that proper crosshatching takes a lot more time than just a halftone fill. If you can get it, it's certainly worth it. Have you ever seen Digger? diggercomic.com/ This black and white comic that shows off lots of different rough hatching can look great as well, an important take away is to hatch in the direction of your form so it looks like it's got some depth. Also layering different directional strokes to get texture.
Color isolation still applies to the colored version I gave as an example (there's still nothing that's magenta or green except the characters). As long as there's a specific color that's absent everywhere else, your eye will still be drawn to it because we are tuned to spot differences. 
As for the flow on the panels, without redrawing there's only so much that can be done to draw the eye around. I personally didn't like the type-writer like feel to the page how you would read it as a block of text, and opted for an S curve.
I can see what you're saying about the top to mid panel, so I would still advise putting another scene somewhere in-between to get a reaction from the girl. Right now they are a bit out of place in order of a flow of time. (Girl notices, drops ball, frog takes off) Where as it would make more sense if it was (frog takes off, girl notices, drops ball).
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Hmm... very interesting... let's see....
Pros (+):
+ Cross Hatching, not something I see often and the context that you put in is amazing!!
+ The faded green aura is pretty dim but enough for it to be eye catching for your audience.
+ The fuchsia in the final frame was a good choice to make the character stand out. I suggest just trimming the brightness of the fuchsia a bit ( Very Striking ). I also see some slight fuchsia shading near the trunk of where she is...very faded but it shows that you are taking the entire character to be the main subject including her shadow.
+ Good shapes for the trees, makes the scenery or frame more realistic.
+ The black and whiteness of the entire piece gives it an old fashioned look.
(Bonus) + I love the concept of the comic, I really want to see more of it! ^^
Cons (-)
- The shape of the girl in the last frame looks weird, it looks like she is looking in the opposite direction.
- I see the very faded yellow in the last frame, I would suggest putting some more green/yellow leading towards the flower. Since you place the aura trail in the previous frame, it looks like as if the aura is somewhere else.
- Several shading parts of the trees should either be shaded or not shaded (In terms of light direction). Overall, the shadowing would be the biggest factor that I suggest you work on. Then again, you mentioned this being your first time with this shading style. I applaud you for your valiant efforts ^^
- The middle frame has some plants which look very flat, as if it is pasted to the ground ( Bottom Left ). I don't know to me, it looks like a river or even grass, I can't quite put my head on it.
Overall, good concept, good use of color abstinence, color isolation and cross hatching. I suggest just working on the shading for the most of it 
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Seems a very good set page. It opens up a bit of the world you've created so the viewer knows about where they are. Interesting to see that you used only two colors aside from black, white, and the greys in between. The fuchsia to indicate the young girl is pleasant to look at. Seems it was left out on the very first & second (non-floating) panel, so I almost mistook her for a tree in the first one until I realized she she had hair.
The neon green you used for that mysterious aura is eye catching. Makes me wonder what it's dragging this little girl through to forest for. What could its intentions possibly be? And what is that green flower?
I noticed you said this was a new shading style. It shows, in a way. This first page has shading that seems a little stilted, specifically in the middle panel on the tree trunks. The last panel does it a little more fluidly; really, it'll all come with practice. You have a great foundation for the shading, so you just need to keep trying and you'll get better. Might I suggest to make the very backs of the deep forest a smidgen darker than you have here? -- To really show the depth of the forest.
I do have to say that I like how it all almost seemed to be done in charcoal. It has that flair to it that black charcoal on rough white paper would have. The outlines have a rough, gritty type of feeling in the style, which is quite the pleasant contrast to the clean and crisp colors and shading.
An intriguing comic with a premise that presents many questions in the first page, which can only urge your readers to continue (which I am going to do, in fact). Hope to see improvement from you in the future! Good luck! ^^
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Thanks! c: My original plan was to make thing that were magic in color and everything else in black and white, which is why it's colored the way it is. I don't remember if I just forgot to color her in the first and third panels or if I tried and didn't like how it was turning out. Actually I might have purposefully left it out of the first one, since the second one was her actually noticing the green aura.
The next page has a bit more depth in the shading, I think. I was doing a lot of messing around and experimenting. But I kind of ended up deciding that this particular style of shading wasn't going to work for some of the things I have planned for later and abandoned it a few pages in. OTL I really like the effect it creates tho so I'm definitely going to keep practicing it and figuring something I can use it for~ c:
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Love the style and simple shading, not to mention the good use of color! One thing you could improve on are the panels. They seem a bit tilted to the bottom and not in the middle.
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Thank you~ c:
Haa yea I kind of eyeball it mostly for the panels. I have a sort of vague base I use as a sort of "just keep it all within this bit" but looking at this again I notice it's kind of aimed toward the left of the canvas oops. I'll pay more attention to that in the future~
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Ooh, I remember this~ When you asked about what to title it, heheh.
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Yaaay~ c: Thanks~ Hopefully it'll continue into a good ending and not get left hanging like most things I try.
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Fff, don't say it like that. D; It'll be fine!! Look how far in you already are!
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aaaaaah<3 
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nuuu don't be jealous! Just keep drawing~ c:
Thank you tho~ x3
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IT'S HEEEEEEEEEEEERE~!! 
I'm super proud of you and super excited to see more~~! C:
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Aaaaaaahhhaahaaa~ x3 Thanks~
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Thanks~ :D
I think this page has taken me the longest so far and I am so happy with the way it came out x3
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I think it's adorable!!
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