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[Sequential76]

I've been trying to figure out what will put my drawings over the edge. I constantly ask myself- what am I missing? Whatever these companies need in an artist I need to fingure it out soon.

I've been looking at the New Conan by Busiek and Nord. I bought the God in a Bowl Hardcover collection. What a beautiful book. Done with sweeping action lines. You can really tell the Nord uses his art as tool to get through the story. If I drew any page out of that book and showed it to an editor or submissions as an unknown I'm certain I'd be luaghed at. Or get the old pat on the back. Cary Nord seems like he's so relaxed in his profession. GO CARY NORD! Don't allow yourself to get bored with Conan. You got one of the great jobs, Crom would be pleased. :D

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Sequential76/David%20Miller%20Portfolio/Pariah4pg01againpencillorez3.jpg

[sevans]

The lady has a very musculine jaw and her ears are sticking out alot!

Otherwise I liked the rest of the panels. Nice scenery too.

[NMEZero]

The lady has a very musculine jaw and her ears are sticking out alot!

Otherwise I liked the rest of the panels. Nice scenery too.

Yes she does.
She also has a huge forehead. i think you just drew her face too small and at the wrong angle for her head in general, which seems to be waht is making her ear look off. Her right shoulder also looks huge and like it's made out of armor, or something, which i don't see in the other panels, so I'd say that it's just not really shaped like a shoulder would be from that angle. The muscles in the back of the neck, questionable at best.
I'm trying to figure out what the hell that dude is doing in the first panel. Casting unseen powers from around the side of a wall? And I don't think it's possible for anyone to twist their arm the way his right one is twisted, at least not without an extreme amount of discomfort. Nah, pretty much not possible. So it automatically strikes me as looking wierd, almost like someone elses arm. I mean it's drawn nicely but...
moving on,
Two of the buildings in the first panel look identical except for the height, it feel skind of lazy. Especially since in the last panel there's ANOTHER building on the other side of the old one that looks identical as well. They also look fairly modern in construction and so, would there really be old fashioned water towers on top of them? I think cel towers would have been a better choice or just some A/C vents. In the second panel the older building looks different than it does in the first, namely in the fact the space between the windows and floor( for lack of knowing what that trimming is called)seems to have grown.
It's strange the things i see in your work that look real good and the things that don't. Your dudes face is very well drawn in the 2nd and 3rd panels as is his hair but then his ear...doesn't look like an ear, it looks more like a sea shell.
Another thing that strikes me is that all the panels except the first go from edge to edge of the drawing area, why not make the first go all the way as well?
It seems to me overall that you have a great grasp of rendering but lack either the knowledge or patience when it comes to getting your general anatomy right. Maybe too much drawing from comics and not enough from life. Then again, maybe i jsut don't know what I'm talking about.

[ariel]

Looks nice, except for the last panel. That face just isnt working. A face panel should always be good-- Its the thing most comic guys do with ease. Like the buldings they have a nice energy!

[Willustrator]

Panel 3 is great, dont really know whats dgoing on with panel one though. Are you a JsCampbell fan by any chance?? dunno why that comes through to me on the piece but it does. I could be totally wrong

[Sequential76]

Okay I've absorbed comments and made the changes from suggestions I thought applied.
Check it out,
~David

[Poboy]

Since everything else I might crit is already covered, in panel 3, the left wheel is not in the right perspective. It's basically across from the window, so we shouldn't see the bottom of the wheel.

[Sequential76]

This is a talky seen first page of book 4 Pariah. The girl in the wheel chair is Dyana who was beat by the "hero" of Pariah. She was picked up by an ambulance which was completely covered in Pariah issue 1.

Here she's conversing with a Doc named R.Harvey on a hospital floor that is being remodeled located in Oakland CA. Dyana tells Doc Harvey the first test of Pariah.

Now you kind of know what's going on. An I'm going to let the whole wheel chair thing slide so I can meet my page a day regimen. It'll most likely be covered by a word ballon anyway.

Thanks all
I'll keep an eye on the Perspective chins and ears for todays page.
Always a tough crowd,
:)

[DAR]

Hey bro your stuff is geting better and better great job. :carrot:

[JMan]

Hey David - keep up the great work. I checked out your work on the Deviant Art boards - your attention to detail is top notch. :thumbs: There's 3 things I see that you could work on that would help right away:

1) 3/4 head shots - sometimes one eye is lower than the other, sometimes the chin juts out a little too much. This page looks better than some of your other pages as far as this goes. You might try a tracing exercise (yeah, I know, I said the 't' word) over some other artists. As with all things, repetition is key.

2) Vanishing points and carrying out perspective on all object in the panel - touched on above

3) Convergence of Line. This is something often not talked about, but it is so powerful in clarifying object to object and object to background placements. Another artist taught me about it - not sure if it's in books. A convergence is where a major form line or outline of an object coincides with another major form line or outline of another object within a drawing. This confuses the viewer. They're not sure which object is closer, farther away, or if they are side by side or attached. What you want to do is try to overlap object lines as much as posible to optimize spatial clarity. Objects wont fade into each other as much.

Take panel 1, for example. There are several points of convergence, where if you just nudged things around a bit, the panel would 'pop' more. First, at the guy's eye, where one of the main vertical building lines comes to a corner right at his eye. Another major building line runs right into his chin line. And another touches one of his fingertips.

What you want to do is separtate these spaces a bit, and he'll pop more. Move that vertical line below his eye to the left a bit so its at the crown of his cheek - move the horizontal near his chin either up or down to the midpoint of his chin, or the midpoint of his neck - and move the vertical line at his fingertips left a little so that it's maybe a knuckle deep into his hand (your other hand-to-background linework is better placed and pops more).

This will apply even in panel-to-panel transitions. From panel 1 to panel 2, there's a convergence where the building line he's leaning on in panel 1 dies right into the roof line of the building below in panel 2. Offset these a bit. I know this is all really subtle stuff, but you're at the stage of subtle improvements!

Another area this applies is your objects' borders within panels, getting too close or converging with panel borders. You don't want your objects converging into a panel border. The top of his head in panel 2 is real close. The top of his coat sleeve in panel 1 is another example. These lines die right into the panel border line.

Overall, great work and effort - keep on keepin' on!

[dano]

They already said it.

You do good work! I envy you!

[Sequential76]

Guys

Jman I always look foreword to seeing your work and I appreciate the crit time. You're a detail freak and I love it! I'm getting the Pariah 5 script tuesday and I'd love to post more for everyone to help me with. I have problems with 3 quarter views - which is wierd because I like to draw them so much. Just glance over to the old avatar on the left. Pretty sure I messed up that one too!

The buildings on this page are kind of dumbed down to fit the first issue. That's why they look so plain. Although I still have bunches of perspective ticks that's the level I was at from the starting line of Pariah. I'm amazed how much I've learned an gained in such a short time. Practice really does make perfect and I've never drawn pages as much as I do now. Sad thing is I could have been at this level 5 years ago.

I'd like to get the perspective and line convergence sorted early next time. I'll post the script page to the thumb. wait for crits and move on. Jman I hope you'll come back to help me with convergence if you have the time. I get the idea but I'm not confident about it.

Thanks Everyone
~David

[JMan]

Anytime David - love seeing the progression in your work - keep at it!