While story content of the fight is good, the actual mechanics of it are rather… Well, let’s say that you probably should avoid actually drawing fights, or at least melee fights, in the future.
The problem is clearly not your actual artistic abilities, they are more than good enough for it, but but fight scenes do seem to be something of a weakness to you. I’m not an artist, and thus I can’t really say what would be the best way to fix that weakness, but it’s really something you’d need to focus if you plan to have more of them in the future.
And kudos to you for it. I’ve had to draw a few fight scenes and the problem is always how much do you leave out, & which parts can you use to show what you are trying to show. If guns are involved it becomes easier because you show character x blasting away, etc. but when you get down to the mano a mano fisticuffs as you are showing here, you really do have to carefully edit the scene & still show that the people are moving, and quickly.
The only way to become good at drawing fight scenes is to draw fight scenes, and the first dozen are going to look stilted, no mater how good you may be.
That’s a pretty good reason, Pete. My compliments.
I agree with Felius, though, that there’s something not altogether convincing about the artwork here. If I may, I think what feels “off” to me is that, especially in the three mini-panels in which Dakkar strikes Francis with his fist or knee, neither his nor Francis’ flesh deforms as it would if they were actual fleshy creatures landing blows on each other. We should see Dakkar’s fist sink into Francis’ gut, and we should even see Dakkar’s knee and Francis’ chin flatten themselves against each other a little. (OK, Francis’ face deforms a little with that one punch, but we should also see Dakkar’s fist sink into it slightly, which doesn’t happen.) Instead, this fight is sort of like watching Euclidean geometric shapes collide: they just bounce off each other without undergoing any change or deformation in the process.
One thing you did really well, however, was making the edges of the mini-panels increasingly ragged as Francis gets more and more beaten up. That’s a really nice touch.
I appreciate the constructive feedback, and I knew I was going to catch hell for my artwork when I first conceived this storyline. It’s tough to get super detailed when I’m trying to get the strip out on time, and I’m more concerned about getting the point across rather than make it look realistic. If it was a comic book that I could take my time on before releasing, that would be different.
Heh. I doubt most comic book artists would say they have the luxury of taking their time on the art, but point taken about time constraints in any case. And your art in this strip does get the narrative point across pretty well.
Gee try not to jump in too early Mike
That’s brutal. Francis. 🙁
While story content of the fight is good, the actual mechanics of it are rather… Well, let’s say that you probably should avoid actually drawing fights, or at least melee fights, in the future.
The problem is clearly not your actual artistic abilities, they are more than good enough for it, but but fight scenes do seem to be something of a weakness to you. I’m not an artist, and thus I can’t really say what would be the best way to fix that weakness, but it’s really something you’d need to focus if you plan to have more of them in the future.
That’s kind of why I forced myself to do this – to challenge myself.
And kudos to you for it. I’ve had to draw a few fight scenes and the problem is always how much do you leave out, & which parts can you use to show what you are trying to show. If guns are involved it becomes easier because you show character x blasting away, etc. but when you get down to the mano a mano fisticuffs as you are showing here, you really do have to carefully edit the scene & still show that the people are moving, and quickly.
The only way to become good at drawing fight scenes is to draw fight scenes, and the first dozen are going to look stilted, no mater how good you may be.
That’s a pretty good reason, Pete. My compliments.
I agree with Felius, though, that there’s something not altogether convincing about the artwork here. If I may, I think what feels “off” to me is that, especially in the three mini-panels in which Dakkar strikes Francis with his fist or knee, neither his nor Francis’ flesh deforms as it would if they were actual fleshy creatures landing blows on each other. We should see Dakkar’s fist sink into Francis’ gut, and we should even see Dakkar’s knee and Francis’ chin flatten themselves against each other a little. (OK, Francis’ face deforms a little with that one punch, but we should also see Dakkar’s fist sink into it slightly, which doesn’t happen.) Instead, this fight is sort of like watching Euclidean geometric shapes collide: they just bounce off each other without undergoing any change or deformation in the process.
One thing you did really well, however, was making the edges of the mini-panels increasingly ragged as Francis gets more and more beaten up. That’s a really nice touch.
Keep up the great work–and the self-challenges.
Sorry, that was meant to be a reply to Pete’s reply to Felius.
I appreciate the constructive feedback, and I knew I was going to catch hell for my artwork when I first conceived this storyline. It’s tough to get super detailed when I’m trying to get the strip out on time, and I’m more concerned about getting the point across rather than make it look realistic. If it was a comic book that I could take my time on before releasing, that would be different.
Heh. I doubt most comic book artists would say they have the luxury of taking their time on the art, but point taken about time constraints in any case. And your art in this strip does get the narrative point across pretty well.