Am I good enough for TP?

[Loverofpiggies]

Its a question to everyone. If you dont find my art good enough, PLEASE explain why. Here is a few samples.

-Backgrounds-

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/rufusroom.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/karolekback.jpg

-Toning-

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/TONING1.jpg

ZOOM

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/TONING2.jpg

(MORE TO COME)

[Loverofpiggies]

-COLORED PICTURES-

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/Rufusonatrain.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/OREXISISSUEONECOVER1copy.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/Chrisnewoutfitcopy.jpg

(Some are a little old)

Sorry, using Photobucket makes the pictures SO small. -_- I would have put bigger ones up.... but if you would like to view them from the origianal links (which zoom nicely) then look here.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/30149453/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/29822137/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/28634093/

-TONED PAGES ZOOM-

http://www.deviantart.com/view/30136689/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/30135264/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/30136158/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/30136200/

(NOTE: These are from my failed RSOM. The next I plan to do more backgrounds and such. All done in Photoshop)

I am working hard on more backgrounds, but I know there are flaws. These are my only pictures including backgrounds. ALSO I'm going to work harder on Folds in clothes, but I want your opinion.) PLEASE, Do you think I have the potential to work for Tokyopop!? XD

[sferrick]

I'm really loving all the background details in the first pic! It looks like you really put a lot of effort into giving your work a sense of space.
I think your faces in general need work though. There's some anatomy issues too. In the first image the eyes look a little too far apart. The space between the eyes should be about the length of one eye. It can vary a bit as people's facial structures differ a lot. I like the line work in the close-up of the panel with the angel but I think that since it's a 3/4 view, the eye on our left should be closer to the bridge of the nose.
EDIT: Just adding this in because Comic_Burn brings up a good point about the coloring. It's quite flat as it is now and it would really help and some depth if you worked on the colors you use for shading. The colors used for shading in your color pics are mostly darker, greyed versions of the base color. Try to incorporate colors from the space surrounding the character. Black usually doesn't work too well with other colors in terms of shading. If you draw and paint from life more it'll really help your artwork. You'll find that there's a lot of colors that go into a picture that you'd never think of. (for example, I find that I use some sort of purple-ish color the most when I do anything in color now...I swear...there's purple in everything...it's weird...)

[Comic_Burn]

I like your monochromatic pics better than your color pics. When you paint a picture in color, you must go to great pains to not use solid blocks of a single color or else it really flattens the image like a coloring book. I don't know if it's good enough for submission or not, but I like your style.

[shady]

As far as your black and white work goes, it's quite strong but still needs some work (not that I'm speaking for TP or anything, this is just what I think so feel free to take my words with a grain of salt). It's wonderful that you incorporate backgrounds in your work- a lot of people don't do that at all so you're already ahead of the pack by having them! They're also not too generic, so that's great as well. I like your minimalist toning, though I personally would like to see a bit more variation in tone (especially when you tend to use such a light one, though this all may be how it reproduced on the computer and not in print) But anyway. Good job. :)

However, your perspective needs quite a bit of work (not that it's an easy thing by any means), and your anatomy as well. The best thing to do would be to study your surroundings (perhaps see if you can do some figure drawing classes- those are such a big help, you have no idea!), study references, just practice and you'll get better at it. Also, try to have more contrast in your art. After doing the original inks of a page, look at it and try to figure out how you can make it more visually interesting- not by particularly adding any more drawing into it, but by balancing black and whites...it's called "spotting blacks". You'll be amazed by how more interesting things look if you add some black here and there on characters clothing, hair, whathaveyou.

Your inking could also be a bit more consistant- what I tend to do is do my original lineart at mostly the same line width and then go over it, changing the width at different places...as it is right now, your lines are a bit shaky in some places and generally stay the same width. If you can vary this a bit more and create more confident lines you'll get a more solid looking picture.

But honestly, this is a very strong start. Just keep at it and I'm sure you'll become even better.

[Loverofpiggies]

As far as your black and white work goes, it's quite strong but still needs some work (not that I'm speaking for TP or anything, this is just what I think so feel free to take my words with a grain of salt). It's wonderful that you incorporate backgrounds in your work- a lot of people don't do that at all so you're already ahead of the pack by having them! They're also not too generic, so that's great as well. I like your minimalist toning, though I personally would like to see a bit more variation in tone (especially when you tend to use such a light one, though this all may be how it reproduced on the computer and not in print) But anyway. Good job. :)

However, your perspective needs quite a bit of work (not that it's an easy thing by any means), and your anatomy as well. The best thing to do would be to study your surroundings (perhaps see if you can do some figure drawing classes- those are such a big help, you have no idea!), study references, just practice and you'll get better at it. Also, try to have more contrast in your art. After doing the original inks of a page, look at it and try to figure out how you can make it more visually interesting- not by particularly adding any more drawing into it, but by balancing black and whites...it's called "spotting blacks". You'll be amazed by how more interesting things look if you add some black here and there on characters clothing, hair, whathaveyou.

Your inking could also be a bit more consistant- what I tend to do is do my original lineart at mostly the same line width and then go over it, changing the width at different places...as it is right now, your lines are a bit shaky in some places and generally stay the same width. If you can vary this a bit more and create more confident lines you'll get a more solid looking picture.

But honestly, this is a very strong start. Just keep at it and I'm sure you'll become even better. WOW... thanks alot! XD This is raelly great to hear from someone. Yes, these are actully the only two background pictures I've drawn in like, FOREVER. And yes, I try not to overtone, I see WAY to many manga (And quiet a few OEL manga) That totally overtone and it looks terrible. I would love to put more black in my art, it would be a great help and it would look much better as a comic. My inking? I'm not quiet sure what you mean. I actully kind of liked the shakyness of the end of my comic. Alot of manga dont really keep straight lines, a good example is chobits and Dramacon, who sketch the outline with ink. I wanted to try that out and thus this is what I got from it. XD Anatomy is hard, I memorized most of the lengths of each body part, so I'm happy with that. I think I need to work on folds alot though. In the clothes. I think thats the major giveaway of my amature drawing abilities. (If I could have your opinion on the folds it would be very much apprechiated)

Also PS, starting to get into the "digital inking" thing. XD Thats what my first picture with the background is. It was all in pencil before I scanned it and edited it. That certainly puts depth in. XD

[Loverofpiggies]

I like your monochromatic pics better than your color pics. When you paint a picture in color, you must go to great pains to not use solid blocks of a single color or else it really flattens the image like a coloring book. I don't know if it's good enough for submission or not, but I like your style. Wow, thanks either way! XD Yeah I doubt my abilities so much, expecially compared to some TP artists. (Not all but some) Mainly being the reason I posted this quetion up there. I want critisism, you know? All I get is admiration at my school and I hate it. DX gah... so you think I should ty to put more color in my shading? hm. I personally like the dark nature of the coloring. I really like making things dark and almost eerie looking with a constant dark shadow. But I do know my coloring isnt all the way up there either. Thanks for the comment BTW!

[Loverofpiggies]

I'm really loving all the background details in the first pic! It looks like you really put a lot of effort into giving your work a sense of space.
I think your faces in general need work though. There's some anatomy issues too. In the first image the eyes look a little too far apart. The space between the eyes should be about the length of one eye. It can vary a bit as people's facial structures differ a lot. I like the line work in the close-up of the panel with the angel but I think that since it's a 3/4 view, the eye on our left should be closer to the bridge of the nose.
EDIT: Just adding this in because Comic_Burn brings up a good point about the coloring. It's quite flat as it is now and it would really help and some depth if you worked on the colors you use for shading. The colors used for shading in your color pics are mostly darker, greyed versions of the base color. Try to incorporate colors from the space surrounding the character. Black usually doesn't work too well with other colors in terms of shading. If you draw and paint from life more it'll really help your artwork. You'll find that there's a lot of colors that go into a picture that you'd never think of. (for example, I find that I use some sort of purple-ish color the most when I do anything in color now...I swear...there's purple in everything...it's weird...) Hm, thanks! That helps. XD Yeah I guess I notice some flaws in my faces, but I personally like the way I draw them. ^w^ And with the coloring, I tend to like to make things dark and eriee, its my style of course. I just love dark art, because bright happy art kind of scares me at times. I try to add more color in there, but its a little difficult to find what colors to use.

[shady]

Nice to know you're looking for criticism- that's a very healthy attitude for an artist, so yay! All I can say to the fact that these are the two most recent background pictures that you've done in a while is...do more. ^_^ Practice does make perfect, and while you're doing them focus seriously on perspective- this is probably the main problem with backgrounds in general, and the problem that's most prominent in your pictures. Look at how perspect influences not only the buildings and inanimate objects in your images, but how it also influences the relative size of people on the visual plane. If a person is standing in a certain spot on the page- a person ahead is going to be bigger, of course, but how much bigger? If you practice enough you'll soon be able to at least eyeball the area and get accurate sizes and such. It's a good thing you have relative anatomical sizes memorized, just work more on applying them accurately and as always, practice with that as well. The problem with a lot of people (myself included) is that we start drawing from a stylized source (manga/comics/cartoons) and thus have a very skewed perspective on how the body works. If you can get a better idea of the actual anatomical abilities of the body, you can stylize them better, rather than just jumping to stylization itself.

As for your lines, I suppose I didn't see enough of that shakiness to understand if you were going for that "Chobits" look or not, that is, some lines looked like you were trying to be smooth, and others not so much. In this case, yeah, I'd probably suggest just studying from manga some more to get similar results.

You're right about your folds, however. A lot of the folds you make seem to be arbitrarily placed. Again, look at how folds work around you, draw from life- depending on how drapery is being pulled you get different results; do you want "loose" looking clothing? Tight? Baggy? Different types of folds get different results, but you have to place them in the correct areas and render them appropriately otherwise the image will look off.

I think overall, you have a good basis to work off of but you need to sit down and just perfect everything- study what's around you, see what works and what doesn't, use references (keep in mind I'm not saying to copy from references, but use them as a basis for what you want to learn). Just get into this habit and you'll go far. But most of all, keep up that good attitude...if you want to improve, you will improve (and as a note, don't refer to your RSoM entry as failed! ^^ If you hadn't of done it I'd say that would have been a true failure- now that you've worked on it you're all the better FOR it, so is it really a "failure"?).

I appologize for not focusing at all on the color art, as it's been a while since I've seriously worked in color (comics have taken over my life!). ^^; I'll let people with more experience speak on that.

[lord_neko_fuffy]

i'm not sucking up but i love your art and i love the emotion of them...
i absolutly love the way you showed the emotion of the angelic person in this one
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/TONING1.jpg
i love the butterfly bacround in the first panel... and the layout of the pannels...

with all honestly i would buy it in a heart beat...just going on the art and the part being done in the page.

my only thing so far i can see as an issue is in this one
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a182/bran15/Chrisnewoutfitcopy.jpg
the hand....i know it's sapose to have the palm faceing you but the fabric seems to fan out away from the palm...i don't know the perpose of the gloved item...but it seems to be form fitting so i guess make it so it's not so flat becuse that hand can also be seen as haveing the back of the hand faceing out...which wouln't be correct.

well that's it for now...

[chrisbitm]

i really think you're tp material

[musicpanda317]

I think you have talent! You are a great artist. But i have to admit, some things do need some work. Your proportions are a bit off. But i do think you are good enough for tokyopop is you just practice a little more (im not trying to be mean, only helping because I've been told the same thing)