Hello everyone! Soon I want to be A manga Illustrator and an artist. A first rule of drawing manga is to not draw advanced figures at all. You have to practice drawing 3D shapes to get an idea of how your going to draw out your scene. It takes a long time to master but i'll get there soon. But anyways here's a comic/Manga of Minecraft Comes Alive mod. The reason why I call it manga is because it is supposed to be read backwards. You might not know how to read it so thats why I numbered it in order of scenes. Hope you like it and enjoy!
As someone who doesn't particularly like the manga drawing style, I will not give my opinion of that part. However, I personally do not like the perfection of the text boxes. I personally think that it would look better if the text boxes, particularly the "Chop!" text box, looked more hand-done.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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I'll start this assuming you intend to (continue to) write in English and/or Japanese.
Manga, just like (older/conservative) newspapers, goes right to left because that's how classic Japanese reads...but they don't normally go bottom to top and shouldn't need numbers to follow the story...as in shouldn't ever need them. You should always be able to easily track the story without reading...at least once you figure out if it's English or Japanese style.
Don't force your readers to have to get used to something strange, just for the sake of being different. If you're writing in any language I'm familiar with, (I'm casually familiar with quite a few, including Arabic types,) you'll only confuse your readers further by going up, and that will hurt your potential popularity. There are many published English manga which read right to left, but that's usually because they've been translated from Japanese, without changing the artwork.
If you insist on following the Japanese style, which is okay because manga readers are accustomed to it, first go right to left, then down a row and repeat. If your comic has four panels in a 2x2 pattern, the typical order is as follows:
[2][1]
[4][3]
Note that in some cases, going down, then left to a new column is okay. It's less common than to left then down to a new row, however. Given your five panels, without changing the entire layout, the order should be:
[--2-][-1(tall)-]
[4][3][-1(tall)-]
[-5--][-1(tall)-]
I found one more complicated layout that went down first, then left, then down to next row, then left again:
As for going up, the only reasonable exception I can think of is a VERY carefully constructed entire page with flowing action that is tied together and VERY easy to follow with the eyes. It can still be divided into panels, but they'd be essentially one scene broken into a timeline. Little arrows or erased border sections might even connect the boxes more directly.
Imagine the murder/suicide scene from the movie Wanted, in the round room with one curved bullet killing the group, or Quicksilver's kitchen scene in Days of Future Past. (Either probably viewed from above, a "bird's eye" angle.) These would work going around the page because the action would show us where to follow along, with the bullet or character repeating as it attacked each victim in circular progression.
I may haveprobablydefinitely over-explained this and for that I apologize, but I hate to see an artist shoot themself in the foot over something simple like this.
There are some other easily fixable issues. I agree with XG that the text and action bubbles could use an organic touch. Rectangles and/or ovals are cool IF they fit your scenes; i.e., you compose the entire panel with the boxes. Don't just stick them in or try to make them fit, but make your drawing compliment all of the bubbles, whatever shape you use. Presentation really counts for a lot in visual arts. Crossing over borders is perfectly fine if that's your style, but be sure it remains clear who and to what panel each bubble belongs to.
The six-pointed star for the CHOP! (Star of David stretched out) looks particularly odd, to me. Angle the lines so they're not parallel to each other and it'll probably look better. Might even try adding a smaller star and welding it, to make twelve alternating points. Image attached...I also tried a drop-shadow effect that I think helps the bubble "pop."
Next, the panel edges. They need more definition, especially relative to the massive edges and black boxes in the final three panels. There are lots of ways to do that. White space is the most common, but far from the only way and you may feel it's too old-school for your work. Usually when only black lines are used to divide panels, they are thicker than all of the edge lines on the contents. Sometimes color is used to offset one panel from another, in which case thin lines are okay. The Google link above has some examples of all of these in the images.
My last suggestion is one that comes from animation experience. The first panel is begging to be mirrored left<>right. Not moved to the English side, but flip the individual drawing itself, to put the child on our right-hand side at the edge of the page. Have the characters facing towards the thing they're interacting with in the following or previous panel, not away from it. It makes the scene easier for the reader to understand. The drawing may look strange to you since you drew it in the direction it is now, but it should greatly help the page. This again helps with visual tracking.
Comment only, for now: I can't tell what is in the picture, in the third panel. Something clearly got chopped, but was it the zombie, and with what? I'm not sure whose hand is holding the sword in 4, as it (a glove?) looks similar to that of the zombie*. That might all be more obvious with more of the story, but I'm not sure based on only this page. Was it clear to other people?
I'm very detail oriented, but I don't always see things that "normal" people see, lol. I've figured out that the zombie is probably dead thanks to panel 5, but the middle section is visually unclear to me.
* - [after a sixth or seventh view...] Ohhhhh! The hero is behind the zombie in 2? It took me a while to figure out that that wasn't clear. Now I think I see the zombie's right arm down at his side. Zombies do sometimes carry swords in the game! Now that helps my understanding of 4, but 3 is still a visual mystery to me and 2 took a while to decode that it was two figures. Maybe we need to see part of the hero's head or something, to clarify.
The angled panels you used are good for your action scenes. That looks cool. I like your drawing style, too, though I'm not sure about how thick the edges got as the panels progressed. That level of line magnification is not common, to my knowledge.
I must thank you, from the bottom of this designer's heart, for not using Comic Sans or Jester fonts!
Please do not let the length of my criticism discourage you. As I said, I'm really detail oriented. It takes me forever to finish projects, because of this. ALL writers and story artists need editors, in every story, usually on every page. You'd probably be shocked at how much White-Out is on most professional comic book original drawings and how often entire sections of novels get rearranged or deleted completely. Sometimes three people can read a typo twenty times, but the fourth person to skim past spots it immediately. (I didn't see any typos, by the way – kudos to you. Spelling on the internet leaves much to be desired.) Second opinions AND practice are what really make amateurs into professionals. It's heartbreaking at first to rework after putting so much time in, but it makes the end product really convey the message you want.
I hope this can help you and I wish you the best of success and enjoyment with your work. You've got a good start.
_ _ _
!!! ...I just noticed this thread is almost seven months old. Formed on my last birthday, no less. We're all necromancers! Anyhow, I'm way late to the party, but maybe some of this can help. I can't will myself to just delete this novel, so here I go pressing Post. Sigh-click...
Hello everyone! Soon I want to be A manga Illustrator and an artist. A first rule of drawing manga is to not draw advanced figures at all. You have to practice drawing 3D shapes to get an idea of how your going to draw out your scene. It takes a long time to master but i'll get there soon. But anyways here's a comic/Manga of Minecraft Comes Alive mod. The reason why I call it manga is because it is supposed to be read backwards. You might not know how to read it so thats why I numbered it in order of scenes. Hope you like it and enjoy!
As someone who doesn't particularly like the manga drawing style, I will not give my opinion of that part. However, I personally do not like the perfection of the text boxes. I personally think that it would look better if the text boxes, particularly the "Chop!" text box, looked more hand-done.
My webcomic: https://xtremegming.github.io/
I'll start this assuming you intend to (continue to) write in English and/or Japanese.
Manga, just like (older/conservative) newspapers, goes right to left because that's how classic Japanese reads...but they don't normally go bottom to top and shouldn't need numbers to follow the story...as in shouldn't ever need them. You should always be able to easily track the story without reading...at least once you figure out if it's English or Japanese style.
Don't force your readers to have to get used to something strange, just for the sake of being different. If you're writing in any language I'm familiar with, (I'm casually familiar with quite a few, including Arabic types,) you'll only confuse your readers further by going up, and that will hurt your potential popularity. There are many published English manga which read right to left, but that's usually because they've been translated from Japanese, without changing the artwork.
If you insist on following the Japanese style, which is okay because manga readers are accustomed to it, first go right to left, then down a row and repeat. If your comic has four panels in a 2x2 pattern, the typical order is as follows:
[2][1]
[4][3]
Note that in some cases, going down, then left to a new column is okay. It's less common than to left then down to a new row, however. Given your five panels, without changing the entire layout, the order should be:
[--2-][-1(tall)-]
[4][3][-1(tall)-]
[-5--][-1(tall)-]
I found one more complicated layout that went down first, then left, then down to next row, then left again:
[-3(tall)-][-1-]
[-3(tall)-][-2-]
[--5--][---4---]
External sources aplenty, in case you don't believe me: https://www.google.com/search?q=proper+direction+for+english+manga+comic
As for going up, the only reasonable exception I can think of is a VERY carefully constructed entire page with flowing action that is tied together and VERY easy to follow with the eyes. It can still be divided into panels, but they'd be essentially one scene broken into a timeline. Little arrows or erased border sections might even connect the boxes more directly.
Imagine the murder/suicide scene from the movie Wanted, in the round room with one curved bullet killing the group, or Quicksilver's kitchen scene in Days of Future Past. (Either probably viewed from above, a "bird's eye" angle.) These would work going around the page because the action would show us where to follow along, with the bullet or character repeating as it attacked each victim in circular progression.
I
may haveprobablydefinitely over-explained this and for that I apologize, but I hate to see an artist shoot themself in the foot over something simple like this.There are some other easily fixable issues. I agree with XG that the text and action bubbles could use an organic touch. Rectangles and/or ovals are cool IF they fit your scenes; i.e., you compose the entire panel with the boxes. Don't just stick them in or try to make them fit, but make your drawing compliment all of the bubbles, whatever shape you use. Presentation really counts for a lot in visual arts. Crossing over borders is perfectly fine if that's your style, but be sure it remains clear who and to what panel each bubble belongs to.
The six-pointed star for the CHOP! (Star of David stretched out) looks particularly odd, to me. Angle the lines so they're not parallel to each other and it'll probably look better. Might even try adding a smaller star and welding it, to make twelve alternating points. Image attached...I also tried a drop-shadow effect that I think helps the bubble "pop."
Next, the panel edges. They need more definition, especially relative to the massive edges and black boxes in the final three panels. There are lots of ways to do that. White space is the most common, but far from the only way and you may feel it's too old-school for your work. Usually when only black lines are used to divide panels, they are thicker than all of the edge lines on the contents. Sometimes color is used to offset one panel from another, in which case thin lines are okay. The Google link above has some examples of all of these in the images.
My last suggestion is one that comes from animation experience. The first panel is begging to be mirrored left<>right. Not moved to the English side, but flip the individual drawing itself, to put the child on our right-hand side at the edge of the page. Have the characters facing towards the thing they're interacting with in the following or previous panel, not away from it. It makes the scene easier for the reader to understand. The drawing may look strange to you since you drew it in the direction it is now, but it should greatly help the page. This again helps with visual tracking.
Comment only, for now: I can't tell what is in the picture, in the third panel. Something clearly got chopped, but was it the zombie, and with what? I'm not sure whose hand is holding the sword in 4, as it (a glove?) looks similar to that of the zombie*. That might all be more obvious with more of the story, but I'm not sure based on only this page. Was it clear to other people?
I'm very detail oriented, but I don't always see things that "normal" people see, lol. I've figured out that the zombie is probably dead thanks to panel 5, but the middle section is visually unclear to me.
* - [after a sixth or seventh view...] Ohhhhh! The hero is behind the zombie in 2? It took me a while to figure out that that wasn't clear. Now I think I see the zombie's right arm down at his side. Zombies do sometimes carry swords in the game! Now that helps my understanding of 4, but 3 is still a visual mystery to me and 2 took a while to decode that it was two figures. Maybe we need to see part of the hero's head or something, to clarify.
The angled panels you used are good for your action scenes. That looks cool. I like your drawing style, too, though I'm not sure about how thick the edges got as the panels progressed. That level of line magnification is not common, to my knowledge.
I must thank you, from the bottom of this designer's heart, for not using Comic Sans or Jester fonts!
Please do not let the length of my criticism discourage you. As I said, I'm really detail oriented. It takes me forever to finish projects, because of this. ALL writers and story artists need editors, in every story, usually on every page. You'd probably be shocked at how much White-Out is on most professional comic book original drawings and how often entire sections of novels get rearranged or deleted completely. Sometimes three people can read a typo twenty times, but the fourth person to skim past spots it immediately. (I didn't see any typos, by the way – kudos to you. Spelling on the internet leaves much to be desired.) Second opinions AND practice are what really make amateurs into professionals. It's heartbreaking at first to rework after putting so much time in, but it makes the end product really convey the message you want.
I hope this can help you and I wish you the best of success and enjoyment with your work. You've got a good start.
_ _ _
!!! ...I just noticed this thread is almost seven months old. Formed on my last birthday, no less. We're all necromancers! Anyhow, I'm way late to the party, but maybe some of this can help. I can't will myself to just delete this novel, so here I go pressing Post. Sigh-click...