Attempts at the sample scripts

[Steven Austin]

Here's my attempt at the first page of Cycle of Violence.

I have tried to clean up my line work a bit and also tried to maintain more consistency with the faces - ie not jumping between caricature and realist but rather met somewhere in between.

Feedback would be good.

[Batdan4ever]

Hey Steven,

Thanks for the feedback mate, much appreciated! You are so right about the sofa... its massive! How did I not see that?! Thanks very much I'll make improvements based on your suggestions

I think your page is wicked, I prefer this to your PF attempt actually, If you don't mind me saying. The story telling is really clear and I like that you really stuck to the script in terms of angles where many people, myself included, have deviated. (I just couldn't get that last panel right).

Nice one, lets see page 2 and beyond!

[Danbell]

Really nice page steven, I like the negative detail in the Dredd's shadow on panel 2. I know that kind thing doesn't really make sense but it adds some nice detail. Last panel is great too, proper grimm expression.

My only critism would be that in panel 4 the perps hand is as big as the kids head. I know that can be a stylisic thing, like Joe Madureria or Humberto Ramos would do, but it's not consistant with the other panels.

Great page though, good inking.

[Frank]

I think this and the other pages you posted prove that you're actually Chris Weston, posting from the early Nineties via some kind of temporal anomaly. Whichever one of the greats of yesteryear it was who said you were almost the finished article wasn't far wrong, chief.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

I was just about to call Chris Weston on this last one actually! By no means a bad thing, crammed with detail, the angle on the large panel works especially well and the Dreddhead in the final one is a blinder

[Jim_Campbell]

The quality of the drawing is great, but you're not the first person to attempt this page who's committed the cardinal page-layout error of two wides and a tall.



The letterer could fix this one for you by overlapping the balloons across the gutter of panels four and five, but ideally you should be able to read the page without the balloons and still have a clear idea of both the story and the order in which the panels should be read...

Cheers!

Jim

[James]

Déjà vu Jim? Look at page 2 of this thread for my version of this error.

[Steven Austin]

Thank you all for the feedback.

Chris Weston, wow now there's a compliment - not there yet but someone I aspire to along with Bolland, Davis, Dillon and Gibbons.

Jim, thank you for the feedback - live and learn - didn't realise it was a cardnial error (guess it could have been worse - a cardinal sin comes to mind), I thought it was just frowned upon but also thought I would get away with working the panels this way as my logic suggested that the eye would be led by the fact that the two panels both had borders and the last didn't - my eye went that way - but (haha) I guess that's because I knew it should. Anyway based upon your critique I have reworked panels 4 and 5, I think it works now?

Also Daniel, thanks for the spot with the hand, I've made the kids head bigger, albeit you can't actually see the hand now anyway since I narrowed the panel but it does look more in proportion against the fathers head now - cheers mate.

And Sauchie - the great of yesteryear is actually still going strong, he was just also around yesteryear. 

[Steven Austin]

[Frank]

What a difference, Six Million Dollar Man! I've never seen a better advertisement for taking advice on board; that page doesn't just flow better, it looks so much more accomplished too. That reminds me of the prog where Tharg told the story of losing an episode of City of the Damned down the back of the couch and asking Steve Dillon to redraw the whole thing - and his second attempt (produced at break-neck speed) looked even better than the first.

[Zarjazzer]

It " reads" perfectly now -you know what's going on even without those pesky word balloons to explain anything. Lovely, lovely stuff Steven Austin.

[Jim_Campbell]

Anyway based upon your critique I have reworked panels 4 and 5, I think it works now?

Much, much better. Nice work!

Cheers

Jim

[Steven Austin]

Great!! Thank you chaps.

[Steven Austin]

Ok so I'm working on page two and decided to tackle the most difficult panel (For me) first - the Academy of Law establishing shot.

Fed up with trawling through what past issues I have left for reference I decided to hit Google - maaan there is nothing, even the wikipedia page doesn't have a picture. I did eventually find an old image on Comic Vine and thought it may be useful for anyone else so here it is



And while I'm at it here's the panel I pulled together - Is this an acceptable version of the Academy do you think, I don't 'think' I've strayed too far from the original.

[Steven Austin]

Need to work on the lettering  - 'I know'.