Blight (Kraehe) (Second Attempt)

[Corvus of the Black Night]

I wouldn't normally make a separate art thread without waiting about 3 months, but this, unlike most of my stuff, is actually a manga (with a style that's a merge of both east and west). It is, with the exception of the first three pages, completely done by hand.

The story is about a man who can change into a crow who kills people and bathes in their blood. He seems like a bad guy, especially when an angel promises to exorcise him, but not all is as is seems...

A few things to note that are very unusual about this manga-
1. There are no borders for the panels. I want each page to look like a single piece of art rather than all sorts of little ones.
2. The panels are huge. I haven't used more than 5 panels yet in all of the pages I've drawn (which is about 70).
3. The art style will change throughout the piece based on the main character's emotions, using unusual mediums such as coloured pencil, charcoal and digital.

(NOTE: there's a few early pages that are not completed. These are the prologue and require more time to complete, but luckily, all it does is introduce three characters. These pages are indicated in red. I might actually be redoing those first three pages anyhow lol)

This manga reads right to left (lol habit).

Finished Pages:
Page 001.
Page 002.
Page 003.
Page 004.
Page 005.
Page 006.
Page 007.
Page 008.
Page 009.
Page 010.
Page 011.
Page 012.
Page 013.
Page 014.
Page 015.
Page 016.
Page 017.
Page 018.
Page 019.
Page 020.
Page 021.
Page 022.
Page 023.
Page 024.
Page 025.
Page 026.
Page 027.
Page 028.

I'll probably reletter it after completing the entire piece - I know my handwriting looks like chicken scratch :x

 

[eliteuchiha555]

thats not 2 bad then again i dont know much about drawing

 

[Esper]

First, I love the opening shot of the close up hand and the looming tower. I wasn't sure if I was looking at a victim or perhaps a flash forward of the protagonist when he's in a tight spot. It's enticing. I hate the font though. It doesn't jive with the dark style. The clean rectangular text bubbles also feel out of place. I like the rough, scratchy pages - like that splash page with the scientific names of the birds - but the black marker leaves me a little nonplussed. Honestly, I feel that's an area where it would have been a good to bring in a little bit of the computer effects. I was also expecting something different when you said there would be no borders on the panels. There's still the something of the effect of bordered panels when the divisions are along straight lines.

I really liked the simplicity of pg.24, the placement of the text, very appealing. Personally, I'd love to see some more of the style you did on the first page. It had very nice background work that'd go well in places in the rest of the comic, I think. I gather that you'd rather do it all by hand, though.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

Yeah, the font irked me as well - I also am a bit irked by how I did the page's colour so I'm redoing it.

Many graphic novels have panels with no borders, and I was tempted to use it several times (like on the lowest panel on page 017), however, I am using this style throughout the novel, using the pictures to define the borders rather than lines themselves.

I would preferably do it by hand, because I feel my digital skills are, albeit very interesting in the abstract sense, are not suitable for a full out graphic novel. The cel-shaded heavy-lining style, however, is only used for the first 80 or so pages of the novel. Later I will be relying more on charcoals and coloured pencils (black and dark shades only though).

Thanks for the criticism however.

 

[eliteuchiha555]

maybe you should try computer graphics programs such as gimp

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

Drawing a comic is nothing like making graphics, unfortunately.

I know how to use the programs, it's just that my artistic style changes from medium to medium - the abstract digital stuff I do is not suitable for an entire comic. I do, however, have a good style for comics when it comes to traditional mediums. I'll be doing the great majority of it on paper, but I might be using digital mediums to fix the black areas a bit as mentioned above.

 

[Trent_Jayir]

Cool, i like the drama you put in simply by using mediums the way you do.
that "Peace love Botany" thing just made me think of trigun :B Was that meant to be a heads up to that or am i just being silly?