O.K. so I tried to take all the comments made in my last critiquing session and incorporate them into this page here. Firstly I decided to put my "epic" comic on hold and try doing shorter vignettes of 10 pages or so, so I can work on technique without getting too wrapped up in presenting my story satisfactorilly. So, I've worked on my camera focals and angles, tried to work on my lighting (though I realize its still far from perfect, I think it's better than last time), changed my font, changed my text bubbles, got myself a new character texture or two, checked my spelling (I hope) and did a little more postwork. I'll get to compositing when I have more than one character in a scene. So here's a sample page that I'd love to hear more constructive criticsm on, especially from those who commented on my last comic pages about three weeks ago. But any thoughtful suggestions and insights would be appreciated. Thanks, Unzipped

Oh yeah, I realize the character's face is a bit extreme - perhaps even odd looking, but it was a request to do a likeness from one bad photograph. Maybe I shouldn't have taken that challenge too, but this was a close as I could come with the standard V3 head morphs - so no need to comment on that, I realilze she doesn't have an extremely "beautifuL" face. Unzipped

Well I like it. It's good. I think her face is nice too. she has an interesting face, more "real" than some, especially in the profile shot. Very good work.

Looking good.

You might want to add a little more drama to one or two panels using different lighting and/or camera angles. One of the tricks to making a character seem lost or alone is to make them appear insignificant compared to their surroundings.

The sketch above is terrible, but maybe it will help with visualizing what I'm trying to say? Make the halls appear more imposing than the figure. Make them stand out more by making the character in siloette or use a camera setting of 25 to give a more forced perspective.

It's not much, but I hope it helps add a little more umph! to what appears to be a great start.

Well, it is quite good as is ! Since you asked, I'd go with just a few suggestions, but they are very minor : -the tiled texturing of the walls and door in the 4 images on the right is not really convincing, especially when compared to the very realistic walls and floor textures on the image at the tleft. I understand that it may be in search of some contrast, but then tiling may not be the best way to do it : repetitive patterns tend to draw the eyes towards them and mask the structure of the objects they're applied to. -you could use a tiny little postwork to make a misty halo around the lights in the first image, or to make the green sphere appear really round and not polyhedric. -in the first pic, you could try to use a smaller focal length in the camera to make a more fish-eyed effect and thus reinforcing the effect already done by the perspective view. -I'd give more white space between the pictures, so that they are well differentiated (for istance, at first glance I had thought that the 3rd image, with the sliding door, was part of the 2nd image) -as for the lettering, the opening of the door is very well done. I'd make a similar effect on the footsteps noise by making them of varying size : the further the smaller. Last, but not least (and this is my pet peeve when it comes to Poser comics, so please forgive me in advance) : As much focused on quality renders that we, Poser artists, may be, making a comics page is not only putting images side by side. Some images would benefit from having no background : just the character against a flat white background, or some background just in some parts of the picture. Having a character going off its image can be great effect (here, the character in the first pic could have her right foot "going out" of the first panel and infringe on the white border). Sometimes making just a black and white pic and using the silhouette of the character is very powerful (especially for night scenes). You could get an artist's book on comics to get an idea, or just cast an eye at regular comics. Mangakas are especially adept at giving an incredible punch in their action scenes by using totally unconventional point of views or page composition. To stay in the modern US comics vein, "Sin City" is a very original comic you might want to have a look at. More classically built, "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" have some very good examples of image composition, reminiscent of the 50's Flash Gordon. "Danger Girl" series often uses the page's composition to a very good effect too. My favourites are John Bushema's black and white Conan adventures, but they are not very modern... Ooops. I got carried over. You may think that, given the amount of things I said I don't appreciate your work. On the contrary, it's a very good job indeed and I'm just pointing at details. Keep on the good work. Hope this helps.

Looks awesome. I wouldn't change a thing. And this looks like a really interesting comic, you've definitely captured my attention. I would read it through.

Well since i installed poser 5 like an hour ago my opinion probably means as much as the nicely textured wall, but i like it. The girls face doesnt look that weird, reminds me of a cross between that actress (insert first name)Cruz and Jennifer Garner, like Engel said, it makes her look more real.

One of the simplist things I find that works is tilting the camera, especially along the zOrbit. Can add a lot.

I pretty much agree with compiler's comments, especially regarding the character's foot in the main panel. It looks somewhat restricted, being as close to the border edge as it is. That said, the whole page is very nicely done and the character looks good.

For the composition, have a look at the attached link - Wally Wood's famous "22 panels that always work". That said, I think you're going great with this. The poses are good and have a sense of movement which is often lacking in Poser. The wall tiling in the final panel is definitely distracting, perhaps you can fade the texture somewhat to just give the impression of metallic pattern. The character's face and body are interesting, a nice change to total cheesecake. Actually thinking about it, she kind of looks like my sister-in-law...

Er..about that Wally Wood link....someone seems to have used the electronic version of the gum eraser on it...care to redraw the link, please? As a "comics scholar" I'd love to have that one.

One of the great characteristics of comics is their odd and unusual and dynamic camera angles (as mentioned). So you might want to experiment with that a little more. Other than that, I like this. I think it's pretty interesting. I LOVE her face. Yeah, it's an odd face, but it's got character and makes me care a little more about the character because she's clearly not a mannequin woman. And hooray that she hasn't got enormous breasts, too. ;) bonni

Thanks everyone for the insightful replies - sorry I haven't gotten back to comment sooner (you know life outside of Poser has a way of intruding). About that background texture: I just whent with the texture that was on the prop (it's one of the Carpathia sci fi type props), and didn't really give it much of a thought except to tone down the bump map a bit. Something was bothering me about that image which I couldn't place, and I think that's what it was. I'll keep that in mind in future. About the perspective/camera angle comments: It's funny, because in the pages I put up for comment prior to this one, I got several mentions of the camera being too fish eyed, so I make extra sure to eliminate the fish eye, and sure enough, on this one people are commenting on the non-fisheyedness. I'll get it right someday I hope. The two sound effects in the left panel are actually gunfire, not footfalls - I'm not totally satisfied with it (especially considering it wasn't clear), but I couldn't think of a better way to do it. I did postwork on the sphere, but not enough, it is still too polyhedric (is there a sphere out there with more vertecies than the default poser one?). On the concept of doing more unusual/extreme things (breaking panel boundaries, using uncommon angles, having sparse backgrounds) - I certainly plan on utilizing whatever I can as I move forward, but I'm trying to keep it simple and basic to start with, since this is new to me. I'd like to feel comfortable that I can successfully create basic panels and scenes before I attempt to graduate to more advanced or experimental techniques and effects. I hope that makes sense. Again thanks for the input, and if there's more to be said, go ahead and say it, it can only help. Unzipped PS. I'm glad some of you liked the character's form, that does mean something to me.