☆Need feedback on my manga (⌒▽⌒)☆

jolokia said:
Backgrounds. You need 'em.

At the moment your characters tend to exist in a variably colored void. Take this page: http://mewmewmewm1.deviantart.com/art/Normal-1-2-440925154 I can deduce from context that she's in a bed, but I don't actually see it. We've got a rectangle behind her head, and a horizontal line separating a block of fuchsia from a block of light pink, then a clock in front of another horizontal line. What does this room actually look like? Where's the bedroom? Where's the bed? You could show so much about the character just by showing some of the room, a few of her belongings, her taste in decoration, etc.

This page http://mewmewmewm1.deviantart.com/art/Normal-1-9-447183805 has an establishing shot and to be honest it's the point at which I perked up and started feeling interested, because now finally I have some idea of what the world looks like!

Now I know you're doing the shojo manga thing here, and I have to admit I'm unfamiliar with the genre - I do know it tends to be heavy on the impressionistic sparkles-and-cherry-blossoms panel fills, so that may be the reason you're doing what you're doing! However, I promise you, your work will still benefit massively from having a sense of place.


I just googled "shoujo manga" and got someone's tumblr, so these should be relevant, I hope.

http://37.media.tumblr.com/2f13928ff06628a69b2f2a084abd1a4d/tumblr_n5xvs3qxGx1rybiymo1_500.jpg Some characters goofing off. Note that you can see something of the room behind them--it's not much, just some straight lines for frames and furniture, but it puts them in a setting.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/d68902f365b13a2e5c9fd189cf89ea9a/tumblr_n5j8rmcqik1rybiymo1_500.jpg Characters walking by a railing, with a view over a river to some distant buildings. Would this image be as strong if the river wasn't there?

http://37.media.tumblr.com/4b8f38cc48193c38cfa1d3c0cf337955/tumblr_n5a3jrbQBY1rybiymo1_500.jpg Shows you don't need a lot of detail to have a background that works. This is literally black bars and scribbles (which might in fact be screentones so not even drawn scribbles).


As a general sort of thing you'd want an establishing shot every time you visit a new location, at the very least. This would let your readers know where your characters are and get a sense of them as beings moving and living in a space, rather than faces that just happen to exist.

If you're reluctant to draw backgrounds because you're worried they'll be crappy or think it'll be too much hard work - don't worry. Your readers will not judge you on wonky backgrounds. (I should know, I have a webcomic and I've drawn plenty of wonky backgrounds) And it doesn't have to be a huge work of art. Any attempt at a background is better than no background! All you have to do is show us enough that we know where your characters are - once you've done that, you can go in for the kill with awesome face-shots and let the cherry blossoms fly :)
Click to expand...
wanhh thank you so much! ( ^ω^ )
I know, i really should work on backgrounds, but i guess i never really knew how to do them. But looking at your examples, i can definitely see how it makes a difference. Ill have to look at those when drawing again. I think ill look up some tutorials on DA to se if i can get better at it! The multicolored void is pretty weird XD
I definitely need to work on those! I'll at least attempt to draw them, even if they look bad at first, at least I'm trying! ( ；?Д｀) i have an idea of what the places look in my mind, so it shouldn't be too hard to draw whats on my mind.
Thank you so much for the good advice! Keep it coming guys!
 
Hi!
I just read these pages you've made and I'm excited to see where you're gonna take this! I think most things that could be improved have already been pointed out by others, like the lack of backgrounds, but I can already see a lot of improvement from the first page to now. Keep it up! :)
 
Backgrounds aren't as hard as everyone makes them out to be, and you don't need tutorials. If you can draw a face (and you obviously can) you can draw a background! Here, I'll give you a background tutorial right now. From one comics artist to another: I suggest theft.

Okay, being more specific, the reason you have trouble drawing backgrounds right now is, you don't have enough stuff stored in your brain for them. You already know what people look like because you are one, but have you ever really looked at a bicycle or a ceiling fan?

Do this: make yourself a folder called "references", then go to Google Images and start googling stuff like "school japan", "school buildings" "city streets" "coffee shop" or anything else that you think might be relevant to your story. Only look for photographs, because if you use someone else's drawings you're at risk of picking up someone else's mistakes. Save everything you like the look of, then steal the ideas!

Note: this doesn't mean completely copy a photo as you see it. You must never do this, and in particular NEVER NEVER NEVER TRACE, SOMEONE WILL CATCH YOU. But if you find a building with a shape you like, draw it (from a different angle) and use it in your setting. If you find a street with a particularly cool looking lamp post, take the lamp posts for your town; if you find a wall with some really pretty flowering vines, steal the flowers for your park. You may even find yourself getting more story seeds; more than once I've found a particularly neat image and ended up with a whole new story segment set in an area inspired by it.
 
do you mind if I redline & redraw one of the drawings on the most recent panels to point out some flaws?
 
The idea of a clumsy and cute female protagonist is kind of cliche - I like the idea of her being haunted by dead people, but that could have been introduced in a different way. It was kind of overwhelming to thrust it at the reader at the start.

You could have had her hissing at the voices to shut up - so the readers will be curious - and then the idea could eventually be introduced.

Good drawings and all, though. ^^
 
debinoresu said:
do you mind if I redline & redraw one of the drawings on the most recent panels to point out some flaws?
Click to expand...
Oh yes please! I learn a lot better when i can actually see stuff i need to work on. I'd really appreciate it, thank you for offering ( ^ω^ )
nekosync said:
The idea of a clumsy and cute female protagonist is kind of cliche - I like the idea of her being haunted by dead people, but that could have been introduced in a different way. It was kind of overwhelming to thrust it at the reader at the start.

You could have had her hissing at the voices to shut up - so the readers will be curious - and then the idea could eventually be introduced.

Good drawings and all, though. ^^
Click to expand...
Yeah, i regret things i did on the first pages, mostly because i got excited and was like ERMAHGOWDIGOTTAWRITESTUFFNOWQERVAEJHFVBAEFJYV
but this is all a learning experience. If i want to be a comic artist when i become older i have to understand my mistakes and how to improve upon them. Drawing is only one part of it, the other is the writing. But i do still have so many ideas i haven't even talked about yet, so hopefully i can make it more interesting. Now its just a matter of seeing how those thoughts are going to look printed, which is why i love that you guys are giving me feedback on how to improve. I feel like i've improved so much and so quickly ever since i've gotten feedback, and i truly love it. I want my stories and art to be enjoyable ,so i really do need second ideas from other people !
Thank you so much for the honest feedback!
 
Mewmewmewm said:
Oh yes please! I learn a lot better when i can actually see stuff i need to work on. I'd really appreciate it, thank you for offering ( ^ω^ )

Yeah, i regret things i did on the first pages, mostly because i got excited and was like ERMAHGOWDIGOTTAWRITESTUFFNOWQERVAEJHFVBAEFJYV
but this is all a learning experience. If i want to be a comic artist when i become older i have to understand my mistakes and how to improve upon them. Drawing is only one part of it, the other is the writing. But i do still have so many ideas i haven't even talked about yet, so hopefully i can make it more interesting. Now its just a matter of seeing how those thoughts are going to look printed, which is why i love that you guys are giving me feedback on how to improve. I feel like i've improved so much and so quickly ever since i've gotten feedback, and i truly love it. I want my stories and art to be enjoyable ,so i really do need second ideas from other people !
Thank you so much for the honest feedback!
Click to expand...

You're welcome! Do you have any recent manga?
 
Overall story critique:
I agree with nekosync, the main character is cliche and not exactly the sort of character youd remember. I would imagine the entire seeing dead people thing would have SOME sort of effect on her, and how does she automatically know someone she sees is dead? she said they appeared so normal, so you'd imagine she'd quite often mistake dead people for real people, resulting in her moving out of the way for someone who isn't there, apologizing for bumping into nothing to nobody, and asking for assistance from nobody. people would probably take note of these behaviors, and shed most likely have been put on some sort of medication that probably didn't work bc the people she's seeing are actually paranormal, so she tries her hardest to pretend they're not there, and struggling to appear as though she doesn't see dead people should be an actual struggle instead of just "oh dead people i have to ignore them lalala~~~"

seeing all these dead people must make her a little bit jumpy. I mean, i can't imagine every single dead person is all that friendly/nice. some have got to be recurring and horrifying. maybe there's a specific phantom she's particularly afraid of, and maybe there's some she's fond of. she probably has a lot of problems staying completely positive all the time, and if she HONESTLY can stay completely positive through seeing all these dead people there's probably something wrong with her emotionally. this series actually has huge potential to be dark and grueling and something that you really think about after reading it, more so than something happy and peppy. the happy peppy vibe just doesn't work with the "i see dead people" thing, unless somehow every single ghost is really really happy. of course, changing the entire mood of your story is a GIANT shift, and I'm not saying you need to make such a big change, just it would work a lot better as a dark series.

but, to keep the mood the same, try to make the main character less generic and give her some unique features that make her stand out. all she really has going for her is wavy brown hair, blue eyes, and a WEIRDLY positive personality despite the seeing dead people thing. she'd be known for being an annoyingly positive clutz, if anything. one of the side characters seems to stand out more than her, so you should probably give her more unique features to really stand out as the main character. you just really need to work on developing your characters more, force yourself to sit down and really round out their personality and their flaws. so far the only flaw I noticed for Rose is "clutz," which is actually considered sort of charming (in a cute way) to some, hence why it's an overused character "flaw." give her little quirks and more flaws. she just needs to be more well rounded, all in all.

ok onto the art bc theres not enough revealed story to critique much more on so far

redline of the panel with clare: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/145/7/8/redline1_by_debinoresu-d7jp46e.png
the head is much too big. its okay to do that in certain cartoony/chibi styles, but generally manga shouldn't be completely chibi all the way through, its usually proportionate. you can make the head proportionate by comparing the shoulders to it- each shoulder being about a head length in size. also, the hair is much too big, and no offense, but it's a little bit of an eyesore. big hair can be cute, but you make it too big. you really need to scale down the hair. i get that you like drawing big hair, but sometimes there has to be sacrifices, and in the future you'll probably look back on your old art and go "wow did I really draw hair that big??" i mean, hell, look at my old art, the hair on the top is waaay too big: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/207/b/f/alma_by_xpurkyx-d41rpri.png (that was my art 3 years ago oh my god... laugh)s))

the body etc is just too small compared to the head, so redrawing her proportionately and showing how far out the hair should go (in an anime style to sort of match yours):
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/145/5/9/redline2_by_debinoresu-d7jp46d.png
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/145/1/d/redline3_by_debinoresu-d7jp46b.png
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/145/d/7/redline5_by_debinoresu-d7jp45w.png

it all just looks a lot better when you work to keep it proportionate. its okay to have a separate chibi style, but you still need to try with proportions, especially if you're planning to dedicate yourself to a full series like this.

also, the entire way the story is layed out makes it confusing?? i dont really understand what's going on in the last few panels, like why did the guy throw the desk and in the last panel why is he in the back with what looks like the desk covering his crotch? you need to work on figuring out how to place panels and chat bubbles etc bc there actually is a sort of way you need to do it so the readers dont get confused.

though I have to say, there was a HUGE improvement from the earlier panels to the latest ones. you've obviously really been pushing yourself to improve, and you should keep doing that, bc you can only get better!! keep it up hon <3333

this is long im sorry
 
okay, ive been waiting a long time to say this. im going to follow up with debi on this, but im going to be more specific about it. im not trying to be mean in any way, and you should always keep practicing and keep going. here goes.

first of all, i understood the story for like. the first six pages. then everything just went to ****. okay, the girl sees ghosts, has head trauma. she trips and falls on top of a guy... why? who is this guy? what relevance does he have? is that him tripping too? i have NO idea whats going on and its only the seventh page. he never shows up again. will i see him again later?
then, we pan over to a classroom with even MORE new characters. theyre talking about something, and i honestly have no idea what either of them are going on about. why does the girl get mad and kick the desk? why does the guy get even angrier???? who are they talking about, what are they talking about, aND THEN??? the guy throws the desk but it looks like it sails past the girl, yet shes injured, and also totally unfazed by this injury?? and then he suddenly has the desk again and its in his hands and shrunk and i am lost

basically, your storytelling needs tremendous work. things are broken, uncomprehensive, not cohesive, and sloppy. maybe im just stupid and everyone else understands perfectly, but i take great issue with the flow of the story.

next, we have your speech bubbles and "sound effects". oh, god. please do not draw out the speech bubbles like that; use a tool of some sort. as it is, they look very juvenile and distracting. the sound effects... like "rubs head" and... all of that... are incredibly unnecessary. we know hes rubbing his head. we do not need to be told. we know she got up. we get it. sound effects should be used more sparingly. also, what in the heck crashed in that one panel on the 10th page? it was never shown or explained.

your use of sweatdrops and anger marks are excessive as well. try to convey that through expression and body language instead of going overboard with it.

some say your "big hair" is... good, but in reality, its not executed properly and looks really weird. debi already redlined that for you, so im just following up by saying follow the redlines.

your coloring/shading needs work, but im not very good at that so i cant really comment too much on it. it seems to have improved, but you usually seem to shade in like an outline.

your clothing folds need work too; clothes dont fold at every point ever. try looking at what youre wearing and stuff to see if that helps (or tutorials).

anatomy is a big thing you need to work on as well. youre getting better with it though! youve definitely improved since the first page. you just REALLY need to keep working.

i would also suggest using different, more appealing fonts. the current ones are bland and unattractive imo.

was this mean? i wasnt trying to be. your art is cute, you just need a lot of work on it. youll get there, though!! never give up~
 
(Based on your first post, I'm too lazy to read all of the posts after this right now.)
Well, if I have to say one thing, it's that everyone's hair is really puffy, the top of the hair ends one foot above their forehead and it's really distracting in a bad way...

Though the hair looked normal on the panel that showed the transparent, "M-m-mom?!" girl (of the brown haired girl that can apparently see ghosts.)

Other than that, I think the panels after *CRASH* "Do you even care about her at all?!" were really good, I liked the eyes the most. Even the hair looked good there? I don't know why...xD

Also, this is kind of random, but I feel that they should be tripping on uneven sidewalk tiles, I've never tripped on rocks. o-o But I do trip on uneven sidewalk tiles. A lot. (I know, I'm clumsy.)
 
Last edited:
debinoresu said:
Overall story critique:
I agree with nekosync, the main character is cliche and not exactly the sort of character youd remember. I would imagine the entire seeing dead people thing would have SOME sort of effect on her, and how does she automatically know someone she sees is dead? she said they appeared so normal, so you'd imagine she'd quite often mistake dead people for real people, resulting in her moving out of the way for someone who isn't there, apologizing for bumping into nothing to nobody, and asking for assistance from nobody. people would probably take note of these behaviors, and shed most likely have been put on some sort of medication that probably didn't work bc the people she's seeing are actually paranormal, so she tries her hardest to pretend they're not there, and struggling to appear as though she doesn't see dead people should be an actual struggle instead of just "oh dead people i have to ignore them lalala~~~"

seeing all these dead people must make her a little bit jumpy. I mean, i can't imagine every single dead person is all that friendly/nice. some have got to be recurring and horrifying. maybe there's a specific phantom she's particularly afraid of, and maybe there's some she's fond of. she probably has a lot of problems staying completely positive all the time, and if she HONESTLY can stay completely positive through seeing all these dead people there's probably something wrong with her emotionally. this series actually has huge potential to be dark and grueling and something that you really think about after reading it, more so than something happy and peppy. the happy peppy vibe just doesn't work with the "i see dead people" thing, unless somehow every single ghost is really really happy. of course, changing the entire mood of your story is a GIANT shift, and I'm not saying you need to make such a big change, just it would work a lot better as a dark series.

but, to keep the mood the same, try to make the main character less generic and give her some unique features that make her stand out. all she really has going for her is wavy brown hair, blue eyes, and a WEIRDLY positive personality despite the seeing dead people thing. she'd be known for being an annoyingly positive clutz, if anything. one of the side characters seems to stand out more than her, so you should probably give her more unique features to really stand out as the main character. you just really need to work on developing your characters more, force yourself to sit down and really round out their personality and their flaws. so far the only flaw I noticed for Rose is "clutz," which is actually considered sort of charming (in a cute way) to some, hence why it's an overused character "flaw." give her little quirks and more flaws. she just needs to be more well rounded, all in all.

ok onto the art bc theres not enough revealed story to critique much more on so far

redline of the panel with clare: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/145/7/8/redline1_by_debinoresu-d7jp46e.png
the head is much too big. its okay to do that in certain cartoony/chibi styles, but generally manga shouldn't be completely chibi all the way through, its usually proportionate. you can make the head proportionate by comparing the shoulders to it- each shoulder being about a head length in size. also, the hair is much too big, and no offense, but it's a little bit of an eyesore. big hair can be cute, but you make it too big. you really need to scale down the hair. i get that you like drawing big hair, but sometimes there has to be sacrifices, and in the future you'll probably look back on your old art and go "wow did I really draw hair that big??" i mean, hell, look at my old art, the hair on the top is waaay too big: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/207/b/f/alma_by_xpurkyx-d41rpri.png (that was my art 3 years ago oh my god... laugh)s))

the body etc is just too small compared to the head, so redrawing her proportionately and showing how far out the hair should go (in an anime style to sort of match yours):
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/145/5/9/redline2_by_debinoresu-d7jp46d.png
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/145/1/d/redline3_by_debinoresu-d7jp46b.png
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/145/d/7/redline5_by_debinoresu-d7jp45w.png

it all just looks a lot better when you work to keep it proportionate. its okay to have a separate chibi style, but you still need to try with proportions, especially if you're planning to dedicate yourself to a full series like this.

also, the entire way the story is layed out makes it confusing?? i dont really understand what's going on in the last few panels, like why did the guy throw the desk and in the last panel why is he in the back with what looks like the desk covering his crotch? you need to work on figuring out how to place panels and chat bubbles etc bc there actually is a sort of way you need to do it so the readers dont get confused.

though I have to say, there was a HUGE improvement from the earlier panels to the latest ones. you've obviously really been pushing yourself to improve, and you should keep doing that, bc you can only get better!! keep it up hon <3333

this is long im sorry
Click to expand...
Whew time to get to replying!
For one thing i want to say thank you so much for doing this! Sorry for such a late reply but when i first saw your responce and shiros i got all excited and decided to practice a bit more on things like anatomy and face shapes and etc. your red lines really did help me and i can see how the hair is really big now. I never really got what people where saying because im stupid, but looking at the red lines does really help!
Okay so for one thing the story. I of course have a long way to go on it, and i haven't really done stuff that i want to do with it yet but thats mostly because i want to hear feedback on it first so i still have time to kinda tweak some stuff.
But yeah the stories a little dark, or at least what i'm trying to make it out to be. Again, a lot of things i'm going to reveal and get feedback on. Theres hopefully a lot of twists i have to make it more interesting so its not just like a clich? shoujo where the girl is a clumsy idiot who can never protect herself. Im trying to stay away from that by having more interesting characters who are complex by what they say, not just by their backstory. But hearing the feedback, i'm trying to develop Rose's personality more so she can become more interesting and not bland. I'll be sure to try my best!

And THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN FOR REDLINING ヽ(；▽；)ノ but i have a small question if you can hopefully help out a stupid person like me again XD so looking at the redlines you drew for the hair its obviously too big if you look at the head, so whats a good size for the distance between the hair and the head do you think so it doesn't look like an animal?

Ill try to keep working hard so all the time you put into helping me doesn't go to waste!

- - - Post Merge - - -

Shirohibiki said:
okay, ive been waiting a long time to say this. im going to follow up with debi on this, but im going to be more specific about it. im not trying to be mean in any way, and you should always keep practicing and keep going. here goes.

first of all, i understood the story for like. the first six pages. then everything just went to ****. okay, the girl sees ghosts, has head trauma. she trips and falls on top of a guy... why? who is this guy? what relevance does he have? is that him tripping too? i have NO idea whats going on and its only the seventh page. he never shows up again. will i see him again later?
then, we pan over to a classroom with even MORE new characters. theyre talking about something, and i honestly have no idea what either of them are going on about. why does the girl get mad and kick the desk? why does the guy get even angrier???? who are they talking about, what are they talking about, aND THEN??? the guy throws the desk but it looks like it sails past the girl, yet shes injured, and also totally unfazed by this injury?? and then he suddenly has the desk again and its in his hands and shrunk and i am lost

basically, your storytelling needs tremendous work. things are broken, uncomprehensive, not cohesive, and sloppy. maybe im just stupid and everyone else understands perfectly, but i take great issue with the flow of the story.

next, we have your speech bubbles and "sound effects". oh, god. please do not draw out the speech bubbles like that; use a tool of some sort. as it is, they look very juvenile and distracting. the sound effects... like "rubs head" and... all of that... are incredibly unnecessary. we know hes rubbing his head. we do not need to be told. we know she got up. we get it. sound effects should be used more sparingly. also, what in the heck crashed in that one panel on the 10th page? it was never shown or explained.

your use of sweatdrops and anger marks are excessive as well. try to convey that through expression and body language instead of going overboard with it.

some say your "big hair" is... good, but in reality, its not executed properly and looks really weird. debi already redlined that for you, so im just following up by saying follow the redlines.

your coloring/shading needs work, but im not very good at that so i cant really comment too much on it. it seems to have improved, but you usually seem to shade in like an outline.

your clothing folds need work too; clothes dont fold at every point ever. try looking at what youre wearing and stuff to see if that helps (or tutorials).

anatomy is a big thing you need to work on as well. youre getting better with it though! youve definitely improved since the first page. you just REALLY need to keep working.

i would also suggest using different, more appealing fonts. the current ones are bland and unattractive imo.

was this mean? i wasnt trying to be. your art is cute, you just need a lot of work on it. youll get there, though!! never give up~
Click to expand...

No this wasn't mean! it was really nice of you to give me honest feedback! Don't be scared of being mean, the more honest you are the more i can improve.
Also the desk thing kinda made me laugh in your response XD
I think i need to work more on conveying whats happening. Its not an anime so you don't see every movement, so i think thats a weakness i need to work on. Your not stupid! I want people to understand whats going on, that may be something important XD
I'm not sure where to start getting better on that, but maybe getting second opinions on the sketches to see if someone else understands might be a good start?
Oh and i just got a new program that lets me do speech bubbles. I honestly don't know what i was thinking by drawing them in XD
Thank you so much for your honest feedback! It really means a lot to me that people are trying to help me become better at something i enjoy doing ( ^ω^ )
Ill keep trying my best!
 
i just wanted to say that your positive attitude and acceptance of critique is amazing - never change ;u;
 
those are very pretty drawings, you must take a lot of practice I think .

Amateur artist here. I love drawing manga. I was using XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro Digital Drawing Tablet for a while and really liked the simple but surprisingly versatile setup. At the moment I am using Clip Studio Paint .

here's my drawings...
I'm very inspired to draw anime characters..
858b0461ebdce5a77aa56c689ca6368a.jpg
 
whoa that was some strong deja vu, i think you recieved enough feedback nonetheless i always liked the style and i like reading comics it was nice!
 
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