Topic: Critisism on my characters?

Some of you remember in the Wiiware game thread I shot my idea about a plat former starting a Maus based on my comic. The designs for my characters keep changing though. What do you guys think of them so far, what I could change, add, suggestions w.e! Or any questions about any of the characters here.

Neat fact: Originally I did Kirby comics, as I continued I thought I should make it my own since I could never go far with it seeing as I would get sued. Since my representation of the characters where drastically different then the ones by Hal I decided to make completely new characters out of them. You might still be able to notice a few influences left on though.

Good work, but there are areas that could use improvement. You should try actually constructing your characters. There's no line of action or anything shaping the form of the characters--it may not matter now, but once you start trying to draw your characters in action it will be impossible to so correctly without construction. I would also recommend getting a set of good drawing pens (micron is a good brand) to ink your characters with. It will make it look all professional-like. You have talent though! Keep up the good work

I would remove Beat's clothes. It's not really consistent with the other characters.
Could you also post colored versions?

What do you mean by line of actions and construction and form?

Edit: King Seiz and Otakuchef have clothes... (well minor) but if you say Beat shouldn't need em then I guess I can see how he would look without them. Btw that arrow is part of his name. (beat down! lol)

He's talking about blocking in your characters -- everything is made up of shapes, and if you can break your characters down into their sets of shapes, you'll be able to create images of them moving around, walking, and doing other things with much more accuracy than without. It'll make things easier on you in the long run.

He may also be referring to giving your characters consistency. right now, they all look very different, as if each were drawn for a different project. They don't have any sense of belonging in the same world together, if that makes any sense, because even the similarly shaped characters (like Joe and Bibisaur) don't have features based on the same original proportions.

Kaiser Jr. only wears a helmet and a cape; that's not too much.
By the way, where did you get Maus' name from? Do you speak German?
_{speaking of criticism, knock it off. you knew what he meant, that's all that matters. -- TBD}

This is a good introduction to the line of action: http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation07-big.jpg
(click on it to zoom on)
You'll be surprised at how expressive you can make your characters when you start utilizing this.

Am I not allowed to encourage people to spell stuff correctly?

Dawwwwwww, alright, most of them would be circles an ovals anyways. Does that mean putting in those joint lines and all?

Btw how I got the word Maus, originally the game Idea I had was a ballish, marshmallow with mouse ears. Eventually I put that project aside. When I had to redo the characters for my Kirby comic I decided to use the marshmallow mouse and changed him up a bit. At the time I was obsessed with a lot of German things, (Von Kaiser lol) and it just so happens (somehow by luck) that the German word for marshmallow Mauspek (needs proper puntuation) which is what I decided to name the comic. Which can also translate to mouse belly/bacon fat or mouse fat.

@Kid_A: that works too. sorry, thought you were talking about a different set of issues :3

@Faildude: Not if you're going to be a jerk about it, and certainly not if you're going to tell him the wrong thing. A question mark is perfectly applicable in this situation, as he's asking for criticism, not talking about his characters already having received criticism.

I think they look pretty good. I like how you named the bat "Ecko."

About the consistency thing, I'm trying to do some original stuff art or design wise. (original to me at least, since in some ways nothing is truly original). I wanted to let people know which characters are the cute ones and which ones are more cruel and sometimes evil. The cute ones as you see are more round and less detailed as apposed to the others. Though I could try to keep it all consistent, it would make Joe look a bit chibi ish lol.

Edit: Btw some names are based on friends, others are puns. Like the King, anyone get that one? (he's a mole).

I'll go do some shapes and lines of actions and tell me if I did them right.

@KaiserGX Are you sure it was called "Mauspek"? It must have been some kind of brand name because marshmallows are called "Mäusespeck" (Mäuse (plural of Maus (mouse)) + Speck (bacon).

Oh yeah that's right! I changed the name to Mauspek! Lol I remember I kept confusing myself where to put the accent dots and thought the name was too long so I shortened it to what it is now.

They aren't actually accent dots, they are own characters called "Umlaute".
German has 3 of them - Ö & ö (pronounced like the O in "world"), Ü & ü (pronounced like the U in French) and Ä & ä (pronounced like the A in "band" or the E in "ten").

Ah ok! I didn't know what they where called! Thanks!

I like your character designs, for the most part. No one's too big or too small (given that your drawing of Joe is his actual size).

There's room for improvement, though. While the outfits of some characters (namely Beat and Kaiser Jr.) are unique and fit their personalities, they're not very consistent and don't fit well with the universe they're in. I'd maybe leave Beat's glasses and Kaiser's... um... I don't know what you could remove, but try anyway.

The only character with a real build problem is Maus. His head/nose has too much volume. I'd make it more long than tall, and his head is a bit too big for his body.

Well, that's all I have to say. Hope you can take this into consideration.

I'm not good at this line and shape thing but here's what I did. Also I changed Maus's head, primarily the one with the little smile.

That looks better.

You draw really good! I've done some moving animations before.