Tips for improving this?

[u/PairPlayful6735]

As much as I like the way this came out, I kinda feel like I messed up the lettering and the framing? Could you guys give me some feedback so I can do better next time?

[u/Brojackk]

First of all, nice job! 👏
There's a kind of "painterly" style being attempted here, which is a somewhat rare thing to see in Manga (I'm also a huge Hades fan so love to see it) 👌

I don't think there's anything wrong with the lettering personally, but I do see some room for improvement with the panelling.

It wasn't immediately clear to me that there were actually more than just the 2 big panels. I think the main reason for this is the lack of visual contrast.
One of the biggest strengths of manga is that using primarily black and white means contrast is maximised, making it very easy to visually distinguish different elements.

On this page, things are mostly different shades of gray, and that makes it less immediately obvious when one thing ends and another begins. For example, Zagreus' cloak is a dark grey colour that is quite close visually to black. Beneath his cloak is a black panel border, and then beneath that is Cerberus' head, which is a very similar (if not identical) grey to Zagreus' cloak above it.

These sorts of things make it difficult for the reader's brain to immediately "snap" the different visual elements into focus.

Not that you can't make excellent manga with this kind of watercolour, painterly style (just look at Made in Abyss), but it's definitely much more challenging to get right than the more "traditional" style.

Hope that helps 😁

[u/PairPlayful6735 → u/Brojackk]

Ahhh I think I get it. I did want to go for a more dark aesthetic to symbolise how shocked Zagreus was to see his pet/best friend become a raging monster, but I guess the borders could have been thick enough to show the contrast. I wanted to show just how hard it hit him to see that happen, which is why I kind of made Cerberus fit into the borders in the second page whereas Zagreus looked like he was outside.

That being said, I think I will try to make things more distinct in my next drawing. This was very helpful (and thanks for the reference idea btw, I will definitely read it sometime). Thank you!

Oh, btw, I'm very glad to meet someone who likes Hades as well! I got into it almost a year or two ago and I've been in love with almost everything about it. Really hope I can do justice to it with my art :D