Comment by Hoshi

It's great to see a walkthrough, though it only confirmed my first impression that most of the comic is simply hidden under those enormous speech bubbles. If you look at a page, all you see is the bubbles popping out. There's no actual need for them, a smaller fontsize would be perfectly enough and readable and it would free lots of space. Also the borders are pretty thick and they are the ones catching the eye instead of the actual pictures. I really like your style and I'm interested in the story, both are great I find it such a misfortune that you cover most of it with needless things :)

Reply by Nziz

I like the dark borders; I feel like I'd confuse the panels otherwise with this level of color and detail.

And perhaps there's just a lot of conversation on this page?

Reply by Shazzbaa

Oh, thanks for your feedback! Hmmm... I have a couple of thoughts! (hahaha, that means this will probably be long!)

I will start by saying that it's not a bad idea; I actually may try reducing the font size by a point in a page or two and see how it looks, though I do want to avoid shrinking it too much, so I'll see! :") Maybe next chapter would be a good point to test it.

But I think "the comic is hidden under speech bubbles" is very different from the way I look at it! The speech bubbles are part of the comic, and the art is very secondary to the story. In seeing the process, it's less the things that got "covered up" and more the parts of the room I designed and ended up not using.
It's similar to someone designing a movie set, and setting a bunch of props on a character's desk, and finding out later that the desk ended up being cropped out of every shot. It's just a little bit of extra design that didn't make it into the finished product, and it's interesting to see, but not necessary.

Runewriters was always meant to be a story more than an illustration. The ability to quickly distinguish panel borders and speech balloons isn't needless to me -- it's actually more important to me than eye-catching art, because those things help with the flow and timing of the comic! I am definitely still striving to improve on placing balloons and pacing dialogue, and sometimes I miss the mark, but I think in most cases, even when there's a lot of talking, nothing important is cut out of the art. The people are the most important thing in this particular story, so I prioritise them and the way they interact with each other. The art itself isn't the focus.... but, thanks for your kind words on that front all the same. I'm really happy to hear it's a detail you like. :")

Though, if you just like seeing the design that went into each page... well, that's what the vote incentive is for! :3

Reply by Hoshi

Looking back it was maybe a little too harsh to say "needless" things, but I think you understood what I meant :) After you explained your thinking it's more clear now why things are as they are, although for me the speech bubbles are the ones that sometimes confuse the line of reading, because they're hovering over the borders and I cannot make out where they belong.
But I cannot and don't want to tell you how to do things, I'll continue reading regardless of the format, just thought maybe I'd share my thoughts with you :) Keep up the good work!