@Luke B.: I need some of those rounded words you talk about for this character's name. Edit: Fuck, that's some lopsided eyes.. Please note: The full character would fill most of an A4 page, the previous sketch was only a bit taller than each face. On that note, anyone recommend any good A3 paper that works well with alcohol pens? Printer paper beats all my sketchbooks so far.
I posted the original first pageherea few months ago and found out that my biggest problem was with proportions. I decided to lay off drawing more pages until I took some figure drawing, I am now halfway through my figure drawing class and I think I have improved.
Awesome! Figure drawing is the best thing you could be doing.
Two things: First -- don't be too precious about your comics. You're still really young, and you've got all the time in the world to make mistakes and learn from them. Realize that anything you make, you'll probably hate in a year or two anyway. If you let that stop you, you'll never make anything. Second, if you have a story to tell but you don't feel like your drawing skills are up to snuff yet, you can still lay it out. Go ahead and thumbnail the whole story, figure out your pacing and storytelling, and hold off on the real drawing until you're more confident.
Time's about up! I made a google calendar reminder to bug you about this. Where's your page?
School has gotten in the way, but I have time tonight to do it. EDIT: Because I suck at life, I didn't get it done again. Tomorrow I am going to go to the art building and work on two pages and have them posted (and possibly more) tomorrow evening. Call me a shittalker if you like as I seem to be becoming one. Posting just that page wouldn't have helped me much anyway as there really aren't a lot of human characters on it... oh well.
My art has changed a lot between page 1-4 and 5 onward. It's because of the new brush pen mostly and the amount of time between doing them. I'm still an amateur. VERY MUCH SO! Page one AHHHHHH! Today's pages 5 and up.
I didn't feel like scanning. :P I think I am going to do the first 4 over.
This is a dumb idea I'm working on of a girl (the tsudere on the left) who, through a series of unlikely happenings, ends up in a maid themed rock band and is continually oblivious to the nature of the band and her popularity as it's frontman. It's kind of a tongue in cheek look at anime fandom.
Dammit, that's the second time this week that I've written a post, and somehow not actually posted it.
all me a shittalker if you like as I seem to be becoming one.
I don't want to call you a shittalker. I just think that having someone holding us accountable makes us get off our ass more. WHERE'S YOUR PAGE!?
y art has changed a lot between page 1-4 and 5 onward. It's because of the new brush pen mostly and the amount of time between doing them.
I know what you mean -- my art still changes practically from page to page. What kind of brush pen are you using? I just got the Pentel pocket brush, and it's great -- best brushpen I've tried by far. Everyone else on the internet seems to like it, too. I still can't ink for crap with it, though.
This is a dumb idea I'm working on of a girl (the tsudere on the left) who, through a series of unlikely happenings, ends up in a maid themed rock band and is continually oblivious to the nature of the band and her popularity as it's frontman. It's kind of a tongue in cheek look at anime fandom.
If it's a dumb idea, you'd probably be better served to scrap it and work on a good idea. Are you going to do this as a comic?
I'm going to try for 2 pages a week on my doppelganger comic that I started a few years ago. I'm about halfway done with the first two. Maybe I'll post my comic as a webcomic with a Mon/Wed schedule.
I asked UglyFred who lives downstairs to tone the pages. I might post them in a few days.
I'm going to try for 2 pages a week on my doppelganger comic that I started a few years ago. I'm about halfway done with the first two. Maybe I'll post my comic as a webcomic with a Mon/Wed schedule. I asked UglyFred who lives downstairs to tone the pages. I might post them in a few days.
That sounds awesome. When should I start hassling you about it? Do you have anything you could show right now, like character designs or sketches? I'm very interested.
I've been tempted to start up a webcomic myself, but I don't want to do it until I'm faster. I've been keeping track of the time it takes me to draw pages, and it's longer than I thought. I'd really like to be able to do about 5 pages a week if I'm going to do it.
Dumb is the opposite of clever, bad is the opposite of good.
That sounds awesome. When should I start hassling you about it? Do you have anything you could show right now, like character designs or sketches? I'm very interested.
It's on the tablet. I'll post some inked pages on Friday (probably not toned).
Oh manz, there is so much activity in here! Man funfetus, I need someone like you on my tail all the time. Sadly, I'm not working on a comic at the moment.
I don't want to call you a shittalker. I just think that having someone holding us accountable makes us get off our ass more. WHERE'S YOUR PAGE!?
I have actually lucked out in that I can use comic pages as some of my sketchbook assignments in my Figure Drawing class, so I will definitely finish a lot more. I have the pencils for the first page just about finished (minus any backgrounds) and WILL post it tonight. Sorry about the delay.
@UglyFred I asked you a long time ago! Like, a year ago! You said yeah! Psh, we live in the internet age. Location is irrelevant. Besides, toning is super easy. I'll show where to get some good screentone patterns for Photoshop.
Man funfetus, I need someone like you on my tail all the time. Sadly, I'm not working on a comic at the moment.
I'll gladly get on anyone's tail. I should make a "get me on your tail" thread. Don't worry, I won't start hassling you until you make a commitment. I would love to see a comic from you, though!
I have actually lucked out in that I can use comic pages as some of my sketchbook assignments in my Figure Drawing class, so I will definitely finish a lot more. I have the pencils for the first page just about finished (minus any backgrounds) and WILL post it tonight. Sorry about the delay.
Sounds awesome. How's the figure drawing class coming? Is the sketchbook assignment the one where you had to go out and do gesture drawings of people? I had to do that in the "figure drawing for animation" class that I took a few years back. It had a really noticeable effect on my skills. Have anything you want to post?
I'll show where to get some good screentone patterns for Photoshop.
Do you have any tips on getting screentones to look good onscreen? I've never really seen anyone pull it off. They tend to look sorta okay in scanlated manga, but whenever I've seen anyone output them directly at web resolutions (or when I've tried it myself), they're either too "chunky", or they get lots of ugly moire patterns. I figure that if I ever do a webcomic, I'll just do the tones in flat gray for web, and screentone for print. Manga Studio has the ability to output your screentones as tones or as gray.
y art has changed a lot between page 1-4 and 5 onward. It's because of the new brush pen mostly and the amount of time between doing them.
I know what you mean -- my art still changes practically from page to page. What kind of brush pen are you using? I just got thePentel pocket brush, and it's great -- best brushpen I've tried by far. Everyone else on the internet seems to like it, too. I still can't ink for crap with it, though.
Is that a felt-tip pen, or does it have bristles? The Pentel Pocket Brush has really nice bristles. Yeah, brush pens are great -- or at least, this one is. I haven't found any others that I really like. I'll see about picking up one of yours, though.
Is that a felt-tip pen, or does it have bristles? The Pentel Pocket Brush has really nice bristles. Yeah, brush pens are great -- or at least, this one is. I haven't found any others that I really like. I'll see about picking up one of yours, though.
It's felt. I never tried the bristle kind. I'm going to! I guess this means another trek to Utrecht soon.
Do you have any tips on getting screentones to look good onscreen? I've never really seen anyone pull it off. They tend to look sorta okay in scanlated manga, but whenever I've seen anyone output them directly at web resolutions (or when I've tried it myself), they're either too "chunky", or they get lots of ugly moire patterns. I figure that if I ever do a webcomic, I'll just do the tones in flat gray for web, and screentone for print. Manga Studio has the ability to output your screentones as tones or as gray.
This has taken me way to long to finish, but here are the pencils (minus most of the background). Critique as you see fit (in fact it would be great if you are brutal).
*edit* I understand that you want to make a intimidating horses but they look weak to me. Mostly because their proportions are a bit crunched and their legs are weirdly angled which makes them look crippled.
Critique as you see fit (in fact it would be great if you are brutal).
A valiant effort! I still try to avoid drawing horses whenever possible.
But yeah, what Ametto said. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the horse anatomy is all wrong. Mostly in the legs, but the heads look kinda reptilian. Did you use reference? I may be preaching to the choir here, but I've heard many times from a lot of comics professionals that the thing they see the most in amateur portfolios is the obvious lack of reference. Young artists tend to feel like it's cheating -- I know I did when I was younger. But it's really the only way to get stuff to look right. You can't keep everything in your head all the time.
This is a good book on animal anatomy. If you don't want to pick that up, at least find some good pictures of animal skeletons. It's amazing how the basic skeletal structure of all mammals is essentially the same. If you know how to draw people, with a little study, it's easy to extrapolate that knowledge to animals. For example: edit: "bic" = bicep -- for some reason, I stopped writing it. No idea why.
Other than that, the drawing is pretty solid. The coach looks good. I'd like to see the whole deal running over me in a dramatic worms-eye perspective shot, but that's probably for later.
Also, I don't quite understand whether this is essentially two panels, or if those horses up top are running (flying?) above the coach. Or if they're huge, or just closer to the "camera". Drawing it as a perspective shot tends to make things like that more clear.
Yeah. I really like Johnny Wander, but in my opinion, the screentones don't look so good.
I was about to say the same thing. The screentones are the only thing I don't like about Johnny Wander. They are way too chunky and it's distracting. I'd say that's an example of screentones that are too big. This is an example of screen tones that are too small. I had this manga making program was given to tokyo pop artists. It had a database of screentones in vector form. It had the option to rotate them and shrink them to fit your comic. I would just save out a huge jpg of a screentone in the same resolution of my comic and then import that into photoshop. That program was great in some ways but I didn't want to learn it at the time. It worked out well, I think. I was trying to look for that comic page I made with it but it's not happening.
I can help with these - my semi-ex girlfriend is doing animal science with a focus on horses, and I can get whatever you need in the way of pictures. Horrible, horrible pictures.
I was about to say the same thing. The screentones are the only thing I don't like about Johnny Wander. They are way too chunky and it's distracting. I'd say that's an example of screentones that are too big. This is an example of screen tones that are toosmall.
Yep. Seems like at screen resolutions, your choice is between screentones that are too chunky, and screentones that are too small, and get moire patterns.
I had this manga making program was given to tokyo pop artists. It had a database of screentones in vector form. It had the option to rotate them and shrink them to fit your comic. I would just save out a huge jpg of a screentone in the same resolution of my comic and then import that into photoshop. That program was great in some ways but I didn't want to learn it at the time. It worked out well, I think. I was trying to look for that comic page I made with it but it's not happening.
Did you do work for Tokyopop? Do you remember what the program was called? Sounds like it could be Manga Studio. I think I've read that Manga Studio was originally imported by Tokyopop. I use itfor all my linework, and it's the best program ever for drawing comics.
If you do manage to find any pages, I'd love to see them.
I was actually going with skeletal and demonic for the Nightmares (the horses), if they look disturbing or bizarre that is what I was going for. As for the layout, I wanted to go free form with some of the panels, so it is supposed to be sort of a panning out shot. I guess it will make more sense with backgrounds.
Comments
Edit: Fuck, that's some lopsided eyes..
Please note: The full character would fill most of an A4 page, the previous sketch was only a bit taller than each face.
On that note, anyone recommend any good A3 paper that works well with alcohol pens? Printer paper beats all my sketchbooks so far.
Two things: First -- don't be too precious about your comics. You're still really young, and you've got all the time in the world to make mistakes and learn from them. Realize that anything you make, you'll probably hate in a year or two anyway. If you let that stop you, you'll never make anything. Second, if you have a story to tell but you don't feel like your drawing skills are up to snuff yet, you can still lay it out. Go ahead and thumbnail the whole story, figure out your pacing and storytelling, and hold off on the real drawing until you're more confident.
The design process meanders about the page starting in the bottom right.
Also, male or female? Without going to the linked page.
EDIT: Because I suck at life, I didn't get it done again. Tomorrow I am going to go to the art building and work on two pages and have them posted (and possibly more) tomorrow evening. Call me a shittalker if you like as I seem to be becoming one. Posting just that page wouldn't have helped me much anyway as there really aren't a lot of human characters on it... oh well.
Page one
AHHHHHH! Today's pages 5 and up.
I didn't feel like scanning. :P I think I am going to do the first 4 over.
I asked UglyFred who lives downstairs to tone the pages. I might post them in a few days.
I've been tempted to start up a webcomic myself, but I don't want to do it until I'm faster. I've been keeping track of the time it takes me to draw pages, and it's longer than I thought. I'd really like to be able to do about 5 pages a week if I'm going to do it. Sorry. Is it going to be a comic?
I asked you a long time ago! Like, a year ago! You said yeah!
Psh, we live in the internet age. Location is irrelevant. Besides, toning is super easy. I'll show where to get some good screentone patterns for Photoshop.
Anyway, Dude, when are you coming back?
Critique as you see fit (in fact it would be great if you are brutal).
*edit*
I understand that you want to make a intimidating horses but they look weak to me. Mostly because their proportions are a bit crunched and their legs are weirdly angled which makes them look crippled.
But yeah, what Ametto said. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the horse anatomy is all wrong. Mostly in the legs, but the heads look kinda reptilian. Did you use reference? I may be preaching to the choir here, but I've heard many times from a lot of comics professionals that the thing they see the most in amateur portfolios is the obvious lack of reference. Young artists tend to feel like it's cheating -- I know I did when I was younger. But it's really the only way to get stuff to look right. You can't keep everything in your head all the time.
This is a good book on animal anatomy. If you don't want to pick that up, at least find some good pictures of animal skeletons. It's amazing how the basic skeletal structure of all mammals is essentially the same. If you know how to draw people, with a little study, it's easy to extrapolate that knowledge to animals. For example:
edit: "bic" = bicep -- for some reason, I stopped writing it. No idea why.
Other than that, the drawing is pretty solid. The coach looks good. I'd like to see the whole deal running over me in a dramatic worms-eye perspective shot, but that's probably for later.
Also, I don't quite understand whether this is essentially two panels, or if those horses up top are running (flying?) above the coach. Or if they're huge, or just closer to the "camera". Drawing it as a perspective shot tends to make things like that more clear.
Seriously, they haunt me.
If you do manage to find any pages, I'd love to see them.