Thanks Chubbs! The on model thing is a big struggle for sure! Next year I'm joining a 2D animation course to try and level up that skill. Doing the movement and studying how the shapes turn frame by frame will be really useful I think!
The page I've been working on today, four pages into the next part of the story above:
I'd like to get every panel and pose really solid, but I noticed in comics you can get away with the odd wonky pose or proportion error. People get into the story and all your art mistakes just become part of their experience and they stop noticing them. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try our best, but when the time comes we have to move on to the next page!
Life drawing warm up from today. A mix of 30 sec, 1 min, 2 min and a 5 min. Muscly fat guys have really interesting bodies, this 'back of the head' fat and the fat on top of the trapezius makes this cool double bulge thing on their neck.
Today's warmup. I'm always trying to find good ways to get better at expressions, currently I'm doing this 'cognitive drawing' approach (that's what Jason Brubaker calls it). Alex Negrea had it in a tutorial too. You draw from reference, in this case I put timer of 2 mins, then put away reference and your first drawing and redraw it from memory. Since the goal is expressions instead of head design I just put them on generic kind of cartoon heads to try and 'apply' them to something different.
To do the process fully you would then draw it again from the same reference, then again from memory - as many times as you like (Negrea does it like 4 - 6 times in his video I think).
For these I just want to get mileage in drawing different expressions (so 2 min timer) but not let my brain be lazy and just draw without being mindful (hence the 'redraw'). And it's just a warmup so I move on after each redraw.
Would love to hear how others build up their expression drawing skills!
Love everything about the comic book you posted, the style especially is unique and appealing. You did a great job with solid line and coloring work, and some really great lighting effects. Bravo!
@CGMythology Thanks so much! That's really great to hear. I find it so hard to be objective, in my eyes my final work all looks like pale imitations of my idols XD
Been working on this page today, the final page of 'part 2' of this 3 part werewolf story. Ideally I'd give more panels to this kick but it was tight with the writing so I'm trying to do something like Streetfighter comic does with an animated move and kick all in one panel. It felt like it was working out in the thumbnail stage, but as it comes together it starts to feel a bit wobbly! Will keep going with it and see if I can make it look cool again!
going back to some basics, realised I hadn't really studied these details for a long time. It was definitely overdue! I'm planning to go through all the facial features, and go over skulls and rotating heads around as 3d blocky shapes.
Awesome work on Penny Pentagram! You've definitely produced professional level work there.
Also congrats on the being published by the time you're 40 milestone - good to hear man :).
Not sure I can be of too much help but wanted to comment on the cognitive drawing thing - I've not heard of that before but I'd been thinking about drawing from imagination a lot recently and the thing about studying a reference and then putting it away and then drawing from memory and imagination strikes a chord with me. I feel that doing stuff like that will really boost an artist's invention skills as it builds the visual library and also builds the invention muscles.
Keep it going man - I'm loving your work :)
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Artloader: Thanks for the comment, it's good to post on here again, gives me motivation to study and improve and be a bit more accountable! Some other ways to train drawing from imagination, from Kimon Nicolades book, he talks about doing life drawing where you look at the model for 2 minutes, then go to a different room to draw. Obviously with PC you can just minimise the window. I don't think you need to check how close you were or measure the success about how well you observed, it's more about improvising/inventing the bits you can't remember, kind of testing your knowledge of the figure to see if you can make it work even if you can't remember exactly what the leg was doing. Can probably apply that to other subjects too! Another thing he says in that book is the 'daily composition' exercise; you think of a moment from your day, draw a little thumbnail frame and create a super loose, super quick illustration sketch of that moment. I think he had a time limit of just a few minutes. It's supposed to be really rough and messy but train you about creating a story moment from nothing but a blank page and your memory. A more Kim Jung Gi type approach could be to pick a subject and be quite specific, like 'helmets', draw all kinds of helmets from reference then put it all away and just experiment drawing your own helmets. I think he did that kind of thing with all his military vehicles and stuff.
Been working on the animated panel from above, trying out some different action trails and FX to try and get a sense that she's really kicking the werewolf hard. I will add some motion blur type effects to her leg when the final artwork is done.
Cool - those exercises sound really useful! I'd not heard of Kimon Nicolaides before but I just looked up his book and it had some great reviews.
Nice going with the Penny Pentagram panels - that flying kick panel feels really dynamic - you've got the choreography just right I reckon. One thing though is at first glance I didn't realise that the figure in the distance was the were-wolf - I thought it was some other random dude falling over but then I realised that Penny's kick had sent him flying over there. Maybe something to keep in mind as you're working this through - ensure the final location of each figure clear to the reader. Not sure if I'm making sense? If not please disregard - no offence will be taken :).
Take care Jyonny.
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Artloader: Kimon Nicolaides book is a full drawing course you can follow entirely, it even tells you in the text 'put the book down now and go do these exercises'. You're probably a bit advanced for it, but it's got good exercises still! Grab a PDF version and skim through it : ) And I totally get you about the final werewolf location! The original version didn't have that extra pose, it ended with her kick connecting, but in the following panel the werewolf is already on the ground and it wasn't til much later I realised the sequence was weak since no one got to see her smashing him out of the way, so I added that little werewolf slammed down in the distance. I'm kind of stuck with it for now, without reworking a lot of stuff, so am gonna try my best to get that panel reading properly with ink, colour, action trails. We'll see if it works out! Good lesson learned about the difference between comics and other visual storytelling, a lot of forms, like hollywood, they put more attention on the 'before' and 'after' of a kick or punch. Storyboard artists also avoid boards that are 'mid action' and will choose moments before and after. But in comics the 'mid movement/during the action' is really exciting to see! The Battle Royale manga does it especially (excessively!) with lots of 'freeze frames' of people's heads being sliced apart and stuff. I'll remember to use those ideas for next time! Thanks for the feeedback!
Woah Jon, you have come such a long way man! The comic is looking amazing! Its cool to see how you continue to study and work hard! Its paying off for sure!
Zorrentos Thanks man, the day to day doesn't feel so productive sometimes but seeing it all in a thread makes you realise progress is happening.
Some recent bits and pieces:
Digital figure drawing session, I've been messing around in my sketchbook drawing characters with wrists and ankles thicker than their elbows and knees, so the limbs widen and hands/feet are really big. It's kind of fun so I tried it out on some life drawing models.
An exercise painting over a photo, no plan just trying to open up creativity by drawing faces on everything:
Some progress on my comic, inking stage is done, time for the part that I struggle with the most which is colouring. I tried to get some nice colours going on, but it looked ugly and muddy, so I just made it pretty monochrome in the end. It's not what I was going for but it starts to look ok.
It's supposed to be a sunset, by the end of the next page the moon is out and it needs to be night time, so I transitioned into a night time type colour at the end of the page.
I wonder if her hair would still pick up shine in the shadow side... also I need to tighten up the shadow shapes on the characters and make them more purposeful.
some quick heads warm up, trying to draw without construction
And another two pages of the comic inked and coloured. I tried to be more sparing with the cel shading, not systematically lighting every character in every panel but trying to do just enough that it works without being distracting. Let me know if you think it needs more character lighting! I'll go back over and clean up some of the shadow shapes a bit later.
I think the main issue in the last couple of pages is how intense the street light is is. It almost looks like daylight, which is such a heavy contrast to everything else and breaks the follow a bit (especially if you are just skim reading it). I don't know what the solution is, if it's to play with the colours, values, etc. but "toning it down" might help keep the night time atmosphere
What i see as a problem is actually the leak of cast shadow that would add that dark vibe in my opinion also your scene should get much darker as it get away from the light source of course that if we talking about a night scene where the moon or the sun ain't adding an other light source to the scene.I think that if you want to test if it work you should first do the version initial in black and white and than work from there than actual filling in using value instead of just the line art.Skipping over directly to color isn't helping if your value aren't solve thoughtfully.
One thing i would also think would help you is for you to think about filling more dark because black help sell the idea it a night scene so you would leave your detail in the white.
I would also suggest you take alook at comic with similar story and mood.
I would personally suggest hellboy as a starting point or spawn i think they really capture the idea of the occult and night feel.
Here an example from hell boy to help illustrate more what i mean if you want to study from comic i recommend you either go to your local liberary or maybe you can find website that let your read online for free.
I think as a comic artist your biggest problem is to plan so that your not over rendering but actually just saying what is necessary to give the right mood and communicate the action.For example if you look at the example provided there is little to no background because it all about the action at that point .It more about implying texture than over rendering.
Chubbycat Thanks for the feedback! Definitely a case of having looked at it too long when colouring the streetlights, I totally get you!
Darktiste Thanks for taking the time to give feedback! Totally agree, and spotting blacks is a major weakness for me, whenever I try I end up with ugly and confusing images that doesn't read anymore. Need to work on that definitely, I'd love to get to a point where it works in black and white ink only then colour is just adding mood. I study Hellboy for his panel layouts, and definitely he's a master of gothic occult mood! This comic is a bit more 'Nancy Drew' than 'Hellboy', but can still gain a lot studying Mignola.
Re posting those pages (and the newest one) as spreads, since that's how they'll be published. Not sure if the colours & lighting work better like this or if I still have the same issues (too bright streetlights, not enough dark fall off)?
Let me know : )
Probably the lack of any sky on page 3 doesn't help, I'll try increasing the light fall off or use stronger cast shadows there.
I do need to bear in mind that when it's printed everything looks darker and there's lower contrast, so I can't get too dark in the BG if I want people to see the details. Already the tree/bushes/sky on the last page may merge too much.
Man, I really have a lot of respect for comic artists. The amount of commitment needed is insane. Especially if they're doing the writing and drawing. I looked through a lot of your book and the progress you've made since 2014 is remarkable. If I had one suggestion it would be to look into drawing using shadow shapes. The biggest gap between your stuff(which is great) and that hellboy strip is that, that artist used shadows to emphasize form. I think it would really add some spice to your work if you learned how to do it like he did it there.
Mieksta Thanks for the comment! I do write some of it, without having someone relying on me I don't think I'd ever get it done. It is tons of work and the reward is so far away >.< not quite as masochistic as solo animation but it definitely makes you grind! Totally agree with your crit too, I decided now is the time to work on that stuff!
Making a new goal to get better at spotting blacks in backgrounds and characters/painting with shadow shapes/making things read as black and white only.
Did a couple character illustrations from reference first:
In the anime style one, in the end I think the version without the background works best, I felt like it wasn't really adding anything. Other people have said they like the BG version one tho so idk. I count them as moderate successes anyway, the character shadows worked out ok, but the black and white BG it's not clear if those are mountains/trees/something else behind her. Will probably do some pure environment studies to tackle that.
Next part of the training is to get a similar level of finish when not working straight from a single reference. Sketched out a couple of illustration ideas that I'm planning to develop so I can work on the shadow shape stuff in this kind of situation.
Decided to turn the characters into Zelda and Link because why not, it was looking too much like a stock photo before >.<
Some kids on a slide to prepare for more blacks/shadow shape training.
Hi Jyonny maybe i can offer you an additional boost to your effort since you seem to want to pick up on what i suggested you tackle.I am not exactly sure if you aware of this channel or not but i think it would be a good addition to the resource you could draw knowledge from this guy as a insane amount of comic related content that should complement your knowledge nicely.
