CC4: Jonny's Comic

[Amit Dutta]

Wow Johnny so great to see this. Keep it up!

[JyonnyNovice]

Cheers Amit! I will!


Pulling all the little bits and pieces I've done together. Probably gonna stay digital for the rest of this, since it's quicker to move stuff around. Then I'll print it and trace it and ink it by hand (because I'm better at inking that way, my digital inks don't look very good).



Below is from yesterday, trying for the first time using 3D to help with the difficult perspective and warped grid in the last panel. I spent many hours just figuring out a good process but once I got into it it was sooo fun and easy to change stuff up and pan the camera around for a good angle. Will definitely use this approach again.

[smrr]

Jyonny, this is absolutely and utterly phenomenal work <33!!

[John]

Just when I thought I was busting my ass.. I see you're work ethic:

[CTrow]

WOAHH! Jonny, really liking the 3D stuff! it looks sooooo cool! I might have to try it myself, did you use sketchup for it? ... amazing work!

[Eyliana]

So much work! I'm looking forward to see it finished.

[JyonnyNovice]

Smrr Thanks Smrrr, your comment warms my heart <3
John Thanks dude, I think I haven't put in so much time on a project ever before
Ctrow Thanks man! You should definitely try it. I did start with sketchup but had some problems importing the models into Marmoset (the program that let me warp the camera lens) so used cinema 4d to model it in the end.
Eyli Thanks! I think I will be able to finish it now, was a bit worried at the start of the week.

Another update, working in digital makes me fiddle about so much with so many details I won't even be able to ink they are so small >.< still it makes it easier to arrange each panel with moving stuff.



Need some feedback if possible - I am relatively happy with stuff, but the second row (the one with the judge), reading the text in one long line across all the panels feels broken and feels like I miss out the images or go through them too fast to take in what is happening. Considering breaking that line of text up and having small boxes of text in each panel. What do you guys think? Does it work as it is or should I break it up? Any other feedback greatly appreciated too!

EDIT Oh yea, also, the third panel (the one with him smoking), does it feel out of context? Someone suggested I could put some weed symbols to make it clear he's smoking a joint and not a cigarette but idk, I don't want to crowd things out more than they are.

[CTrow]

hey Jonny! it looks really good, cant wait to see the final. Personally I think the third panel is fine I understood the context... and it becomes more obvious once you read the rest of the panels. as for the second row with the judge, I agree with the text. It feels a bit awkward to me. I would just recommend just trying different things out. maybe try it across the bottom of the panel, or maybe the judge could be saying it "No decent role models... peer pressure and using hard drugs... GUILTY!". I dunno just pushing some ideas around. hope some of that helped, and im looking forward to seeing the final!

[Eyliana]

I find the third panel difficult, but that mostly the layout in combination with the text. Maybe too busy with the centric lines or the text connects difficult to the image, I'm not sure. Might also become clear when everything is inked in the same way.
I don't have a problem with confusing it for a cigerette, it becomes clear in the story anyways.

With the second row, my attention goes straight to the judge and missed the first panel of that row. It is quite busy there in that area, maybe you can matte down the windshield? I don't think it is necessary to show to bag when he is clearly breaking in. An maybe breaking up the text boxes would make it clearer as well that there are different panels.. dunno...

Good luck with finishing it!

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks for the great feedback and advice you two, it's really useful ^_^

[JyonnyNovice]

Wow, such good fortune to have the deadline extended. I'm really happy with a lot of my page but the first three panels I just can't get the text to flow right. This is my lesson for not being totally set on the text earlier on. I thought it was fleshed out enough to start drawing but now I run into problems! This is what I was going to submit, but I have a bit more time to fiddle the text some more - and work on getting the tones in the first panel better. .

[Arapersonica]

D: Man, this hits me in the gut! It's so poignant... And all the work you put into it!! Maan, you put me to shame...

It reads really well, and I think it's clear and concise, no line wasted. I'm not sure if there's much more crit I can offer!!

Perhaps to give it a more "unified" look, you might want to smooth out where the traditional ink and the digital black lines meet. Or visa versa; recreate the traditional ink texture everywhere. It's more of a nitpick though.

An example of what I mean is in this page: http://www.minnasundberg.fi/comic/page526.php

This artist lined her pages with brush and ink, and used the ink texture as part of the comic. I can see where you've painted in with the black in digital over some of the traditional ink, there's a little bit of an "unbalanced" look.

I hope that makes sense... if it doesn't, no worries!! It's more of a nit-pick!

Really good stuff!!

[Hobitt]

A job well done! I really like it! both the narrative and the execution.

[JyonnyNovice]

Arapersonica Thanks man! After working on it so much I'm numb to the story and had kind of forgotten it - it's great to hear that you got a feeling from it! Thanks for the link, it's a cool look and I do know exactly what you mean and agree it'd look cool unified, I'm tempted to play around with mine some more, but not tonight, so tired XD
Hobbitt Cheers dude! So glad you think so!

Spent a good few hours today analysing and adjusting, mainly the text, in the end the changes are so small but I think very important - at least to me it flows in an agreeable way now. So so so tired and worn out from this project, have to do a solid detox from caffeine since I dosed myself so high with it this last couple weeks. But wow such an experience, really nailed down a working process for comics that I can manage. I'll write up the full process in my sketchbook after this challenge.

This is the final one, I think I'll be submitting this one, unless I get itchy fingers and try out Arapersonica's advice from above. It's probably the first piece of work that I've done where there aren't any parts that 'bother' me - I really feel that I did every part to the best of my abilities and couldn't have squeezed anymore out of me. I could spend many more hours refining stuff, especially with the tones but I am happy with how it is now.



Thought I'd share this part too; after getting everything in place how I wanted in photoshop I tried this method where you convert the image to Duotone colour mode and use a 30% Cyan colour, then you can print it and ink it without having to redraw it. After inking and scanning the blue can be removed using the 'channels' (select the blue channel, invert selection, fill with black on a new layer).

[smrr]

KILLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEERRRRRR---!!

What can I say? You nailed it man, your hard-work has really payed off - this is easily the most professional comic o______o ! You managed to tell a full story from start to finish without the comic feeling too cluttered, your camera angles are the best, I love the last panel tho- so dark <3 <3

I also didn't realise when I first popped in that you went traditional with a lot of it - holy shit!??! You crazy or smth!? Haha, really great stuff! I can't remember if I've asked before, but do you want to get into comics? Looks like it comes easy!

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks so much Smrrr, yea comics are my dream so I threw everything I had into this to test myself if I'm ready to make my own comics yet - totally worn out now! About the traditional stuff, I watched some manga documentaries a while back and was fascinated by the way they combined digital technology with traditional inking, plus I've been practising a lot of inking recently so I really wanted to try out that process - it was super fun, I'll definitely keep working this way!

[KurtJeremy]

Hey jon, well done mate. The story is poignant, the panels and flow are clear.
I'm pretty sure you've learned a lot in doing this just one panel. I wasn't able to participate on this one because I have been doing a different comic for some client and found the process along the way.
have you read Scott Mcloud's books? It helped a lot in understanding the comic book process.

P.S: what 3d software did you used in your workflow?

[JyonnyNovice]

Kurt Cool I hope you can show your comic too in your sketchbook sometime! I learned a lot for sure, next comics are going to go much smoother and easier. I've read one of McCloud's books (making comics), it is really useful to understand comics in his analytical way. I used cinema 4d for the 3D - although most modelling software is fine, except sketchup which gave me problems importing it into the next stage, which was a software called Marmoset Toolbag, that let me place many cameras around the scene and control all the lens / field of view and warping to get that warped perspective.

[Zipfelzeus]

I'm really impressed with the amount of effort you put in to this. All that rearranging and recomposing of panels really helped to get the story across which wasn't really easy to begin with since you basically put a whole life story in one comic page.

The whole inking process is really interesting too. I like the crosshatching in the last (second to last)
panel. Didn't that take forever?

Anyway great job on pushing it this hard!

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks zip! Yea I thought I'd bitten off something too complicated to get across in one page but seemed to work out OK in the end. That last big panel I used a cross hatching texture and layered it on in Photoshop - I was going to attempt it myself but didn't have the time, plus I wouldn't have got the gradation anywhere near as smooth as that. I kinda like that in comics where it's like 'did he really draw that? ' so it probably worked out better using the texture - after all I used tons of digital tools to get it done so no harm in not being too purist.