Dudes, im having trouble with colouring my inks. anyone know of any good tutorials on selecting a colour palette for comics? I know it basically comes down to understanding of colour theory, but many comics use the oddest colours which end up looking natural. Id post my tests, but they are totally shit.
anyway, heres a test thrown together showing my work in order of sequence so far. The white boxes are for narrative text (havn't finished yet) and there will be speach bubbles too.
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Cannon GooseI need some GAGS!If only I had my gag book!Registered Userregular
Kendeathwalker - I'll give that a go. Im thinking outside i would want warmer colours, and the inside shots cooler, shadow colours. I checked out a few awesome Batman comics, they seem to have a base main colour, then complimentary contrasting colours around it. I'll keep playing around and post some later today. cheers dude.
The coloring is working on the comic, except for the purple. It looks too saturated and out of place with the rest of the colors.
The proportions and placement of facial features on Steve Martin is off. Keep on working on getting the basic structures right.
You seem to have a good work ethic. Keep it up!
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
That last drawing would look really great if you just removed all the lines :P
The next time you do a drawing I really think you should ban yourself from anything other than super light lines, and see what emerges. I really think it will help a lot.
EDIT: Although it's still an awesome improvement. It looks pretty accurate. The line trouble spots I'd pick out would be the forehead, hair and eyes.
When I compare that drawing to your stuff earlier in the thread, it's a huge leap. Keep going!
The coloring is working on the comic, except for the purple. It looks too saturated and out of place with the rest of the colors.
I assume youre referring to the top cell? I'll tone the colour down and see if it works better. I'll play around and see if i can find a better choice.
The proportions and placement of facial features on Steve Martin is off. Keep on working on getting the basic structures right.
Im glad you could tell its steve martin:) After comparing that to the last image, you can really see my structures are hit-and-miss at the moment . Thats why i decided to do some loomis head studies.
That last drawing would look really great if you just removed all the lines :P
The next time you do a drawing I really think you should ban yourself from anything other than super light lines, and see what emerges. I really think it will help a lot.
EDIT: Although it's still an awesome improvement. It looks pretty accurate. The line trouble spots I'd pick out would be the forehead, hair and eyes.
When I compare that drawing to your stuff earlier in the thread, it's a huge leap. Keep going!
CANT. STOP. DRAWING. LINES... They're in my head, calling my name.
Haha, after drawing manga for years, its bloody hard to kill the line habbit. I'll try man
yeah, surreality is right, you use line where you should be using shadow a lot of the time. Also, slow down!
I get the sense you're rushing through your work, both the polished stuff and the studies. Obviously for the former, this is a no-no, but observational exercises should also be taken slowly. Take the last pic. I'm seeing flat, football eyes, hair that is frankly half-assed, and a two-dimensional looking gun. You've been arting for a long time, you should know better by now! But you rush things, always, so these chronic issues never get properly driven out of your system. Most of the draughtsmanship problems you have, such as poor perspective and flat solids, could be easily rectified by simply taking more care.
On a technical note, what kind of lead are you using? You seem to need to press deeply to get any depth of shadow, which is flattening your values. Remember, with a soft lead you can always press very lightly, barely touching the paper, whereas with a hard lead there's only so dark it will go. (Note that the best use of pencil in the above is your head studies in the fourth picture, which also have the lightest touch). For the kind of deep contrast you're going for in the last picture, for instance, I would use at least a 4B. Also, if you use a softer lead, you may also find it easier to soften out the unnecessarily hard edges in your portraits.
You're definitely improving, it's just frustrating to see you inch forward when you could be leaping.
tynic - believe me, its probably 10x frustrating for me
im using Derwent graphic pencils. 2B, 3B and a B.
I think the issue is the paper im using. I bought 500 sheets of A3 computer print paper, which is really shit to draw on. But its cheap You're right in assuming i press hard on the paper (in the shadows).
i have to admit, when i started reading your post, i was boiling a little inside. But reading through it again, i couldnt really argue against it. (though i will argue against your point that ive been drawing "for a long time". I don't think 2 years is exactly a long time. And i dont count my high school dragonball doodles as arting:))
just for shits and giggles, heres a comic i did for my art major in high school (december 2006)
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MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
You'll get there WCK, you've improved a lot, especially over the last few months. I think the biggest problem you've had is that you've had to unlearn a lot of stuff and break old habits, which is a lot harder than it looks and a big reason why I hate anime.
Keep working on those Loomis head tutorials, they're going to help you in spades.
EDIT: Also I would've expelled you for handing that comic up. :P
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
Also I would've expelled you for handing that comic up
You've come quite a long way Winter. Keep it up and work on your weaknesses and you'll be miles ahead of where you are now in another two years. I see you still had a thing for mullets back then too!
yesterday was a crappy day for studies. ill post them anyway.
self portrait - tried to avoid using too many sharp lines.
attempt at drawing Australian politician Kevin Foley
made his eyes too googly, and i didnt really put the effort into the line work, compared to my self portrait
Link from Legend of Zelda - too much like a pretty boy/girl
attempt at drawing Australian politician Kevin Foley
made his eyes too googly, and i didnt really put the effort into the line work, compared to my self portrait
I'd say you ballsed up the mouth more than anything on that one. It's on a completely different perspective to the rest of the head.
Mustang - i think thats a result of referencing 3 different photos of different angles
ManonvonSuperock - I built up the pose using what i had learned from the loomis head studies. I didn't reference, though i was kinda thinking River Phoenix in Indiana Jones.
Starting a new spread for my comic. worked entirely traditional this time using inks, white-out and white acrylic paint. i hate how scanners scan the bubbling of the paper. ARGH!!! oh well, i guess it adds kinda cool effects
im going to be applying for a few traineeships/internships at a few studios in Aus, and am putting together my illustration and conceptart work into a PDF format.
Just after some opinions on the layout/order of the work, and whether you think something should be pulled out altogether. im not after critique on the quality of the work, just the layout and content.
cheers
EDIT
bloody tinypic decided to delete some of the images. heres one with the whole lot
there is nothing wrong with your technique man. Its still just problems with basic drawing fundamentals. Its been pointed out and suggested so many times. Just do basic exercises until your eyes fucking bleed. Pick one aspect of drawing and focus on it. Not draw a figure from reference. Thats a bunch of different fundamentals at play.
for example
Draw a skull.. from every concivable angle. Every angle just studying its construction.. dont even worry about full value rendering.. Render a sphere.. etc etc etc..
also your figures have no flow at all. No rythm. anything alive has got a natural "S" rythm running through every aspect of it.
MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
Your shading technique is quite lovely but as Ken mentioned you are being limited by your fundamentals.
It seems like you draw your figures without any thought to contructing it. Merely reffing it isn't enough, you need to build it with shapes and internal lines, not just do the outlines of the figure. It will help your eye see the contour of the body and give you a visual reference where you are off and on the money.
This is just a quick and nasty of how I would've built your gun guy, prior to adding the details.
Over the long weekend spent some time doing figure studies as well as longer still lifes. They started off as total shit, but as i kept doing them, i gained a better understanding of implying motion and gesture (something my ppl lack as mentioned by Ken). Listended to an old interview with Jim Lee and he basically said if you understand the human body and gesture, you can draw a person from any angle (almost) without a reference.
anyway studies!!!
Life shite
3+ hours in the kitchen (which isnt the best place to draw while dinner is being cooked around you
And since i want to get into concept illustration for games/movies, i decided to do some composition studies from film. Trying to gain a better understandning of what makes a good, dynamic shot, and what makes a shit boring shot.
WCK you've improved leaps and bounds since the start of this thread.
If i were you i would keep doing studies.
On that still life it seems like the contrast is a bit mediocre(not enough contrast i mean). It also seems a tad rushed for 3 hours, but it's really good that you're doing theseeee
hi folks, got an image ive been working on today. intitially started as a doodle sketch, but i decided to do a full render greyscale piece. Wondering what your thoughts are on the composition so far?
the piece is based from how i imagine the novel 'The Gunslinger' by Stephen King. So im kinda thinking western/post apocolyptic/wasteland
ish.
[IMG][/img]
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MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I'd dump the mountains. Failing that, make them half the size and more worn down and rounded. You need to get that desert feel to them
studying the composition from movies is a good idea, a better one would be studying the composition in master paintings as given the nature of film being constantly changing, unless you are looking at a big establishing shot the compsition likely hasnt been designed down to the smallest detail in regards to just that particular frame.
you are also doing it wrong.If you are going to study composition- then focus on composition. I would advice you remove the variable of trying to make the drawings accurate and just focus on shape arrangments and value groupings. The results of the exercise will look pretty abstract and are very quick. This also involves a little brain work into simplfying little shapes into bigger ones/groupings.
For example, the no country for old men shot of the dudes walking to the police car. The figures and car should just be a silohhette basically the same value. the foreground hill one value and possibly two other values to suggest the background. ID also have the shadow off of the car and figures visible as that is a pretty signifgant compositional element in that shot.
If you cant force yourself to achieve that level of simplicity with a pencil, get yourself a big fat sharpie and some grey markers.
Hell even remove drawing completely from the equation and take screenshots and play with the posterize filter in photoshop. The idea is to get yourself to think about the shapes arrangments abstractly and not about the illusion the eveuntually end up creating.
There's a million ways to practice composition, but Ken is right: you should start by learning to see everything as simple shapes and broad areas of similar value.
As for drawing the stuff, sharpie might be a good idea, if it's for little sketches. You could also use watercolor (or acrylic) with a large brush for bigger studies. Or better yet, use soft pastels. I like Alphacolor pastels personally. You can break them in half and draw with the sides if it's easier for you to build simple shapes that way. Shades of grey like this are probably best for you right now:
If you do end up going with something like this, just use 1-3 values at a time.
In any case, get a bunch of really cheap paper (newsprint is probably best if you can get it) and practice a lot. Oh, and try not to draw outlines (build shapes from the inside-out).
Posts
anyway, heres a test thrown together showing my work in order of sequence so far. The white boxes are for narrative text (havn't finished yet) and there will be speach bubbles too.
xbox live | playstation network | steam | last.fm | flickr
i actually dont mind the first palette
I wish i could explain that through narrative, but its really a mistake with my perspective. SHAT!
Worth re-drawing?
played around with colour this arvo. Im starting to have a better understranding of what works. I think its just trial and error atm.
Also, i think i will re-draw that shot of the car. its starting to bug me a lot. Thanks bombs!!! @%;&#
The proportions and placement of facial features on Steve Martin is off. Keep on working on getting the basic structures right.
You seem to have a good work ethic. Keep it up!
The next time you do a drawing I really think you should ban yourself from anything other than super light lines, and see what emerges. I really think it will help a lot.
EDIT: Although it's still an awesome improvement. It looks pretty accurate. The line trouble spots I'd pick out would be the forehead, hair and eyes.
When I compare that drawing to your stuff earlier in the thread, it's a huge leap. Keep going!
I assume youre referring to the top cell? I'll tone the colour down and see if it works better. I'll play around and see if i can find a better choice.
Im glad you could tell its steve martin:) After comparing that to the last image, you can really see my structures are hit-and-miss at the moment . Thats why i decided to do some loomis head studies.
CANT. STOP. DRAWING. LINES... They're in my head, calling my name.
Haha, after drawing manga for years, its bloody hard to kill the line habbit. I'll try man
I get the sense you're rushing through your work, both the polished stuff and the studies. Obviously for the former, this is a no-no, but observational exercises should also be taken slowly. Take the last pic. I'm seeing flat, football eyes, hair that is frankly half-assed, and a two-dimensional looking gun. You've been arting for a long time, you should know better by now! But you rush things, always, so these chronic issues never get properly driven out of your system. Most of the draughtsmanship problems you have, such as poor perspective and flat solids, could be easily rectified by simply taking more care.
On a technical note, what kind of lead are you using? You seem to need to press deeply to get any depth of shadow, which is flattening your values. Remember, with a soft lead you can always press very lightly, barely touching the paper, whereas with a hard lead there's only so dark it will go. (Note that the best use of pencil in the above is your head studies in the fourth picture, which also have the lightest touch). For the kind of deep contrast you're going for in the last picture, for instance, I would use at least a 4B. Also, if you use a softer lead, you may also find it easier to soften out the unnecessarily hard edges in your portraits.
You're definitely improving, it's just frustrating to see you inch forward when you could be leaping.
im using Derwent graphic pencils. 2B, 3B and a B.
I think the issue is the paper im using. I bought 500 sheets of A3 computer print paper, which is really shit to draw on. But its cheap
i have to admit, when i started reading your post, i was boiling a little inside. But reading through it again, i couldnt really argue against it. (though i will argue against your point that ive been drawing "for a long time". I don't think 2 years is exactly a long time. And i dont count my high school dragonball doodles as arting:))
just for shits and giggles, heres a comic i did for my art major in high school (december 2006)
Keep working on those Loomis head tutorials, they're going to help you in spades.
EDIT: Also I would've expelled you for handing that comic up. :P
hater!
yesterday was a crappy day for studies. ill post them anyway.
self portrait - tried to avoid using too many sharp lines.
attempt at drawing Australian politician Kevin Foley
made his eyes too googly, and i didnt really put the effort into the line work, compared to my self portrait
Link from Legend of Zelda - too much like a pretty boy/girl
I'd say you ballsed up the mouth more than anything on that one. It's on a completely different perspective to the rest of the head.
ManonvonSuperock - I built up the pose using what i had learned from the loomis head studies. I didn't reference, though i was kinda thinking River Phoenix in Indiana Jones.
second half of the spread for my graphic novel. Tried to use less black to contrast against the other side of the page
coloured. gotta add text boxes next.
im going to be applying for a few traineeships/internships at a few studios in Aus, and am putting together my illustration and conceptart work into a PDF format.
Just after some opinions on the layout/order of the work, and whether you think something should be pulled out altogether. im not after critique on the quality of the work, just the layout and content.
cheers
EDIT
bloody tinypic decided to delete some of the images. heres one with the whole lot
problems with tinypic again, or my internet connection sucks. so probably a double pictures in amongst this...
the similarities to Michael Jackson are purely coincidental
for example
Draw a skull.. from every concivable angle. Every angle just studying its construction.. dont even worry about full value rendering.. Render a sphere.. etc etc etc..
also your figures have no flow at all. No rythm. anything alive has got a natural "S" rythm running through every aspect of it.
further detail about this
http://thearteducatorsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/rhythm-line-of-action.html
It seems like you draw your figures without any thought to contructing it. Merely reffing it isn't enough, you need to build it with shapes and internal lines, not just do the outlines of the figure. It will help your eye see the contour of the body and give you a visual reference where you are off and on the money.
This is just a quick and nasty of how I would've built your gun guy, prior to adding the details.
anyway studies!!!
Life shite
3+ hours in the kitchen (which isnt the best place to draw while dinner is being cooked around you
And since i want to get into concept illustration for games/movies, i decided to do some composition studies from film. Trying to gain a better understandning of what makes a good, dynamic shot, and what makes a shit boring shot.
If i were you i would keep doing studies.
On that still life it seems like the contrast is a bit mediocre(not enough contrast i mean). It also seems a tad rushed for 3 hours, but it's really good that you're doing theseeee
the piece is based from how i imagine the novel 'The Gunslinger' by Stephen King. So im kinda thinking western/post apocolyptic/wasteland
ish.
[IMG][/img]
you are also doing it wrong.If you are going to study composition- then focus on composition. I would advice you remove the variable of trying to make the drawings accurate and just focus on shape arrangments and value groupings. The results of the exercise will look pretty abstract and are very quick. This also involves a little brain work into simplfying little shapes into bigger ones/groupings.
For example, the no country for old men shot of the dudes walking to the police car. The figures and car should just be a silohhette basically the same value. the foreground hill one value and possibly two other values to suggest the background. ID also have the shadow off of the car and figures visible as that is a pretty signifgant compositional element in that shot.
If you cant force yourself to achieve that level of simplicity with a pencil, get yourself a big fat sharpie and some grey markers.
Hell even remove drawing completely from the equation and take screenshots and play with the posterize filter in photoshop. The idea is to get yourself to think about the shapes arrangments abstractly and not about the illusion the eveuntually end up creating.
As for drawing the stuff, sharpie might be a good idea, if it's for little sketches. You could also use watercolor (or acrylic) with a large brush for bigger studies. Or better yet, use soft pastels. I like Alphacolor pastels personally. You can break them in half and draw with the sides if it's easier for you to build simple shapes that way. Shades of grey like this are probably best for you right now:
If you do end up going with something like this, just use 1-3 values at a time.
In any case, get a bunch of really cheap paper (newsprint is probably best if you can get it) and practice a lot. Oh, and try not to draw outlines (build shapes from the inside-out).