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Wow, thanks, Drew! I'm going to have a look at it tonight!
@Pete, it's looking much better now. I like the logo, and the images are "darkish" but not too dark. The only thing that I noticed is the thickness of the lines. When you look at the image at full size, the lines are thick enough to be seen. But when you have it scaled down, for example when you simply open it without making it full size, many of the lines (for example, her face) kind of vanish. I'll give you a screenshot when I'm back home, but maybe you can test this with your own monitor?
I went to the example that UnitMComics mentioned ( "I’ve been adding self-critical commentary write-ups in the comment section of each page (example). I borrowed the idea from Liberty Lass, a now concluded comic also produced using DAZ3D... I don’t recall exactly, but I’m certain I’m cheating here, and if you were to look at these scenes from a different angle, half of the barista’s body would be poking through Vamos’s." ) and that got me thinking of somthing about one of the approaches I use in my work: I do NOT to worry about geometry intersections as long as they are not visible in camera.
Now, this only works if the scene is only going to be viewed from one direction. If I'm going to render it again from another angle in the next panel, I do pay attention to collissions and intersections.
I've got to say, I find this approach rather liberating and it helps speed things up!
On a personal note: I actually spent some time this weekend working on my comic! Didn't get a lot done (cleaned up existing panels rather than creating new ones), but it's a start!
And on another personal note, yesterday I sat down with the goal to create a single new panel in my comic. And it was a complete disaster. I am doing a "simple" close-up of the guy's face, and after about two hours I still didn't have anything I was happy with. About the only good thing came from yesterday's session was that I decided that the best approach for the next scenes was NOT to build on what I already had, but to start a new scene and import the props and items that I will need. The reason for this is that a LOT of poses move the figure to the "zero-point-coordinates" in the scene. So, rather than worry about where things actually are, I'm going to create a set and background and try moving them around the figure and, basically leave her in a fixed position. Does that make any sense?
I may also modify this approach with the guy figure and move him to the zero-coordinates in my scene so that I can quickly apply poses and expressions to him to see if I can get some sort of body language that "sells" the scene I'm working on. I also got an idea on how it might be possible to combine some eyeball textures into my stark black & white art style.
When I get something new, I'll share it with the group here.
I work with a "noir style" that is – like your work – tends toward the dark. I like the general effects you are getting and I do think they will work well in a horror comic. The problem I see (in both your work and mine) is that, sometimes you just have to have a scene that is lighter in order to set the mood. After all, horror movies/comics use humor to lighten the mood before dropping the next big scare. Can your adjust your style accommodate that?
Just something to think about.
I also think the color from your example is striking but there's something to be said about the b&w, too (of course, since I work almost entirely in b&w I may be biased). The issue with the guy in bed is the highlight zones which draw our eyes to certain things. This can easily be adjusted in post work by just toning certain things down and pumping up other things. For example, I took your panel and darkened the bedspread a little, then I also darkened the sheets on the side of his bed (I just added about a 50% black fill over them). I also increased the contrast on the clock numbers and also drew in a few small gray lines on the sheets. I spent about 5 minutes on this, so please forgive my heavy handed work.
I work with a "noir style" that is – like your work – tends toward the dark. I like the general effects you are getting and I do think they will work well in a horror comic. The problem I see (in both your work and mine) is that, sometimes you just have to have a scene that is lighter in order to set the mood. After all, horror movies/comics use humor to lighten the mood before dropping the next big scare. Can your adjust your style accommodate that?
Just something to think about.
I also think the color from your example is striking but there's something to be said about the b&w, too (of course, since I work almost entirely in b&w I may be biased). The issue with the guy in bed is the highlight zones which draw our eyes to certain things. This can easily be adjusted in post work by just toning certain things down and pumping up other things. For example, I took your panel and darkened the bedspread a little, then I also darkened the sheets on the side of his bed (I just added about a 50% black fill over them). I also increased the contrast on the clock numbers and also drew in a few small gray lines on the sheets. I spent about 5 minutes on this, so please forgive my heavy handed work.
If this were for print, I probably overdid it on the sheets. They are probably too dark to print well. I also seriously considered toning down the highlight on the drawer pull but finally decided to leave it alone. The end goal of my edits (not sure if I was successful or not) was to darken everything except:
Below is the original image, btw.
I should have read the whole page before making my previous comment, eh?
I like both styles that you have proposed. The more detailed look evokes more of a high-detail Bernie Wrightson approach (not style, but approach) with a few nods to Alex Toth's minimalism and high-contrast approach.
Your new cel-shaded approach is also nice and, to be honest, probably more conducive to yetting your story told in a fast and economical manner (and I don't mean in terms of time or cheapness, but in terms of economy of storytelling – you're showing just what you need to tell the story, and that can be a very good thing). It also has more of a classic comic look.
Y'know, if you're going to go for an old-school look, might I suggest that you add a pale yellow to your caption boxes? Just a thought.
Also, a few specific comments:
Looking good, I definitely want to see more.
And, btw, I was just about to suggest that you make a comic page (even if it's a throwaway) just to see how your style fits together panel-by-panel. Below is my first comic page and I learned a LOT by doing it! Here's the very first full page I made with Poser 11, Photoshop and Manga Studio. I still like it, but looking at it I cringe a little when I see how badly I messed up the lighting and shadows on his arm and how I should have made his keylight/edge white zones bigger and more consistent. Still, in terms of setting up scenes and using simple shapes and props to convey location, I definitely learned a lot.
The way I deal with that problem is to put each character in a group (containing only them). Then, I never move the character themself, I always move the group instead. That way the character's coordinates are always (0,0,0) relative to the group - so poses won't move them because they're "already" at the origin.
There's another benefit to this approach - I often set up a scene and take multiple shots at different angles, and I want to be able to quickly hide characters who are out-of-shot to speed rendering. Using the each-character-in-their-own-group approach means that I can set the visibility of the group to off, and the character, their hair, and all their gear become invisible in one click. Without the group, you have to switch off the visibility of the character and everything they are wearing/carrying separately.
Thanks! That may be just the tip I need!
However, and I won't know until I try it, the Comic Book feature only works in Preview Mode and the last time I tried using a group I had faint outlines of a bounding box appear in the renders. Nevertheless, I will give it a try and see if there is a way I can hide the bounding box (if it appears). Thanks again!
@Griffin_Avid - good video. I like the way you created the magic effects in the video you made. The lighting affecting the characters helps to sell the overall ambience of the scene. Have you tried duplicating the particle layers, setting them to screen, so that you have two or three over the top of each other. This will cause them to seriously glow.
I thought the blood stains added a nice touch to the logo. Thanks for the comment.
@BeeMKay - Thanks for the feedback. I edit the images on a 4K monitor, then when I move onto my other computer, on an HD monitor, I do notice the difference in quality with the line work.
It raises an interesting question regarding control over the way the reader views the comic. I imagined having it display on a website at 100% size, however, it may be viewed in different ways, such as fit to page in .cbr reader or something?
The version I posted was 300dpi at a print resolution, so when it shrinks down it might not look as good as it should. However, at 72 dpi it looses too much quality. Still working on ways around this.
I am currently thinking of trying to publish on Amazon for the Kindle, but I have yet to check the quality of my images, particularly on the small hand held kindles.
- I have read your comics and they display nicely on the page, easy to read. You as the artist have a good control over the way the reader views your work.
@mmitchell_houston - I find creating comics quite relaxing. I try and get a bit of work done when I have free time. I know work constraints don't make it easy.
Thanks for the feedback on the black and white image. I still really like the effect of this, however, I find it works best for me on larger images. I do intend to create some stand alone artwork using this technique.
Your edit of my image is good, by making the obvious lighter elements darker you have framed the important stuff in the frame. I will certainly take this on board in future artwork. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Your black and white work is far more effective than mine because you are correctly using contrasting background elements to really make your characters pop!
- Good point about the table in the color page. It does look a bit out of place. Easy enough to reduce the line effect on that.
The font I am using is Canted Comic, created by Nils Cordes. Free to use as long as you give Nils credit in your work. You can download from Da Font: https://www.dafont.com/canted-comic.font
Your comic page has some great angles and dynamic poses. I struggle a lot trying to get the poses to work in my images. You guys all seem to make it look easy.
As for your character shifting position when you change poses. Is it possible to parent the character to a null object that always stays in place? Since it is null it shouldn't render any outlines. (I'm not that knowledgeable about Daz and Poser, but I have used this trick in Unity before and it worked for me there)
- Thanks to everybody for your feedback. I am also including my first panel for my next page which is the establishing shot for my fictional town, Barker's Mill.
Thanks for the comments about my page(s). Finding the right balance between foreground figures and background is something I've been working at and sometimes it comes down to simply tossing a white edge (either through a highlight falling on the figure) or just adding a white outline. One thing that I've found that has really helped me is to read a lot of black & white comics. Savage Sword of Conan is a favorite (and you can get b&w collected volumes for about $20-$25 each, and if you want the Kindle editions you can get many for $2 - $5) and I learn so much by studying what they do to tell stories (this is, of course, after I've read the story for sheer enjoyment).
Your comment in green made me smile. I do consciously strive for dynamic, almost-overly exaggerated poses. This is part of the noir sensibility. This is a mindset where:
Yeah, I'm probably babbling now. :-) But when it comes to poses, I get inspiration from Sin City, Blood Simple, Body Heat, Streets of Fire and other noir movies (and comics).
That was definitely my mindset when I illustrated that first Moon Wolf page, especially when it came to her poses. I really wanted to give a sense of movement interrupted (if that makes sense); like I was catching still frames from a movie. And even when I'm not doing straight noir (the superhero comic was very noir, but my fantasy comic less so) I still try to pay attention to body language and convey that sense of "movement interrupted" in every scene. To this end, I do things like slump the shoulders, bend the waist or abdomen, tilt the head a little. In other words, I really try not to have anyone with perfect posture standing chest out and back straight. I also think about what they do with their hands when they're just standing there. Hands hanging at the side are dull, but a hand in a pocket or the palm on the top of the head? Now that conveys some personality. Ditto for standing. Instead of just a dull stance, people lean against things or rest their weight on one foot so that it gives the hips a tilt that is either sexy for a dame or awkward for a gangly teenage boy.
As for easy? Well, sometimes it is. Sometimes it just happens and it flows perfectly. And other times (like this week) I spent three days and about 8 hours working on a single panel because I couldn't find the right pose! ARRRRGH. I finally nailed it last night (at least I think so) and hope to do the final renders this afternoon and get them into the book.
Sorry for the rambling. Thanks again for the comments.
Mike
Oh goodness, this is kind of awesome! lol You're good at "setting a scene" and capturing a scene's mood. :) This is definitely something I need to work on! Thanks for the great tips and direction on helping to set a scene's mood. It's quite helpful!
Great attention to detail with the noir sensibility, it is really the small details that bring images to life. A character who looks like they belong in their environment sells the believability of the comic.
I am a huge fan of the Conan comics. Savage sword were the best ones, not only because they were based on the actual stories of Robert E Howard, but also because of their intricate and detailed artwork. I used to collect the individual issues when I was young. The Boris Vallejo cover art was outstanding.
This inspired me to dust off my old Michael 4 character in Daz. I equipped him with Barbarian outfit and this time rendered directly out of Daz. I wanted to see if I could try and create a Savage Sword type of effect. Let me know what you think.
Thank you! I try to think of things like this and sometimes even listen to an appropriate music to put me in the right frame of mind as I work on a scene.
Yes, you nailed it! This is a great picture of the savage Cimmerian! Did you get those ab shadows/lines right out of Daz? If so, how?
Love the little feathered edges on the lines around his pecs and elsewhere. Very, VERY cool!
That's a good tip! I never would have thought of that, but getting in the "right frame of mind" when setting a scene probably makes quite a difference in how effective you are at setting the scene's mood and conveying the right "story" you're shooting for. These are things they just don't teach often enough in visual storytelling forums and stuff. You should do some tutorials! :D
I am a huge fan of the Conan comics. Savage sword were the best ones, not only because they were based on the actual stories of Robert E Howard, but also because of their intricate and detailed artwork. I used to collect the individual issues when I was young. The Boris Vallejo cover art was outstanding.
Holy cow! You too????
That series is a HUGE HUGE inspiration. Mostly, it was the storytelling and how they placed Conan in his world.
Unfortunately, the series jumped the shark when they made Conan a superhero and it got real corny. Also, they repeated the formula, but lost the undertone.
They knew to "get the babe and kill a big monster", but missed all the building.
The EARLY stories were the best. Do you remeber when the 'monster' was a regular creature?
When he was in awe or had fear.....when he was young and people would get the best of him from time to time?
The Black Hound of Vengeance was a huge dog.....
Talons of Thak.....a gorilla....
Dweller in the Dark, a shifted octopus.....
The giant slug that ate gold.....?
-----
Okay, okay.....but Damn....Barry Windsor-Smith.
Have you read Red Nails?
I think that's my favorite.
@Griffin_Avid I used to collect a few issues here and there. The fantasy aspect I think is what I enjoyed the most. The huge creatures and supernatural stuff. So much fun.
Red Nails is in the Book 1 compendium released by Dark Horse. Great story. The character of Tolkemec has a unique and grisley appearance. The art is great in that story. I really like the sense of scale with these ancient structures. It's also got dinosaurs, living skeletons and all the cool stuff associated with Conan. It's a good story.
I really like the John Buscema artwork. Probably my favourite from book 1 is 'Iron shadows in the moon'. But they are all good stories.
@mmitchell_houston
I am including the original renders out of Daz. The abs were part of the morph on the Michael 4 character. I think it was the Barbarian pack I used, which was obviously inspired by Conan itself.
I actually never considered using the older generation models for comic design, however, this render came out alright. I might dig out the old Victoria 4 model and do some tests using these characters in a comic format. Surprising what you can discover when you are just trying out things.
On a side note. How long does it usually take you guys to make a complete comic issue. It's already taken me over a month to make 1 and half pages, I'm thinking this may take some time to complete!
I'm also including a test render trying to emulate the Boris Vallejo art style. Might be good for cover artwork.
Thank you very much – I'm flattered, really – but I really doubt I have the qualifications to do a tutorial on posing and panel composition. I'm really still struggling with all of this myself. I do read books and watch videos on these topics and have spent a bit of time studying (not just reading) comics by the masters like Toth, Kirby, Kubert, Buscema, Miller, Eisner, Krigstein, Ploog, Williamson, Simonson, Wrightson, Kaluta, Chaykin and so many more. I look at their work and see what worked and what didn't and I ask myself how the pacing and panel size/arrangement affects the story.
I also read books about comics and try to apply what I've learned. Every page teaches me something about making comics – even if it's just that sometimes "good enough" will have to do, or I'll never make it to the next page!
Thanks again, though.
Is this off topic? If so, please say so and I won't post another like it. One thing I do often is read classic comics and then study how the artists and writers approached telling stories. I'm always amazed when someone tells a great story in a short page count. This is generally considered one of the best stories of the 1950s. It is titled "Master Race" by Bernie Krigstein, and you can read it here:
https://fromdusktilldrawnblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/master-race-by-bernie-krigstein-usa-1955/
Some of the things I take away from this is include:
I hope you all enjoy reading this (fair warning, though, it is a weighty subject).
(Hey Daz mods, this is a link to a non-competing site that is non-monetized)
Yeah, I cannot defend the "Monster of the Month" approach that dominated the color series for so long, particularly the color comic. However, that did seem to fade away as they got into the longer arcs with Amra and Belet.
Truthfully, I only liked the early issues of the color Conan (I think BWS's adaptation of "The Tower of the Elephant" is probably my favorite single comic story of all time). But I really like the b&w Savage Sword of Conan comics. The longer stories and more mature approach really spoke to me. These days I'm really experiencing them again with new eyes as I not only read them, but study them as well. For the past three years i've been meticulously collecting at least "reader's grade" copies of SSoC and now have almost all of them (I am missing about 12 issues out of the 235 published). I also have the kind of "so-bad-it's-good" follow up magazine, Conan the Savage, which ran for 12 issues. It is SOOOOOO 1990s in style and design. It is almost grating on my eyes to look at it (tattoos and mohawks and body paint, oh my!), but there are inventive panel arrangements are really inventive.
I also recently picked up SSoC #219 and 220 and was kind of dreading them because they had a "team-up" with Conan and Solomon Kane (and yes, they magically can speak each other's language). But daaaaaaang, but the artwork blew my mind! I am not at all familiar with the artist Colin Macneil, but his work on these two issues is amazing and inventive. His use of hatched lines to convey the forest and his method of telling two stories set in the same location but in different times was very well executed.
Anyway, SSoC is definitely a major influence on me and how I approach comics.
As for my favorite story, I have to say that it would be "Beyond the Black River." There isn't even a single "monster" in that story – just a jungle cat and a lot of angry picts.
(And yup, "Red Nails" is also a great story; I recently re-read the color version that appeared in a Marvel Treasury Edition. Seeing the artwork blown up so big was a real treat!)
This render has a nice feel to it. Have you looked at Topaz Studio? It's a very cool set of filters designed to emulate painted effects.
(Also, Michael 4 and Victoria 4 both still have a lot of life left in them, especially when you are working with non-photographic renders (i.e. black & white or painted effects). All of my comics work uses the older generation figures because Poser 11 has the geometric edge feature (Live Comic Book Preview) that I use for my linework.
I disagree with you on the text. I have the feeling the story is squished down by the text, or I either concentrate on the text then I start ignoring the image or the other way round.
The art is certainly very well done and I agree that the movement shots are brilliant as is the body language the use of dynamic lines and all that. I think it was way ahead of its time with those story telling tools.
That's the great thing about art. I see this as an experiment of balance with text because the story is both the text and the art, not just the art. By giving the words an equal weight it enhances the claustrophobia and feeling of being trapped. Krigstein was always pushing the boundaries of what could be done in a short story with a limited number of pages. I also cannot imagine the "twist" at the end of the story having as much impact if this had been told leisurely over a 22-page comic (standard story length for a floppy comic these days).
I made a quick sketch style render using Victoria 4. I rendered out in Iray and did post work in Photoshop.
I quite like the comic effect of these older generation characters. I haven't used them in ages, so I forgot how difficult it is to make clothing fit the models accurately.
I think the Iray renders produce nicer results than the Unity renders I have been using. I still have a lot more tests to do, especially trying out Genesis 1 and 2 characters.
This test image is a bit rough, but I like the facial features.
If anybody is interested I could provide a breakdown of this technique
Looks cool.
That paper, almost sepia tone is interesting too.
Thanks, The character is supposed to be pointing, but I'm not sure it is that clear. The sepia tone paper was a result of using some wash layers to reduce the darkness of the lines, hopefully to make it look like a pencil sketch. I could have limited it to just the character, but I quite like it too.
Since I use Poser for my work, I'm pretty much "stuck" with the gen 4 characters (using Genesis is just too much work and there aren't Poser-ready poses and expressions available for them; in other words, although it is possible to use the new figs it is just too big a pain), so I firmly believe there is a lot of life left in them.
I, for one, would like to know what your process was for this image. It came out with a nice comic book feel to it.
Great, I'll put together a breakdown of how I achieve this. There are several ways to do it, but I will concentrate on the character I just created earlier. Feel free to try out the style yourself once I post it. Maybe you could find some new ways to improve the technique, and then share the results with us.
Looking forward to it.