Comic Creator Challenge

ztoical

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Lol I thought crotch cam was from the willys point of view :P

the he has no willy is a reference to the fysh's 24 hour comic which is still funny even with all the marker fumes out of my system

Fysh

Ah, the teenage assassin and his dark secret. I'm glad it's not just me that's childish enough to still find that inherently hilarious

Uncle Spunk

Ronan Kennedy's entry is brilliant! Well done man

Fysh

Yeah, that was my reaction when I saw it too. Some damn fine comicking right there, looking forward to seeing more of his stuff next time around.

Hoovers

Hey thanks, glad you like it- was a bit nervous due to it being my first entry, but can't wait to get stuck into round 9! It's so great to be part of this! Lovin' the crotch cam by the way...

Jonesy3110

Hey, I don't want to sound pushy, but have we gone with the debt theme? Im going to Canada on the 18 and I'd love to get it in before then, plus I've already started with some preliminary sketches :P Does anyone have any other Ideas for themes?

Fysh

Yeah, I reckon "Debt" is gonna be the theme this time round. I reckon mid-June as the deadline would be enough time everyone to put something together.

Anyone got any other suggestions/objections?

Jonesy3110

Hey I was wondering if someone could help me, I'm working on my comic for teh challenge, and I'm finding it really hard to lay out the panels and writing to make it easy to read. Can anyone give me any pointers or any site that has guides/tutorials?

ztoical

Jonesy3110 wrote:

I'm finding it really hard to lay out the panels and writing to make it easy to read.

I'm not sure what you mean.........r u just finding page layout hard or is it general composition? while it may sound like the same prob theres a major difference.

layout issue can be sorted pretty easily by setting up some page templates for yourself [best to use illustrator or illustrator like programe but you can use photoshop or a photoshop clone] Or pencil, paper and a ruler

Composition can be take longer to sort and is slightly more absract as it is more a personnal storytelling choice. Best thing is to work small, do lots of thumbnails and rather then just trying to redraw your better thumbnails take it to a photocopier and blow them up to scale [or scan and blow up and trace over if working digital] I've seen Alex ross's orginal thumbnails and they are the size of postage stamps and yet they are still totally readable.

the thing to do with text is always roughly pencil in text before putting in any word balloons - only someone like windsor mcay gets away with tiny word balloons with tons of text.

The key thing to remember when doing composition is the 30/70 rule There should be 30% dark to 70% light or 30% busy detail to 70% negative space or vice versa - does that make sense? you can do 40/60 or as extreme as 10/90 but never 50/50 - its boring and makes for an uninteresting image. Think of a picture that shows land and sky if theres equal sky and land the picture is less interesting then one were theres more of one or the other thats cus theres conflict between the different elements as they push againist each other.

this is alot easier to explain in person. Kay I'm not going to type everything out here cus im sure most people aren't interested but if you want i can email you a better descirption.

Fysh

I've a notion that a couple of scans of Juan Jose Ryp's work on Angel Stomp Future would show this perfectly. The artwork is excellent, but the uniform level of detail, shading, and line thickness makes much of it unreadable. I'll scan a couple of pages and post them up later. Hell, this may even be one of the few points where that Marvel "How to draw comics" book has any worth (there's a nice beginner's introduction to the various considerations to do with light/dark contrast and panel composition in there somewhere, I'll see if I can find it).

Jonesy3110

The key thing to remember when doing composition is the 30/70 rule There should be 30% dark to 70% light or 30% busy detail to 70% negative space or vice versa - does that make sense? you can do 40/60 or as extreme as 10/90 but never 50/50 - its boring and makes for an uninteresting image. Think of a picture that shows land and sky if theres equal sky and land the picture is less interesting then one were theres more of one or the other thats cus theres conflict between the different elements as they push againist each other.

Yeah I understand this, I knew my pics didn't look right, this is what is wrong I think!! Maybe I can email you, or post, a rough sketch of the page Im having real trouble with. Its mostly just a problem with arranging text and panels to look neat I suppose. I'm trying my own thing with layouts and stuff, but it just looks stupid :P I'd love some advice/criticism from someone with a bit more experience than me

ztoical

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Yeah I understand this, I knew my pics didn't look right, this is what is wrong I think!! Maybe I can email you, or post, a rough sketch of the page Im having real trouble with. Its mostly just a problem with arranging text and panels to look neat I suppose. I'm trying my own thing with layouts and stuff, but it just looks stupid :P I'd love some advice/criticism from someone with a bit more experience than me

feel free to email [check contact page on my website for email or pm via boards] thou be warned last year I was teaching composition and layout to animation students so I do tend to warned off into teacher mode sometimes.

Jonesy3110

I was teaching composition and layout to animation students so I do tend to warned off into teacher mode sometimes.

Lol thats good, I need some harsh criticism :P It's great for the ego when my friends and family are like "Oh wow thats really good!" but it does nothing for actual development because they don't know what "good" is most of the time :P

Hoovers

Fysh wrote:

Yeah, I reckon "Debt" is gonna be the theme this time round. I reckon mid-June as the deadline would be enough time everyone to put something together.

Anyone got any other suggestions/objections?

No objections to this: sounds great... Time to start writing!

the Shades

I tmay sound really dumb, but a lot of people forget it when they're laying out word ballons, speech panels and generally just laying out their whole page; ALWAYS remember that your reader is reading from left to right.

So as you look at the page think how am I guiding the reader's eye? If I put that panel there will it lead the eye to what I want the reader to see next, will one bubble lead to another. I don't know how many times I've read a comic and a misplaced speech bubble leads me to either reading a characters reply to a another character too soon or just getting totally confused and having to stop and read again.

Remember the panels should flow left to right, the speech bubbles should do the same and as Chris Bachalo says and does 90% of the time in his work, remember the page as a whole, it's not just a collection of panels and there's no reason why you can't design the whole to really sell the page to the reader before they look at it in detail (Mark Buckingham picked that up from when he inked Bachalo on GenX and if you look at Fables it's a great example)

I think maybe I have a speech bubble/lettering fetish.

ztoical

the Shades wrote:

I tmay sound really dumb, but a lot of people forget it when they're laying out word ballons, speech panels and generally just laying out their whole page; ALWAYS remember that your reader is reading from left to right.

So as you look at the page think how am I guiding the reader's eye? If I put that panel there will it lead the eye to what I want the reader to see next, will one bubble lead to another. I don't know how many times I've read a comic and a misplaced speech bubble leads me to either reading a characters reply to a another character too soon or just getting totally confused and having to stop and read again.

Remember the panels should flow left to right, the speech bubbles should do the same and as Chris Bachalo says and does 90% of the time in his work, remember the page as a whole, it's not just a collection of panels and there's no reason why you can't design the whole to really sell the page to the reader before they look at it in detail (Mark Buckingham picked that up from when he inked Bachalo on GenX and if you look at Fables it's a great example)

I'm not sure Bachalo is the best example of how to lay out a clear page as he does tend to make everything on the page super detailed thus making it hard to frame important things. He uses the same weight of line for everything.

I do agree with the point of page layout is to lead the readers eye thou i don't agree that it has to be left to right - in peter kupers Metamorphosis he leads the reader eye all around the page, sidewise and upside down as the character is meant to be a bug walking on the walls and the ceilings and you have to actually turn the book up side down to read some parts of the text. I like that cus it makes you interact with the book and reflects the character.

and its not just speech bubbles that should be leading the characters eye, everything on the page should be used - background elements, the characters pose and the panals/gutters.

Its all about timing as well, if you want a page to be read quickly cus its an action page or movement or whatever you have less detail, if you want the reader to take it slow you add more detail as it will take their eye longer to travel around the page. If doing a comic in the traditional panal style the size of your gutters will effect the timing.

And tangents seem to be the biggest biggest prob most people have with their layout. I find most people are just unable to to see tangents and when you point them out they end up making even more trying to fix the first one.

Jonesy3110

Hey Ztoical, I pm'd you the basic sketches of my comic

ztoical

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Hey Ztoical, I pm'd you the basic sketches of my comic

yeah hon, i saw it thou might take me a couple of days to look at it......know it doesnt seem like it but i am actually at work during the day, waiting for animation to output gives me time to reply to posts but not really to do indepth critques. I've a life drawing class tonight and off to bristol comic con for the weekend so i might be a little slow getting back to you this week but i will

Fysh

I'm gonna have to stop reading this thread for a while. If I'm not careful I'll end up trying to re-draw *everything* I've ever drawn in an effort to make it less crap. And well, let's face it, when you're dealing with crotch jokes there's only so much you can do....

(On a vaguely serious note, this stuff is actually really interesting. My main problem with it is that I never really work it out consciously, I just mess around with sketches and intuitively pick whatever seems to work best. Though I'm concerned that this "intuitive" process keeps leading to pictures of flying wangs....)

the Shades

ztoical wrote:

I do agree with the point of page layout is to lead the readers eye thou i don't agree that it has to be left to right - in peter kupers Metamorphosis he leads the reader eye all around the page, sidewise and upside down as the character is meant to be a bug walking on the walls and the ceilings and you have to actually turn the book up side down to read some parts of the text. I like that cus it makes you interact with the book and reflects the character.

and its not just speech bubbles that should be leading the characters eye, everything on the page should be used - background elements, the characters pose and the panals/gutters.

And tangents seem to be the biggest biggest prob most people have with their layout. I find most people are just unable to to see tangents and when you point them out they end up making even more trying to fix the first one.

Ah see now you're just thinking more clearly and expressing yourself better than I was Oh and don't blame Bachalo for some recent mistakes with his work. He's had a host of inkers on X-men and I'm not sure any of them are really doing the job. If you look at his work on Witching Hour where he was inking it himself, it's all a lot clearer and there's more line weights. That or he's having an 'off' season.

Jonesy3110

yeah hon, i saw it thou might take me a couple of days to look at it......know it doesnt seem like it but i am actually at work during the day, waiting for animation to output gives me time to reply to posts but not really to do indepth critques. I've a life drawing class tonight and off to bristol comic con for the weekend so i might be a little slow getting back to you this week but i will

No hurry at all! Im just really grateful to have your opnion on my work! Thank you so much

Lol, flying wangs.

ztoical

the Shades wrote:

Ah see now you're just thinking more clearly and expressing yourself better than I was Oh and don't blame Bachalo for some recent mistakes with his work. He's had a host of inkers on X-men and I'm not sure any of them are really doing the job. If you look at his work on Witching Hour where he was inking it himself, it's all a lot clearer and there's more line weights. That or he's having an 'off' season.

o dont get my wrong I am a fan of Bachalo but i do think his style suits a certain type of storytelling. The Witching Hour was by far my fav of his work and the one that most suited his style most but then it was his book. I was suprised how messy i found steampunk given like Witching Hour is was creator owned title.

ztoical

Fysh wrote:

(On a vaguely serious note, this stuff is actually really interesting. My main problem with it is that I never really work it out consciously, I just mess around with sketches and intuitively pick whatever seems to work best. Though I'm concerned that this "intuitive" process keeps leading to pictures of flying wangs....)

My first year in college my life drawing class was all about learning these different ways to measure the body - all that silly stuff you see with people holding out pencils and counting so many heads into the body and all that. Its a good way to learn life drawing when your starting off but when we got to the 3rd year of life drawing we were told we were no longer allowed do any of that........we'd been doing life drawing long enough that we should have trained our eyes by now to be able to do it "intuitively" or however you want to call it.

The point of that story is that you can learn all these formulas and things all you want but you need to train your eye and your brain to LOOK first and formost. With life drawing people tend to use all these measuring systems and they end up not looking at what the hell they are drawing in the first place. Thats way gesture drawings are great 30sec to 1min poses were you don't have time to second guess or do all this measuring ****.

Its the same with layout, you can measure everything out in prefect grids and all that but sometimes the most interesting compostitions are the ones you doodle in a postage size thumbnail in 30sec. I'm not saying that you should always work that way, its something that takes time. Somepeople are quicker at picking it up then others, some people will always need the guides and formulas. Sometimes you'll only be good in certain areas, some people will be able to do interesting layouts and not even know why, others will be able to match colours together without having to play around with different combos.

Wither you go to school or self taught the longer you draw the more your training your hand eyes and brain to work together and it should and does come easier and easier to things intuitively. Man this all makes alot more sense in person rather then typed honest!

Jonesy3110

You make me feel such an amateur :P I've never used any kind of methods or references, I just draw straight outta my head :P It's probably why it's always been the same for me, my drawing skills probably havent chaged much since I was seven :P I suppose If I wanna get better I should start taking some of your advice

Fysh

Right so, Round 9 is now under way, theme is "The Debt", deadline for entries is the 16th of June. And, for the hell of it, I reckon we should start thinking about putting other restrictions in for Round 10, just to stop it from being too easy. (Apparently I've already forgotten how much people hated the Pigeon Lady round...)

I'd suggest something like either not allowing any dialogue or narration, or maybe putting a limit on the total number of panels (but not pages). Any thoughts?

ztoical

Fysh wrote:

Right so, Round 9 is now under way, theme is "The Debt", deadline for entries is the 16th of June. And, for the hell of it, I reckon we should start thinking about putting other restrictions in for Round 10, just to stop it from being too easy. (Apparently I've already forgotten how much people hated the Pigeon Lady round...)

I'd suggest something like either not allowing any dialogue or narration, or maybe putting a limit on the total number of panels (but not pages). Any thoughts?

A fun comic jam thing I did once was having a simple story line like "character is looking for food" done as a 3 page silent comic then to do the same comic again but this time with text. It was very interesting to see how the piece chanaged.

Hoovers

Fysh wrote:

I'd suggest something like either not allowing any dialogue or narration, or maybe putting a limit on the total number of panels (but not pages). Any thoughts?

I like the idea of no dialogue for the next round, would certainly yield some interseting results...
Also, was thinking about how to come up with a theme for next round (I know it's early days yet) but maybe you could choose the most interesting song title from a particular band you like- People could post up possibilities and then have a vote or something?
Anyway looking forward to June submissions!!

ztoical

seeing as we've got ages of time before the dublin comic con it might be fun to do up a collected edition of the challenges so far or maybe for the next challenge make it a special edition one for the comic con [and yes i realise i should get off my ass and actually do something this time ]

Getting it printed up black and white at zine size [A5] wouldn't cost that much and we can pass it round the con, make more people aware of it.....just a thought

Fysh

I've been thinking about this for a while, when I get some time (hopefully later this month but we'll see) I'll be going back through the entries so far to pick out my favourites and put together a sort of sampler. I was thinking of a PDF at first, but a printed version would be a damn good idea too. Only thing is the colour entries may look a bit poo, but that bridge can be crossed when we reach it.

Also, CRAP! Deadline for this round is in a week's time and I've done nothing yet!

ztoical

talk to me when your getting ready to print......couple of ways to layout the book were you'd only have to print one page in full colur so depending on the number of colour pages we might get away with something decent