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Post by Moni on Apr 29, 2018 16:22:31 GMT -5
Unpopular opinion: You could make an argument for your rendition being "better" in some respects, because the perspective makes it seem more dynamic, whereas the one in the who is at a very straight angle.
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Post by Nut on Apr 30, 2018 10:24:25 GMT -5
It's part of the show's style guide to draw the characters with simple, dot faces when they're at a distance, so the art in the second one is very much a conscious choice to make it simpler in order to get a certain effect across (in this case, to make the characters easily readable--and cute--when small and far away). I would argue that the standard two-shot and the dynamic angle both have their places in the visual telling of the story. There's something to be said for knowing what to use, and when to use it, to get the desired effect.
But I think this distracts from the point of the comic. XD; That aside, I also love both pictures.
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Post by charming thievery on May 6, 2018 16:55:46 GMT -5
This is what I'm kinda lacking right now, I feel like. I'm a lot freer when I'm making a quick, unimportant doodle or putting down ideas for a comic using a simple ballpoint pen on cheap lined notebook paper...but WOW. When I decide it's time to work on the actual drawing or comic, I become paralyzed and afraid to start it. I just want it to be AMAZING and PERFECT and don't want to mess up, but my current skill level doesn't match the high standards I have in my head. So then that's usually when the major procrastination and time wasting come in. :/
Like, right now that's what I've been trying to do - start a little comic - but gahhh, don't wanna start. That blank paper is so intimidating! But...I just gotta do it! ><
I'll end this with another inspiring quote:
Edit: Also, I feel so overwhelmed with the number of ideas I have! And then there are two art events going on in May! There's MerMay, which I have some ideas for (good time to finish those two Ariel sketches I have, haha), and Phanniemay, a Danny Phantom event with daily prompts that I just found out about! It's been going on for a few years already, and I only just heard about it because I'm following the #hartfanart hashtag on IG. It's mostly DP art, which pleases me. :3
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Post by Zoey on May 6, 2018 22:35:15 GMT -5
This is what I'm kinda lacking right now, I feel like. I'm a lot freer when I'm making a quick, unimportant doodle or putting down ideas for a comic using a simple ballpoint pen on cheap lined notebook paper...but WOW. When I decide it's time to work on the actual drawing or comic, I become paralyzed and afraid to start it. I just want it to be AMAZING and PERFECT and don't want to mess up, but my current skill level doesn't match the high standards I have in my head. So then that's usually when the major procrastination and time wasting come in. :/ Like, right now that's what I've been trying to do - start a little comic - but gahhh, don't wanna start. That blank paper is so intimidating! But...I just gotta do it! >< Same. I've probably done hundreds of "finished" pieces now and I still put off new ones just because I'm not ready to make the commitment yet. XD I don't think it's something you ever get over, especially when you are heavily attached to your art. But I think in this case then more forgiving mediums like digital art are perfect, because fixing mistakes is easy enough there that it helps with the whole "I don't want to mess up" mentality. As much as I love sketchbook tours on Youtube, I find them really unrealistic for most artists because it pressures them to make everything good, which is counterproductive, because you only learn when you make mistakes. XD So yeah, just keep working on lined paper with ballpoint if that's what keeps you drawing. Maybe even try to make your sketches look more "finished" to help you get over the initial hurdle of "oh god I don't think I can do this". And if all else fails, just literally put pen/pencil to your nice paper and DEW ET (a la Shia LaBeauf style). Don't even think about messing up. First line goes down badly? Oh well, paper's already ruined, might as well give up on perfection and draw with abandon. Seriously, it might even turn out brilliant even if you started badly. It's basically the same with every single watercolor I do. XD 95% "oh shoot, it's not turning out right... well, time to learn how to fix it", 3% "well whaddya know, it turned out okay after all. Not amazing, but good enough", and 2% "well... yeah that kinda went badly. Onto the next one!" Edit: I've seen a couple of things about MerMay last year as well! I love drawing mermaids but one every day... oof! I commend anyone who can draw the same thing for that long. >.<
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Post by Rabbit ♠ on Jun 14, 2018 23:32:16 GMT -5
I don't know what this says about me, but whenever I see a digital drawing now, one of my first thoughts is always, "I wonder how many layers they used..."
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Post by Huntress on Jun 15, 2018 10:47:13 GMT -5
I don't know what this says about me, but whenever I see a digital drawing now, one of my first thoughts is always, "I wonder how many layers they used..." Depending on the style, not necessarily all that many. When I seriously crack down on a big involved drawing, it can go up to 40-something layers. But my NT comics are usually all done on the same layer and if I end up using three or four, that's already much fancier than usual (and/or needlessly persnickety, because I'm a bit prone to that when drawing >>).
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Post by Twillie on Jun 15, 2018 11:40:37 GMT -5
I don't know what this says about me, but whenever I see a digital drawing now, one of my first thoughts is always, "I wonder how many layers they used..." If anything, it could mean that you're starting to break down others' art to better understand it, which is helpful in learning new ideas and techniques! That's what I always do whenever I see a piece of artwork I really like, I try and figure out how exactly the artist may have gone about making it. And if possible, I also like to ask them directly. It's also really helpful to curve those instinctive reactions that your artwork is inferior in comparison, or that reaching that level of art is impossible to do. Breaking down its construction really helps to remember that it was made by just another person, so it's not impossible. And if you can't figure it out, nothing wrong with asking around or asking the original artist to get outside ideas and opinions as well! But my NT comics are usually all done on the same layer and if I end up using three or four, that's already much fancier than usual (and/or needlessly persnickety, because I'm a bit prone to that when drawing >>). Woah, really? =o How are you able to digitally color them so cleanly? My comics nowadays usually end up with 7-9 layers in general, although not all of them are visible in the end product (and I'm not including all the text layers, as a new layer is automatically made for each line of dialogue). My usual layers, in the order they're made: initial sketch, cleanup sketch, panel borders (dialogue is also added at this time), speech bubbles, speech bubble white fill (I don't erase underneath speech bubbles in case I rearrange and actually do need what was originally underneath them), character color, background color
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Post by Ginz ❤ on Jun 15, 2018 11:45:18 GMT -5
If the way I use them is any indication, I'd find it very hard to guess how many layers an artist used... especially since the number of layers I use while I draw isn't even consistent XD; Like, occasionally I'll do a layer each for a flat color, shadows, and lighting, but then merge the three before moving on to the next color XD; Sometimes I decide I want to color correct something or make it a bit transparent or something, but oops, I originally drew it on the same layer as something else, so I select the area I want and cut&paste into its own separate later so I can tweak it to my heart's content. Does the former count as 3 layers, or 1? does the latter count as 1, or 2?
Recently I also started making a lot of new layers while inking, so that if lines overlap, the cleanup is WAY easier and I don't have to worry about messing up my previously drawn lines. But I'm constantly merging them down and making new ones on top, so that I only have 2 or max 3 lineart layers at a time, rather than amassing a dozen of them XD;; And I merge them all together before I start coloring at all too. So, at least for me, layers are relative, since the number of layers I end up with isn't necessarily the number of layers I used. XD
But in general, I try to either use few layers in the first place, merge layers a lot during the process, or at the very least group them. Too many layers is like too many open tabs on my browser and both kind of stress me out, haha XD;;
It's really interesting to hear or see how other artists work, though!
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Post by Twillie on Jun 15, 2018 11:57:19 GMT -5
Lol yeah for non comic stuff, my layer count can vary wildly xD Usually it's guaranteed that I'll have at least a sketch layer, lines, and flat colors, but after and in between all that it really just depends on the piece.
I'll also do a thing where, if I don't like what I'm drawing, instead of rage quitting and erasing all of it, I'll just hide the layer and make a new one to start over, or lower the transparency on the first one and make fixes for it on a new layer.
Comics just tend to be a bit more systematic to me at this point, since having a reliable method makes them easier to make and more consistent. Although even with those, I can end up with more layers than what I listed (there can be a looot of copying and pasting of sketches, depending on how lazy or tired I'm feeling xD). With those though, I try to merge them where I can to end up with the original layer order as much as possible. Since comics have so many parts and pieces to them, future me always appreciates it when present me is organized with what layer everything is on xD
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Post by Huntress on Jun 15, 2018 13:37:44 GMT -5
But my NT comics are usually all done on the same layer and if I end up using three or four, that's already much fancier than usual (and/or needlessly persnickety, because I'm a bit prone to that when drawing >>). Woah, really? =o How are you able to digitally color them so cleanly? My comics nowadays usually end up with 7-9 layers in general, although not all of them are visible in the end product (and I'm not including all the text layers, as a new layer is automatically made for each line of dialogue). My usual layers, in the order they're made: initial sketch, cleanup sketch, panel borders (dialogue is also added at this time), speech bubbles, speech bubble white fill (I don't erase underneath speech bubbles in case I rearrange and actually do need what was originally underneath them), character color, background color Liberal use of the Magic Wand and/or the Fill tool, depending on whether I'm shading xP I don't know if Photoshop or other programs have a Magic Wand equivalent (logically they should) but it's the one that selects the entire patch of color you click on. So once I have my lineart all lined up, I go through and select everything I'm going to make one specific color, and then color and shade the entire selection in chunks. Deselect, select different sections and different colors, go through again, repeat until you get a comic. Smaller things that don't get shaded (Shad's eyes, Saura's nose, all characters' mouths and whatever other small piddle I don't see the need to shade) just get fill-tooled. What this means, of course, is having absolutely 100% bulletproof lineart, because if there's one single pixel missing from the border around a section then the selection will run out from the gap. So inking is a stage that I'm particularly careful about, and then I spend a while on the scanned lineart going through all the lines and bulletproofing all the gaps. Since pretty much everything other than my comics is done in the more conventional lineart+layers of color form, I can compare the two methods and even with the time added poring over lineart like this, it's still a heckuvalot faster for me. And I need to make comics decently fast or I'd never get them done xD I use layers for things that require smudging (hair, clouds, water) and transparency (glass) and then of course speech bubbles and text get their own separate layers at the very end, but the more layers I use, the more I'm tinkering with details and the longer it takes. ...in short, I never really moved on from the era of doodling in Paint, I just refined the process xD That's also why I still use an old version of Paint Shop Pro; I was never able to find another program that lets you zoom in and out by scrolling and that's an absolutely crucial part of my drawing process.
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Post by Rabbit ♠ on Jun 15, 2018 13:44:55 GMT -5
Layer count varies... greatly for me. For regular drawings, it can go from as small as around ten to as big as 128 (my current record). I think that since I refuse to merge layers whenever possible and insist almost everything having different layers, they build up fast... At the very least, I name my layers so things don't get as confusing. It still gets confusing at times, but not as much as it could be.
For comics, I tend to have I think around four or five layers? Flat color, lineart, text bubble, text, and maybe a background if I need it (since I usually don't add backgrounds if I don't have to).
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Post by Shinko on Jun 15, 2018 14:07:04 GMT -5
I used to use layers rather sparingly, but since I switched to the art program Krita I've started using a different layer for pretty much every color in the drawing. Simple reason for this- the paintbucket tool in krita recolors the entire layer, not just a single color section, so if I want to tweak a color selection it's better for it to be on it's own layer so I can select it individually.
Although this also means more complicated drawings with 20+ layers have a bad habit of crashing a lot.
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Post by Moni on Jun 15, 2018 18:06:18 GMT -5
I either have 400 layers (really) or no layers at all.
Usually with painted stuff I don't really bother making layers except for my base ones--any lineart I want to show (like with weaboo people) is just drawn on top, at the end. Subject, foreground, background, all of it. Do I look like a sissy to you? I'm BRAVE.
It's actually with very simple vector things or simple illustration where I have to get something pixel-perfect things where I start to go overboard. Every separate "surface" in a plane is a layer onto itself. The invention of group layers just sped up my layer-hoarding speed.
The one exception is when I used to do NT comics--I would draw poses separately on two layers (lineart/colorart and shading), paste them over backgrounds (another layer) and organize them into a "masking" layer (fourth layer.)
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Post by Shinko on Jun 23, 2018 20:18:01 GMT -5
Here's a video I think any of the artists here on the forum could find interesting- it's a sixteen minute documentary made by Walt Disney Studios called "Four Artists Paint One Tree." In the film, four of the artists who worked on Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" explain the idea of an artist's "style" as their individual fingerprint, and how in animation artists have to adhere to the chosen style of the project. It's very interesting to see artists explain a concept that, back then, wasn't widely understood; and it's really cool to see the four men's different artistic takes on the tree.
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Post by Twillie on Aug 4, 2018 18:40:01 GMT -5
Having never traversed one before, I had not realized the dangers of art store clearance sections until today. It was such an exercise in self restraint, I should not be left unsupervised near them xD (although to be fair that's me in basically any clearance section xD)
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