3D Comic Book Tips And Pictures

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Comments

  • kameneko said:

    I know the standard comic layout is a classic, but I've actually always used an horizontal layout, where each page contains a single scene. I've chosen it because nowadays we almost read comics with 16:9 monitors, and it has always bothered me to scroll!

    But I guess I'm just a rebel...I even use Photoshop for the dialogues instead of word balloons xD

    I'm definitely a rebel (or maybe just old) but I can't stand reading comics on a monitor. I think it's because I sit in front of a computer 8+ hours a day for work and the last thing I want to do is recreational things in front of my computer again in the evening. I also find the experience to be annoying because the vertical pages require a lot of scrolling. So, maybe your approach has merit!

  • BeeMKay said:
    BeeMKay said:

    Sorry to be so overly specific (again), but something about Jane's speach bubbles bothers me. 

    I like those radiating lines, but a few thoughts:

    • I'm losing the dark radiating lines against the dark background. Have you considered going light blue or something like that?
    • Maybe use a different typeface or a dark blue/gray color?
    • And those radiating lines seem a bit harsh, as though she's "ripping" into the scene. Is that intentional? It seems to be in contrast to how ghostly and serene you have colored her (and I LOVE the way she's colored).

    Again, just a few thoughts. I really like the additions/changes you made since the webinar workshop! Very cool stuff.

    Thank you! The character uses https://www.daz3d.com/iray-frozen-sisters-for-genesis-3-female which is a fantastic set that comes with three shaders. You can also get it for G3M.

    The dark lines are supposed to reflect the brutality of invading someone's mind and read their thoughts; as such, they are meant to 'rip' into the scene (as in, intentionally), though of course I don't know if my interpretion comes across to the reader as intended. At the same time, the black color is supposed to not o distract too much from her, colourwise, connecting her words to the background. Kind of like stitches.... at least, that was the idea. smiley

    The font, I really don't know about changing the font outside of FX.

    Here's a version trying to do what you suggested (at least, what I uderstood from it). Fortunately, it's just copy the layer and mess around with a few settings in Clip Studio.

     

    If your intent is to "rip" into his thoughts, then I definitely think the black is better. I wasn't sure of the intent, but the original definitely was more brutal. I also think the new font isn't quite as legible as the original, so again (I'm batting .000 these days), I think your original is better. But thanks so much for taking my considerations to heart enough to try them out. I'm flattered, really.

    I think your ideas were very helpful. I'm shuffeling around in my own little cardboard box, and there area lot of things that I didn't consider, or simply lack experience about. So, I'm quite happy to try out things and see how it works out. It helps shaping my own style and finding what works best for me. 

    Besides, if I managed to confuse you with what my panel is saying, probably a lot more people are confused about it.

    Thanks, and you're welcome. Like you, I spend a lot of time inside my own little box and it takes an effort to get out and see, not what I attempted to do, but what I actually did. (if that makes sense?). Fortunately, there are forums and webinars with nice, creative people like you who are there to help me improve my work!

  • I am still experimenting with different looks for my potential comic. One of my lead characters is a cop. What do you think to this character, along with a manipulated background I created in Google Sketchup.

    It's not bad, but I would appreciate any feedback from others.

    Thanks

    Pete

    Cop comic example.jpg
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  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2019

    I am still experimenting with different looks for my potential comic. One of my lead characters is a cop. What do you think to this character, along with a manipulated background I created in Google Sketchup.

    It's not bad, but I would appreciate any feedback from others.

    Thanks

    Pete

    This is a very good start to creating a comic-usable look. Before I dive into my super-obsessive nitpicking, let me emphasize that there is a LOT to like here. I think you’re onto something with this approach.

    Let’s break this down into categories:

    Colors & Shadows

    • Your tones, in general, are consistent and pleasing.
    • I really REALLY like the shading on his arms. Those straight lines coming off the deep shadows give it a sort of hatched/inked look.
    • But this effect is not repeated on the clothes.
    • His uniform color is a bit washed out, but it’s okay.
    • The red is overdoing it. I would suggest toning it down a little (maybe a shade or two darker). Or go gray walls?
    • The rooms seems very evenly lit. To enhance mood, make it darker on the right side of the panel.

    Linework

    • The line on top of his flattop haircut seems to be too thick and even. Consider breaking it up.
    • You have very strong lines on the outside of his body and I like them a lot. But the lines don’t continue across him. I would suggest hand drawing an outline on his jawline; this will give the illustration a more uniform look.

    Composition & Scene

    • Move his word balloon to the other side of his face, so that our eyes flow from the caption mentioning Sgt. Coates to the cop and then to what he says. I’m pretty sure this would be more effective.
    • There should not be a red fire extinguisher lying on the floor near the corner. The room should be bare of things a perp can pick up and use as a weapon.
    • Conversely, maybe add some props to the table? Like a folder, clipboard, or something like that to give a little depth to the scene?
    • Consider lowering the camera so that he looms up above us in the scene. This is an old movie trick to make people seem more menacing.

    Wow. Looking at it all above, I seem to have gone off the deep end again with my nitpicking. Of course, the only reason I did this was because you inspired me. There is a LOT of good stuff here and I’m interested in seeing where you go with this approach.

    Post edited by mmitchell_houston on
  • jepsonpeteCMTjepsonpeteCMT Posts: 106
    edited April 2019

    I am still experimenting with different looks for my potential comic. One of my lead characters is a cop. What do you think to this character, along with a manipulated background I created in Google Sketchup.

    It's not bad, but I would appreciate any feedback from others.

    Thanks

    Pete

    This is a very good start to creating a comic-usable look. Before I dive into my super-obsessive nitpicking, let me emphasize that there is a LOT to like here. I think you’re onto something with this approach.

    Let’s break this down into categories:

    Colors & Shadows

    • Your tones, in general, are consistent and pleasing.
    • I really REALLY like the shading on his arms. Those straight lines coming off the deep shadows give it a sort of hatched/inked look.
    • But this effect is not repeated on the clothes.
    • His uniform color is a bit washed out, but it’s okay.
    • The red is overdoing it. I would suggest toning it down a little (maybe a shade or two darker). Or go gray walls?
    • The rooms seems very evenly lit. To enhance mood, make it darker on the right side of the panel.

    Linework

    • The line on top of his flattop haircut seems to be too thick and even. Consider breaking it up.
    • You have very strong lines on the outside of his body and I like them a lot. But the lines don’t continue across him. I would suggest hand drawing an outline on his jawline; this will give the illustration a more uniform look.

    Composition & Scene

    • Move his word balloon to the other side of his face, so that our eyes flow from the caption mentioning Sgt. Coates to the cop and then to what he says. I’m pretty sure this would be more effective.
    • There should not be a red fire extinguisher lying on the floor near the corner. The room should be bare of things a perp can pick up and use as a weapon.
    • Conversely, maybe add some props to the table? Like a folder, clipboard, or something like that to give a little depth to the scene?
    • Consider lowering the camera so that he looms up above us in the scene. This is an old movie trick to make people seem more menacing.

    Wow. Looking at it all above, I seem to have gone off the deep end again with my nitpicking. Of course, the only reason I did this was because you inspired me. There is a LOT of good stuff here and I’m interested in seeing where you go with this approach.

    Great feedback! Thanks for suggesting some really good points.

    The camera angle would be very good. I added the speech bubble after I composited it and it just sort of went in this direction. You are absolutley right, changing it to a low angle would work for this type of shot.

    I tried experimenting with shading and shadows on the background and I struggled with that one, due to the lack of geometry in the background. I'm still experimenting with this technique. (Do you think backgrounds should be simple or detailed?)

    The colour of the background is pretty distracting. I'm going to simplify the brick pattern and go with a brownish/grey shade for the walls.

    I like the comment about changing the position of the speech bubble in order to direct the viewer's eyes across the image.

    I will experiment with this and see what effect it has when I try different colour schemes and angles.

    I'm going to try and think about directing the viewer's eyes more into the image through creative composition.

     

    I can see you have a couple of tutorials out there, I've taken a look and there's some good advice and techniques.

    I might be adding to my comic book tutorial on Udemy with something about composition and engaging the reader. You seem quite knowledgable about this. If you are interested at some point in the future I would appreciate it if you could help out. I would obviously pay you for your contributions and give credit to your work for my students.

    It's still an idea at this stage, but if you are interested I will start to develop it further.

    Pete

    Post edited by jepsonpeteCMT on
  • I've been experimenting and I think I've developed an interesting technique for backgrounds. I've played around with different lighting techniques and shaders.

    See what you think:

    The angle is certainly an improvement. I've combined aimple shading with rendered line art and basic colour passes. Photo 3 has a look up table applied in Photoshop.

    Because this is concepting, I am experimenting with all sorts of looks and styles. I'll add a few more images in the post below.

    Shading 1.png
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    Shading 2.png
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    Shading 3.png
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  • These are the images using the preset LUT files in Photoshop

    I quite like the abstract shapes of the first image. It has a bit of Batmanesque look to it perhaps?

    Shading 5.png
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    Shading 6.png
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    Shading 12.png
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    Shading 13.png
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  • These are images with simple gradient overlays

    Sorry for taking up loads of space.

    I've had some fun making these!

    Shading 20.png
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    Shading 24.png
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    Shading 26.png
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    Shading 28.png
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  • These are images with simple gradient overlays

    Sorry for taking up loads of space.

    I've had some fun making these!

    Cool BG images .

    Lately I`m experimenting using finished images as BG .  At first  I was thinking thats not big deal ,Photoshop correction features can help me with that ,

    But after tinkering with a lot finished and cool BG images from internet ( which have toon/comic/cel shading and properly done ) I found the main culprit frrom my workflow and give me some answer why my output images never look like proper cel/Toon/NPR out there  .

    BG and overal scene lighting makes a lot differences . Thats how comic colorist works . Also those tricks change my approach to get faster worklow since I`ll know which color in my scene work seamlessly with another or not 

     

     

  • These are images with simple gradient overlays

    Sorry for taking up loads of space.

    I've had some fun making these!

    Cool BG images .

    Lately I`m experimenting using finished images as BG .  At first  I was thinking thats not big deal ,Photoshop correction features can help me with that ,

    But after tinkering with a lot finished and cool BG images from internet ( which have toon/comic/cel shading and properly done ) I found the main culprit frrom my workflow and give me some answer why my output images never look like proper cel/Toon/NPR out there  .

    BG and overal scene lighting makes a lot differences . Thats how comic colorist works . Also those tricks change my approach to get faster worklow since I`ll know which color in my scene work seamlessly with another or not 

     

     

    Thanks.

    I've found that lighting is really important to getting the right look for the image. In the examples above I used the finished render simply to get the outline work and then I used simple cell shaded colours to overlay in order to try and emulate comic style images. But I have found that look up tables in Photoshop and gradient maps can give some really impressive results.

  • I am still experimenting with different looks for my potential comic. One of my lead characters is a cop. What do you think to this character, along with a manipulated background I created in Google Sketchup.

    It's not bad, but I would appreciate any feedback from others.

    Thanks

    Pete

    This is a very good start to creating a comic-usable look. Before I dive into my super-obsessive nitpicking, let me emphasize that there is a LOT to like here. I think you’re onto something with this approach.

    Let’s break this down into categories:

    Colors & Shadows

    • Your tones, in general, are consistent and pleasing.
    • I really REALLY like the shading on his arms. Those straight lines coming off the deep shadows give it a sort of hatched/inked look.
    • But this effect is not repeated on the clothes.
    • His uniform color is a bit washed out, but it’s okay.
    • The red is overdoing it. I would suggest toning it down a little (maybe a shade or two darker). Or go gray walls?
    • The rooms seems very evenly lit. To enhance mood, make it darker on the right side of the panel.

    Linework

    • The line on top of his flattop haircut seems to be too thick and even. Consider breaking it up.
    • You have very strong lines on the outside of his body and I like them a lot. But the lines don’t continue across him. I would suggest hand drawing an outline on his jawline; this will give the illustration a more uniform look.

    Composition & Scene

    • Move his word balloon to the other side of his face, so that our eyes flow from the caption mentioning Sgt. Coates to the cop and then to what he says. I’m pretty sure this would be more effective.
    • There should not be a red fire extinguisher lying on the floor near the corner. The room should be bare of things a perp can pick up and use as a weapon.
    • Conversely, maybe add some props to the table? Like a folder, clipboard, or something like that to give a little depth to the scene?
    • Consider lowering the camera so that he looms up above us in the scene. This is an old movie trick to make people seem more menacing.

    Wow. Looking at it all above, I seem to have gone off the deep end again with my nitpicking. Of course, the only reason I did this was because you inspired me. There is a LOT of good stuff here and I’m interested in seeing where you go with this approach.

    Great feedback! Thanks for suggesting some really good points.

    The camera angle would be very good. I added the speech bubble after I composited it and it just sort of went in this direction. You are absolutley right, changing it to a low angle would work for this type of shot.

    I tried experimenting with shading and shadows on the background and I struggled with that one, due to the lack of geometry in the background. I'm still experimenting with this technique. (Do you think backgrounds should be simple or detailed?)

    The colour of the background is pretty distracting. I'm going to simplify the brick pattern and go with a brownish/grey shade for the walls.

    I like the comment about changing the position of the speech bubble in order to direct the viewer's eyes across the image.

    I will experiment with this and see what effect it has when I try different colour schemes and angles.

    I'm going to try and think about directing the viewer's eyes more into the image through creative composition.

     

    I can see you have a couple of tutorials out there, I've taken a look and there's some good advice and techniques.

    I might be adding to my comic book tutorial on Udemy with something about composition and engaging the reader. You seem quite knowledgable about this. If you are interested at some point in the future I would appreciate it if you could help out. I would obviously pay you for your contributions and give credit to your work for my students.

    It's still an idea at this stage, but if you are interested I will start to develop it further.

    Pete

    Thanks for the response. When you get to the point of needing help, drop me a line!

    As for backgrounds, I'm a fan of minimalism when it suits the story. By that, I mean starting off with a good image to set the scene (in other words, a god establishing shot to tell the reader where we are) and then cutting down on the backgrounds so that we can focus on the characters or lead props that actually move the story along. As long as it's not taken to an extreme I think that's a method that works for me.

    When I complete a few more pages I'll post them along with some diccussion.

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2019

    I've been experimenting and I think I've developed an interesting technique for backgrounds. I've played around with different lighting techniques and shaders.

    See what you think: The angle is certainly an improvement. I've combined aimple shading with rendered line art and basic colour passes. Photo 3 has a look up table applied in Photoshop. Because this is concepting, I am experimenting with all sorts of looks and styles. I'll add a few more images in the post below.

    I like what I see here. That light pattern definitely adds more depth and interest to the scene. I think that's going to lbe cool when you finish it.

    If I may make one more suggestion: once you have a styleyou like, WRITE IT DOWN! 

    I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten some tiny detail (like setting my blending mode to soft light or overlay) for a particular layer or some lighting effecct. I once created a totally cool anime image with amazing, stark colors. I was playing with light intensity (like in the 5000% - 15,000% range) and got amazing results. But I got called away for work and, a week later I was unable to duplicate the process exactly. I've gotten kind of close, but even using the same render file I cannot duplicate the look I created because I obviously did a few things that I just cannot recall.

    Honestly, about half of the reason I did my Poser Noir tutorial was so that I wouldn't forget how to create that paticular look for my comics.

    I love seeing what people do during their development phases. I'm usually all over the place as I try to figure out what I want to do and how I want things to look. For example (without any images, though), for my b&w style for one book I've stripped all the bump maps and textures off my figures and then have reapplied simple b&w eyebrows to the face templates. I want a totally clean look for these figures: all my shadows have a sharp edge to them (no gray tones on the shadow edges). But for another story I've decided to keep the textures and allow for softter edges on the shadows, and a slightly different look.

    When I have more time in a few weeks I'll look at posting more on this to compare the two styles.

    Post edited by mmitchell_houston on
  • Thanks, it's certainly an improvement over the earlier image.

    You're absolutely right about documenting the techniques. I've created stuff in the past only to realise I can't remember how I did it. Luckily now I save my projects in Unity and Photoshop so I can always revist earlier stages.

    I've spent most of today recreating the image from above for my tutorial series. It's a better technique than the one I had previously included. Now I have the technique documented in video tutorials, which hopefully I will add to my series tomorrow.

    Different comics often require different styles, depending on genre, audience, theme, etc. When you have a story, you want a style that seems to fit. As we know there are thousands of comic styles out there and indeed many here on the forum, all suiting their stories' style. Each artist develops their own style and techniques and uses them to convey their ideas. That's what I enjoy about comics.

    Thanks for the advice and critique earlier, it really helped me to fine tune the work I'm doing.

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2019

    Thanks, it's certainly an improvement over the earlier image.

    You're absolutely right about documenting the techniques. I've created stuff in the past only to realise I can't remember how I did it. Luckily now I save my projects in Unity and Photoshop so I can always revist earlier stages.

    I've spent most of today recreating the image from above for my tutorial series. It's a better technique than the one I had previously included. Now I have the technique documented in video tutorials, which hopefully I will add to my series tomorrow.

    Different comics often require different styles, depending on genre, audience, theme, etc. When you have a story, you want a style that seems to fit. As we know there are thousands of comic styles out there and indeed many here on the forum, all suiting their stories' style. Each artist develops their own style and techniques and uses them to convey their ideas. That's what I enjoy about comics.

    Thanks for the advice and critique earlier, it really helped me to fine tune the work I'm doing.

    I couldn't agree more. Can you imagine if Superman or Spider-man had been launched in the cartoonish style of Casper the Friendly Ghost? I do not think we'd still be talking about superheroes or watching them at the movies. But even more than something that extreme, there are nuances of detail to consider. As we were discussing earlier, do you need all those bricks in that wall? After all, this is a comic and not a movie.

    Here's are two efforts I had a few years back where I used bricks. Even though these two illustrations are actually in print in a small-press role playing game, I'm still not happy with the way I treated all of the rubble. It is overly detailed and does not really fit the character treatment at all.

    Now, when you shrink this down to less than 50%, the shadows on the rocks actually don't look all that bad. But if you blow it up I think you'll see that there is too much detail on the wall. This, by the way, was done in Poser using the included "Gamma Girl" figure, but since this was before SmithMicro added the "Comic Book Preview" function, this was rendered in their old Firefly render engine (similar to DS's 3Delight renderer) and took a LOT of hand-editing to touch up lines and rough up the bricks. Yes, all of the rough brick edges were added by me, by hand. It took ages to get a rough look that I liked well enough to send to the publisher.

     

    This second piece is, frankly, a mess. The background took forever to sort out and I think my treatment of the textures was just one bad choice after another. I do like the sky and the smoke lines, though. So, I kind of like the foreground and the background, but all the rubble should have been reduced to just shadows and shapes. To be fair to myself, though, I was trying to create a new style under a tight deadline and the work is good enough when I consider the time constraints and lack of guidance I had from the editor. Oh, and I was working in two different software packages (Poser and Daz Studio).

    EDIT: Since I'm dusting off these old pieces, I thought I would toss in this illustration from the equipment chapter of the game. Just some gear from different planets and technology levels.

    BTW: I ran this last one at a larger size because it has a very rough halftone pattern (by design) and it doesn't show up when I use a smaller size.

    Gamma Girl.jpg
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    Dethmetyl.jpg
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    Gear.jpg
    1200 x 675 - 129K
    Post edited by mmitchell_houston on
  • Thanks, it's certainly an improvement over the earlier image.

    You're absolutely right about documenting the techniques. I've created stuff in the past only to realise I can't remember how I did it. Luckily now I save my projects in Unity and Photoshop so I can always revist earlier stages.

    I've spent most of today recreating the image from above for my tutorial series. It's a better technique than the one I had previously included. Now I have the technique documented in video tutorials, which hopefully I will add to my series tomorrow.

    Different comics often require different styles, depending on genre, audience, theme, etc. When you have a story, you want a style that seems to fit. As we know there are thousands of comic styles out there and indeed many here on the forum, all suiting their stories' style. Each artist develops their own style and techniques and uses them to convey their ideas. That's what I enjoy about comics.

    Thanks for the advice and critique earlier, it really helped me to fine tune the work I'm doing.

    I couldn't agree more. Can you imagine if Superman or Spider-man had been launched in the cartoonish style of Casper the Friendly Ghost? I do not think we'd still be talking about superheroes or watching them at the movies. But even more than something that extreme, there are nuances of detail to consider. As we were discussing earlier, do you need all those bricks in that wall? After all, this is a comic and not a movie.

    Here's are two efforts I had a few years back where I used bricks. Even though these two illustrations are actually in print in a small-press role playing game, I'm still not happy with the way I treated all of the rubble. It is overly detailed and does not really fit the character treatment at all.

    Now, when you shrink this down to less than 50%, the shadows on the rocks actually don't look all that bad. But if you blow it up I think you'll see that there is too much detail on the wall. This, by the way, was done in Poser using the included "Gamma Girl" figure, but since this was before SmithMicro added the "Comic Book Preview" function, this was rendered in their old Firefly render engine (similar to DS's 3Delight renderer) and took a LOT of hand-editing to touch up lines and rough up the bricks. Yes, all of the rough brick edges were added by me, by hand. It took ages to get a rough look that I liked well enough to send to the publisher.

     

    This second piece is, frankly, a mess. The background took forever to sort out and I think my treatment of the textures was just one bad choice after another. I do like the sky and the smoke lines, though. So, I kind of like the foreground and the background, but all the rubble should have been reduced to just shadows and shapes. To be fair to myself, though, I was trying to create a new style under a tight deadline and the work is good enough when I consider the time constraints and lack of guidance I had from the editor. Oh, and I was working in two different software packages (Poser and Daz Studio).

    EDIT: Since I'm dusting off these old pieces, I thought I would toss in this illustration from the equipment chapter of the game. Just some gear from different planets and technology levels.

    BTW: I ran this last one at a larger size because it has a very rough halftone pattern (by design) and it doesn't show up when I use a smaller size.

    Wow, some interesting pieces there. I particularly liked the weapons image. Sort of reminded me of the weapon breakdown from the Punisher comics. Nicely done. The halftone pattern can create some nice results, but what I like most about it is the clean lines and smooth, bright colours in contrast to the great shadows.

    The second image of dethmetyl dominator is nicely composed. I agree that the background would have been more dominant if it were all in shadow, with possibly a few of the bricks on the ground rendered in a contrasting colour. Keeping past work is good to look back on and refine your techniques. Now I'm sure you would do things slightly different. Overall the image is strong with some nice dialogue that draws the reader into the image.

    I like the framing in the first image. That line work is impressive on the bricks. I wonder how that would have also looked as mostly all dark silhouette, with only the very edges of the bricks detailed in colour.

    The compositions are strong and convey the message of each piece. Having them published is also a justification that they are of a high quality standard.

     

    I like to read a variety of comics from independent publishers as well as the big well known named publishers. It's great to see a variety of styles and pick up on how well they suit the narrative and style of the story. I do however, find it distracting when you get a long running storyline drawn by several artists all using different styles. A lot of the old Conan comics used to have this and it acts as a bit of a distraction.

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2019

    Thanks, it's certainly an improvement over the earlier image.

    You're absolutely right about documenting the techniques. I've created stuff in the past only to realise I can't remember how I did it. Luckily now I save my projects in Unity and Photoshop so I can always revist earlier stages.

    I've spent most of today recreating the image from above for my tutorial series. It's a better technique than the one I had previously included. Now I have the technique documented in video tutorials, which hopefully I will add to my series tomorrow.

    Different comics often require different styles, depending on genre, audience, theme, etc. When you have a story, you want a style that seems to fit. As we know there are thousands of comic styles out there and indeed many here on the forum, all suiting their stories' style. Each artist develops their own style and techniques and uses them to convey their ideas. That's what I enjoy about comics.

    Thanks for the advice and critique earlier, it really helped me to fine tune the work I'm doing.

    I couldn't agree more. Can you imagine if Superman or Spider-man had been launched in the cartoonish style of Casper the Friendly Ghost? I do not think we'd still be talking about superheroes or watching them at the movies. But even more than something that extreme, there are nuances of detail to consider. As we were discussing earlier, do you need all those bricks in that wall? After all, this is a comic and not a movie.

    Here's are two efforts I had a few years back where I used bricks. Even though these two illustrations are actually in print in a small-press role playing game, I'm still not happy with the way I treated all of the rubble. It is overly detailed and does not really fit the character treatment at all.

    Now, when you shrink this down to less than 50%, the shadows on the rocks actually don't look all that bad. But if you blow it up I think you'll see that there is too much detail on the wall. This, by the way, was done in Poser using the included "Gamma Girl" figure, but since this was before SmithMicro added the "Comic Book Preview" function, this was rendered in their old Firefly render engine (similar to DS's 3Delight renderer) and took a LOT of hand-editing to touch up lines and rough up the bricks. Yes, all of the rough brick edges were added by me, by hand. It took ages to get a rough look that I liked well enough to send to the publisher.

     

    This second piece is, frankly, a mess. The background took forever to sort out and I think my treatment of the textures was just one bad choice after another. I do like the sky and the smoke lines, though. So, I kind of like the foreground and the background, but all the rubble should have been reduced to just shadows and shapes. To be fair to myself, though, I was trying to create a new style under a tight deadline and the work is good enough when I consider the time constraints and lack of guidance I had from the editor. Oh, and I was working in two different software packages (Poser and Daz Studio).

    EDIT: Since I'm dusting off these old pieces, I thought I would toss in this illustration from the equipment chapter of the game. Just some gear from different planets and technology levels.

    BTW: I ran this last one at a larger size because it has a very rough halftone pattern (by design) and it doesn't show up when I use a smaller size.

    Wow, some interesting pieces there. I particularly liked the weapons image. Sort of reminded me of the weapon breakdown from the Punisher comics. Nicely done. The halftone pattern can create some nice results, but what I like most about it is the clean lines and smooth, bright colours in contrast to the great shadows.

    The second image of dethmetyl dominator is nicely composed. I agree that the background would have been more dominant if it were all in shadow, with possibly a few of the bricks on the ground rendered in a contrasting colour. Keeping past work is good to look back on and refine your techniques. Now I'm sure you would do things slightly different. Overall the image is strong with some nice dialogue that draws the reader into the image.

    I like the framing in the first image. That line work is impressive on the bricks. I wonder how that would have also looked as mostly all dark silhouette, with only the very edges of the bricks detailed in colour.

    The compositions are strong and convey the message of each piece. Having them published is also a justification that they are of a high quality standard.

     

    I like to read a variety of comics from independent publishers as well as the big well known named publishers. It's great to see a variety of styles and pick up on how well they suit the narrative and style of the story. I do however, find it distracting when you get a long running storyline drawn by several artists all using different styles. A lot of the old Conan comics used to have this and it acts as a bit of a distraction.

    Thanks! I think the left side of the Gamma Girl illustration is okay and I probably should have used that same level of darkness on it and on the rubble from the fallen hero illustration. Funny you should say that you like the equipment illo best: that's generally the consensus with the readers. Honestly, I think the equipment illustrations in this book and the various space stuff I did in the Galaxy Prime RPG are some of my best published work. Regarding the grayscale image below, the publisher told me that people kept asking him what those little things were next to the gun and he had to admit that he didn't know (they're energy cartridges). That's why I added something similar to the other equipment illustration.

    NOTE: If you wonder what the text on the screen says, here it is: If you actually take the time to decode this, you probably have too much time on your hands! But thanks for your enthusiasm.

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    Post edited by mmitchell_houston on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
     

    Thanks! I think the left side of the Gamma Girl illustration is okay and I probably should have used that same level of darkness on it and on the rubble from the fallen hero illustration. Funny you should say that you like the equipment illo best: that's generally the consensus with the readers. Honestly, I think the equipment illustrations in this book and the various space stuff I did in the Galaxy Prime RPG are some of my best published work. Regarding the grayscale image below, the publisher told me that people kept asking him what those little things were next to the gun and he had to admit that he didn't know (they're energy cartridges). That's why I added something similar to the other equipment illustration.

    NOTE: If you wonder what the text on the screen says, here it is: If you actually take the time to decode this, you probably have too much time on your hands! But thanks for your enthusiasm.

    LOL!

    I actually decoded some texts on one of the webcomics I follow but that ones were actually part of the story

  • Linwelly said:
     

    Thanks! I think the left side of the Gamma Girl illustration is okay and I probably should have used that same level of darkness on it and on the rubble from the fallen hero illustration. Funny you should say that you like the equipment illo best: that's generally the consensus with the readers. Honestly, I think the equipment illustrations in this book and the various space stuff I did in the Galaxy Prime RPG are some of my best published work. Regarding the grayscale image below, the publisher told me that people kept asking him what those little things were next to the gun and he had to admit that he didn't know (they're energy cartridges). That's why I added something similar to the other equipment illustration.

    NOTE: If you wonder what the text on the screen says, here it is: If you actually take the time to decode this, you probably have too much time on your hands! But thanks for your enthusiasm.

    LOL!

    I actually decoded some texts on one of the webcomics I follow but that ones were actually part of the story

    Now that's a cool idea, a sort of detective story where people have to decode messages in the images in order to solve puzzles, or figure something out. I like that a lot.

    Linwelly  Those eyes in the render in your signature are incredible! They are so piercing and harmonious with the blue background. They work so well in that frame.

  • Linwelly said:

    LOL!

    I actually decoded some texts on one of the webcomics I follow but that ones were actually part of the story

    Now that's a cool idea, a sort of detective story where people have to decode messages in the images in order to solve puzzles, or figure something out. I like that a lot.

    I remember that the Legion of Superheroes comic in the 1980s frequently had signage and jokes written in their "Interlac" language all over the place. In one of the letters columns they shared the alphabet with us and i recall spending a long evening going through back issues and decoding the messages.

    Likewise, there was an alien language in the Micronauts series and they also published the code for us. I recall deciphering a word on a screen once, and it was, "banana."

    Hah! A lot of decoding for not much payoff.

    -----

    I like comics that are whodunits or have codes. In fact, after I finish with all my fantasy projects I have a short script/layouts completed for a “You Solve It” murder mystery on a space station. I’ve slowly been collecting props and figures for it whenever I see a sale. I’m looking forward to working on it someday.

     

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    Linwelly said:
     

    Now that's a cool idea, a sort of detective story where people have to decode messages in the images in order to solve puzzles, or figure something out. I like that a lot.

    Linwelly  Those eyes in the render in your signature are incredible! They are so piercing and harmonious with the blue background. They work so well in that frame.

    thanks a lot @jepsonpete_63996f7ec6    now follow those eyes down the rabbit hole :D , Woudl eb happe to see you coming over to read my story

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
     

    I remember that the Legion of Superheroes comic in the 1980s frequently had signage and jokes written in their "Interlac" language all over the place. In one of the letters columns they shared the alphabet with us and i recall spending a long evening going through back issues and decoding the messages.

    Likewise, there was an alien language in the Micronauts series and they also published the code for us. I recall deciphering a word on a screen once, and it was, "banana."

    Hah! A lot of decoding for not much payoff.

    -----

    I like comics that are whodunits or have codes. In fact, after I finish with all my fantasy projects I have a short script/layouts completed for a “You Solve It” murder mystery on a space station. I’ve slowly been collecting props and figures for it whenever I see a sale. I’m looking forward to working on it someday.

     

    That's a bit lame, if you made all that effort for somethign that keeps coming up but then has no relevance at all.

    Those mystery things, where you need to look for details and thing stuff through are really nifty but hard to pull. Needs a rock solid reasoning in the backstory or readers will start picking it apart. Not something I have the patience to prepare.

  • I think I'm close to defining the style for my comic. I have experimented with the lead male character, but it will be interesting to see how this style works with a female character.

    See what you think. I am including the first 3 steps - the outline inks, the colour pass with shading and one with side lighting. Let me know what you think. Thanks

     

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  • Then I experimented with different styles of lighting, including a black and white pass. My favourite at the moment is the muted colours

     

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  • Linwelly I had a look at your comic on deviant art. It's very creative. There's a nice story there and a convincing world. The poses for your characters are great, fitting each panel and helping to tell the story. 

    I found it very immersive, almost like escapism, which is the trait of any good comic. Great work.

  • mr clammr clam Posts: 707

    @ jepsonpete

    I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, but I think processing 3D stuff to make it look more like a drawing rarely works. Almost all of it looks like what it is: coldly processed. To be sure, some folks are great at it, but even then, it takes an awful lot of time to get it right. Personally, I think much better results could be achieved through tracing and hand-coloring with a paint program. This is probably even more time consuming than the processing method, but the end product looks so much more natural. As for me, after experimenting for a while, I decided to lean into the 3D look with as little postwork as possible. The drawback to this is that there may be too much visual information per panel for a sustained narrative. It's the fumetti problem, which is why that technique is so rarely used. That's my two cents (but when adjusted for inflation is probably closer to my five cents).

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    edited April 2019

    Linwelly I had a look at your comic on deviant art. It's very creative. There's a nice story there and a convincing world. The poses for your characters are great, fitting each panel and helping to tell the story. 

    I found it very immersive, almost like escapism, which is the trait of any good comic. Great work.

    Hey thanks, thats great to hear! Though I really like to advertise it onit on webtoons it works much better in the scrol down format.

    I really like where you are taking your style, I think that is very impressive and the style would work to catch my interest.

    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    mr clam said:

    @ jepsonpete

    I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, but I think processing 3D stuff to make it look more like a drawing rarely works. Almost all of it looks like what it is: coldly processed. To be sure, some folks are great at it, but even then, it takes an awful lot of time to get it right. Personally, I think much better results could be achieved through tracing and hand-coloring with a paint program. This is probably even more time consuming than the processing method, but the end product looks so much more natural. As for me, after experimenting for a while, I decided to lean into the 3D look with as little postwork as possible. The drawback to this is that there may be too much visual information per panel for a sustained narrative. It's the fumetti problem, which is why that technique is so rarely used. That's my two cents (but when adjusted for inflation is probably closer to my five cents).

    I believe the fumetti had more than just one problem :D, but you address an important point with the business of the background. This is something one should keep in mind when creating the panels, but then that is something one should do for any comic, to decide what goes in the panel and what not, So doing the planning ahead with a script of thumbnails and leaving space for the bubbles should be part of the process

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2019
    mr clam said:

    @ jepsonpete

    I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, but I think processing 3D stuff to make it look more like a drawing rarely works. Almost all of it looks like what it is: coldly processed. To be sure, some folks are great at it, but even then, it takes an awful lot of time to get it right. Personally, I think much better results could be achieved through tracing and hand-coloring with a paint program. This is probably even more time consuming than the processing method, but the end product looks so much more natural. As for me, after experimenting for a while, I decided to lean into the 3D look with as little postwork as possible. The drawback to this is that there may be too much visual information per panel for a sustained narrative. It's the fumetti problem, which is why that technique is so rarely used. That's my two cents (but when adjusted for inflation is probably closer to my five cents).

    I kind of have to agree with part of what you say. I think some web comics do look like 3D fumetti, but that's not always a bad thing. It's a matter of style and preference.

    I do personally agree that for my own art I prefer to hand color things, rather than manipulate the colors in the original render. At least most of the time. Of course, this is not really an issue for me since I work primarily in black & white.

    Here's a cartoon I did in Poser Pro 11 using the Comic Book Preview (for the geometry lines), and one time I did combine multiple renders to keep subtle colors on the final image. If I recall correctly, this was created by combining multiple renders and setting the layer blending modes to Overlay (or something like that) to get a hint of skin tone on the guys.

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  • BeeMKayBeeMKay Posts: 7,019
    edited April 2019

    Then I experimented with different styles of lighting, including a black and white pass. My favourite at the moment is the muted colours

     

    I think it's coming together nicely. You also can use the different colour approaches to match the scene's emotion.

    I usually don't like messing around too much with the images that I render for Division, striving for a "realistic look" rather than the classical comic style. But for recent scenes, I have flashback scene parts that are supposed to look different from the rest of the images, so I experimented until I got a look that suits the current stage of things. Here's the steps, using Photoshop CC:

    I start out with the actual render.

    This layer, I duplicate and use the Glowing Edge filter and the Gaussian Blur filter on it. Then I invert the layer so that it's dark outlines on white ground. For other images, I also converted this layer to black&white, but for this one, I stayed with the original filter colours. I use blending mode Multiply for that layer, with lowered opacity (that one varies from image to image - in this one, around 60% works well).

    The next layer is also a Glowing Edge Filter with slightly different settings and no blur effect. It's also inverted. Blend mode is also multiply with a lowered opacity.

    This is the result of just the three basic layers:

    It gives the edges a slightly darker look, and adds some structuring to certain parts, like the face. The next layer is a curve adjustment layer in normal mode. After tinkering around with the different colour curves, the image looks like this:

    On top of the curves, I have a hue&saturation adjustment filter layer. Here's how the result looks without the curves adjustment layer_

    And this is the final result...

     

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    Post edited by BeeMKay on
  • mr clammr clam Posts: 707

    BeeMKay, messing around with special effects is effective and fun to do. I don't have flashbacks, but one of my themes is the impersistence of memory, and to convey various levels of memories I've used tricks like blurs, sepia tone, PW Toon, etc. My story starts with M4/V4 in 3DL and slowly goes through the generations up to Gen8 using iray. The idea was that newer, clearer memories are the pictures that are more photo real. I don't think it worked as well as I had hoped, but it was fun to experiment.

    I guess Demon Division is your main thing, but I personally wish you would update The 4th Wall more often! It's probably my favorite Daz-rendered comic and compares favorably with Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and its sequels.

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