amendments

so because of the way i've made the comics (like a collage, see previous posts) its not going to be too hard to make the changes that have been suggested to me, it'll be tougher with the animation but thats ok. i've made a list of the new images and changes i need to make and heres the start of work on the changes, i'll post the new pages up too later and hopefully if i work fast there'll still be time to get the second edition printed before deadline. x

notes from the last crit

i showed my comic and the first draft of the animation at crit. i've sent the pages off to print with lulu but it hadnt arrived in time for the crit, it came a bit later. i got a whole load of feedback for the comic which is cool because it means that people (tutors included haha) seemed to get it that the comic is the focus of the project but at the same time its a bit gay because theres call for so much change in the comic pages and no one told me when i had the draft, they waited till i'd spent all that time money and effort to send it off to print and then said it. so i had a bit of mixed feelings but at least i've got plenty to do for the last 3 weeks. x

web comics

http://Balak01.deviantart.com/art/ABOUt-about-DIGITAL-COMICS-112523191

i wish i new about this much much earlier into the project, but anyway, i was talking to a friend from vis com about motion comics and he showed me this DA artists take on webcomics as an interactive thing its brilliant, kind of interactive, kind of motion but not really either and i think i could make a better one of these than i could a motion comic hahah. well, its something for the future and it just goes to show that something as simple as a comic book can have all kinds of spin put on it in different medias.

fail.

so i had a go at a little bit of cel animation and oh my goodness its hard! i wont have time before final crit to have another go but i definitely will give it another shot afterwards. the cel animation was much much harder than the little bits i've tried before but i guess this style of art i'm running with is a lot more complicated image by image than what i've done in other projects. its such a fail though...

printing

i've been lookinga round at self publishing sites, a bit of a google really but it doesnt take much to find a few. now i have sites to compare between i think i'm gonna go with lulu.com like i mentioned previously. its cheaper and easier than a lot of the other sites, or maybe i've just got more used to lulu? hahah anyway i've asked around and lulu's been recommended by a few people around college and on DA so thats pretty cool. i'll try lulu.

sound recording

this is kind of just a production diary but yeah for the animated comic i'm recording sound effects and voices with an edirol. i've made a list of what i need to get and i'm recording effects from the game and voices from volunteers, hopefully they wont sound too bad but i'm not sure yet. i think having some decent sound gear for a change might help me with pacing the animation correctly and stuff.



i cant seam to get the animation up on here but the tutors can find it in my hand in files, anyhow its just put together loosely for now with after effects, its no pro motion comic but people think at least the art looks good ahahh, i'll chop it together with the noisy bits later when i have access to the facilities but for now its just a bit of parallax-ing. there is some cel stuff that i've tried for now but i'll talk more about that in the next post.

lulu

http://www.lulu.com/

i had a look around leeds for people who could print my stuff, i wasnt very thorough but i dont really know much about it. somebody recommended a website to me though, lulu.com, they can print all kinds of books and stuff and the information on the site is pretty all inclusive and very helpful, sizes, formats paper type, prices and shipping details. some of the information is useful even for if i didnt go to print with lulu.

environment

http://ravenseye1113.deviantart.com/

i know its a bit late in the game for more environment research (seeing as i've made the assets) but this is a deviant artist who seems to specialize in environment art and design and has some wonderful and inspiring gear to see.

printing research

i've not done much yet but if i sort the image sizes out properly i could maybe print them myself downstairs in the print room with a tutor watching over me to make sure i dont balls up. the thing that i think would cause me difficulties though is printing on both sides of the paper in the right order, i'd have to talk to the guy down there and see what he knows.

i dont think i'd have too much difficulties resizing my work though because i did a bit of research into comics printing before i started collage-ing my assets together so i could do them at the right size for a comic which is approximately 10 inch tall and 6 inch wide. x

a bit of animation stuff

i know i've planned to go for a motion comic animation instead of what i'd planned in my brief (i'll still get the chance to practice some cel animation hopefully) but i saw this in the metro(newspaper) and i thought it was worth seeing. it kind of reinforces frazer irvings advice of saving yourself time by recycling aspects of your work.

i dont know how well you can read it if you click the image for a bigger picture but its basically disney saving time and money by re- using cels from other animations. clever.

full covers

i decided to run with the second cover idea... i've got a few quotes from DA were i posted them for a vote.

"that looks much better as a front cover as it more front cover style , with main character and smalled sub characters and the monster im guessing is final foe? and the other is more like a movies advetisement that yu get on a bus or summet as it one charcter, like the starwars ones with yoda in one and trooper in other"

"very nice!! i just showed a friend and he said he wants to make it into a shirt in print class. would you mind if he did it?"

"Ah, this is super cool, holy crap! It's so... clean and shiny~ It's not confusing at all (which is sooo easy when you still lotsa characters together at once) and the shading is seriously excellent. And I actually think this would make a stronger image"

so yeah these guys agreed with me... there was only one person who preferred the watercolour image so its a win for these.
that little black and white djinn is kind of a private joke for anyone on the course because in 3 years this has been my only full colour project.. i dont know, i guess its not that funny. and i left the blurb text you'd usually find on the back cover of a comic or book off intentionally to kind of reinforce the fact that this is just a preview chapter... the ten pages themselves are kind of like a blurb to what could be a bigger project in the future.

more plans

so now i have the pages the two elements of the project can start to come together, i need to get them printed and make a motion comic.

making the motion comic should be cool because the comic acts as a detailed storyboard and i can use many of the same assets. printing the comic might be more tricky, i wasnt sure if i wanted to do it myself because i'd have to learn how or outsource someone to do it for me (another student who knows what they're doing or a company that specializes in print.)

also i was thinking about the end of year show for college and i reckon it'd be cool if i presented my work as a webcomic so you could go on the site and see the webcomic and motion comic in the same place with a print version of the comic in front of the computer thats got the sit on it.

i'm not sure where i stand with copyright and stuff so i dont know if i can make the website live or anything but the comics and motion comics should be cool just for the end of year show, i mean.. i've been clear enough that its a fan fiction thing.
i'll have to look into that copyright thing.

the time of day

i know all my pages were posted on the same day, you'll have to try and forgive me for that though because i'm making my blog from notes i made in a sketch book. so anyway, it took me the ten days i planned to make the pages and its always cool to be on plan. well, it took only four days to make the line art and ink it (one day quicker than planned so i used the spare day to take a little trip to chester zoo (hwere i collected some pretty cool sketches!) then it took me 6 days to do the colouring (one day longer than planned) so thats 11 days total but only ten days working. kind of went to plan. x

comic page 10

the plans for this page were pretty poor on paper but its basically 'the aftermath' of sky's visit.

comic page 9

i actioned some of frazer irvings advice while i was making these pages, he said if you can save yourself some time then do it and showed us i think three different images he's made that all used the same background image. he's kept it so he can save time while he's working if he can get away with it. so if you have a look you can see that i've done the same thing, i dont know how easy it is to notice but i bet it jumps out at you now you know what i've done hahah.

comic page 8

a lot of the pages take place in the forest and the environments were hard to make at firt so i collected a couple of reference pictures (only a few, nothing special) to look at alongside the books i've been looking at but to be honest the biggest help with making the scenery images has been david attenborough's documentaries, i bought them all on DVD. i love him. and its some great environment research. x

comic page 7

i think this is my favorite page, using the photo refs me and lucy made. i like the top panel, kutku looks pissed.

comic page 6

comic page 5

i still think its really cool to see the plan and the page i made from it. i kind of want to give the plans to other people and see what they'd make from them.

comic page 4

comic page 3

comic page 2

just getting on with work on the pages. x

more shrknife....

its pretty cool to have a butchers at the environment art in shartknife (by my hero, corey lewis)
on the page to the left you see the environment stuff and how the line art is much thinner than the characters line art so its fully settles into the background where it belongs, good technique. also i like the page on the right were the background isnt even put in so your eye is guaranteed to stay on the action packed fight picture.

environments.

i almost forgot to mention! i've always struggled with drawing environments, i think i practice them less because i find it more interesting to draw people and i reckon thats pretty evident in my work. so for this project i figured the comic would be a good excuse to learn some environment design and drawing skills, i mean i know a few technical skill like vanishing point and three point design and stuff but i think theres nothing like just seeing other work and being inspired.

so in videogame art nic kelman talks extensively about environment and it has its own chapter (as well as appearing in other chapters) with some great artwork and screen shots, same for 'the art of game worlds by leo hartas.

skillful huntsman is a great book and i cant remember if i've mentioned it yet but its full of design ideas, technical methods and innovations for visual designers and it cover character, creature, vehicle, tools and environment design with some very good artwork and examples.

obviously my gear is very different in style but you learn a lot about structure and technique from these books as well.

process

so that was the process for making page one, its the same for each page so i wont post all the assets and stuff like i did for page one, you know how i'm doing it now (and they'll be folders with my assets files delivered on hand in if the tutors want a look at them) i'll just post up the pages and the original plans for them, leaving page one out.

with the text

so its the same page again but with the anime ace font on it for the text, i think it looks pretty good, fits. x

font

font is pretty important in comics, you want it to fit the genre and the art and like at first i just though "hahah comic sans!" but really its not even that close to whats in comics, they're mostly a bit different to each other but sare some characteristic. i've been looking on font websites and i'm pretty much settled on a font called anime ace. its kind of in the name but it looks the part and fits the art. and that rhymes so it must be right.

step 3

so its kind of like making a collage putting the assets together, and its cool to see how close the colour page is to the original plans.

step 2

so yeah, take the assets i made and give them some cel shading and then theyre are ready for step 3, which is to put them together into the pages

plans

so the plan is to draw out all the assets for all ten pages individually, like in the images above. pencil and ink them all in 5 days, get them to college and scan them then colour them all in 5 days, so the comic art should take me 10 days to produce, then i'll assume the role of text making and editing the pages. this way i'm setting my self a realistic deadline, its not as strict as a real comic artist might get but i've got more time to spend on it and i'm not just penciling, like barry kitson said, one artist does pencils, one artist does inks and one artist does colour before it goes off to the editor and none of the artists have to worry much about text story research or anything except like to know about speech bubbles and find ref images. but i reckon 10 days is a good pace for me to work at, if there were 3 of me we could do like 30 pages in ten days if we knew what we were doing so i guess it sounds ok if you think of it like that.