Sayterra

Londer, you need to do yourself a huge favor. Forget the details.

Just sit down on Photoshop, or with a paper and a big fat sharpy. Draw silhouettes of your robot. Try out different shapes and once you get a silhouette you LIKE, blow it up, put another piece of paper or another layer over it, and work out the actual shapes and defined details.

It'll save you a lot of frustration and goes a lot faster than just trying out concept after concept

Good luck! I dig where the second one was going.

Very nice sketch Tacky Keep it up!

I've said it before Alex, I'll say it again, your wife's work is gorgeous. Best of luck to her getting the proofs sold. Just a thought, she may want to toss up one or two on Ebay, that's worked well in the past for a lot of us sketch card folk

AND... she should let herself be known on Scoundrel, that's where tons and I do mean TONS, of card collector's gather, and a lot of the artists, I think she'd benefit from it:

Scoundrel Forums

Glad to know Star and Graver are safe, one of my friends and SG mates was caught in Baton Rouge, which got the eyewall of the storm. She's safe, but man, the stories she told were insane.

As to the persons/person stating "just move New Orleans"... Um... New Orleans is in the same situation as Holland, they're both below sea levels. Moving a city or country is just silly. New Orleans has dealt and will deal with storms and being situated below sea level as it always has. If the Dutch can engineer levies to hold back the North Sea for as long as it has, then so can New Orleans.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirt Welcome back

Rowr, I send you and Jute the best... If I am in game, I have to be at ECHO though. <3

Dead or alive Brangzo, doesn't matter

Okay guys, I've got a lot of cards with names written on the bottom to draw this weekend. Now... I want to do a few group shots AND versus cards. So name off, obscure or not, two characters you'd like to see paired off on two cards: IE: Wolverine VS Sabretooth (which I am working on )

Again, you've made my job doing these cards a lot more fun, there have been a lot of characters where I completely forgot about them until you guys posted here. Here's who's on deck to be drawn this weekend:

Sleepwalker, Danielle Moonstar, Frog Man, Spider Girl, Iron Fist, Vulcan, Kazar, American Dream, Tiger Shark, and Goblin Queen

Thanks guys, you rock

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Thanks everyone! Dark Ether, I'm not quite sure what Az-Bats means but I hope it's good lol.

And now for a different kind of artwork style, this is a Chibi commission piece for CoV fire/thermal Corruptor, Panthera Hybrid!

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The coloring is gorgeous... especially the lighting on the face and hair. The rest kinda creeps me out. D:

The composition on Aranos however, is awesome.

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I don't see any missing bodies - they're all eclipsed by each other. I can make out where they are based on what I see, and their balance/proportions seem fine. I admit the girl in the black is a bit thin in the waist, but at least her spine isn't broken like in a Liefield.

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Not so much missing bodies as poor composition. It gives the effect that the lizard chick is missing half her body. Also, as a woman, aka the proud owner of a pair of breasts, the gal in the black isn't just thin, she'd break. She has no pelvis or musculature to support the weight of her chest, fake or real.

Greg loves his reference for faces, but he doesn't seem to quite get it with bodies. He's much better than Liefeld by leaps and bounds, but I feel like he's trying to be Adam Hughes or Travis Charest. I've seen his sketch work, and I'm glad that he's moved away from pron for ref, at least in part.

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I can only judge from Sojourn because that's all I've read that he was a part of, but I had the opposite feeling - that the ladies didn't look different ENOUGH. I could often find panels that used the same photo reference as a base... but I still find the overall effect beautiful enough to let that pass. Deadlines can be brutal.

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Deadlines can be brutal, sure, but I remember Sojourn. I honestly think that it was either him being lazy or that he just didn't know how to find more reference. Thing is, glancing at this piece over Sojourn, it looks like he's grown a lot as an artist. His faces are really nicely done and his hair is rendered as masses. PRAISE BE. I get so tired of the "I'm going to individually draw every strand of hair" mentality.

I redlined his piece to see what exactly was going on. Again, most of his problems come from poor composition. Then the balance issues with the blonde in the front. The upper half of her body is fine, and knowing a little, not a lot, but a little on how he works, I'm going to guess that he copied the waist up from one piece of reference, and the bottom half from another. There's no balance on those legs. His faces are really nice, and I'm glad to see more of the unibewb/shelf bra syndrome that REALLY DOES HAPPEN TO US FEMALE TYPES. Seeing spandex lift and seperate. It doesn't work like that. REALLY. The only other thing I see is that the snake in the background has no weight to it. Perhaps the gal holding it is super strong, but physics would still apply to the reptile there.

Anyways, summary: Greg's grown as an artist, but still has issues. And he's still far better than Liefeld, except when he swipes.

Technically? They're not making money off it, the tattoo artist is. So you'd actually have to take up your fight with the tattoo artist who didn't ask "Hey didja get permission to do use this piece?"

To top it off, REIQ could say, "Hey, I don't like that..."

Legally? It's a mess. Copyright law within the US doesn't apply to most other countries... tracking down the tattoo artist... Ehhh...

If he feels that strongly about your piece, he could have it done without your permission, while you created TA, NCsoft technically owns the character design of him.... So yersh, legal vomit everywhere...

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On that note, can anyone tell me why Rob Liefield is so hated? Is it because of his inventive anatomy style? I'm not a big fan, but he does have a distinct style...

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His arrogance, his lack of anatomical knowledge... There's a difference between knowing anatomy and stylizing it, and NOT knowing anatomy and calling it your style. He's also one of the most famous swipers out there, meaning he just steals other people's work when he feels it necessary, which seems to be frequently as I think he was called out on it just about everywhere. When I was young and new to comics, and went through my mainstream comic phase, I tons of stuff by Liefield. Now I like to call him KING OF WEASEL MEN. Seriously, if there was a person in the background, they looked like weasels. He also had absolutely no idea how anatomy worked.

http://progressiveboink.com/b/images...efeldgirl1.gif

Here's my example. Anyone can find the "Liefeld's 40 Worst Drawings" rant by checking through Google. So take a look at that image again. Please tell me how that woman is supposed to survive without internal organs. This is what happens when you hire a horny teenager into your HUGE studio, and never get him anatomy lessons.

So what does good ole Rob do?

http://adlo.dreamers.com/estudios/comparativas.htm

He steals stuff. Called swiping in comics, it's called copyright infringement and art theft in the real world. David Mack was also called out for doing the same thing a few months ago, stealing from Adam Hughes. There's a big difference between homages and swiping. Normally, when someone does an homage, it's noted somewhere and/or they also have also asked. What I find funny though is, his source material is so much better than his swipes. Check out the Wolverine profile he swiped and the leg. In the original, the original artist had a great sense of how the quads on the leg worked, and the form of the leg. Theeeen you have Liefeld's take on it. The sausage leg.

When Rob isn't stealing stuff, he's making up anatomy, like how many abs a person has, or...

http://i.somethingawful.com/mjolnir/...ck~captain.jpg

Or how the ribcage works. Why Rob! I didn't know you had a fetish for moobs. You are aware that Captain America is standing in a profile shot right? Right???

http://www.deselbybowen.com/examples/liefeld-teeth.jpg

All teeth are the same size, same shape... as someone else said, "how many teeth does a person have? I'll just draw a billion..."

I honestly wouldn't pick on the guy if it wasn't for the fact that he's an absolutely arrogant piece of work.

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hmm ya know...


I've seen a comic with no words but letting the pictures tell the story. But i can't say that i've seen a comic released with no art..


Just saying.

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Actually... I can argue this.

Marjane Satrapi did a graphic novel that has very, very simple pictures, the kind of pictures your kid sister could draw. Not very impressive by themselves. I personally would not read the book just on the pictures, basically. However, the writing is really interesting and engaging. Turns out it's a really popular book and got turned into an animated movie. Even though the pictures are really something your kid sister could draw.


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I'm going to poke this one because Marjane Satrapi is an accomplished French Cartoonist. The pictures may appear simple, however, as far as I'm concerned, it is much harder to draw simple cartoons and make them look as elegant as Satrapi did. Yes, the writing was engaging, but the artwork was just as engaging as her words. I'd also note that Will Eisner's work was fairly simple in design, but brilliant, as was Art Speigelman and his work with Maus, the first graphic novel to grab the attention of the public and say, "Comics are a VALID format of storytelling and aren't just for kids."

When I went to school to learn animation and story, we weren't told "Okay guys, let's draw like your little sister would draw!" We learned the foundational skills of anatomy and design to be able to simplify the form into something that Eisner, Speigelman, and Satrapi did. We broke down movies like Citizen Kane and simple written tales like Aesop's Fables to understand how story worked. It's something your kid sister wouldn't be able to do, even though it may look to the untrained eye as such. The reason Persepolis was designed as it was is because the main character was a child, and you grew up with her as you read the book.

I'd like to suggest you read Blankets sometime by Craig Thompson or Goodbye Chunky Rice. Again, a beautiful simple, elegant style that is hard to mimic and even harder to perfect.

As far as Persepolis is concerned, it would have made an interesting book, but Marjane meant to put words and pictures together because it's a marriage between the two that created a powerful story that took the world by storm.

Lastly, I would also like to point out that a story need not be written. Writing is not storytelling inherently. Storytelling is defined by all the senses.

You guys are awesome. I didn't do Squirrel Girl on the last set, so I'll definitely be doing her, and a duo piece of Cloak and Dagger as I did them separately last time.

Just to let folks know, I did do Magik today, she's a lil watercolor piece so as soon as I get this next batch approved, I'll show her off

Already left a note on her gallery. She's totally undercharging for work that awesome :P

Hey Sin.

I'm glad I could be of help. I think that I may have some advice for you, though it was gleaned from Neil Gaiman a few years back when hearing him talk about story.

Write. And finish what you write. If you have four short stories you're working on, and let them languish, then what? If you have notebooks of ideas, start writing more on them. I talked about the fact that as an artist, even if you don't finish a sketch, you still learn something. It's still valid to finish the sketch, even if you let it go for a year before coming back to it. But finishing something, it's not only a confidence booster, but it means you have something to show people and get feedback.

Start small. Oddly, it's a lot harder to create a short story than it is to create a novel, in many ways. It's very much akin to the project we were given in storyboarding. You have 100 panels to tell a story. That's TOUGH. It's the same thing in writing. Charge yourself with the idea of creating a complete story/comic script in five pages. In five pages can you tell a concise story, can you create likable characters? Short stories are great because you can pass them off to artists and they'll IMMEDIATELY be able to tell you if it's something they can work with, if they like it, if the settings work.

Comic scripting is a little different than just writing a story. You and the artist work together to become the cameramen of a written/drawn movie really. I've had scripts given to me where they went into detail about the time of day, the weather conditions, what the background scenery should look like... I've worked with scripts where they left it up to me to fill in some of the blanks. Some artists like to know where everything ought to be, but we still like the freedom of being able to interpret some things with the writer. For instance, when I got the thumbnails my writer had done for Clockwork Girl, I felt like some of the angles could have been stronger. As a writer, at least in my book, it's cool to be able to get some visual reference as to how the writer envisions how the story unfolds. Some writers want the artist to come up with it because they're not sure.

What it comes down to? Trust. It's trust between the writer to give a story, characters, dialogue, and backgrounds that the artist can work with.

I'll also leave you with a book recommendation, which I suggest for anyone who wants to get into comics, both writers and artists alike:
Panel Discussions: Design in Sequential Art Storytelling

Writers, Comic Artists, Animators, Filmmakers alike should also have this book at hand:
Story by Robert McKee

Hey guys. So I'm working very slowly on my next set of Marvel Masterpieces cards, and I want you guys to name off your favorite well known or perhaps not so well known characters. I only have a small batch of cards this time, and I'm painting several of them. So request away! It was specifically the Fanart forums that lead me to draw characters like: Thanos, Shiva, Red Ghost. How obscure can you go? These cards will be approved as official licensed Marvel Art and will be inserted in Marvel Masterpieces III trading card packs.

Here's Storm to start it off

http://icefox-studios.net/firstcard.jpg

Again, thank you guys for helping make Marvel Masterpieces II, you all rock :3

Juggy has the right idea... I'm goin back to work on my freelance for Marvel, speaking of which, since the forum helped out last time like you wouldn't believe, I'll revive the Marvel Masterpieces thread.

Every artist has a 1000 bad drawings in them that they have to get out. Londer, even if you're not FINISHING a piece, you're still learning from it...

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Can I be your friend? You can sleep on my futon. I'll even get a futon.

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I'm not sure if you're talking about Juggy's posts of awesome or my grumpy posts... but if it is the later, we already have a futon, come on over :P

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-OP says that doing work for free is a comon part of comics.


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It's not nor should it be commonplace in the comics industry to do free work. From my wonderful friend, Lea Hernandez, who worked with some of the top comic companies out there, she told me and everyone around her a rather short list of things to look for when taking on comic jobs. This is obviously, paraphrased.

If the person says do the work for free: RUN FOR THE HILLS. You're worth more than that.
If the person says they'll pay you AFTER it's printed: THEY ARE LYING TO YOUR FACE. RUN FOR THE HILLS.
If the person says they'll compensate you with a percentage of sales: THEY ARE ATTEMPTING TO GET FREE WORK. RUN FOR THE HILLS.

Now, I said earlier in this thread that I did a story for a friend for free, about five pages. There's a difference there. The person I worked for was not only a friend and collaborator, but is a known name in the comics industry for many years and is trusted by everyone that knows him. THAT is the difference. He had the experience and years in the industry to get folks to work for him for free. His projects are labors of love, not objects for profit.

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well thats the thing. i did pay for the web comic pages even though most other writers/artist do not pay for them. generally speaking, web comics arent paid for. only the printed stuff.

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Oh how little you know... as someone who was around during the "birth" of WebComics Nation, Modern Tales, Girlamatic, and a few big name PAY web comic sites, this statement does not compute. Apparently you've not heard of Penny Arcade, PvP Online, Leisure Town (one of the original webcomics out there), Something Positive (the artist/writer quit his day job to do his webcomic fulltime), Diesel Sweeties, The Dreamland Chronicles (Hey! I'm being paid to work on a webcomic. INSANITY!)... amongst others.

I hate to tell you this dude, but you really ought to get off that high horse of yours... you do not know everything about comics like you seem to think you do.

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Sayterra, have you looked into independent groups like TAT? It's not huge but it's good support for getting a foot into the industry.

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I have not, thanks for the link I'm pretty busy full time doing film work, but I always try to keep my plate a lil open for comic jobs.

Blood... angles like that are difficult for even professionals to get right. The musculature of the neck is difficult to break down, so yeah, your attempt gets the thumbs up in my book, because I know a lot artists terrified to leave their comfort zones.

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Because your going about it all wrong is why.

Trust me, i've had an idea for a TA comic for years now but i wouldn't dream of coming on the boards and asking someone to work for probably a year and then some to get paid.

You just can't say i'll give you a percentage of the profits if and when it gets off the ground. Thats bad business all the way around.

You got screwed before because you didn't have a contract. Plain and simple. If i were an artist or writer i'd either get a contract or sell it per panel. That would be my suggestion to you. Find an artist you wanna work with and order panels. Pay per page and offer them a percentage of the end sales IF it ever gets any profit.

Coming on the boards and demanding art for free with years before they may see anything from it is ludicris. Come on now.

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Relax. It isn't ludicrous, alright?. I've seen other writers and artists request help before on other forums some paying, some for free. Especially on ComicJobz.com before it was shut down and on ComicSpace.

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Actually, your proposition is fairly ludicrous. not insanely, but it's your average run of the mill type ludicrous. And before you get defensive, I'll explain why. First, your proposition is incredibly common. That's why you'd see so many postings about new projects for some pay or little pay. A lot of these people think... they KNOW they have the next big thing (I'm not lumping you in that group, but the sheer amount of times I've had people approach art forums with "THIS WILL MAKE YOU FAMOUS" scenarios is pretty insane). Before you sign up an artist to your project, you need to know if your project is at all viable. Go to conventions and talk to the writers. Pitch them the idea. Sell the idea in one sentence.

Example: Small girl raises monster to be her friend and adventures ensue.

You don't need to give how many pages. You don't have to give synopsis of the characters. If someone perks up at the idea and wants to hear more, THEN you give them more. Have someone, other than a friend, read your summaries, your character descriptions. Why not friends or family? They're going to tell you they like it because they're emotionally involved. Going to conventions with people you've never met before is a great way to figure out what needs changing.

Yes, you've seen people say they'll work for free. That's wrong. And here's why: The discussion of free work or compensation later was brought up amongst graphic designers, illustrators, animators, and comic artists on a large community forum online a few years back. The comics industry needs a re-haul. There are too many people that are doing free work with the promise of sales later, doing spec work and work for hire that lose all their rights as artists. I would advise you to look up the recent folding of Tokyopop and their contracts for artists/writers/creative teams. It's pretty horrific. Aside from that, many, MANY fresh artists out there hear those words, "Compensation later", and they want to get into the industry so badly, they go ahead and sign up for these projects. They're promised their big break, they're told that once it takes off at conventions, they'll rake in the money. This never happens. Never.

One of my first professional gigs was a very low-pay book with the promise of a percentage of any/all sales. It was one of the chief reasons I signed on. Low pay, but the promise of extra checks in the mail was really enticing. Guess how many checks I got for the sales of the books and merchandise over the last six years? Nadda. Even though I HAD a contract. I went after the company, to no avail.

As to my friends doing comics solely to make a living? Out of all my friends, I think it took one of them selling at Comic Con for three years to start making a profit on her comic.

So let's say you make this book. Between the cost of printing your comic and local shop sales, you will net a negative profit, if you go all out and take it to a self-publishing place, you'll probably be negative a few thousand dollars. This is the reality of comics. The exposure doesn't mean you'll get feedback or a break with a company, it doesn't even ensure you make money. It just doesn't work that way. Even if you did attend conventions for several years, your chances of making a profit off your book are minimal at best. My other friend, a well known web-comic artist, only now, after four or five years of working his patoot off every day drawing, is starting to see a profit on his work. He's the sole creator (artist and writer).

Your best bet? Draw up that contract that we all have talked about. Pay a PER PAGE rate, not per panel, which whould include whether or not this artist is doing it all (pencils, inks, color) or just part of it. Set your comic up on the web, and do a short five-seven page story that you can copy at Kinko's and take it to conventions. Hand it out for free, bring the artist with you if you can. With some luck, for every hundred copies you hand out, you'll get one or two emails in response to it. Lather, rinse, repeat for a few years.

Breaking into comics... I've been doing comics professionally off and on since 2001. I've yet to earn a living wage off of it, because comics don't pay a living wage. So why do I do it? Because I love stories. I love telling stories, and I love working with people.

So my two cents, again.

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I was a lil lost on what was going on, primarily because I read it as if she was about to stab herself with a sword. D:

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My point is, that at first glance, it's not reading. Because the "bow" is in the foreground and at a an angle that you don't see the rest of it, and its coloration, it doesn't read as a bow. The pose reads as the whole sexy pinup vibe because you don't see the hand reaching for an arrow.

First impressions of artwork vary between a whole 4 to 7 seconds. If I have to look twice, then something isn't working on the piece. Because I work in animation, all you get is that first impression. Silhouettes are one of the most important things that artists, both in comics and animation, need to remember. Blood did a good job at trying to tackle a hard angle, and that's totally commendable in my book.