The_PMD

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. I've been in enough art classes to know that people are uncomfortable with giving "negative" opinions about other people's work, especially to their face.
Sorry, went on a bit of a rant there....


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In the classes I teach, I require one person to same something positive and one person to say something constructively critical about each piece that's critiqued. It's not about the person, it's about finding the flaws in the work so they may be fixed. Critiquing is an act of LOVE!!!

Anyway, I like that the OP put up his self critique, so we don't have to tell him things he already knows. I would disagree with him about the pose. I like the pose. I just don't think all the forms are fitting together properly to sell it.

And don't go all Liefeld on us! You HAVE to draw the feet! If there aren't any crappy feet for us to look at, how are we supposed to tell you how to make them better?

Feet are easy. They're just wedges. thick in the back, trailing thinner and widening out as they get to the toes. Start with a wedge and work from there.

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I take advise any day, but it wasn't advice. It was tearing into me and my art and I didn't appreciate it.

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Of course it was advice. It was incredibly harshly-worded advice, but advice nonetheless. I didn't say "You suck. Go away." I said "Slow down and be more professional in your art. This stuff is sloppy and doesn't show enough attention to craft."

If you're going to put your work up in public, you need to be able to take criticism like that. At no point did I say anything personal about you. I was just talking about what is wrong with the art, and giving you suggestions as to what to do to improve it. And I still stand by "Slow down!" as the most relevant critique for your art.

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Oh,and I'm not doing "finished peices" or charging anyone anything anymore. If it's free than noone can complain about anything. right?

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Absolutely correct. Good choice.

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As for coming on my thread and saying my artwork sucks and I am disrespecting Artist everywhere......BITE ME. I don't care if I got lazy and used other artsist poses, it's just rude to tell someone thier art is bad.

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I didn't say it was bad, I said it was sloppy, hastily done, and unprofessional-looking. Look at some of the stuff you've posted. You've got tons of edges that aren't filled in, and colors bleeding out from under the linework. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's fact. You just need to look at the work to see it.

As to whether or not it's okay to charge someone money for work like that, that's obviously up to you. But your defensive attitude towards harsh yet constructive criticism indicates to me that SOMEWHERE in your brain, you know I'm right. You admitted that you got lazy with your artwork, yet you're getting pissed at me for pointing out where your laziness is showing and suggesting that you slow down? Where's the logic in that?

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OK, so rain on my parade. Jim Lee is my idol and considered the best by many, so I'm sure he is aware many use his art to base there own.

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Yeah, and I'm sure he's REAL happy about it. I wish I were more prolific and popular so everyone would trace my work and try to pass it off as their own. Not.


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If you think its easy to use an existing pose and make it a different character, try it.

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Most of us here who can draw have tried it. And it's much easier than actually doing the drawing yourself. Much MUCH easier. And you didn't even do a good job of it, as the chest logo on your Lee rip doesn't fit the perspective of the chest you "drew." That's how I knew it was a trace job despite not having seen the original (not much of a Lee fan personally.)

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I used the superman because the toon I was doing was supposed to be superman.

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I'm sorry, but that excuse is pathetic.

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I have been drawing and painting since i was 4 years old and I don't NEED to use other images, it was just easier and faster and people were happy to be getting their portrait done so fast.

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It's always easier and faster to steal. That doesn't make it right.

By the way, slow the hell down. Your work is really sloppy and unprofessional. The shoddiness is a slap in the face to 1. every artist on here who takes the time with their work 2. the people paying you for a "finished piece" that took you 5 minutes to do in Photoshop and doesn't even have edges cleaned up on the flats 3. yourself and your art talent. By not taking the time with your craft, you're insulting yourself most of all. If you feel like you have a gift, treat it with a little more respect.

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Finally, back with new comics!

Thanks for your patience everyone, it's been a hectic and bad week.

First, we have the comic featuring the winner of the "Name the Webcomic" contest:

Seven!

And next we have a little thing I put together with Fearghas and Sir Morgant of Virtue. ( I think it's hilarious, at least. >_< )

Yo Momma So : D

From now on I'm going to try to update a new comic at least once every two days. This is a realstic goal without burning myself out, I think.

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Okay, "Your mom is an emoticon" is one of the funniest Yo Momma jokes I've heard.

Nice little tutorial there, AK. I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people around here.

And your art is really excellent. Your style is really great...it's like the answer to the unasked question "What if Bob Burden (of Flaming Carrot fame) were more of a technician?" Cause I've always loved the child-like energy of Burden's stuff, but he's one of those "sloppy" artists, you know? Your stuff has a great Burden-esque energy, but it's a lot more technically sound than his work. Bravo!

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Heres one of my first pictures i got
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...e/Headless.jpg
lol you can ink if ya want

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That's already inked, though...

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Wow pep!!! Your last few have been great!!! I like each one more and more.

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Yeah, Pep's really been powerleveling the art skills here lately.

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From the limited inking I have done on my new tablet, I have found some of the same difficulities you described with doing it by hand. Go slow you get some jaggies, go fast much smoother but impercise. What I have been doing and seems to work ok for me (I tend to draw in a very short strokes so not great at long sweaping lines) is using paths and ajusting pressure, fade etc for long lines, then hand drawing small fine details using the tablet. Drawing by tablet with the nib I have feels kinda like a felt tip pen.

But I am very inexperienced but this is what I have discovered so far.

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Yep, that's a good way to do it.
The thing where you use paths and adjust the fade is the method that I think leads some people to poo-poo digital inking as too mechanical looking. It's a great technique if you're doing modern-looking comics, though. The way that I'm doing it is I'm just using Pressure Sensitivity for the Size Jitter. So it looks more hand-inked. Of course, it's just like inking with a pen, so my hand steadiness is an issue. But then there's the master tool that one doesn't get with a pen...Undo!

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Whoops. I guess I have to change the artist credit attached to my file. Its no longer Agent_Quiksilver. Ok so now it is.

The_Artist

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Or you could try The_Artist_Formerly_Known_As_Agent_Quicksilver

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try using different mediums to ink (i dont suggest softwear, inking is organtic).

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It depends on how you use it. If you have a Wacom tablet and tweak your brushes correctly in Photoshop, you can make it as organic as if you were using pens and brushes. Actually, if you control the fade correctly, it will have MORE of an organic look than technical pens. I'm helping a buddy ink his comic book right now, and he wanted a classic European style to the inks, but he wanted it done in Photoshop. It took me a little bit of messing around in the brush menu, but I got it to work for me. So I'm not using any of those digital inking tricks that give work a mechanical kind of look, I'm basically just drawing with my tablet.

Excellent job. When I see "photo manipulation" I usually cringe, fearing what's to come...(a photo with one filter applied to it? Often) So I was pleasantly surprised to see the excellent quality and the hard work that went into this one.

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I have something I want to discuss with you about a possible project. Ill shoot you a PM.

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/e faint

SURE! I'd be thrilled to work with you.

Oh, and those fixes really helped a lot!

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Thanks for the kind words guys! I finished the piece I was doing for the winner of the Archlord Beta contest. Please take a look and let me know what you think

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It's pretty good. To be honest, I don't like it as much as your traditional comic-style work. One of the things I like most about your inking is the way that you never ever lose track of where the light is (which I often do when inking.) Well, here you seem to have lost track of the light a little. Parts of his armor really flatten out, like the hip pad on his left leg. Just for fun, I saved it and dragged it into Photoshop with one of your more traditional pieces, and desaturated both of them. This Gimmli piece has far less value range than your other work.

Also, and this is a personal preference, because the Fantasy Art genre is filled with successful people who don't do this, but I'd really like to see more interesting color choices. My favorite pieces of yours are when you free up your color sense a little. This one has a lot of "local color" in it: the parts that are orange have dark orange shadows and light orange highlights. Since you're doing a full-on digital painting, I think it would be great if you used your colors more effectively. It might help the flatness if you mixed in some interplay between cool and warm hues and some changes in saturation levels to really make the piece pop.

I hope you take these comments in the spirit in which they are given. I have a tremendous amount of respect for you as an artist, and your work ethic is very inspiring to me. You're one of the backbones of this board. But I think that the new fully painted style isn't at the same level as your traditional comics work, so I wanted to give you some feedback to hopefully help with the fully painted ones in the future.

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My Art Is Complete!
Sinister Stone

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I love looking at tight pencil work and yours is some of the best. I stare at your pencils and deconstruct the linework, absorbing ideas and inspirations.

Someday, you and I will have to do a collaboration. I'm not sure when, or how... but someday...

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Obviously whatever you guys want to do will be great, but I'd love to see Doug's pencils with Jomaro's inks and colors. Or maybe Jomaro's pencils turned into a full digital painting by Doug. Or, hell...BOTH!

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Hey folks, I've been on the grind creating more art! Here is just a tiny sneak peek of what's soon to come

Technophile vs. Cross-Wire Sneaky Peaky

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Jomaro you teasing little <censored.>

That looks great. I love the colors and lighting. I miss the secondary lighting on the pieces where you don't do it. The little green glow in this one has me excited.

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There is also a badge for Toxic Tarantula kills, as a new progress bar has appeared.

This might tie in with the Tarantula gladiator Lord Recluse announced as being part of I7 a few months back.

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Actually I discovered an unlockable contact in Grandville last night. I think his name was Number 206...he was a Tarantula and he wanted me to kill Toxic Tarantulas to unlock him. So that's why they're being tracked.

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So in other words, short version, Cryptic "owns" every single character name on *every* single server now created by players?

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Yes.
And we all knew this when we created our characters in their game.

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See if this is true, marvel and DC would have won their lawsuit against NCsoft like a year ago.

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Incorrect. The ruling wasn't that the copyright violations didn't exist, they won because they aren't liable for copyright violations made by their users. They demonstrated that they make every attempt to prevent copyright violations in-game.

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This is (IMO) clearly spelled out in the EULA. Given that, Arctic Sun's warning hardly seems "too late".

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Not that Artic Sun's warning was too late, but that I (and perhaps others) already have a toon they've marketed and/or sold prior to recreating it in the COX universe.

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This is as against the EULA as you making a toon of Wolverine. It doesn't matter if you are the one who holds the copyright, you're not allowed to recreate copyrighted material inside CoX.

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They believe that the content infringes on COH copyrights (since I made the mistake of putting the fact that my char was level 50 on COH). If I didn't they probably wouldn't have thought twice.

I'm hoping they will realize there is no infringement since I sent them the EULA and the specific excerpts, BUT, if they do not, I write for a couple of tech websites (and one of my articles was frontpaged on both Digg and Fark this weekend), so you can bet I will write about it.

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Well, technically there is an infringement. It's just that NCSoft will overlook for things like fan sites. But the t-shirt site doesn't know if you're going to sell them or not, so they're choosing to err on the side of caution.

Also, I'm not sure if you're trying to get a shirt made of fan art of your character or a screenshot. If it's a screenshot, that's clear infringement.

Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to win this one. The characters you make in CoX are not yours to use.

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IANAL but I think making a T-Shirt with your hero is ok under the acceptable usage clause of the EULA as long as you are not making money off of it (see the second and last paragraph in link). So making the t-shirt is OK, but selling it to someone is not.

My 2 Inf.

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I read the EULA the same way.

Generally speaking, if you made the character using the CoX character creation system, NCSoft owns the rights to that character, but fair use means that you are allowed to use the likeness in a "fan art" capacity, as long as you're not profiting.

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Alright... if I wanted to give it a go, where would I start? Any books or tutorials I should look at?

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I'm going to go with a couple of classics here:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087...Fencoding=UTF8

Dynamic Figure Drawing (Hogarth)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082...F8&s=books

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I havent ever had any art books, with the exception of a Blue Line Art perspective book...but I am very left brained and draw as such. You think either of these books could expand upon whatI know, or do you think theyd screw me up?


sample* http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/2...rlfinal9wy.jpg

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I disagree with the idea that any book with knowledge in it can "screw you up." You just have to learn what to take and what to leave. (Which may be a skill in itself)

But if you're interested in improving your ability to draw stylized/heroic human characters from your imagination, that Hogarth book is tremendous.

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Alright... if I wanted to give it a go, where would I start? Any books or tutorials I should look at?

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I'm going to go with a couple of classics here:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087...Fencoding=UTF8

Dynamic Figure Drawing (Hogarth)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082...F8&s=books

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Shhh. Keep it down. Don't let the people know they can have talent too. There are already too many artists in the world for anyone to make any money at it. Like one of my writing profs used to say: "If you can be discouraged, you should be."

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I'm an art teacher. I understand what you're saying, but you're barking up the wrong tree!

The fact is that most people will choose not to put in the time to become good at it, so I think there's little to worry about. And to the couple that are inspired by the artists on this thread telling them to give it a try, I wish them the best. Most of them aren't going to be trying to get paid for it, but may discover something new about themselves and have a more enriched life. I've been drawing since I was 4 and it has always been something that gave me comfort when I needed it. If I can help a couple of people find that in themselves, I can go to sleep happy at night.