Click to view a bigger size on DeviantArt
I simply adore how this page turned out – here’s hoping the rest of the chapter ends up being this beautiful, too. :)
Switching from “comic” to painting style was propably the best thing I’ve ever done for Traces of Chaos. This is exactly how I want it to look – Well, I need much more practice and a bit more elegance in my brush strokes, but it’s definitivly the right direction.
I do worry a bit about the faces, though.
I doubt I’ll ever again have trouble with having to colour my lineart… And yes, this is a snippet from the next page. *whistles happy*
Chapter 1, page 21, detail
You know, I’d never thought I’d hit that milestone, this chapter took way to long. But certain regrets aside, it got done and I am really happy with it!
And I did learn a few lessons from it, too:
Quite an important realization in itself – sketching, writing, lineart is creating the story, while colouring is refining it. A necessary step, but refining is always a bit boring.
Chapter 1 page 14, detail
I realised this a few pages ago, but I didn’t want a strong style break in the middle of the chapter, so ai stuck with it. But now that the new chapter has started, I’m free to mix it up a bit. I’ve got plans!
Although it’s highly unlikely that you’ll see much of a difference. As long as it’s more comfortable for me, all is well.
It’s far more important than the details! Shapes decide if something is interesting or not, silhouettes decide if a pose is readable or not. Both are defined by solid colours, not by the outline. Hence why I can’t imagine ToC in black and white – all the character designs were done with colour in mind!
My shapes are currently all over the place, but I just recently started paying attention to them. These days I am studying photographs and illustrations by the (sometimes not so) old masters in order to see how they solved that problem and my understanding is definitivly growing.
The whole art thing? It’s my hobby. And figuring out how to get better on my own is where all the fun lies for me.
Barging in and attempting to give advice I didn’t explicitly ask for is akin to interrupting me while playing a video game, snatching the controller out of my hands and going “hey, you’re wrong, let me solve that for you” and throwing it back with a “look, I solved that game for you, how do you dare to be upset!?”.
I hate that.
No matter how well meaning, it’s rude, disrespectful and most importantly, it’s taking the fun out of the whole drawing thing and makes me want to never touch that particular page again. It defeats the purpose of the game.
If I am stuck on something I’ll read up and/or ask. But until then it’s my game and my puzzle. Don’t attempt to solve it for me.
Chapter 1 page 3, detail
I need to write my comic in thumbnail sketches – basically, I need to handle both panel layout, character positions and dialogue at the same ime. Trying to do a “normal” comic script does not work well for me. Now mind you, I am really good at working from a comic script, I am just horrible at writing one. I’ve got a very visual mind.
Thank goodness for outlines.
Additionally I’m doing much better by limiting my sketching to the pages of the scene or sequal at the same time. Everything else needs to go to the rough outline (if plotpoint) or the notes-folder (if funny faces or dialogue). But this method leaves me with less room for editing, which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I can’t overwork my writing, a curse because I can’t streamline it.
This might change the more experienced I become, but for now that works best.
Example: Rell and Chona really should’ve been one character, simply to streamline the whole thing. Annoying, but they’re here now and so I need to figure out how to give both a story purpose. That’s how new storylines are discovered, people.
On that note…
I am very impatient, always trying to get to the next step before the current one is finished – that got me into trouble more than once. If I start detailing characters before the sketches are fully done, I end up having to work around strange poses or throw out already finished art, which, well, it eats time and lowers the quality of the end product. Same goes with inking and colouring. One step after another.
I know it’s a bad habit, but the only thing that helps is more patience, but that, too, is a matter of experience.
In the end, learning any skill is a matter of time and attention to what worked out how, even art.
So the next step? Doing the next chapter and learning from that.
I’m looking forward to it.
If I were to design Chalcara today, she’d look quite different. More regal. More powerful. She’d definitivly have more … outfit on her.
But If I were to redesign Chalcara to bring it in line with what I know about character design these days, she wouldn’t be my Chalcara anymore. She, for all intents and purposes, is a legacy character from a time long gone; she’d been concived years before Siendes came around; back then when Mirrough still was supposed to be a whiny, powerless teenager kidnapped from an interstellar highschool. Her outfit irks me, but well, it’s hers. When her made her, I really didn’t know better.
Now, I made a lot incremental improvments during the last year year. Without her armour, her design’s bland enough not to look tittilating, even though I still need to reduce her most common super power a bit1. The-without-armour blandness serves both character and plot purposes, so it’s actually intended.
And when she does wear her armour, the focus is on her broad shoulders instead her boobs, especially now that I try to pull her gem out of her cleavage and closer to her neck. She’s got a very shoulder-heavy design these days and I am still looking for ways how to stress that even more2.
But no, her outfit’s not really what I do regret creating. I can work with that. Even if it means that now I have to design Pridelord Humar to look regal in a loincloth, not an easy feat, but, well… What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If the ladies dress skimpy, my gentlemen will too. Fair’s fair.
Granted, I felt a bit iffy about it when I drew it, but thought, what the hell. I expected jokes. I got them.
It’s preservence of them, that took me by surprise. And how they coloured perceptions of Chalcara for the last of the chapter.
I shouldn’t have been that fucking naive.
…
It’s hard to make readers respect a character that’s presented as titellating. Fanservice might be pretty, but as a characterization tool it’s more that problematic. Because unfortionally the fuckability of a person is inverse proportional to their respectability3. Oh, I wish it weren’t that way, but hey, the ‘good’ ol’ virgin whore dychotomy is still alive and kicking – and whores are to be used, not to be respected.
In the end it’s hard enough to make readers respect a female character even without putting her comprimising positions. While people in general find it easier to grow emotionally invested in a female character than to a male one, those investment do not necessarly command respect. They can. More often than not they don’t. All those numerous “she’s such a slut/frigid bitch and deserves pain” rants usually come from a place of emotional investment, too.
Anyway, I disgress.
Between Chalcara design and those poses, I’m afraid I did quite a bit of damage to how I actually want people to see her. I might be able to fix it, at least for some readers. Right now the best thing I can do is to stop putting her into compromising positions. But after how I portrayed her in the first chapter, I will have a tough time to build her up to the respect commanding, fear inducing powerhorse she’s supposed to be.
Let’s hope I’ll manage it.
In the end it’s just sad that despite all my rants about objectification of women in media, I fell into the trap of doing it myself. *sigh* But maybe it just goes to show how persuavive that shit actually is.
I Really Fell In Love With This Little Blog…
Warm-up Doodle #05 – Silent Suns, The Killer At Work
Warm-up Doodles #03 – Silent Suns, The Pilot
Warm-up Doodles #01 – Silent Suns, the Killer
Warm-up Doodles #12 – SiS, The Playboy.
Walley Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work
Warm-up Doodles #11 – SiS, Dragondress Girl
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I'm a German artist in my early thirties, who spends way too much time infront of a computer screen. An affinity for digital art, a dayjob as software developer and WoW will do that to you. Still, even I get to see the daystar sometimes. It’s incredibly bright and in dire need of a dimmer.
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