[Comic] DSOF #10 [05-24-08]

WhiteFox · January 10, 2008, 10:01:47 PM

So, yeah, I've been doing a lot of DMFA theme scribbles these days, and I just got Photoshop CS2.

As such, this stuff sucks. Suggestions appreciated.
(Edit: on second glance, it looks better than I thought it did. Certainly better than other stuff I've seen online. Suggestions still appreciated.)

First up, a Warp-Aci. Named Sif.

Sif

Sif is styled after a fox. The color on the tip of his tail is actually a square patch twisted to look like the tip of a foxes tail. The glow around the ruff looks funny, IMHO, and one of the things I need to work on..

Next up, and much worse, is my avatar as a Incubus.
Cubi Smash!
The claws are actually his fingers, looped around twice to increase the size of his fist.
I don't really like the right knee.
The headwingies are kind of rough.
I like how the near hand/arm came out. the shoulder/arm is supposed to look really sinewy. I like how the tentacle fingers came out.
I tried to make the ruff, knee frizz, and tail look somewhere between tentacley and fluffy.
The jaw is supposed to look un-naturaly open too.
Very rough shading. This is new territory for me.
I ran out of room on the page for his wings, they're supposed to be pterodactyl-ish.
That's his clan mark on his cheek.

...I'd almost call this one a WIP. Here's the pencils.
http://www.northernelectric.ca/~whitefox/images/dmfa/CubiWFpencil.jpg

Any way... just thought I'd share. More to come on a regular basis, I hope.

(EDIT: I'm sorry if i seem to be flooding the board with crap, but I'm kind of journaling a bit here too. The only way I can really keep momentum is to try and produce daily, and posting here really, really helps. I wont go into personal problems, but this is important to me, so I appreciate having you guys here. As my work gets better, I'll be making much smaller and less frequent posts of higher quality.

Edit2: images turned into links.
Edit3: Closed my bloody tags.)

Faerie Alex · January 10, 2008, 11:05:07 PM

It looks like the highlights around Sif's legs, paws, & face are a bit too harsh. (At least, that's what it looks like to me.) I might try, maybe, making them more opaque or trying to soften/blur the edges, or both.

Other than that, they look nice. The shadows on your incubus are actually kinda nice. Ya' know, not too in-your-face with it, but enough to highlight the details.

xHaZxMaTx · January 10, 2008, 11:09:01 PM

If these are your first attempts at PS, then very well done.

The only thing I could tell you that could really use some improvement is the highlighting on Sif, as Modelin already mentioned; looks too shiny.

WhiteFox · January 10, 2008, 11:41:36 PM

Strictly speaking, this isn't my *First* work with photoshop. My mom has a home business doing web- and Printwork, and I get paid sometimes to help out. But that's mostly design and layout stuff. Inking and coloring art is a whole different animal that I am just getting acquainted with.

As for the shadows, I put those on their own layer and set the opacity to whatever I like.

I like Sif's look, he looks kind of shiny. (Warp Aci are supposably customizable in appearance... I think I'll use that as my excuse). I do agree that it could be done better, though. Maybe some phongs.

I'm probably going to do a lot of different versions of my avatar, as the various races of Furrae.

WhiteFox · January 11, 2008, 09:06:54 PM

More work. These things always look better when I look at them an hour later.

Do you play chess?
Dar-gon. Yay.
I'm playing more attention to shadows here.
I still don't like how irregular the lines are.

Mythos are cool. I'm not sure whether I like them or 'cubi more. Here's me as a kitusne.

WhiteKitusne
From what I've seen, Mythos seem to be surreal creatures, almost dreamlike, and usualy without fur. This is a bit of a departure from DMFA canon, i guess, but if I'm going to be a mythic fox, it's gotta be kitusne.
That is a Keaton mask he's wearing. I love those things.
I started trying to do some decent fabric look to the near arm, but never really finished. I think I was tearing my hair out over the frizz at 6 AM.
Here's the pencils.
http://www.northernelectric.ca/~whitefox/images/dmfa/mythosWF.jpg
As usual, I like the pencils much better.

I'm starting to get annoyed at how flat everything is. I was really trying to push some depth on the dragon, and it still looks like it was done with poster paints. Then again, dragons don't have much for texture. Next time I draw, I'm going to pay a lot more attention to fabric and fur. I'm also really tired of how gray and dull all the colors are. Might be because I'm using CYMK instead of RGB, but I'm not sure if that'll really make a difference.

Man, how does Amber get all that depth and texture? Her shadows and highlights are so expressive.

(Edit: turned some more images into links.)

Suwako · January 12, 2008, 03:04:12 AM

I like the second picture more than the first for some reason, though the lack of inking on the hands and tail make them look somewhat misplaced.. I like it

like haz said; very well done.

WhiteFox · January 12, 2008, 08:02:39 PM

Alyno: That's kind of what I was going for. Kinda makes him look like he's not wearing cloths... the clothes have something inside them...

More work. Another Cubi version of WF.

Gotta be suggestive and wear belts. Essential cubi traits.
This one drove me insane, probably because it was so much more time intensive than the others. I suppose the more I practice the more endurance I'll get. I could have done more shading, but I just ran out of patience. I like how the legs came out though. I also like the frizz at the shoulders, and the transition from white to gray.
Next time I do this, I ought to use a different shade of blue for the BG. That one's too intense.
His coloration is based on an Arctic fox's summer fur pattern, btw.
How the heck does Amber get all those highlights in the hair? Cripes!
And the lines are still wiggly, durn it! mostly just the wings, though. Which I had to redraw three times.
I might touch this one up further, if I'm not still sick of him tomorrow.

Anyway... I'd really appreciate some constructive criticism.

Tapewolf · January 12, 2008, 08:18:11 PM

Nice. I'm not entirely sure about the shape of the wings. They seem to come out from the shoulders, curl up and then down, which strikes me as being rather frail.

If we look at Pyroduck:
http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_556.php
...the wing branches out in both directions. Abel has half feathered and half bat-wings, but the basic shape Amber uses seems to be common to both. Here's a picture of Abel from behind:
http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_572.php

The other thing I'm not sure about is the tentacle-heads, if that's what they are. They look thin and stringy, and they seem to be branching out from the hair rather than the backwings.
Here's a reference for Dan's tentacles:
http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_378.php

The neck looks about right for a feral canine, but Amber's furres generally have a thinner neck like a human.

Obviously, if you're trying to do your own interpretation rather than copy Amber's design whole, take my comments with a grain of salt...

WhiteFox · January 12, 2008, 08:58:45 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on January 12, 2008, 08:18:11 PM
Nice. I'm not entirely sure about the shape of the wings. They seem to come out from the shoulders, curl up and then down, which strikes me as being rather frail.

The neck looks about right for a feral canine, but Amber's furres generally have a thinner neck like a human.

Obviously, if you're trying to do your own interpretation rather than copy Amber's design whole, take my comments with a grain of salt...

The wings do actually come from the shoulder blades, down and then back up, you just can't see it. From the pterodactyl reference pictures I saw, a given wing has 4 segments to the limb rather than three. Pyroduck's wings go down, up, and down again. These ones go down, up, up again, and down. They do look kinda funny, though.

(EDIT: double checked my refrence. I had it wrong.)

The neck is supposed to be fluffy, that's how I draw foxes.

I'm kinda mixing styles here... Mostly I'm studying Amber's shading and coloring. I haven't changed my drawing style much, but that's been influenced by Amber for the last five years, at least.

WhiteFox · January 13, 2008, 05:01:09 PM

New inccubus pic. I might do another pic from behind, just to study the wings. I'm still not happy with it, but overall it's much better quality than what I've done so far.

The wings are better, but still look a bit off.
I really simplified the coloring here, especially around the face. it was getting way to complicated. I also took the outline off the left membrane, I still can't tell which side I like more.
I also did much better on the shading on the wing lim, this time around.
The lines are much less wiggley too. Not perfect, but much better.

Anyway, comments would be much appreciated. I'm still learning here.

EDIT: I might do some wing studies for a bit. Might be a day or two before I post more PSP stuff.

Tapewolf · January 13, 2008, 07:27:48 PM

Yeah, that looks a lot better for the wings. You might want to make the fluff of fur at the shoulders a little more subdued, e.g. http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_863.php ... as it looks kind of like spikes, and I'm kind of expecting to see more evidence of fuzz on his arms as a result.

I do like the way you've used the highlighting on the arms to show the muscle structure. That works well.

The muzzle, however, looks a little short, especially when compared to the previous picture.

WhiteFox · January 13, 2008, 10:59:56 PM

I was trying to simplify the face, which is why the muzzle looks so short. I'll probably go with a length somewhere in between.

As for the fuzz, I like putting a lot of fuzz on my avatar. Arctic foxes are *really* fluffy.

Anyway, back to drawing. Thanks for the suggestions.

WhiteFox · January 15, 2008, 12:39:33 PM

Tapewolf had some comments about the wings I had on my incubus, so that got me started on a quest for improvement. Results now stand before you!

Pardon me while I blog a bit...

First off, I figured I'd take at look at how Amber draws wings and imitate the style. Pretty much copying.
Page 1
I even noted the comic I was using for reference. I thought I did pretty good.

Now, for me to draw something without reference, I have to *understand* it. As soon as I can understand it, I can draw it from any position, any angle. But to do that, I usually have to do some life drawings. I looked up some pictures of birds on Wikipedia. Since I liked em, I figured I'd post some of the better sketches for the heck of it.
Osprey
Kite
Hawk
Voilá. I drew this guy with no references.
Chaucer

Next up, I was going to do some draconic/bat wings.

This didn't go so well as the bird wings.

Let's take a look at Pyroduck. The bottom of his wings have two points. One at the end, that meets up with his wingtip. The other, however, looks like it meets up with a different strut.

Now, an elbow spike is used quiet often in fantasy art. Pyroduck certainly seems to have one. There's one problem though.

NO FLYING CREATURE ON EARTH HAS AN ELBOW SPIKE. As far as I could tell.

Which means I can't find a reference image for it. Well, alright, I'll just look at some bats. Back to Pyroduck up there... his membranes arc at the bottom. Bat wings don't do this. Outstretched or closed, I couldn't find any reference images of a batwing that arc'd sharply at the bottom. I think I found about three more biological impossibleties with how I wanted to draw the wings before I gave up.

I did get this out of it, though. I think it's quite good.
Terra Chiro
Mmm. Nice... wings. I was looking at her wings. Really.

(Edit: I just noticed her wing goes straight up from her back, and lacks an elbow. I made a mistake while inking, D'oh.)

Anyway... those're my adventures so far. It's 6AM now, so I'm getting some sleep and trying some outstretched batwing designs tomorrow. I'm also proud to declare that I've gotten comfortable inking and coloring at my current skill level.

Comments, of course, appreciated.

[EDIT2] Turned some images into links.

WhiteFox · January 16, 2008, 12:33:37 AM

Grr. Tired of wracking my brain about technical stuff. I gotta draw a comic. Maybe a fanfic, or DFMA setting with original characters.

Anyone got any suggestions? If I'm gonna post work here, it might as well be something people would want to see.

Edit:
I came up with some original characters and a story set in DMFA. I also resolved most of my issues with wing anatomy.

Any comments about art in the above post would still be appreciated.

Tapewolf · January 16, 2008, 06:53:50 PM

That's a good one of the osprey, and it shows in the bird-guy.
As for Pyroduck, and especially when compared to your 'true bat-wings' figure, it certainly seems that 'bat-wings' is a misnomer. 'Dragon wings' is perhaps more apt?

WhiteFox · January 16, 2008, 11:16:59 PM

Well, yeah, Dragon wings. But real life anatomical reference for dragons wings isn't easy to come by. Bats is the closest I could get.

I'll come clean, I'm better at life drawing than I am at cartooning. If I don't have a real life reference, I don't do to good at cartooning it. I should manage, though.

rt · January 17, 2008, 10:20:23 AM

Quote from: WhiteFox on January 16, 2008, 11:16:59 PM
Well, yeah, Dragon wings. But real life anatomical reference for dragons wings isn't easy to come by. Bats is the closest I could get.

Well it is not 'real life' but you could pick up any of those newer movies with dragons in it. Some of the cgi guys really do alot of research into how winged creatures really work, and consider musculature, skeleton, and how it would all fit together. As close as you'll get to real life.

Actually strike that last part, there were a few winged dinosaurs, that might be a bit closer to real life.

For when you arer back to the technical brain wraking

As for the art, artic fox cool .. those are indeed fluffy little dudes. That's got to be hard to ballance fluff, vs. something left to draw other than a ball of fluff.

I can't pick out anything in particular with your art, but overall it does look like you've put alot of thought int othe design/posing/details of your characters here. A good thing

WhiteFox · January 17, 2008, 11:04:00 AM

Actually, the thing about "No natural creature having the elbow spikes" I got that from the Lord of the Rings commentaries. As for the winged dinosaurs, I took a look at a pterodactyl for the second WF pic, which helped me sort out the bones. Unfortunatly, we don't really know how the skin behaved depending on the pose of the wing.

I just wanna say thanks, 'cause I've spent a long time building up my drawing skills time and haven't really had anyone to show this stuff to. Learning photoshop makes me feel like I'm back in kindergarden playing with crayons, so I feel kinda bad putting this crap up.

There's also a *lot* of crap it since I produce in fits and spurts.

(And yeah, I know it's crap. I'm getting better tho, so I'm happy.)

Anyway... I havn't slept in about 20 hours, so I'm gonna go glomp a pillow.

WhiteFox · January 18, 2008, 03:52:08 AM

Well, I'm gonna post this mostly because I spent three days working on it. I hate everything about it, though. It was good practice, though.

Intro Comic

The proportions of the panels are all off because I forgot the sketchbook I use for comics doesn't fit on my scanner.

About the only thing I'm keeping from this comic is the script and Ré. Jade and Theonor are getting makeovers, since I jumped feet first into making the comic and didn't take enough time to develop the characters.

Comments appreciated.

Tapewolf · January 18, 2008, 02:02:29 PM

Not bad. Off to a better start than DMFA itself had.

I'm assuming the yellow cheetah-like person is the same figure but to be honest it's a little hard to be certain (the clothes change colour, and one seems to have horns). There are noticeable differences between the other guy in the bottom two panels, in the left one he looks kind of squirrel-like, but the profile view quickly dispels that impression.

More levels of shading in the backgrounds would be an improvement as well, or at least some kind of shading to the flat green grass.

Anyway, I'm keeping my eye on this. It looks like it has distinct potential.

Zedd · January 18, 2008, 02:08:27 PM

Indeed it looks inpressive but I far warn myself for alot things

Faerie Alex · January 19, 2008, 04:22:30 PM

I'm having a hard time telling what's up with the text in the rectangles. At some points, it seems like thoughts (for which rectangles are what I'd normally think of), but in the 4th panel, it seems more like it's spoken rather than thought.

Tapewolf · January 19, 2008, 04:25:40 PM

Quote from: modelincard on January 19, 2008, 04:22:30 PM
but in the 4th panel, it seems more like it's spoken rather than thought.

It's all narration, I believe.

Faerie Alex · January 19, 2008, 04:28:59 PM

Yeah, that's kinda what I meant. Just that in he last panel, it might be more apt to use thought bubbles or speech bubbles for an active thought, as opposed to narration, which I normally think of as a thought that's removed from the actual action of the comic.

WhiteFox · January 19, 2008, 10:38:51 PM

The rectangles are all Jades thoughts. The events in panel 4 are supposed to be so quick, she doesn't have time to voice them out loud.

I don't ever like to use a narrator. I'd rather show the reader what's going on instead of telling them. in this case, Jade is sort of acting like a narrator.

llearch n'n'daCorna · January 20, 2008, 03:43:21 AM

Hmm. Thought bubbles are, by convention, bubbular, rather than square.

Not a criticism, merely a mention.

WhiteFox · January 21, 2008, 01:09:08 AM

I know I've seen rectangles used as thought baloons at times... Maybe it'd be more appropriate if they were narrating a flashback, which was the tone I wanted to set here.

Still, I'll keep it in mind. Thanks.

(Edit) Gee, I knew I saw squared thought baloons somewhere before...

Tapewolf · January 21, 2008, 04:35:58 AM

Quote from: WhiteFox on January 21, 2008, 01:09:08 AM
Gee, I knew I saw squared thought baloons somewhere before...

I'd call that narration, rather than thoughts. IMHO the difference between those and what you've done is that they are written as though they are reviewing the past, like a diary entry, whereas yours are suddenly interrupted by an event in the present.

WhiteFox · January 21, 2008, 08:56:27 PM

Yeah. I did say about as much.

I think I was going for a soliloquy here... but kinda didn't. That's what Fa'Lina is basically giving us.

Plus, the "Wait, what?" comment at the end was supposed to be a humorous break in the mood. Which would have worked better if I'd gotten the rest of the script done well.

The strip was very very rushed, mostly because when I was working on it a lot of ideas were coming out of me all at once. Next one'll be better, I promise.

WhiteFox · January 30, 2008, 02:57:36 AM

Just. Shoot. Me.

It's been over a week, and I'm about ready to set fire to something. Here's the abridged version:
-4 days troubleshooting.
-1 day reinstalling OS.
-1 day installing Gimp (Which I couldn't find scanner drivers for.)
-1 day reinstalling PSP CS2
-1 day surfing and installing drivers for CS2.

And another day to get back into drawing. And then I had to relearn everything I forgot with photoshop again. Here's the results.

Comic #02
In the third panel, you're looking at wrought iron bars.
I don't like a lot of this. I'll live with it, though.

I'll probably have another comic up in a day or two, but right now I'm so PO'd at my computer, I might freak just posting this. I need sleep.

I'm going to change a lot of stuff about Jade, mostly colors, in the immediate future. The outfit is already different but you don't get much of a good look at it. I didn't really plan Jade or Theo before I started drawing all this. I think I jumped straight into drawing comics and didn't give as much thought to my characters appearance as I should have.

Comic 3 and 4 are going to be better. At least, if the pencils are any indication.

...Just. Shoot. Me.

[EDIT] As usual, I've decided it's not as bad as I thought it was. I cut back some of my whining.