[Comic] [MLP] Friendship is Science! [09-20-'11]

[WhiteFox]

Yay.

[Turnsky]

what's this? do i sense.... LINE TOOL USE?! 

[WhiteFox]

Actually, it's a Hunt-512 Ex-Fine Bowl Point.

Right tools for the right job.

[Turnsky]

Actually, it's a Hunt-512 Ex-Fine Bowl Point.

Right tools for the right job.

actually given it's MLP, adobe flash would've been the right tool. 

[Nyil]

Even in Photoshop, that Flash look can still be achieved relatively easily. Pen tool everything  in with thick black lines, select -> color range, then color the lines in. S' how I did my MLP commissions anyways, and I haven't had a single complaint from any brony yet.

Curse you, Ambaargh...

[WhiteFox]

Normally, I use a hawk quill. It's great for feathering and hatching, but it's really not suitable for solid, even lines, and it's such a fine point that it tends to look scratchy. The 512-EF is a lot bolder and rounded, and moves a lot more smoothly over the paper.

I did do a fair bit of touching up in photoshop with a hard edge airbrush, but most of that was stuff that had to be completely redrawn. This page took a lot less polishing than I usually have to do, and I'm kinda glad to make some progress on getting tidier with my line art.

Backgrounds were done with the pencil tool and paint bucket. Panels and speech balloons were done with a variety of selection tools/commands, and Fill/Stroke: there's no way I could do lines like those on paper. Yet.

Flash or other assorted means of vectors would have been the wrong tools, because I do not know how to use them. Nor do I particularly want to, since I usually can't stand vector art or coloured lines.

So... does anyone have anything to say about the actual comic? I thought i did okay with the characters, for a first real attempt at drawing them.

I'm kinda proud of the joke, too. I came up with it myself, I thought it was pretty clever...

[Turnsky]

well you did shrink it down a fair bit, and thus it makes it hard to see if there's any flaws. however it does look uncharacteristically processed for your work, and given your little spiel about 'the right tools' here, i'll cite that the current series of MLP, is entirely produced in adobe flash, a vector animation program no less. Ergo, flash is 'the right tool'.

one does not use a wrench to hammer in a nail simply because they do not like hammers or are no good at using them.

the Right tool for the Right Job, you said. not "this tool for this job because i'm only good at using this" one needs to learn to diversify in what they're capable of using. that might mean pulling your head out of the sand over vectors and actually learning it.

[WhiteFox]

I know how to use Flash, I just don't like it for drawing. I have used it for stuff, like the bastard-gothic font I made for the DSOF website:

Pardon the small scale.
Or diagrams for that tutorial I was working on for how to draw icosahedrons:

I figured out how to do that on my own. Dodecahedrons were a much bigger pain in the tail.

I know how to use nib pens. An MLP comic requires a smoother line than I usually go for. The 512 makes a smoother line than a hawk-quill. So that's the right tool for me.

If I were going to do a lot of MLP stuff, I'd take the time to learn Flash, but this is all just for fun. And, if I were a one trick pony, this comic would have been hatched.

I actually do a fair bit of diversification. I started Gabriel's backstory comic just to try hatching, and I did this MLP comic as much to get the idea out of my head as to attempt some smoother lineart. I do calligraphy on occasion, which uses a completely different type of nib. I've also messed around with brushes and brush pens. I even tried colouring with inks, and messed around with india ink and graphic white on sepia coloured paper. I've tried inking with a cracked chunk of bamboo, a Q-Tip, and once I tried a used hypodermic needle (I'm diabetic, and I forgot my nibs that day. It doesn't work, by the way). In college, I did that exercise where you use an entire ball point pen on one piece of paper without lifting it. I have half a dozen micron pens in my pencil case that I toy around with on occasion, and loan out to friends when I don't want to give them my good stuff.

I've done a little work with charcoal, conte, coloured pencils, pastels, and dropped about 40$ on copics just to see what the fuss was about. I came to use the pencil I use, a staedler 2mm lead holder, after switching from mechanical and wooden pencils.  I've done some painting with gouache, acrylics, and watercolours once or twice. I developed my colouring process in Photoshop from the ground up, when I decided that colouring on paper was just not worth it. When I was twelve and mom was teaching me life drawing, I did blind contour, gesture, and negative-space drawings.

I've worked with clay, plaster of paris, and soapstone carving. I've designed original celtic knots, logos, web sites, and some very interesting chainmaille jewelry, and I've been paid good money for them. I've done some flash animation, 3D animation (got a job at a game studio doing graphics, but they closed up shop before my week long trial period was through), and stop-motion animation. I also carry a digital camera with me these days. Mostly for reference images.

Is that enough diversification?

if you're wondering why I haven't posted any of this stuff... though, some of it I have... it's because I'm not looking for feedback on any of it.

I keep coming back to three particular pen nibs and india ink because, well... sweet Celestia in a bucket, how I LOVE working with them. Seriously. The crisp solid black line, the tactile feel of a steel point moving across bristol board, the subtle differences in line depending on the tilt and roll of the pen, each nib having it's own personality and behavior. Never push a hawk quill on anything but bristol, it'll catch and flick. Hawk quills get the finest lines when I touch the side of the point to the paper. Bowl points like to drip. Mapping pens will cut the paper with the least bit of pressure. I'm a bit of a romantic, and far too anachronistic, but I just love pen and ink.

I suppose the real reason I stick to pens rather than vectors is that, in the end, I'd just be trying to imitate a pen stroke. I'd feel like I was trying to fake something I love to do for real.

Funny you mentioned the shrinking down to reduce flaws... I drew it extra large for the exact purpose of doing just that, and it's something I'm planning on doing as standard operating procedure from now on. I got the idea from Scott McCloud's "Making Comics," which mentioned that pro artists would draw pages at 133%-150% of the scale at which they'd be published. Glad to see it works. Is it still readable, though? Visually?

So... I still don't know what anyone thinks of the comic itself.

Apart from a backhanded compliment from Turnsky. Which was more of an admission than a compliment. And not even a particularly encouraging admission: I don't really like the processed look.

[EDIT] Oh, I thought of another relevant cliche: "A rolling stone gathers no moss." When it comes to pens, I really wanna be good with them, and I'm in it for the long haul.

[Turnsky]

oookay, time to split some hairs i think.
*puts on vulcan ears*

You seem to say to no uncertain terms that you do not like the 'processed look' and yet.

I did do a fair bit of touching up in photoshop with a hard edge airbrush, but most of that was stuff that had to be completely redrawn. This page took a lot less polishing than I usually have to do, and I'm kinda glad to make some progress on getting tidier with my line art.
Backgrounds were done with the pencil tool and paint bucket. Panels and speech balloons were done with a variety of selection tools/commands, and Fill/Stroke: there's no way I could do lines like those on paper. Yet.

This is 'processing via digital means' while yes, you did ink it traditionally (with no line-variance, mind), you fixed mistakes, and otherwise fully produced via photoshop, and again, the high amount of size compression present also serves to hide any 'small mistakes' you might've made with your inking.
I'd call this "highly processed" if anything. As much as -anything- i could possibly ever do via photoshop.
you should concentrate on getting a solid line down instead of worrying about crosshatching, feathering and so on. which are all techniques that can be utilised with any pen i might add, something we've discussed before i believe?

[Damaris]

Your vocal layouts need more work.  I found several of the panel with multiple people talking to be difficult to understand (Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, specifically.)

I also felt the comic had no basis going in - none of the panels relate to each other until the end - I especially spent several minutes trying to figure out how the third built upon the first two, so by the time I got to the end, I was more annoyed than amused.  Placing some kind of orienting "hmm, I wonder" panel at the beginning, and proving an alternate border around the rest of the panels would have help alleviate that annoyance.

To weigh in on the "right tools for right job" debate, I hate to hear that. People should use whatever they want to do art.  However, I'm going to have to say - if it was "the right job" then you would have also nailed the pony outline style. You did art with the tool you like, and that's great, but I wouldn't call it the right job, because you didn't effectively complete the style.

[Darkmoon]

As a graphic designer:

If you're trying to emulate the look of a particular work of art (in this case, My Little Pony's new series), the "best tool" for that job would be the tool the designers used. In this case, they created the series in a vector art program -- I will assume Adobe Flash...

Which is something I will never understand. I don't see why people do vector drawing in Flash. Flash is great for animation, but Illustrator is the superior vector drawing program (if you have the Adobe suite, there's no reason to draw in Flash since you already have Illustrator).

Regardless, your "hate" of vector art makes no sense. Plainly you liked it enough to want to draw a My Little Pony fanart, but in the same posting shit on the "art style" because you can't be bothered to learn it. That's really smart.

As a comic "professional":

I am a purveyor of shitty comics (CVRPG, available wherever sprite comics are sold -- ask your comic retailers!). I've been doing that for the better part of a decade, so when it comes to layout, story flow, and jokes, I think I have enough experience to properly critique your comic.

In short, I'm not seeing anything in this comic I would classify as "competition".

For one, your layout is uninspired. You made a standard six-panel layout, and then filled it static characters and bland backgrounds. The comic has no energy to it, no spark. You could have helped that out by "layering" the panels one on top of another (something I regularly do in my own comic to give "talky" strips more energy instead of just a bunch of static talking heads).

You also could have drawn more backgrounds. I count two even remotely detailed backgrounds, and the rest of just one colors rooms or, what I'm assume is, a hill. Boring.

Part of using a static layout, such as the standard six-panel, is to use the space provided to actually do something with the artwork. Here, it's like you drew the six panels because you didn't have a better idea of how to layout the comic, and then just wanted to rush through the actual "art" process just so you could write your dialogue.

And, speaking of the wondrous script: it sucks. As Damaris pointed out, it's hard to tell what's going on from frame to frame. Is it telling a story? Is it just a series of one-panel vignettes? If it's a series of one-panels, what's the relation from one panel to the next?

There's no narrative thrust. Your intro panel doesn't give the reader any idea of what we're supposed to be reading, and the interior panels don't have a story.

And as for your "joke", I assume it was supposed to be funny. Maybe you can explain that for me, since I didn't find the "funny" in it.

There you go. Enjoy your critique, as requested.

[Tapewolf]

And, speaking of the wondrous script: it sucks. As Damaris pointed out, it's hard to tell what's going on from frame to frame. Is it telling a story? Is it just a series of one-panel vignettes? If it's a series of one-panels, what's the relation from one panel to the next?

There's no narrative thrust. Your intro panel doesn't give the reader any idea of what we're supposed to be reading, and the interior panels don't have a story.

And as for your "joke", I assume it was supposed to be funny. Maybe you can explain that for me, since I didn't find the "funny" in it.

Panels 1-5 are basically a recap of some scenes from the cartoon series.  If you've seen it you'll probably get what he's getting at and you may find it amusing (which I did).  Coming at it without that background, no, it's not going to make much sense.

[Darkmoon]

Regardless of in-continuity references, the comic doesn't make sense to most (obviously not all) readers. CVRPG may be a Castlevania-related comic, but in-continuity jokes are still explained enough for lay-people to read them.

[WhiteFox]

I do appreciate the comments, actually. Particularly about the opening panel not establishing anything about what's going on, and my complete failure to make the joke comprehensible to anyone not familiar with the show.

Me and speech balloons have this ongoing struggle. I see I'm going to have to keep working on that.

Regardless, your "hate" of vector art makes no sense. Plainly you liked it enough to want to draw a My Little Pony fanart, but in the same posting shit on the "art style" because you can't be bothered to learn it. That's really smart.

That... I should retract that. I don't hate vector art on principal, I've seen plenty of it that I like. What I truly can't stand is working with vector art programs. I can do it, but I really don't enjoy it. I'll do it when I'm paid to, but not on my own time.

The vector art I really don't like is the stuff that imitates brush or pen strokes. It looks artificial, sterile, fake. Well, most of the time.

As for doing an MLP comic, I did it for two reasons. First, I love the show. I love it for the animation, and the writing, and everything but the vector graphics themselves. You won't hear me "talking shit" about the style, either: I've seen a fair bit of Lauren Faust's pencil and paper dev art on her DA page, and I love it. But... well, I like the pencil sketches more than the vectors used in the show. Second, and I probably wouldn't have made the comic if it weren't for this, even if I don't like the clean line look, I thought it'd be a good exercise to try. Practice something that I don't normally take the time to focus on specifically.

In retrospect, I have to admit, the "right tools" comment was pretty moronic.

So, I do appreciate the critique, very much so. And I apologize for speaking so harshly of vector graphics.

[Turnsky]

FYI: print is 300 dpi, screen is 72 dpi, most scanners work at 200/300 dpi, most artists scan art 600+ dpi scan resolution.

bear in mind that your comic has actually less width to it than your average 3-panel Garfield syndicated strip in the newspaper.

Edit: also as i've stated before, MLP FIM is completely animated in Adobe flash.

so's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zuh0Xaw9xA

[WhiteFox]

FYI: print is 300 dpi, screen is 72 dpi, most scanners work at 200/300 dpi, most artists scan art 600+ dpi scan resolution.

I know that. This is why I drew the image about 50% larger on the page than I usually would, scanned the image at 800dpi, and reduced it to 1/16th size, effectively scaling back down what was drawn at a larger scale.

FYI: My mother has been a graphic designer for over twenty years. I know plenty about dpi and resolution.

Edit: also as i've stated before, MLP FIM is completely animated in Adobe flash.

I know.  I like a lot of things about MLP:FiM, but the vector graphics isn't one of them.

When I say I like the animation, I mean that I like how stuff moves. Squash and stretch. Anticipatory actions and secondary motion. Walk cycles. Ballistics.

so's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zuh0Xaw9xA

I like Samurai Jack.

[Turnsky]

so's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zuh0Xaw9xA

I like Samurai Jack.

uh... what's that got to do with the price of tea in china?

[WhiteFox]

so's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zuh0Xaw9xA

I like Samurai Jack.

uh... what's that got to do with the price of tea in china?

Depends. What does Wakfu have to do with this conversation?

[Keleth]

Wakfu is completely Vector.

[Darkmoon]

Here's something about vector art: it can suit any size, any scale.

And, for the record, you can get results that mirror "fine art" with vector if you know what you're doing. I've redrawn Amber's art in vector programs. Currently there's a 7 foot tall banner of Miss Mab that we use at shows. Drawn by Mab. Redrawn by me. You'd never know the difference unless I told you it was vector.

What you hate isn't vector art. What you hate is flat art. Don't confuse the two.

[WhiteFox]

What you hate isn't vector art. What you hate is flat art.

Yes, bingo. Perfect. That's exactly what I've been failing to put into words, thank you.  

Don't confuse the two.

That's why I retracted my statements, above.

[AmberCross]

Speaking of Wakfu... (blatently dropping in here, sorry) I would like to watch it but I can't find any actual episodes, regardless of language. Furthermore I can find snippets of it in Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, even Polish, but not English. Any advice? Nevermind! Found it. It's in french, but I can work with that.

And to make this slightly relevant, I was a bit thrown by what the relevancy was, but I did get the joke in the last panel and found it to be quite funny. So there's my two cents.