Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Technique Tuesday: Creature Design
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Backstage Pass February: Samantha Davies
Look What We Got For You! A Backstage Pass!
In This Month Of Love, We'd Love You To Meet Samantha Davies!
Samantha, Why Don't You Tell Us About Yourself?
I’m a UK comics artist who studied animation but is bad at being told what to draw
Main Projects
Stutterhug - an ongoing collection of all ages short silent comics, containing many hugs and awkward looks. Can be found on Twitter, Tumblr and PatreonThe Shape of Things- an upcoming longer comics project, the first and second parts are up.
Other Hobbies, Guilty Pleasures and Obsessions
Reading fantasy, learning weird animal facts, ghost stories, great white sharks and the dumbo octopus.
So, tell me about your early experience. How did you fall in love with telling stories in pictures?
I didn’t have access to print comics in my town as a kid, but I discovered webcomics as a younger teenager and got caught that way.
I started trying to learn to draw largely because people online showed it was possible to improve over time, before that I assumed it was just a talent you were born with. It took a long time before I found a way of making comics I was comfortable with, and I’m still learning every time I draw one.
I thumbnail and sketch with pen on lined paper, then I do all my final work in Manga Studio.
Every comic starts with my thoughts wandering about, usually during a walk or on a bus. I’ll have an idea and jot it down in my notebook.Sometimes it’s months before I come to drawing it, sometimes I’ll want to do it straight away, depending on how clearly I can see how it will work as a comic. I sketch very scribbly thumbnails on paper, then sketch and ink the final version in MS.
What media and programs do you work in to produce your project?
I thumbnail and sketch with pen on lined paper, then I do all my final work in Manga Studio.
Can you tell me about your typical day or strip-creation session? How does your work process flow from idea to finished page?
Every comic starts with my thoughts wandering about, usually during a walk or on a bus. I’ll have an idea and jot it down in my notebook.Sometimes it’s months before I come to drawing it, sometimes I’ll want to do it straight away, depending on how clearly I can see how it will work as a comic. I sketch very scribbly thumbnails on paper, then sketch and ink the final version in MS.
What’s the most difficult part of your work?
Colouring! even though it’s so minimal, I can sometimes take a long time before I find a colour scheme I like, and will often recolour the first page several times over.
Can you tell me about your storytelling process? Do you prefer to script your stories, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?
Between, I never draw a final comic without an idea to start from, but I usually only have a few words to a sentence in my notebook describing the comic. Something like ‘Wolves howl to welcome someone home’ or ‘appeasing angry demon rabbit’ The details are all worked out in the sketching.
Where do you draw the inspiration for your skit-like strips?
Animation is a big one, obviously. While studying it at university we would watch lots of 1940s and 50s shorts, I’d find the character designs, posing and draftsmanship beautiful, but the stories didn’t connect.
I think I tried to do a version of that style if gestural storytelling with the sorts of things I wanted to see. The ‘Infinite Canvas’ approach lots of webcomics folk make use of was the other big one for me, I ditched the idea of pages and just go on and on until the story is done.
I think I’m often trying to teach myself a lesson I should already know, but keep forgetting! Or sometimes it’s something I’m trying to work through but don’t have an answer for. All of them feel embarrassingly personal when I read back.
How much of a buffer do you like to keep?
I like to be two strips ahead, but I’ve worked with no buffer a couple of times, which fills me with dread. If I think of a longer idea (15 pages +), that can mess up my schedule completely - and I do that quite a lot :I
Something hopeful, or maybe just that moment of ‘I feel this way too’
Your strips often feel they’re telling readers something important about love and relationships a la Aesop’s Fables. Do you work with a moral lesson in mind?
I think I’m often trying to teach myself a lesson I should already know, but keep forgetting! Or sometimes it’s something I’m trying to work through but don’t have an answer for. All of them feel embarrassingly personal when I read back.
How much of a buffer do you like to keep?
I like to be two strips ahead, but I’ve worked with no buffer a couple of times, which fills me with dread. If I think of a longer idea (15 pages +), that can mess up my schedule completely - and I do that quite a lot :I
What message do you hope readers take away from your work?
Something hopeful, or maybe just that moment of ‘I feel this way too’
What keeps you devoted to telling the story you’re telling?
Compulsion! I just keep doing it and start feeling weird if I go a week without working on a comic. Send help, please.
Thanks For All The Sweet Moments Samantha!
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Dobble & Ed: A Door Revisted
Aliens among us! Doors to another world! Abominable
snowmen! You think you’ve seen it all? Wait 'til you feast your eyes
on…
Dobble & Ed: A Door Revisited
The Rating
For fairness’ sake, consider this rating to be…relatively arbitrary.
This is a spin-off of a pre-existing comic. Given the choice between seeking out the source comic or simply judging how Revisted holds up as a
stand-alone work, I have chosen the latter.
The Raves
The first thing that struck me about this comic was how
fast-paced the storyline is. If you want something that takes off like a
rocket, boy is this the one for you! Right off the bat, you have an alien named Advice Box being taken away to another world right in front of his friends and they waste
no time cooking up a plot to find him. That seems to be the main story, though a lot of other subplots are worked in along the way. In less than fifty pages, we see extraterrestrial portals, a living snowman with a grudge against our main characters, a woman toting a
flamethrower, a strange alien world, and a rooftop battle against an evil pink rabbit! There’s always something going on and it’s
always strange, unexpected, and gleefully silly.
The plot, which I’ll get to later, lost me a bit at several
points. One thing that didn’t lose me, though, was the plethora of creative
ideas this comic throws out at high speeds. The sheer insanity of this comic
reminds me a little of the edgy, offbeat magic in cult classic cartoons like
Invader Zim. It seems like anything could happen in this world. The chaotic
setting is also paired with a slightly dry sense of humor, though usually more
good-natured, rather than cutting. The occasional fourth-wall gag also sneaks in, for those who like those kinds of jokes.
To go along with the crazy setting, the art is also packed
with a lot of detail and creative energy. I can’t help noticing how energetic
the composition is. Something interesting is always going on.
The comic uses a
very wide variety of angles to show the characters and their surroundings. Since I haven't read the source comic, I can't rightly judge, but it does seem from this page that the background art has evolved a lot over the years. I
really like how the cityscapes look in particular. The buildings look properly
three-dimensional and the perspective is usually correct, building an interesting skyline in the wider shots.
The Razzes
Part of what makes a spin-off successful is the ability to
bring newcomers up to speed on the setting and characters. While I like the
fast-paced writing, there were several points where I felt like the comic had
lost me. It does go back and explain some things—for example, where Advice Box
came from, and how Andy the Snowman came to be—but there are also a lot
of parts where I feel like I’m missing too much context to be fully immersed.
No doubt a fan of the main series would get way more out of this comic, but as
an outsider, I don’t feel like I’ve been given a proper introduction.
The biggest problem is the characters. It’s obvious they’re
already established from the main story, but here, I can barely get a feel for
them. I
don’t have much of a grasp on their relationships or why the main human characters care about getting Advice Box back. From there, it feels like a flood of cameos that get only the slightest continuity nods.
 |
| You know how they say "show, don't tell"? This is telling me about the character, but it's not showing who he is. |
Characters just come and go with minimal context. Andy the Snowman is probably the most
well-developed character so far, being a grouch with a clearly-explained backstory and motivation, but most everyone else seems like too much is
missing for me to feel all that invested in them.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about art. First, I want to point out a problem with the lettering.
You see that? That’s not a thing that should happen. You gotta give your words room to breathe! Don’t let them get so close to the edge! Not every word bubble has this problem, but it still happens quite a lot. Also, consider the shape the text forms. It should be roughly in a diamond pattern. Most of the word bubbles do exactly that, but I've seen more than one instance of text lines being uneven in this comic. Try to avoid that.
As for the rest of the art, though I like the composition,
the linework and colors leave much to be desired. For one thing, the lines are
a bit on the sloppy side and lack any variety in weight. Even a little bit of
variation on the line weight can make a big difference. Try starting with using
slightly finer lines for smaller or more distant details. Add a little more
thickness on lines near a shadow. If you want more in-depth information on line
weight and how it effects a drawing, check out this video.
As for the colors, they’re flat and murky. The shadows look
as though they’re made by adding more black to the base color. There aren’t any
highlights either. I’m not saying the comic needs to start doing a bunch of
fancy blending, because with cartoony art, usually less is more. but try throwing in a highlight here or there and use richer
hues for your shadows. Combine that with some variety in line thickness, and
you’d be amazed at the difference.
Finally, it seems the characters are very stiff. They look
like posed action figures most of the time. Since this is such a cartoony art
style, giving advice on human anatomy won’t help much
here. In this case, I actually think the best thing to study would be
animation. Here's some fun homework; watch a whole lot of Looney Tunes and look closely at how the characters move from frame to frame. Pay attention to the subtle movements, as well as the big, exaggerated ones. And if you see a pose you like, reference it!
If you're wondering how they do some of this, take a look at this tutorial
on walk cycles. Most of the later steps won’t apply to your art, but notice
how before the animation itself comes into play, the person writing the
tutorial takes time to talk about the torque and basic shapes of the body? These kinds of tips can help you get some
ideas on what a body looks like in motion and how to capture a single “frame”
of that movement. Take some time to read up on the line of
action, too, since having a grasp on that really does make all the
difference in drawing good poses.
The Revue
As I mentioned before, my review is strictly judging the
comic on how well it holds up as a stand-alone comic. So how well does it?
Not too well, in my opinion. The story is a bit half-baked
and the art, while visually interesting, has a lot of weak points. Whether the
comic would be better for having read the main series isn’t for me to say.
If you're interested in seeing more of Wes Parham's work, you can follow him on Tapastic.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Heroes of Thantopolis
Ghosts and ghoulies! The dead are everywhere!
Lock your doors! Bar the windows! Make sure nobody can get
inside…
…so nothing can distract you from reading Heroes of Thantopolis, a cute lil’
comic about ghosts and friendship.
The Rating
This comic tries so hard. Its
gentleness and kid-friendly nature make it endearing enough that I can’t truly dislike it, but there are still some notable flaws.
The Raves
The long and short of Thantopolis is this; Cyrus, a living
human being, finds himself in the city of the dead, Thantopolis. He can’t
remember his family or who he was. Upon meeting Helene, Goddess and Queen of
the city, Cyrus is recruited as her champion and given a weapon. And so
proceeds the story.
If there’s one thing I really like about this comic, it’s
how vibrant and colorful the art is. The color choices are pleasing
to the eye. There’s a big emphasis on curves and soft forms in the comic,
giving the art a whimsical feel. Given that Thantopolis is intended to
be kid-friendly, these are fantastic artistic choices to make.
The kid-friendly nature of the comic is itself also a
praiseworthy trait. It’s relatively uncommon to find a good long-form webcomic
that remains firmly in the realm of the G-rating. It’s even more uncommon to
see such a comic that deals with topics of death, identity, and personal
conflict. Although some aspects of the comic are lacking in development, the
younger ends of the target audience would probably find this to be an enjoyable
read. No doubt adults can and do enjoy it as well, but it holds up a little better
for a younger crowd.
The relationships are probably the strongest part of the
writing. There’s a huge emphasis on friendship, camaraderie, and mutual
understanding. The relationship between main character Cyrus and Xisea, a friendly little spider ghost, is so unrelentingly sweet that I honestly
felt a little happier just seeing them talk to each other about their problems. It's by far my favorite aspect of the writing. Not every relationship in the comic is written quite so well, but when the creator
nails it, they nail it.
The Razzes
Let’s start with the art. While I like the color
choices, I’ve got some beefs with the character design. There’s nothing
wrong with having a simple art style, but this one is sometimes simple to a fault. It reminds
me a bit of the Cartoon Network style. You know…
…that style. And
if you’re a fan of that style, you’ll like this art. The real problem here is the main
character looks so forgettable and generic, while most of the others look nothing
like whatever they’re supposed to be. For example, this character…
…is a rat, but looks more like a cat. And it only gets worse
from here.
This is a spider.
This is a crow.
This is a hunting hound.
This is Sagittarius.
I think she’s supposed to be a horse? I can only assume that
since Sagittarius is typically depicted as a centaur. I’ll admit the art is
cute, but it starts to get a little stale when almost everybody just looks like
an indistinct blob.
Now onto the writing. Oy, the writing. Let’s start with
character interactions.
Admittedly, I like how sweet the main character is
and the relationship he has with Xisea is endearing to no end. Those two have
probably the most likeable personalities in the comic. I also admire some of
Trickster’s quirkiness, though sometimes his ‘90s Bro persona can wear a little thin. Cyrus, Xisea, Trickster, and later Sagittarius become a core group of mutual friends through the course of this comic and there are some very nice moments between all four of them. What really annoys me, though, is Helene. By all rights, she is the major cause
of most of the main character’s problems and the comic doesn’t pretend she isn’t
a master manipulator.
 |
| Cyrus has more goodwill for Helene in his little finger than I do in my entire body. |
The plot also has some big flaws. The setup and summary
lead you to think that Cyrus’ journey will culminate in him confronting
Aquarius. He’s being groomed to fight her, given a weapon, and a small team of
friends who seem like they will help him. I was actually excited when it seemed
like the climax was nearing, albeit puzzled because the archives showed I was
only halfway through the comic.
Surely, the confrontation with Aquarius, which was played up
as a major event and Helene’s reason for recruiting Cyrus, would have some kind
of complication and the plot will go on from there. Well, as it turns
out, the real Aquarius has been held captive by an impostor. This should make
for an exciting battle, right?
Nope. Cyrus “defeats” her by talking her down and convincing
her that what she’s doing is wrong.
As with Helene’s “nice” moments, I feel like this is yet
another instance where the moment just feels unearned. While I respect the
message of using words and kindness to reach out to a villain, it all happened
much too fast. With a few “words of wisdom” from our hero, she has a complete change
of heart that takes all of two
pages. On the whole, the
entire climax of this arc just seemed cheap.
Since then, the plot has shifted gears to focus more on
Cyrus trying to remember who he was, and the progression of that story has been
a lot more believable, but the pacing of the comic mostly meanders and
struggles to find a focus. Cyrus has a goal, but thanks to Helene’s obstruction, that goal is
constantly pushed off to the side. But to what end? There seems to be no other
particular aim and I can’t help wondering why Helene even keeps him around.
Y’know, aside from not wanting to part with her pawn.
 |
| You did not earn that hug. Put it back down where you found it and go sit in the corner. |
The Revue
If there is one thing that this comic has a lot of, it’s
heart. I can see that the creator has put so much earnest care and effort into
this comic, even if the results are flawed. Regardless, if you’re looking for
something colorful, kid-friendly, and generally pleasant, this isn't a bad story to check out.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Spacebox
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Today I present you...
A man trapped in a box!
In space!
SpaceBox by James (no last name given) is about Tad Bardeaux and he is drifting through space in an escape pod.
The box has got everything to keep Tad alive. It doubles as a hypersleep chamber which slows his aging down. He has food and water through some hamster feedtube, and he has an A.I. to talk too, which looks like a red dot of light. If you're thinking HAL, you're close. It's VAL.
For a fully featured box that practically gives him immortality, it lacks one thing: a window.
How Tad got into this situation is never explained, but I found it a fun, quick read.
The Rating
No one will help you... in space.
The Raves
I enjoyed the premise of the story. It's melancholy, because Tad is stuck where he is. It's also funny because he happlessly gets into strange situations and manages to come out of it intact while causing terrible things to happen.
Tad can't see out of his box and can only receive second-hand information from various sensors and his AI. In a way, he's almost entirely shut out from any outside stimuli. He doesn't know what's beyond the box. It's a separate reality that bubbles him.
In the first story, some space mollusks latch onto his drifting box. When a large spaceship comes out of nowhere, Tad thinks he's rescued, except that these folks only intend to salvage his pod so they can sell it as a mint-condition museum piece with Tad trapped inside. The mollusks turn out to be xenomorphs that devour the crew and inadvertently in the ensuing fight knock Tad back out into space. The ship self-destructs and Tad is sent hurdling into the void.
The first scenario is like Alien, but viewed from the narrow perspective of someone trapped in a box. It's darkly humorous, seemingly random, and existential, but it fits with the idea of being adrift through the vastness of space.
Later Tad runs into a giant generational spaceship through a telepathic-dream connection with it's captain. It arrives several hundred years later to devour a gas giant which Tad is trapped in (pulled in by gravity). Tad once again believes he's saved but ends up getting thrown back out into space.
I like the minimalist constraints the story has. Everything in Tad's world is there out of necessity -- he's fed through a tube, he's put into hypersleep to keep him alive, and he has an AI to help him interpret the void around him. Constraints, when followed, also force the author to be more creative in their storytelling, and I was curious what would happen next to Tad in his box.
I like how time passes in James' story and how it plays into the enormity of space travel. Tad drifts for light years, but he also hypersleeps for centuries at a time. When he wakes up an epoch could have passed by and yet he's still the same. I'd love it if future comics played on this idea more directly. Like, what if he was salvaged and put up in a museum, went to hypersleep while on the ship, and awoke hundreds of years later to find himself in the middle of a museum with people gawking at him, and then wake up hundreds of years later to find that world decimated by some apocalypse, you know, like the beginning of Futurama where we see Fry in the cryopod and outside we see the rise and fall of humanity on a fast-forward timelapse.
Oh, and back in college when I was studying computer science, I had to code Conway's game of life. So I particularly liked this comic below. :)
 |
| I liked that the game of life is mentioned in this comic. :) |
The Razzes
This is one of those comics where if you judge it by it's art, you might pass over it. The website and art are simple and minimalist looking. There's literally nothing about the comic that catches the eye and makes you want to stick around. That was my first reaction when I came to the site. It seems bare and empty...like the vastness of space. Maybe the website could be dressed up a bit to enforce that idea with maybe a simple repeating startfield background.I wish the panels were bigger. There is a cool shot of a generational spaceship that I wish had been bigger so we could see it better.
There's some issues with perspective too. For a comic about a box, literally the escape pod is a box, I would have hoped that it was drawn with a better sense of perspective, but sometimes the box appears warped in non-perspective conforming ways. Space may not have an up, but at least when drawn it there should be some kind of horizon line so we can anchor a vanishing point to it and give it the correct perspective.
The Revue
If you're looking for a quick and simple sci-fi read, then I recommend Spacebox. The idea is intriguing and I enjoyed the entire archive.Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Technique Tuesday: New Feature!
 |
| For More, Visit http://ranarh.deviantart.com/ |
For Further Reading On The Subject, See
- Avoiding Tangents: 9 Visual Blunders Every Artist Should Watch Out For By Dianne Mize
- The Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Sunday Revue February 5: The Green Eyed Sniper
Get Something In Your Crosshairs Today With
Love. Hate. Betrayal. Guns. Those three words practically sum up Infected Blood's 'The Green Eyed Sniper'. It's the story of two women's love and one woman's hate for herself, the story of a sharpshooter with a target she'd rather miss. It can be found here and mirrored here on Taptastic.
The Rating
Aim a little better next time, you missed the bullseye
The Raves
You can never go too wrong with love and bullets, right? The great strength of this story is in its dialogue and characterization.
Romance? Check. Snark? Check. Writing style? Check.
Romance? Check. Snark? Check. Writing style? Check.
The romantic and emotional tensions between Sekhmet and Shanti create some powerful writing moments and truly memorable imagery, as well as some very sweet scenes. Add that to Sekhmet's internal tensions and her external conflicts with her profession, and things get INTERESTING.
Speaking of interesting, a good minimalist noir style is just beginning to develop here, and it may well go places.
Speaking of interesting, a good minimalist noir style is just beginning to develop here, and it may well go places.
The Razzes
.....The emphasis is 'may'. And if so, it's got a long way to go.
The focus in this work is on character and the art supports that by narrowing in on the characters to an exclusion of background. Stylistically, that's great.....if the artist's skill can support it. Infected has a bit of work before they're at that point. Here's a few guideposts on the road.
Proportions
The human body, in all its myriad forms, still follows definite rules of proportion. Wonder why your art looks 'off'? You probably haven't got the proportion right, and your brain is picking up on subtle anomalies. For instance, this image. To correct this impression of wrongness, the creator must study the proportions of the human face.
The same goes for the human body. In many cases throughout 'Green Eyed Sniper', the figures look wrong because their proportions are off.
Anatomy
The achillies heel of The Green Eyed Sniper is anatomy. Specifically, STIFFNESS. Even in the most passionate moments, the characters appear as unnaturally posed mannequins.
But take heart, this can be rectified by studying anatomy!
Step 1
Step 2
Draw figures as matchstick outlines FIRST to get the structure right.
Step 3: Study Angle And Articulation
There are a great many angle and articulation problems that the creator should focus on, especially in the eyes and heads.
These must be improved on before the art lives up to the story
The Revue
There's potential. If this comic creator keeps practicing, they'll hit the target eventually!
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