is your art process making 3d models and tracing over them? Is that why you mention 3d models in your comic process? Or is the comic just really well hidden 3d models? I’m curious!! Loving the comic btw :)
Thanks for enjoying the comic! And yes, it's a combination of 3D renders and 2D overpainting to get that look :D
I always wanted to make a comic, but drawing perspective isn't my strongest suit, so I figured why not make use of my bachelor's degree in 3D art? It's a great way to practice a lot of different sub-fields in 3D that I am not that confident in, like posing, camera work and lighting.
I am so thankful for all the people making the 3D rigs for all the TADC characters, cause while I can do the 3D rigs (basically the character skeletons) myself, a lot the the characters are quite complex in the way they are set-up. My junior 3D-artist ass cannot replicate it that well xD
I basically start with the posing and get the camera in a place that I am happy with.
After that, I set up some rough lighting. While the overpaint follows the realistic red/blue lights from the scene, it deviates in quite a few places, which I did as a stylistic choice to keep more visual contrast.
I have a purple with some visible brushstrokes that I overlay to create a bit of a darker look and to make the red/blue overlays pop more.
Then I start with the outline and pick which direction red and blue comes from. I initally did the 2D parts on my phone, but I did switch that to my computer because working with a bigger screens was much nicer.
Which ends up looking like this if the 3D render is turned off. He looks so naked.
The abstraction effect is added afterwards. I tried initially to include it in the 3D portion, but I wasn't happy with the look, and the 2D overlay gave me more control over the silhouette.
And in the end, with everything combined, it ends up looking like this:
The text boxes are all physical objects in the scene, but because of some limitations, I can't just animate the text inside one text box from frame to frame. So they are animated to stay out of frame and only pop down if they are needed for the shot.
So if you look up, the sky looks like this:
They are all just ominously hovering over the characters at all times.
Also, when doing stuff in 3D you sometimes get just really funny outtakes.
Look at how happy he looks :D
This happened when I decided to switch which model to use and I was testing out if the abstraction eyes were sticking to the rig like they should have. It just looked like he was doing a weird dance, while his double was very hungover.
One screenshot I lost sadly was spaghettified Caine. For some reason copy pasting one of his poses ended horrifically. Sometimes a 3D program just breaks in the weirdest way.
