Art Blog of M. Franklin Hance @headscratchers - Tumblr Blog

Comic Making Tips

So I ended up writing a whole tangent about how I construct, Trying Human, these days. SORRY. I hope you can find the answer to your question in these ramblings.

More staging shots. These are long shots of the characters, where they are in their environment, and in relation to each other. I try to have at least one staging shot within a panel or two of a scene starting up. Even if I’ve been to that location a million times *cough*Rose’s apartment*cough*, I still want the reader to know where everyone is.

Less talking heads. This is a little unavoidable in comic largely driven by dialogue and drama, but I try to not just have yo-yo-ing back and forth between headshots of the characters. There’s a lot of this in the old pages so a way I’ve gotten around it is by combining panels of characters talking or completely cutting out shots and having the ‘missing’ character’s dialogue come from off panel. I also add in their names so we know who’s talking to who i.e., “Longus, thanks for letting me come over” as opposed to “Thanks for letting me come over.” It’s a quick and dirty way to let the reader know who said what if they’re off panel.

Show all hands, feet, heads, and props (if they’re in the shot at all…) This is kind of related the last point. I try to move everyone’s hands and arms up into the panels. Or lower their heads. I used to cut off a lot of body parts or just not have them moving their limbs at all. I mean, with the Greys, I still don’t move them but that’s a part of their species. I think it makes them seem more creepy as well if all the other characters are talking and gesticulating and they’re just standing around.

Don’t completely desaturate your colors. I don’t know what I was thinking but when I originally shaded TH, I did so with grey for like… everything. I feel like I must have seen something somewhere and thought it was a good idea, which is weird because a lot of my non-TH art from the time didn’t suffer from this. lol ANYWAY, frequently I’m reusing old backgrounds on the redone pages and all I’ve done is knock the saturation way up. They look brand new! :D

More beta-ing/spot blacking. I’m not sure what this is called in English but Spot blacking; Thanks @randumbdaze! In manga, the large swathes of flat black both in the background and on the characters is called beta. There’s a lot more of that in TH. Waaay more black. LOVE THE BLACK. On comic pages that are just pencils this is usually marked with an ‘X’. If you’ve ever been to my streams, you’ll see me marking my betas before filling them in later. They just make the comic look more… Finished or fuller or complete. I can’t really explain it, you just have to take my word for it. In TH this is most noticeable on the inside of sleeves, collars, under characters chins, in side of mouths and on the bodies’ and in the eyes of the Greys. I also have black from the comic gutters (the area between frames) encroach into the scenes to help give the pages rhythm and break up the staging.

Less non-western style comic book sound effects. In Japanese comics, it’s really common to see sound effects like, “Poke!”, “Grab!”, “Smiles!” (つん, ざっく, うはうは, respectively.) That’s because they have actual onomatopoeia for a lot of that stuff. We don’t and it can come off as awkward in English unless you’re going for a really particular style to your comic. I used to use it as a crutch to get around actually drawing stuff out of my comfort zone, I think. This was like 10 years ago so bear with me. I take out SFX that aren’t actual sounds and just try to draw my actions better. Also, TH doesn’t really feel like a manga in visual presentation so I can’t really get away with those kind of sound effects. Worse comes to worse, you can always add a piece of dialogue like “Don’t grab me like that!” to help the reader understand what is going on.

Less sexy when sexy doesn’t need to be there. I’m a piece of shit and draw everyone in too sexy of poses. Mostly the ladies because I have a prooooblem. ;A; I’m trying to avoid that these days unless it calls for it. Weirdly, less is more. When I try to avoid drawing them sexy, I think they look more attractive. I’m a fickle boop.

Here are some good comic making resources:

Comic Book FX (The Comic Book Sound Effect Database) - http://www.comicbookfx.com/ Find some dank sounds.

Blambot Comic Fonts & Lettering - http://www.blambot.com/ Check out their articles; they’re really helpful for creating a groundwork.

DesignDoll - http://terawell.net/terawell/ Step aside, PoseManiacs, DesignDoll is here to stay. The free version doesn’t let you save, but if you just want to throw together some poses for reference, this is a great program for that.

SketchUp - https://www.sketchup.com/ Awesome for modeling props and sets.

Sculptris - http://pixologic.com/sculptris/ A free organic modeling tool; great for modeling your character’s heads for reference.

chlove-art

Some nice tips in there!!

qwantzfeed

later: sorry for what i did in the bathroom, society

ryannorth

People are calling this my most Canadian comic!! All I can say is… sorry

hchano

stream stuff! the commission is almost done. i just gotta do some cleanup and tweaks now.

that mostly outta the way, i used the last 20 mins of the stream to doodle my own kids lmao

thanks everyone for coming and helping keep me focused~

littleblackchat

I SEE YOU THROWIN’ SHADE GURL LOL

hchano

headscratchers

#myart #the ironclad man #nsfw

a bunch of warmup sketches from earlier

#myart #sketches

one of my favorite faces in a long time

Sketch dump (I need to do more of these)

decided to do a quick(ish) color of a warmup sketch I did

#the last guardian #trico #fuckin rekt

notkatniss

#WHO TOOK GONE GIRL

faitherinhicks

Emotion and Pacing in comics

One of the reasons that I love comics so much is that there are many valid ways to approach the medium. When I make comics, the parts I’m most concerned with are character and story. Everything I draw on the comic page is in service to character and story. Because of my focus on those two elements over, say, experimenting with my art and page structure, I will sometimes get criticism that my work is safe or boring. This is probably fair criticism! I don’t do a lot of experimenting with paneling or challenging storytelling or explicitly challenging artwork in my comics, because right now that’s what I’m not interested in. Maybe I will be more experimental someday, but not right now, with the kind of stories I want to tell. :)

When I make a comic, my goal is for my readers to be engaged with the story I’m telling, and the characters in that story. That’s also what I look for when I want to read a good comic. I want characters to love, I want a story to be engaged with.

For the most part, I struggle with drawing comics (most artists do, if we’re honest ;)), but there are some parts of comics I think I have a good handle on. I feel like I’m strongest when portraying emotion on the page, and I’m good at drawing those scenes out and making the reader feel what my characters are going through. Some of the techniques I use to convey emotion came from being obsessed with movies when I was a teenager, and some techniques are stolen from my holy trinity of influences: Jeff Smith (Bone), Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Naoki Urasawa (Monster, Pluto, 20th Century Boys).

Of the three artists I’ve mentioned, I consider Urasawa especially to be a master of emotion and pacing. When I first started reading his comics, it was like light struck my brain; finally I saw what I’d been trying to do for years right there on the comic page in front of me! I like the way he lays out his emotional scenes a lot. Here’s an example (read right to left):

Urasawa uses repeating panels and decompression to draw out the emotions of a scene. In this single page there isn’t a lot of movement. It’s literally just two characters staring at each other, but the tension rises going from panel 1 to panel five. Gesicht (the man)’s expression doesn’t change between panels two and five, but we literally feel his anger rising off-panel, concluding in the close up in panel 5.

There’s an excellent You Tube channel called Every Frame a Painting (I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but if you haven’t, please go watch all the videos! There aren’t many, and they’re all really informative). My favourite video is this one, about editing:

This video hit on something that I strive for in my comics: emotion takes time. When I draw a scene that is emotional, when characters are struggling with something, or celebrating something, or being challenged, I want my readers to feel what the character is feeling, and one of the best ways to do that, for me, is to take my time. To give that emotion time to breathe on the page.

I’m going to use some scenes in The Nameless City to illustrate how I use decompression and pacing to underscore the emotion in my comics. To avoid spoilers and because this is getting a little long, I’m going to put it under a cut. Please read on! :)

Keep reading

#reference #aw yeah

delphina2k

I wrote an article for Webcomic Alliance this month about pacing tips for the sloooooowww times in your longform webcomic.

As a reader and creator of longform webcomics, I know there’s nothing more frustrating than stagnant scenes. Many longform webcomics only update once a week, and those 4-5 pages only cover so much ground. And if you’re writing a particularly extensive conversation, five minutes could easily take months. I’ve written before about a few pacing hurdles you might face stuck in a scene that’s discouraging readers, and how in our medium, it can damage our trust and long-term engagement with our readers.

But it’s unavoidable, right? You can’t just SKIP the slow parts, can you?

Here are some tips I’ve learned to speed up your pace and keep your readers engaged:

Carve away your discovery writing: So you’ve got your epic fantasy series, and the whole first chapter is about how the pantheon of gods came to be. Or it’s your sci-fi story and you’re going to show how the aliens crash-landed. But it’s not going to deal with your core cast; this is happening a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Prologues and backstories are important discovery writing for yourself, but to the casual reader, it will have no context and be hard to remember unless it immediately and directly relates to the actual main characters. You probably don’t need it.

Show your physical surroundings: Even if your scene is literally taking place in a prison cell, find things to show about the setting that will tell us something. The cracks in the wall, the tidy laundry pile, a close-up on the beat-up shoes the protagonist is wearing, the shelf of potions. There is always something a place can tell you, and it can be a great tool when you would otherwise just be drawing another talking head.

Show your emotional surroundings: When characters are talking about touchy subjects, what are they visualizing in their head? Drawing that out of their imagination and putting it on the page can be a powerful insight into how they perceive the subject..

…but don’t overdo it: We humans will emotionally connect better with other humans. Give your audience at least one touch point every page to ground them into who’s talking. Instead of having a page of long pans across wheat fields and old memories, consider combining them to form…..

Emotion through interaction: A clever artist will use the characters and environment together to get an emotion across faster. Maybe they’re drying the dishes while they’re talking, or idly ripping the label off a beer bottle, or tensely shooting the beer bottles for target practice. The way your characters interact with the environment can speak volumes about how they feel, and can often provide the opportunity for engaging beats (dropping a dish in surprise, spilling the beer on the table) in an otherwise uninterrupted conversation.

Beware the banter: Witty banter is the heart and soul of a shortform comic, and sometimes we try to emulate that in humorous longform webcomics, too (so, so guilty of this). While it can be an exercise in character development, it can definitely hold up the action if you’re devoting a lot of your page to it. Cut the riff session down to your funniest jokes and save the rest for bonus material. Keep pushing the plot forward every page.

Know the difference between mystery and confusion: Sometimes the reader won’t pick up everything we put down, and two shadowy figures talking in vague terms won’t inspire intrigue, just disengagement. Err on the side of being obvious and cut to the chase when possible. Name names, show faces, and connect it back to characters and events you’ve already established. Let your readers in on the mystery instead of having to explain it later. There will always be more.

spiderforestcomics

Get ready for SpiderForest fall application season!

SpiderForest is opening up applications for new webcomics to add to our collective starting August 1 and running through August 22!

What are we looking for?

Comedy, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Fantasy… you name it! SpiderForest is a collective of independent creators who craft original strip-form and long-form fiction webcomics. We help each other reach new audiences, share project and art exchanges, and get feedback from a like-minded group of peers. A friendly, positive environment that encourages respect and growth, we help comic artists at all levels learn from our experiences as artists, storytellers, and promoters through our forum-based community.

If you create a comic and this sounds like a place you want to join, please review our application page and associated FAQ for more information. Questions may be directed to our forums or to [email protected].

Our forums are open to join for everyone, so stop on by, tell us about your comic, and see what our community is all about!

New page is finally up! A big part of the even bigger than usual delay here was prepping a bunch of materials for a con that we ended up not being able to go to for like... a perfect storm of “hey let’s all of us everyone have a separate crisis all at once”.

But at least I got a bunch of stuff ready for the next convention we might go to, whenever that is!

#the ironclad man #update #webcomic