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@stephanycepeda
โจ๏ธCOMMISSIONS ARE OPENโจ๏ธ
If you want to commission me feel free to dm me ๐ or you can fill out the form that I have in Artistree or in my Ko-fi
๐จ I don't draw NSFW, mechas, any problematic stuff, too complex characters/backgrounds.
๐จ If the artwork is going to be used for commercial purposes you gotta let me know.
๐จ You are not allowed to use my artwork to train AI.
If you need more information feel free to ask me ๐
This one is for the OG king of New York
people calling the breadcrumbs form of storytelling "scott cawthon writing" and criticizing works that put the puzzle before the story is all well and good
but real ones born before the year 2000 and were there to experience LOST know the truth of this phenomenon
Eleven and Ghost
I know they are characters from VERY different stories, but I feel like they have so much in common, starting from the fact that they were raised and trained to be used as weapons, taking away any chance for them to have a normal life.
They also didn't have proper names, had a sibling that was somehow corrupted by an entity (of course I know that the Hollow Knight didn't want it and even tried to fight against it till the end while Henry was actually ok with it, but you get the idea) and they had to sacrifice themselves to save their respective worlds...
So I wanted to paint them sharing a sweet moment together while eating El's favorite food: waffles!
Now that I think about it, is Ghost even able to eat? ๐ค well, too late ๐
I've had this idea in the back of my mind for a while and even made a couple of thumbnails early this year, until I finally sat down and started painting it this week. I hope you like it ๐
Timelapse
I want to play Silksong so bad but my computer can't handle it ๐ญ
What do you use to make backgrounds? Iโm trying to make a comic at the moment, but I always struggle at making backgrounds compared to charactersโฆ
ahhh that's a question for Banshriek, I'm afraid! Though I've definitely learned a lot myself from working alongside them, so I'll do my best to provide my own tips!
1.) Thumbnails thumbnails thumbnails! Having a smaller version of your eventual finished piece is super helpful, it helps reduce the stress of 'getting it right the first time'. Yes, it takes a little extra time and effort, but it's a long-term investment for better results. And because they're small, they don't take a lot of time to throw together, and you don't run the risk of getting too sucked into the details!
2.) Always keep contrast and values in mind! Regardless of what kind of background you're drawing, who's in the scene, etc. understanding contrast and values is what will ultimately help you communicate the sense of scale and depth to your viewer.
If you're not sure if you're accomplishing strong values, use the desaturation trick! Take what you have painted and desaturate it. If the piece becomes unintelligible in black and grey, then you'll know you need to adjust the contrast more so that the colors can be distinguishable from one another. Here's an example using work from NieR: Automata-
You can see here how the values are used to define the space, from the light shining in through the broken ceiling to the darker foliage in the foreground.
3.) Build a reference library! You're an artist, not God, you can't make something out of nothing. If you're trying to draw a particular background, collect references! Study them! Recreate them in your style! Much of learning how to draw anything is simply a process of studying and researching. A great artist isn't necessarily someone who knows how to draw completely from memory - a great artist is someone who knows what resources and tools are at their disposal, and uses them to their fullest potential to create something new.
4.) In addition to the above, study from the works that you're inspired by. If you're going for a particular art style or 'vibe', find and research other artists who match it. A lot of art advice and tutorials tend to be tailored specifically to that artist's workflow or style, but passed off as 'general advice' as if it applies to every artist or project. But every artist is different, and so is every project, so a lot of this advice tends to come across as overwhelming as you look up hundreds of different tutorials that all have generally similar advice but different approaches and different results. What works for one project won't necessarily work for another. So that's why studying the projects you're inspired by can at least help give you a starting point in understanding what will work for your project.
Using my own work as an example, LR was obviously designed to emulate LO! But what works for LR wouldn't necessarily work for my other projects, like Time Gate, which is a more shonen-esque work. So what worked for developing LR isn't necessarily going to work for developing Time Gate. Some of it will transfer, but whatever doesn't, I have to make up for by studying works that Time Gate is specifically inspired by and trying to emulate (mostly manga and video games).
5.) Start bigger, refine smaller. Many people tend to get sucked into the process of detailing right away, but oftentimes, it results in them over-rendering in places they don't need to be, and most of all, it tends to waste energy and time. Block out your shapes and structures and composition first, with large brush sizes, and then from there go in and refine what actually needs refining.
6.) To add onto Point #4, work smarter, not harder. While many beautiful background work like what you're seeing above looks extremely highly detailed, the artist is often using tricks and workarounds to achieve that detail without actually putting in all that work. Sometimes it's through 3D models, sometimes it's through stamp and texture brushes, and sometimes it's just through tricking the viewer into filling the blanks themselves!
Sam Yang and WLOP are both great at this, what you see seems complicated and detailed, but when you actually zoom in and focus on those details in isolation, you'll notice that they're often very simple brush strokes!
The trick here is the intention, they might all seem 'random' but every brush stroke - even the simplest ones - are placed with intention. And most of all, both artists aren't afraid to let the audience fill in the blanks themselves. Our brains are way sneakier at that than we give them credit for! Much of what carries these environments is the sense of depth, which is more so achieved with - you guessed it - contrast and value, not necessarily detail.
This is also where textured brushes help, because textured brushes come with more 'variation' in their strokes, which can really help 'fill in' the detail without having to explicitly add detail by hand. Granted, they aren't a magic 'do it for you' tool, you still need to know how (and when) to use them, but I find they're a great way to add variation into your piece which can help break up the 'flatness' that people often experience in their backgrounds and compositions.
7.) Understand that comics naturally have a different workflow and demands than standalone illustrations. While the above advice still applies, it's largely using singular compositions as an example, and not comic pages, which demand a whole different workflow and set of expectations. Unlike most singular compositions, you'll often have to draw the same backgrounds over and over again, from different angles.
So again, this is where it's so, so important to learn how to work smarter and not harder. If you have a background that's going to show up repeatedly throughout the comic? Find or build a 3D model for it. Or do what animators do and paint stills of those backgrounds from different angles which you can reuse in future scenes.
One genius example of this is in City of Blank. The creator uses this establishing shot of the cast's apartment numerous times throughout the series, always showing a blank standing on the roof staring longingly into the distance.
And the sweetest part was that the creator actually addressed it! So what was originally an easy shortcut to establish a setting or show the passage of time became an actual plotline. During the most climactic part of the story, too, which is presumably leading up to its finale.
Like that's such an amazing thing that the creator DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO DO, but it made such a huge difference for the readers who have been following along since the beginning and awaiting the finale. A real proper send-off to something that was otherwise just a visual cheat code :')
And no, you don't necessarily have to commit to something like this, but as long as you're smart with how you integrate these tricks and shortcuts, most people won't even notice them. Some will even get attached to them, as evidenced above LOL
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I realize that was a lot, but I hope it helps! I'm also definitely NOT a pro at backgrounds myself, I dread having to do them every time, but a lot of what I wrote out above are also realizations I had while learning how to get better at them (and while working alongside Banshriek who has been an invaluable asset). I'm still learning how to get better at backgrounds myself (and less afraid of them lmao) so best of luck to both of us! <3
THE COUNCIL WILL NOW DECIDE YOUR FATE
my contribution to this year's Polar Lights Zine, with proceeds benefiting the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.
You can still get your own copy of the zine for $2 @polarlightszine
This one was so fun to paint! I thought I'd be taking a break from star themed stuff after spending waaaay too much time on the Star Projector Kickstarter but somehow I just ended up back to painting stars anyway lol
Like always, the HD image, hours long art videos, and PSD files will be DMed on Patreon on the 5th of each month. For now you can check out this short time lapse :)
My very first tiger drawing and my latest
Iโm not sure, but I think that tree might be haunted ๐ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ This started in my sketchbook and became a painting ~ painting twisty trees is so soothing!
Iโm not sure, but I think that tree might be haunted ๐ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ This started in my sketchbook and became a painting ~ painting twisty trees is so soothing!
Portrait painting of Ronal that I made with the Samsung notes app on my phone ๐
Using my finger btw...
I've been struggling to paint these days because of my depression.
Recently I decided to watch the Avatar films with my husband and felt very inspired to make some fanart. I started to paint on my pc but we've been having a lot of power outages which slowered the process a lot.
So I made this quick painting on my phone and loved both the process and the result. It felt like a breath of fresh air after so many weeks of feeling unmotivated to paint.
Anyway, here's the process ๐
No way. NO FUCKING WAY YOU DID THAT WITH YOUR FINGER?!?! I love you actually
This is immaculate.
The shading. The light. The colors EVERYTHING
AAAAAA thank you so much! <3
Portrait painting of Ronal that I made with the Samsung notes app on my phone ๐
Using my finger btw...
I've been struggling to paint these days because of my depression.
Recently I decided to watch the Avatar films with my husband and felt very inspired to make some fanart. I started to paint on my pc but we've been having a lot of power outages which slowered the process a lot.
So I made this quick painting on my phone and loved both the process and the result. It felt like a breath of fresh air after so many weeks of feeling unmotivated to paint.
Anyway, here's the process ๐
Do you have tips for formatting webcomics? I genuinely love the way LR is set up and nothing feels empty
ouu so this sounds like it has less to do with formatting and more like, composition?
Because from a formatting standpoint, webtoons are... I don't wanna say easy because there are still some really unique things you can do with the format (and frankly I feel like a lot of creators don't push those limits as far as they could) but there's definitely less to worry about when it comes to overall formatting because it gives you so much space to work in. You can create these nice big focused panels while putting the dialogue virtually anywhere you want, whether it be in the panel itself or in the gutters. You don't have to worry about page sizing limitations or multiple panels having to co-exist in one image together. That's definitely one thing I like about the webtoon vertical format, though it's not a format that works equally for every kind of comic, some really benefit from it while others definitely benefit more from traditional page format.
BUT based on the wording of your question, it sounds more like you might be asking about composition! Which has a lot to do with both panelling and just understanding how to setup a scene within the panels. Knowing what's necessary to a single shot and what isn't, and all that good stuff. When it comes to vertical webtoons, all that vertical space with limited width basically makes it feel like framing a movie (or at least, one of those movies that are made exclusively for Tiktok LOL) and so it helps to approach it from that angle, to think of every shot you sketch out similarly to how you would frame it if it were in a film or TV show. That's purely regarding vertical webtoons though, for page format you have like a whooooole extra layer of visual storytelling to consider, from how the panels share the space to even how the panels are delivered to the reader through the art of the page turn.
When I draft out a page, I like to make sure each page follows a sensible 'flow' from start to finish, whether it be through the dialogue or the delivery of the artwork. Even though these are just small snippets of an overall whole, I still want them to feel structured and contained within the room they were given. This also means everything will be 'connected' properly so I can utilize the gutters as needed, without there being any 'gaps' in between the pages.
(Page 6 with Persephone hijacking Kore wouldn't have worked as well if it weren't all on one page! The start of the page shows the beginning of her emotional breakdown, and the end of the page shows the conclusion).
I also typically follow a strict order of operations when designing an episode. I'm usually always working from a script that I've had drafted out roughly for a while (anywhere from weeks to months to even years in advance) which gives my brain enough time to 'reset' and approach the script with fresh eyes when it comes time to sketching them (and that goes for the episode sketches as well, I like having them prepared in batches ahead of time so then when it comes time to actually producing them, I'm more likely to pick up on things I don't like, mistakes, etc.) And then, when I sketch, that's when I make tweaks or other inclusions to the script. Oftentimes I find when I start sketching a page, I realize that certain dialogue isn't working, or scenes I thought would make sense when I wrote them down don't anymore LOL
It's also so, so important to include your text while you're sketching. This is so you have a rough plan of where the dialogue will actually fit, especially if you're planning on putting them inside the panels.
I am personally NOT a fan of when artists shove the dialogue into the gutters, I get that it's sort of part of the appeal of vertical scrolling but it just feels so disconnected when I'm scrolling through a comic and the dialogue is miles away from the panel it's relevant to. And it's often just to make room for character art that doesn't even need to be that big to begin with, because nothing is happening in it that's contributing to the delivery of the dialogue.
That can work if you're trying to build suspense as to who's talking or if you're trying to make their voice sound 'distant' or whatnot, but it doesn't work for like, normal conversation between characters LOL
Like it actually feels like those aforementioned "Tiktok movies", where you can tell when something's been shot exclusively for Tiktok, it ends up robbing the character acting and environment design of its nuance and contributions to the storytelling because it's way too focused on 'filling the frame'. There's a reason widescreen as a format was such a huge stepping stone for film, it gave room for the director and cinematographers to play with the space the same way they would with a stage in a play.
I think that's largely what's lending to that "emptiness" that's commonly encountered in a lot of vertical webtoons, it's a symptom of creators slapping down huge scrolling panels without any actual plan of what to fill them with, so all the readers wind up getting is empty space with talking heads while the dialogue is floating elsewhere in the gutters. They're not treating the vertical format as part of the art.
And I don't even think this is purely the creators' faults, I feel like Webtoons itself also encourages this because it sort of helps to artificially 'inflate' the reading length, because the longer someone has to scroll to get through an episode, the more they're convinced they actually read something, even if nothing really happened or progressed or changed. That's not always the case of course, because longer scrolling can actually do a lot to benefit the pacing (esp for horror webcomics that are building suspense) but there are a lot of cases where it feels more like a sneaky little trick to get away with dragging. It also doesn't help that creators usually have a minimum panel requirement, so oftentimes panels are copy pasted incessantly with text bubbles separated per panel to inflate that panel count without any real extra work.
(awful, terrible, no flow, no mood, no connection between the dialogue and the person speaking it, nothing in the environment contributes to what the reader is supposed to interpret, and there was no reason for Hera's dialogue to be split up per sentence across so many repeat panels with such massive gutters in between besides inflating the reading length and panel count).
Anyways, mild tangent aside, I like to keep dialogue spoken directly by characters within their respective panels, unless there's an opportunity to put the text in the gutters where it would have the most impact. This also works particularly well with a comic like LR where the text is color coded, it wouldn't necessarily work if all the text was black like in most other comics.
Using some of the pages from Episode 84 as an example-
While the speech bubbles weren't actually added in until the end stages of this page, the text itself was, so that I could design the panels with those speech bubbles in mind.
As for the compositions within those panels, it really all comes down to what you're trying to convey. For this page, I wanted to express the snappiness of Hades and Hecate's conversation, juxtaposed against Minthe who's having a breakdown in her kitchen. She doesn't have any dialogue and you don't see her eyes, neither of those are necessary because her posing, expression, and the environment does the talking for her.
(funnily enough tho, I'm just now realizing I never added in the smoke that was supposed to be billowing out from between her teeth... oh well LOL)
One composition I'm personally super proud of is from this very same episode, when Hades promises the Weekly Nark 'won't affect Kore' and we see the panels of him and Hecate speaking laid on top of the scene of the eyeball reveal.
Initially I thought to have some kind of snappy, lowkey silly cutaway to the guy receiving the eyeball in the mail, but while sketching the scene, I realized I didn't want to disconnect the present dialogue from the scene like that, so instead, I left it on just a single panel of the eyeball, while the text was spoken over the imagery. This definitely made for a better composition overall because it really sold the tone of the scene, keeping it serious, without disconnecting Hades from what he'd done - you see him, and you see the eyeball in the bag of ice, there is no separating him from his actions here. And it still gets to have a little bit of a punchline when Hades sips his coffee and mutters 'nothing you can prove'.
I guess if I have any advice, it's just to keep in mind that the panelling is like a character in and of itself, you can achieve a lot of visual storytelling in how you choose to use the space you're limited to. And again, when it comes to compositing, consider how you would want the scene to look if it were a movie. Where would you want the actors (characters) placed? When would you want the camera pulled back far, or held in close? What kind of lighting would sell the mood of the scene?
And most of all, if you want to get better at understanding panel formatting and composition, you should also read lots of comics with great panel formatting and composition! For this, I actually recommend staying away from vertical webtoons, at least exclusively. Go read trad page comics as those are the ones where you'll find some really clever and ingenious formatting / panelling / compositions, and many of those methods can be applied to vertical webtoons.
Point is, you won't learn how to do better formatting and panelling and compositions if all you're reading are vertical webtoons, especially if they happen to be vertical webtoons with poor formatting and panelling and compositions LOL
Sooo yeah! That was a lot but I hope that helps! And if I completely missed the mark on what you were asking, please just let me know with extra clarification and I'll try my best to answer properly!
Commission for @markzilla6895
Thank you so much for the support โค๏ธโค๏ธ
fluffy timberdoodle
