Joe's sketchbook

[djizomdjinn]

I'd say bring the sub forwards a bit or make the monster a bit fatter, as it is at the moment it gets lost in a perfect dark spot right there.

Concept itself is creepy cool, though!

[Grieverjoe]

That's something I need to keep in mind for future reference. I'm glad the concept reads well, though.


Page 4!

Tried to use fewer panels, and padding. Does this look better?

[Grieverjoe]

Picked it up earlier this week. Based on a true story.
10/10, would get squished again.

[Grieverjoe]

Drapery studies

and a mouth.
The first one is from reference. The last two are from imagination.
Page 5 of the comic will be up soon!

[johnway]

Nice. Drawing folds is surprisingly difficult even if we use the triangle/pipe methods to understand folds. The 2 tone idea seems to work quite nicely. i use lines and that can only go so far.

[Grieverjoe]

hang on, still trying to figure out this "comic" business

[Grieverjoe]

Hey, dudes.
Sorry about the lack of activity. January has not been a good month, but things should be back to normal, hopefully.
Page 6 is up. I’ve also gone back and color-corrected the other pages so that it’s a little more uniform.

Go check out the corrected pages here http://everskywardcomic.tumblr.com/
Anyway, here's page 6!

[astrapho]

Really cool to see your improvement x) The actions read clearly for the most part. However the first panel of the last page you posted is a little confusing, it took me a while to get that the big guy flew over the little guy who ducked. It actually looked at first like the little guy hit him with his sword because of the silhouette. Also in the previous panel the big guy wasn't high enough in the air for the movement to read as him sailing over his head.

I made a quick lineover to show some poses i think read more clearly, i don't think it's the best solution but I would suggest you to pay more attention to the silhouettes and gestures to make the action clearer. I think he could be higher up too in the previous panel to connect the movement.



Love that you're playing around with more interesting camera angles

[Grieverjoe]

See, this is why I love this community. You guys always have good insight to share.
Ast, thank you for that suggestion. If you don't mind, I'd like to go back and edit the page with your suggestion, here.

[astrapho]

By all means! Glad I could help

[Grieverjoe]

How's this look?

Do you think I should add some speed/motion lines to indicate the trajectory/action, or maybe I should let the gesture and flow speak for themselves... hmm

[astrapho]

Hmm yeah, his arms and legs might use some speed lines.

I think you can also make that crash effect you have on the ground look more impactful by making it form an ellipse in perspective. Right now we have a 2d graphical cue, but if you have the jagged explosion teeth align to the ellipse on the ground you'd have it much more believable, sort of like this:


(this is a very general thing to help with simple explosions, it's not the only type, I won't go into more complicated ones here)


But for now I think it suffices as is to tell us that he crashed into the ground, you can just keep this for future reference if you like

[Grieverjoe]

Ast, as I've said a million times by now, thank you very much for the guidance.
Here's page 7!

I think this one is the hardest one, so far, in terms of composition. So many revisions, scrappings, and do-overs!

[Grieverjoe]

You're eating an apple. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a regular red apple. You bite into it, it tastes fresh and crisp. Really sweet. You chew it, swallow it, and think nothing of it.
You go to take a second bite, and then you look at it.

Photoshop CS6, about an hour.

[Grieverjoe]

[astrapho]

That is one creepy af apple x'D

That last panel is pretty awesome, i find the distant mountains a little strange though because they all have different treatment- one gets orange all in the shade, one gets a light brown with no shadow, one has a shadow? You need to pick one and go with it x'D

I find it a little strange that his wrist is broken but he doesn't attempt to escape even though his legs work fine, unless he's listening to the demon, but he's not looking at the demon so I'm not sure if that's the case. Other than that though, more please! x)

[Grieverjoe]

Glad it reads well.
For the mountains, I was looking at this picture and got the colors from there. I was trying to emulate the different distances, but I think I could've made the outlines not as dark, or removed the outline completely and just leave the colors. Why do I always think of these things after I post something? D:
In the previous panel, I was trying to make it look like Jain was trying to pull back, but the demon was holding his arm in place.
I'm working on more.

[johnway]

Hi Grieverjoe. One thing i noticed about the mountains was the lack of atomspheric perspective. stuff in the distant background is more blue and only as it gets closer to us does it get warmer. Something to do with color wave lengths and how far certain colors can travel only certain distances.

A simple guide can be found here:

http://www.arthints.com/what-is-atmo...c-perspective/


generally for my technique for this is to start with blue and add color that way. Darker shades as we get closer and than eventually switching to warm darker colors in the foreground. But its so long that i need to practice it...

But direct sunlight on objects in the distance kind of destroys those rules so... meh, just a thought/

[astrapho]

john shared a great link for yours your mountains did not gradually take on more of the atmosphere's color as they receded into the background, so we didn't read the different distances in your painting. put them to grayscale and compare the values of the photograph vs your rendering, you'll probably see that yours needs to be lightened for it to feel like theyre at different distances. the outlines might also need to be lightened because they also suggest depth by their color.

that row was fine actually, its the next row when he kneels down and doesn't attempt to escape that was strange to me :/ ?

[Grieverjoe]

Thanks, dudes. I'm gonna check out that link tonight when I get home from work, and redo those mountains.
Ast, I see what you're saying about him kneeling. In my mind, he's in shock/recoiling from having his wrist broken, and not really thinking about anything else. I had my thumb broken when I was a kid, and I remember the shock at seeing it all bent out of shape more than I remember the pain. It didn't hurt at first, it just freaked me out.