Oh, and don't get me wrong, people do totally dig deeper into reference and I'm certain that you can absolutely do that. There's definitely a certain amount of wiggle room in the US for the term "fair use," I'm just saying that I prefer to use my own reference whenever possible just so I don't need to think about that sort of thing. The image I'm doing right now has roots in an image I don't own, and I worry about its commercial viability because of it.. even though I'm certain that it's more unique than the piece in the AP lawsuit :P

I was actually really hoping that would go to court, because it would be interesting to see if Fairey could actually defend it, but he settled. They're still going forward with the separate case against Obey Clothing, so I guess we could potentially see how that turns out, but it's not likely that will ever actually make it to a decision either.

The usual thing I end up doing is I draw a full pic the way I want it, and then as I focus more and more on detail, the more foggy my own frame of reference gets with some things. If I'm doing something in a cartoony style it's usually something you can whiff, but if it's anything approaching photo realism you simply can't.

There's admittedly a whole mess of wonkyness going on in this pic from a "photo realism" standpoint - partially deliberately unchecked to maintain flaws that make it identifiably something I've made - but it's a good example to specify exactly what I'm often looking for:



I used reference photos to give her lips a believable shine and her panties to "bunch" in a somewhat realistic way. It's tricky when you're dealing with a pseudo realistic style too because if you're looking at how something is "supposed to look" it's hard to know where to draw the line between what you stylise and what you don't. The way I try to get around that is to use reference photos as sparingly as possible, and rarely for more than detail *within* things I've already established in the picture. Unless of course the reference is of an object that isn't included in the styling, such as background elements or "props".

That looks great Simon!
The only critisism I could provide at the moment is that the blood looks "too thin" as in not gooey enough. Especially those 3 little "drops" (2 on the bat, one on his lower arm) look a bit off, but considering the overall quality it's just a minor nitpick

Thanks, both of you. :D

The bulge is a bit pronounced, but sometimes it is on ladies. I don't think it's big to the point where you assume she's got something else going on downstairs. :D

Incredible spot on the nose by the way! :O

Originally it started out as a photo based comic, sorta like the Max Payne "cutscenes" if you will, and I actually have a dummy I made back then. Let's see if I still have it... Ah! Here we are. It's actually a little embarassing now but anyway. :D



It's 6ish years old now and sorta predates the story of the comic. Since I was meant to "play" the dude, I based his look on me, and while it's derived from me he's sorta morphed into his own deliberately stylized thing since then. The underlying story of Eve's Drop is hugely personal though. I didn't want it to be too overtly "me" but it's really impressive, and strangely validating, that you made the visual connection. :)

I also found this poster from around the same time, 2005-ish:



Oh and as for the blood, FireWire. Yeah it looks a bit weird. It was added in a bit last minute to be honest because it was a bit of a stylistic test. I've used total white for his hair and total black for hers, so I played around with having the blood be one solid shade of red aswell and I probably didn't quite give it its due attention. :)

Okay, new inquiry:

I'm finding out to what extent Manga Studio can help me colour stuff, and it does seem a great deal more powerful in that regard than I originally gave it credit for. One thing that I've recently discovered in Photoshop that has really helped me do nice tones/shades on things is the slider that doesn't just move a colour towards white or towards black. It says "L" on the slider and then "a" and "b" below it (instead of R, G, B, or H, S, V). The L, I'm guessing, is "luminance"? (!?!?!?)

Ssso, in Manga Studio I can only find sliders for HSV and RGB. Is it in any way likely that I can somehow make ME give me the option of basing colour on luminance?

If not, what actually happens on the luminance slider? Is there an easy way to "recreate" the same increase/decrease in.. whatever it is it's increasing/decreasing?



This is a super vague question, I realise, but I really don't know anything about computery colour stuff. :O

BREAKING NEWS: It's luminosity apparently. Reading up on it now. It's like the internet is this big database with information. :O

I'll refer back to this - and the subsequent - posts.

I've noticed it's better at colour than I stated earlier, but it's still limited in that regard.

I randomly went back and came across this post. I don't mean to ignite that whole discussion again (because man that got dark and awful) but this post - ground zero - actually misunderstood what I was saying entirely. The relative predictability of a steel nib I was talking about was in relation to using a brush. The whole point of my entire post was to specifically address the difficulty of getting the same dynamism you get with real tools in a strict, digital environment where flaws essentially need to be deliberate. Manga Studio emulates a lot of the dynamism of using real instruments FOR you. Yes it comes out cleaner in regards to ink splotches and stuff like that which you still need to apply synthetically if that's the look you're going for, but the basic behaviour of an inked line is an absolutely enormous improvement over something like Photoshop.This is insulting. If you've a romanticised passionate view of "the craft", I completely understand that and even to an extent concur. However, suggesting that digital art is somehow a lesser expression of the artist's imagination and creativity is nothing short of insulting. Is a brush a lesser expression than finger painting? A woven canvas lesser than the wall of a cave? It's just tools.

Dammit, this does come dangerously close to re-igniting the discussion anyway. Oh well, I mainly wanted to clarify the above. Now onto something else!

__________________________________



In other news, I'll probably end up colouring my comics in Manga Studio after all. I might pop by later today or tomorrow with some samples of that. The main confusing thing initially was creating a colour layer (which you, from what I can tell, NEED to turn BA off to do) and then understanding which tool they want you to use for colouring stuff.

The colour picking stuff is still a bit clunky, but I think workarounds are possible as soon as I.. understand some more about this program.

Oh Simon, what did you do?

We should all just agree to ignore any responses to this post and hope that we can recover (again).

I doubt anyone but our devoted little group looks in this thread anymore anyway.

Thanks!

And nope, not heard of Scarlett.