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[Urist McScoopbeard]

Ultra-rough WIP...

Man... I just can't draw as well on my tablet as I do on paper--it comes out with this traced-over look (which is a problem, because even if I do all my drawing on paper, I've got to finish it at some point). Drawing backgrounds/environments has proven difficult, it's just impossible to draw in perspective, concisely, quickly, on tablet. This almost a step back in comparison to the other page I did up. The action certainly is more clear, but everything else has suffered.

IDK, maybe I need to start a little simpler? Perhaps this project is overambitious at my current skill level.

[Parsely]

What kind of tablet and software are you using? How long have you been using a tablet? Some of these difficulties you're having might be explained by pen settings or hardware, or you might just be inexperienced. All of these things can be fixed.

Drawing backgrounds/environments has proven difficult, it's just impossible to draw in perspective, concisely, quickly, on tablet. This almost a step back in comparison to the other page I did up. The action certainly is more clear, but everything else has suffered.

Are you rotating the page when you draw lines? You might be forcing yourself to draw lines at uncomfortable positions. If you don't normally rotate the page when you draw on paper now is a great time to start. Pulling lines down towards you or horizontally across the page with your pen when you draw has many advantages to pushing them up the paper.

IDK, maybe I need to start a little simpler? Perhaps this project is overambitious at my current skill level.

If you can do it on paper then you're doing fine, you just need to examine your digital drawing technique and try some new methods. You're being challenged right now so the moment you find a solution is the moment you improve, don't give up!

[Cathar]

So about your page, a few general remarks :

• Don't worry about your skill level. That improves by doing. So if you're doing, your level will mechanically rise
• If your first comic fail, take that as a stepstone for future success. I had to fail some 8-10 projects before I could came with one that keeps me focused and entertained
• Small projects are obviously better to get things started. If you can draw a comic with a beggining, a middle and an end, even if it's ten pages, this is a huge success. Unfortunately people might never realize how hard it is, so you'll have to pat yourself on the back, but it is still a huge success nonetheless

Now on some specifics :
• Cleanelessness comes with a tradeoff ; the more clean it is, the more time it takes. Drawing a comic already takes a lot of time, and you might not want to overload yourself on your first project. So if you're going for sketchy lines, this is understandable and okay. What is important is the action needs to be understandable
• Which leads to my (only) real critic of that page : it's not clear enough. I mean I guess the action, but I don't see it. You need at least one wide angle of the whole scene, so the pawn's positions are clearly shown on the board.
• A good trick : use that kind of shot in the first pannel. Do it every time you change location. The first pannel of a serie should always be a wide angle, that shows the characters and the background. This is especially true if you're working in black and white. This is called an "establishing shot" and it is very useful to spare your readers some confusion

That said I'm very eager to see the comic progress, good luck !


Edit : Also I should mention that I approve of the use of perspective a whole lot

[Urist McScoopbeard]

When I draw traditionally, it's not very time consuming for me to clean up my lines--and most of the time I like to leave them a bit messy anyways--but idk, the strokes don't translate awfully well to digital here. I am going to have to fiddle with the sensitivity and figure out a method of how to work things. The big points are my lines end up being too well-defined--so that it becomes a hassle with cleaning up, or that I've got to start a new layer to draw the finished product over, which inevitably gives it that aforementioned "traced over" look. Likewise, sometimes I try so hard to draw lightly on my tablet, it ends up being not workable, and the constant redrawing and darkening makes it difficult to convey mass/volume relatively cleanly.

And it is all exacerbated by the somewhat lessened precision of the tablet.

Moving down to a smaller brush size has helped some, but it's still a bit off. I'll keep practicing of course (and finish the comic to the first title page; think of this as a cold open), but I've really got to focus on leveling up the quality of the drawing itself (and yes, I realize that may mean I may just have to get better at drawing digitally).

EDIT: After some more experiments, I think a big part of is me drawing zoomed out. When I work at 100% zoom on PS, things work out better. I'll have to practice.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Hey do you guys have any advice for drawing complicated 3d shapes? It's pretty damn hard to draw any curves in a 3-dimensional way.

[Parsely]

EDIT: After some more experiments, I think a big part of is me drawing zoomed out. When I work at 100% zoom on PS, things work out better. I'll have to practice.

Oh yeah that's a big problem, again you've got to rotate your view and use your zoom, adjust it to what you're doing. Practice will make it so that you know how to do it efficiently.

Hey do you guys have any advice for drawing complicated 3d shapes? It's pretty damn hard to draw any curves in a 3-dimensional way.

Can you be more specific? In general, perspective first (foreshortening), then line weight and shading, are the fundamental techniques you use to give a drawing depth, so those are good key terms to search up for tutorials.

[Arx]

There's a lot to be said for box construction. Even for fairly complex shapes, you can usually get away with drawing 3-4 boxes and extrapolating the curves through their edges.

I usually find that references are also critical. No point spending hours trying to mentally construct the perspective when you could take five minutes and check how it actually looks. References also help figure out a point of, well, reference for future box constructions to draw variant views.

[Amorphage]

Does anyone know of effective ways of rendering long super-curly (to be even more specific, Long 4c or close to it) hair with cell-shading or at the very least flat colors?
I've been playing around with possible character design setup for a while, but I'm running into issues making it clear what the hair texture is while still keeping the hair's overall shape fairly simple to draw consistently.
I know that the short answer is to practice and play around with it more, but in the short-term I'm wondering if anyone has good advice for this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, here's some references for the sort of hair in terms of texture I'm trying to render (image from google image search as it was the closest i could find to the overall silhouette i already have drawn wrt: hair):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Parsely]

Type 4 hair I would describe as kinky or coiled. Really the difference between different levels of curl in hair is the distance between each full curl and the size of each major strand. Right now your character looks like they have wavy hair because the outline of their hair is one big long curve.

Ignore the interior details, focus on the silhouette. The silhouette of your reference is not very useful if you want to show that the hair is coily.

This is a better reference IMO:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I wish I could give some examples of how to draw this but honestly I tried and I couldn't do it lol, it's kinda hard! Good luck with this.

[Shook]

Pretty much how you'd draw curls, but tighter yet. Lotsa loopy little lines as an outline for the hair itself (probably following some smoother curves overall), and the same for the outline of the shading. Hightlights, if any, would be similar to chainmail; lots of little bright spots with If you want the texture to show properly though, you probably will have to do some texture scribbling. Depending on how much you abstract things, you might have to just show it with how it behaves, as opposed to straight hair.

Spoiler: feeble attempt (click to show/hide)

probably didn't make the loops tight enough but you get the idea, i hope

Coiled hair would behave more like a large floofy sponge than the more flowy-drapey appearance of straight hair, so even if the shading is relatively similar, they'd behave differently in the same situations (depending on length of course).

[Parsely]

Urist McScoopbeard, now that I have my own tablet and I'm drawing digitally I feel your pain, I wasn't zooming in when I was drawing and it really impacted what I was doing and I had no clue what was wrong until last night

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's what happens to my lines when I'm zoomed out. They're really shaky and I can't press hard enough to make them dark without making my pen wobble everywhere so they're thin and there's no weight. I'm definitely going to be experimenting with zooming to figure out what the best method is, I'm thinking I sketch zoomed out and do all my construction and let that be shaky, then I zoom in to do the main lines and be patient, instead of drawing the same line over and over using undo and not getting a good result in the end.

Fakeedit: As I type this I realize that I've seen that exact process before by other artists, such as Norasuko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vMOPH0Z7Rk

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Time to cultivate some   P A T I E N C E   then!

[Arx]

You should definitely be able to press hard enough to get good, strong lines without your pen shaking. Maybe you're holding it wrong somehow? Remember to draw from the elbow etc. as well.

[Shook]

Alternatively, increase brush size/power and/or pen sensitivity. :V
For what it's worth, that's also how i draw; sketch while zoomed out to get the big picture right-ish, then once the sketch is satisfactory after a bit of mirrorfuckery (strongly recommended in case you don't already, it lets you pick up on things you didn't see before), zoom in closer (depending on how long the line swishes are) and make-a them fine lines. I still do a lot of undo'ing, but hey, that's just me sucking at precision.

[Parsely]

You should definitely be able to press hard enough to get good, strong lines without your pen shaking. Maybe you're holding it wrong somehow? Remember to draw from the elbow etc. as well.

I think my brush size was just too small when I was drawing before, and I was drawing while reclined instead of with my tablet on my nice firm desk. I do draw from the elbow and hold my pen properly so I think I have good technique, but it's hard to know, really. It could certainly improve if I do what my inking instructor said and do these line exercises every day.