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Inkthinker — ZING v1
Published: 2006-10-17 10:34:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 13946; Favourites: 282; Downloads: 239
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Tentatively done with this... I'll likely let it sit for a few days, but even I can tell this still needs something. I think I may apply tones to it, since Manga Studio has such a rich library of 'em. We'll see what I do with that when and if I get to it.Done in my spare time, probably took about 12 hours, all in Manga Studio EX with an Intuos. There's a ton of things I did wrong, but you can have the fun of finding 'em for yourself. There's some WIP versions in the Scraps, too, if you want to see some progressive shots.
Updates and revisions may occur, but if anyone feels like tackling it for color then have at it. Note that there's some interesting challenges to have fun with... two light sources, candles no less, a spinning steel blade, a whole bunch of fiddly gears to catch light and throw shadows, and some creative potential for textures and additional light sources from all the odd runes and such.
If you resize the aspect ratio, though, it makes a halfway nice wallpaper.
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Comments: 139
This is really good!
It deserves a spot in the coloring book of the Gods.
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This is going to be an absolutely inane comment..... but i LOVE the fact that you actually made her boobs SQUISH.
To find a male artist that does that is mind-blowing to me
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Well yeah... it's what boobs do. If they don't, they're not as fun. Also, they are fake. Fake boobs meh.
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Hehehe it's still just good to see someone else do it
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Man I'm gonna practice my colourin' so that one day I'll be good enough to tackle this baby.
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Go crazy! I wish more people had taken on the challenge, but I can see how the multiple light sources and reflections weakens some knees.
Sure makes mine wobbly, anyhow.
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quite the lockpicker! I like the trap design
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pretty cool, it would be too much to color all ofthem
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There's something very strange about her eyebrows... otherwise it's a splendid picture.
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You think you'll ever realease a print of this on DA? 'Cuse I want one. ;3
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If I can put together a more complete version, it might end up as a print.
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I like it. Nice framing of the figure and other elements, too.
I don't know how you have the patience to do this stuff on the computer. I've messed around with it a bit, to some degree of success, but I just can't get past my love for paper and texture, I guess.
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It takes some getting used to, I won't deny. I still love the texture of working with pen and ink, but it's hard to beat the technological advantages of things like Layering and the awesome power of Undo.
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Yeah, I know what you mean. I could see how if I were to stick with it more, it could completely take over how I work. My main issue with it, to be honest, is that I tend to do my work all over the place. Sometimes I work in my studio, other times I go and work while some of the bands I know rehearse, other times I'll slap on the headphones and go do a page at the park.
Maybe if I had a laptop that would change, but I have no plans to get one of those anytime soon.
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I hear ya. But they're already integrating the tablet and the laptop (check out Tablet PCs) and while the technology is still a bit rough, it seems like it's only a matter of time until they get it right.
And then you would, theoretically, posess a sketchbook/canvas capable of any media and with near-infinite pages. That's pretty exciting stuff... if I was an investment-type person, I'd have money in WACOM.
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I remember a couple of years ago when I was working with R. Lie out in Orange, seeing a portable wacom with a touch sensitive screen that you could work on, then export your finished pieces to the pc.
Those were around 1200 at the time, if I recall, and I'm sure they're less by now.
So your stuff you're doing on the pc, is that done in manga studio? I know Dash had been doing some work with that program and seemed to like it. All of my experimenting has been in painter, or photoshop, though my painter program, sadly, is lost now.
On a totally unrelated note, I've been feeling a bit unsatisfied with the direction of my work of late. Too much, what I'll call "Jim Lee" rendering, where I think I'd rather be putting the time and effort into an almost more Darrow-esque kind of detailing. It's really hard to shake years and years of a hatch style though.
If it's cool, I might run some art by you soon to get your opinions on things.
The only thing that sucks, is that I'm 3 issues into my Soulblazer series and NOW I want to change my artistic style. I'm debating doing a slow morph of the style through the book, so I could continue with my story and not immediately jar the reader, but to be honest I really want to go gung-ho into new territory.
One other question for you while I'm running my "mouth" off, do you study directors and film storytelling? If you do, I'm curious who some of your influences might be? If not, disregard that.
-Shane
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Yep. The best thing in the world is the WACOM Cintiq, which is essentially an LCD tablet/monitor combination. You draw directly on the flatscreen, and while it feels like drawing on glass it's also really comfortable once you get used to it. It's my absolute weapon of choice.
Too bad they cost two grand a pop. I only get to use one at work. A good Intuos sets you back $400-$700, but it's an investment in future savings of supplies and time. I know when we went paperless at Fates (the animation studio I work with) it represented a pretty significant savings in pencils and paper alone... we've still got animation bond in storage from 2 years ago that we'll likely never use again, unless it's on a lark. And in saving time on processing pencil test animation through a scan and digital cleanup we cut at least an hour for every 3 seconds or so of production sequence out of the equation.
At home I use Manga Studio with an Intuos. I didn't know Dash was using one, but Mark Englert is supposed to be using it, last I heard, and I think Nate Bellegarde is into it as well. It's not at all like drawing with pencils or ink, but once you get used to it there's a bunch of unique tricks that are pretty exciting because they never existed as options for an illustrator before. Undo is a good start...
I find drawing with a tablet tends to lead me more towards a Darrowesque line, but I was never a huge hatch-master in the first place... I learned most of what I know about ink texturing from artists like Matt Howarth and Stan Sakai and I never really got the hatch-style shading of the 90's guys like Silvestri and Lee... I use it more for patterns and texture if I use it at all, and so I end up with a focus on contour line and chiaroscuro shadows (when I use shadows at all). Having a background in cartooning tends to force one away from hatching as well.
A style change is always rough. Espescially if it causes backlash with your fanbase or your publisher. But I say you gotta go where you want to in your own style, and it's only gonna drive you nuts if you fight it. If you got a burn to draw differently, then it's important to follow up on it.
I've been pounding my head through one for a while now, as I continue to properly integrate better structure into my drawings. Hell, until a few years ago I barely had any understanding of perspective, and it's a wonder anything I drew looked good at all. One might notice the dearth of backgrounds in ANYTHING I drew prior to... well, just recently. I avoided 'em for too long, now I gotta buckle down and do it right.
I'm finding that's really the way to incorporate stuff into a style that's more your own anyhow. I break everything down into basic shapes, lay 'em out, then build 'em back up again. Design becomes an exercise is pattern application and subdivision of shapes (like, a column on a building is just a cylinder, with more cylinders dividing it up into symmetrical shapes that can vary but repeat. And if you want to be really artsy, throw a statue into the center of it). Anatomy breaks down into a bunch of ovals and spheres and cylindrical sausages that are easy to draw in perspective, and then you lay back down finer and finer shapes until you can see where the lines go.
Digital makes this messy sort of technique a LOT easier to get away with, because I can scribble about like a madman until I get the shapes I'm trying for, and if I make it too messy or I screw up completely, it's largely without consequence since I can Undo, or Erase cleanly, or just lighten it up and try again on a New Layer, learning from my previous mistakes. You can see it in the Scraps I put up of digital sketches, there's often layers of crap that went underneath even those messy doodles that gets turned off or deleted.
Digital gives you the freedom to fuck it up. And that's pretty unique.
As for film directors and film storytelling, I actually have been quietly studying a bit on composition and framing in film and storytelling... partly because of my animation focus, but also because there's a lot to see in the works of some cinematographers. Brad Bird, Kurosawa, Leone, Miyazaki and the slightly more obscure (but way awesome) Takeshi Koike are a couple guys who's work I'm always into seeing, but I can't say as I've been formal about it. There's some sweet documentation references from Brad Bird on the art of composition in storyboarding that is well worth checking out for illustrators, though. You can find it free to download at AnimationMeat.com >> [link] << I'm finding that it's not enough to see what they do, though... it's more important to try and figure out why they did it.
Feel free to ask me anything, but I gotta be honest... I'm just another schmoe hacking his way through the wilderness here. I've got a lotta hard knock experience, but I'm far from top.
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Kurasawa is awesome. I've been trying to get Seven Samurai, without having to buy the Kurasawa box set that I always see it packed with. I'd love to check out his other films too, but right now they're lower on my list to study.
David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Francis Ford Copolla have been the directors who's composition, pacing and such I've been studying the most of. Lynch in particular. I had a great discussion with Jim Steranko over dinner late last year, and we talked about film and direction for hours on end. It basically turned into an all weekend directorial discussion. It was pretty cool when early in the talks he asked some of us at the table who the best american director of all time was, I guess when I said Lynch I bought some sort of cred with him. He regularly works with Copolla, and the two of them believe that if it isn't Kubrick, it's Lynch.
Sorry, I'm rambling now.
I'm going to go check out this Brad Bird, who I've actually never heard of. Leone I know by name, but can't put my finger on why, I'll google him, and Miyazaki I'm sure I've seen something by before.
As for the Wacom, I've been working on one of those cheap-o graphire 2 deals that I picked up years ago. I wasn't sure if I'd be into working on the computer, so I didn't feel like throwing the money away. To be honest, it's been pretty effective, though I'm sure that a better Wacom would probably make me rethink that.
As far as showing you stuff, I just figure you'll probably be pretty honest. What I'd like to do, I also see as being more in the direction of work that you're into, so I figure that might help me to be able to guage any sort of success, or failure.
Anyway, I really need to get back to work. Plus Loston is IM'ing me, which means I'll have a lot of links I'm gonna have to click very soon!
Have a good night, man.
-Shane
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heh.. I'm mad...
I thought she was a uber hot dj...
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Very nicely done. You've successfully captured the claustrophobic aspect of the moment, without overcrowding the image with complexity. I particularly like the detail of the larger gear in the center. Her left eye (our right) looks a bit off somehow . . . I'm not sure what could be done to fix it, though.
All in all, work I'd be happy to see in published material.
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i keep on thinking that the saw just went through her arm and shes contemplating how that, in a few moments, it will slowly fall off... like in the movies
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so wheres all that naked stuff you were talking about earlier?
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Haven't taken up on it, yet... still thinking about it, but so far I've been kept too busy to go down that route.
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oh haha just wondering thats all
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I'd love to draw something this complex but i just done have the stamina or patience haha i feel that way about most of your pictures, this is my favourite.
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I find it really exhausting to do this sort of thing all at once... it's much easier to take it in little bursts, instead. I usually break it down into sections and work on it for a few hours at a stretch.
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Stunning graphic design on this piece. Wow. Just... wow
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NO SUPER HOTTY TREASURE HUNTER!!; ITS GONNA SLICE YOU IN HALF!!!!
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Masterfully and beautifully done. Bravo. Now, add color!
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imho, it needs an edge.
otherwise it will look like you've just worked it to death.(not sure If this expression is used in english but you get the point)
the details are great. maybe the black is to heavy.
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well you've got me sitting here thinking about the colours for the past 10 minutes at least. Mostly I thinking "holy crap... how the heck am I..." and other such words, but I may end up giving it a go one day
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This has come along nicely. Personally I like the heavy black border and cramped space, I think it works well. I see you do inscriptions a lot like I do -- a squiggle here, a scratch there and voila!
I don't see too many issues right now, but I'm kinda zonked from the moving. Hmm, the bricks are a little wonky in that some of them actually get longer as they recede in space -- there's always the possibility of inconsistent brick sizes o' course but the regular layout of them kinda demands a more rigorous perspective recession -- but that's nitpicking of the pointless sort! 
I'd love to try my hand at colouring this at some point.
Also, this really makes me itch to acquire Manga Studio at some point -- I'm very satisfied with some of the liquid ink tools in Painter for linework but I'm curious to see how they stack up against each other.
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Solid work as always, Ink! I love the details you put into the background!
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Amazing!
All these details and its still so easy to read! Great facial expression, too!
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I don't know anything about gadgets so I'm not going to even try to question your abilities, lol. I would love to take a hit at colouring the picture but I don't have the right program to color it with. I'll probably end up ruining the picture anyway. I think it looks awesome just the way it is.
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I don't know how you did all the detail work in this amazing art piece, but you deserve one million kudos!!!
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ink, i really have to give it to you. for something that you gave no forethought too, this is amazing. every element from the composition to the mechanisms (they don't work, but so what?) to the expressions, anatomy, line variation.. it's all superb.
and like i said on penciljack the fact that you got T and A into the same shot is no small feat.
now let's hope she gets a good roll on her reflex save or the priest is gonna be really busy in a few seconds.
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Irealy like the gears and chains 'n'junk as the border,makes it feel like your looking at her through a tunnle. very cool.
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I've had a lot of fun seeing this progress. It turned out great. I really like the amount of detail! A
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