How to Make Manga – Set Goals
- At December 01, 2011
- By Laur
- In tips
6
Pencils Schedule for Polterguys Vol. 1
A couple of short weeks ago, I hit about 100 pages of rough pencils. I finished this set of pages the other day and soon, I’ll be wrangling these pages to ink, slowly inching my way closer towards completing my first graphic novel.
Read More»Resources: Figure Drawing
- At November 17, 2011
- By Laur
- In resources
- 0
I’ve seen some of these resources listed and recommended on tumblr and I thought I’d compile some of my favorites for archiving here on my website. This list will be constantly updated with stuff I use and would like to try.
When it comes to figure drawing, there really is no better way of learning than drawing from life. Check with your local community college or art gallery if they have live model drawing sessions and if you’re serious about improving, carry and draw in a sketchbook everyday. The following tools aren’t meant to replace traditional means of learning (because we can all benefit from the feedback of professionals) but they are a great way to start learning, keep on your toes and warm-up before working on art.
Read More»Publishing Notes from Webcomic Artists
- At November 14, 2011
- By Laur
- In resources
- 0
Covers for TJ and Amal (E.K. Weaver) and The Meek (Der-Shing Helmer)
A couple of quick links on publishing and self-publishing comics this week!
E.K. Weaver, the webcomic artist for The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, recently compiled her work into a beautiful printed graphic novel and answered a few questions about self-publishing on tumblr. She successfully raised funds for the project through Kickstarter and is currently shipping out Volume One to her readers.
Der-Shing Helmer, known for her work on The Meek, answered a few questions on Tumblr on her experience publishing a comic through a small press publisher, 4th Dimension Entertainment. 4DE also publishes Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name, Lackadaisy and The Phoenix Requiem.
EDIT: (She’s taken the post down, sorry! Original post is here. http://alexds1.tumblr.com/post/12725055029/publishing-comics-through-a-small-publisher)
Many thanks to these ladies for sharing their experience!
Thoughts? Suggestions? Feel free to sound off below!
Helpful Photoshop Actions for Making Manga
- At November 10, 2011
- By Laur
- In tips
- 0
Magic Photoshop Buttons!
There’s a fantastic new resource for comic-makin’ folks called Making Comics spearheaded by reMIND creator Jason Brubaker. It even has its own podcast which I’m pretty excited for. It looks like they have a bunch of industry pros lined up for interviews and I love hearing artsy people talking about their craft. One of the guest bloggers posted a reminder about the usefulness of Photoshop actions for repetitive tasks in comics and it made me want to share my own personalized action buttons.
They’re on the simple side since I haven’t made anything more serious than a bunch of gag webcomics and a few oneshots for now. Above is a screenshot of a list of actions I use the most for comics and have been especially useful for Polterguys. Most of them are self-explanatory and usually involve creating, naming and ordering a bunch of layers designated for specific purposes. In the case of the Resize folder, I created a set of actions that lets me create a copy of a comic page, flatten, and resize for web so I can have previews of my working pages at a touch of a button. When I made the first template file for my digital thumbnails, I hit a bunch of these buttons and badabing-bada-boom, stuff got done for me! Weee!
I’m sure there’s a bunch more I haven’t thought of yet that can speed up my process. Questions? Suggestions? I’d love to hear ’em. Sound off below.
