I no longer have the time to do comics the way I used to make them. Today we are going to settle for something simpler, 6 panels: 20 minutes each (Timed) with a few minutes of grey tone added on the side. I already cheated and tweaked some of these sketches after the fact, witch is against the spirit of saving time. But I think This is likely the only fast/efficient way going forward to express of all of my ideas. In the past, Both Comics had a single page take 3 days or more to make. But I can’t stand this anymore. I need to be able to rapid fire ideas out before I get bored or loose my nerve. I present to you a little blurb about the Druids at the Nasa Space Henge in the “Prince Tomcat story” From here on out, the art quality will not be as great as it was, nor will any of this be colored. I apologize. I have to saved the colored stuff for truly special one offs and erotica.
I’ve been a long-time fan of your art now, and I believe it’s time that I started growing the dire machine art library. I’ve been doing some basic things with vehicle art, but I’m just finding it difficult to draw a dire vehicle. So, just to cut right to what I’m asking, what tips would you have for others trying to get into dire art?
@Abynth: If you arent well versed in vehicles then this stuff will probably be fairly difficult without practice of just basic regular vehicles. Make a folder full of really cool pictures of each type of machine in every possible camera angle, along side minute details like front and rear landing gears, tank treads, rotor blade assemblies ect. you will be referring back to these constantly in order to know what they look like. The Machines themselves share some aspects of cyber biology, but Dires aren’t animals, so they are pretty similar to real vehicles that you can image search for on the internet. Picture the dire as a 3D object in space that you are placing emotive structures upon. Use internal references, including cut-aways to find places where it makes sense to put a jawline. You can take a real image of a machine and attempt to make a face look good on that first before you begin drawing too (a sort of proof of concept). It helps to know what about basic regular vehicles you are struggling with, or if you just need a design ethos. most of the creative stuff goes into the appendages that snake out of the hatches and maintenance panels. Think of the creature as a giant oyster shell who’s insides come out to grab something. The body is very rigid, it cant really bend in any direction it wasn’t meant to for more then 20 degrees in either direction. You should also have a goal in mind to make the picture interesting. What is your Dire warship doing with his/her day? How is your Dire truck decorated or spending his or her day after work? Do they have a hobby? knitting, ship in a bottle, videogames, pottery,. or ‘shooting the shit’ with the boys? These images go much better when you have a machine doing a slice of life action, and this can say a lot about their personality. Basically, a vehicle by itself is really neutral. Only the most ardent machine fans would find that compelling on of itself, so you need to add personality to it, you should try and tell a story here. You are building a D&d character that just soo happens to have 2000-26000 lbs of load capacity.
When you start brainstorming these ideas(and you can write them down too on bullet points) make a small thumbnail or pre-drawing so you get a picture of what the final image will look like on the page. I’m not sure if this answers your question, I think for specifics I should update the FAQ page.
That was actually really helpful. I think I’ll spend more time on non-living vehicles, and get more used to starting with a box/cylinder and adding details. I mainly have an interest in drawing consumer ground vehicles right now, but I might find myself expanding to more types in the future. I’ll set myself some goals, and work up to more detailed art.
And yes, I think updating your FAQs could be a great idea, and could hopefully sponsor more artists into this small community.