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Cool styles and I think your images already close with regular comic styles
Yeah its hard to beat manual tracing or drawing .
I`ve been studying almost thousand hand drawing/inking/painting images in last two years . Something unique I noticed was about shadow/shading - and highlight the artist put in there . Yeah there are logic placement in those images but its very different with what 3D software/computer calculating from us .
In my opinion thats why 3D render still need extensive manual touch to get in there ,
Sometimes that makes me wonder.. Should I use 3D app to produce these kind of images ?
Especially after learn the fact I`ve spent so much time to setup proper scene in 3D app and then still doing lots of postwork in 2D programs ?
Yeah but I`m suck in manual drawing/sketching !!
How about just render simple figure and start morphing them using Liquify filter and hack the outline render so I can change those lines using AI Comic brush preset? But which one I should use to produce proper flat or outline renders ?
And so on .... and so on
After hours thinking like that , I`ve closed both DAZ Studio - Photoshop and turning on Netflix
As a person who has explored - just about every method of making a comic book, I tend to find the goal post isn't moved far enough or isn't what it should be.
It seems, for most, the point is to FOOL the reader into thinking that the images are hand-drawn. And once that's accomplished, it's off to the races.
Where as, 99.9% of those manipated renders don't look like anything a comic artist would naturally draw. They look like illustrations from a book and not comic art.
(Or maybe it's comic-styled art instead of comic art, I dunno)
They always lack a comic's sensibilities. And on top of that- very few make it a viable enough system to actually make a comic. There's lots of examples and single images that worked out nicely, but not many full-blown comics that avoid looking like filtered renders. I think that look is cool and has strong artistic merits, but equaling or replacing the pen-in-a-hand approach is not one of them.
juvesatriani_S" Something unique I noticed was about shadow/shading - and highlight the artist put in there . Yeah there are logic placement in those images but its very different with what 3D software/computer calculating from us . "
There's about a dozen things that are different between CGI-rendered-Comics and drawn comics. CGI comics are probably closer to still fames pulled from a movie- and assembled into a comic than true page assembly made image by image. The one-on-one comparison makes sense, like a comic uses the lessening of detail for depth and most CGI artists rely on Depth of Field. Same idea, just different approaches. We use Deep Perspective and they exaggerate the perspective(s).
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That said, I would still love a one-size or setting fits-all super-filter to take a render to the next (graphic) level.
But like everything else, you have to choose between Fast, Cheap and Good.
I highlighted that sentence in you quote, because that is where I feel I fit in, like what I said on the webinar, with deciding I go for the original rendered style instead of trying to emulate a hand drawn style I needed to create the cinematic feel in my images and in the flow.
@mr clam
"Personally, I think much better results could be achieved through tracing and hand-coloring with a paint program. This is probably even more time consuming than the processing method, but the end product looks so much more natural."
This is true, unfortunately I'm not that great at drawing or colouring, so the results I would produce would be well and truly crap. At least with the CGI style - post processed stuff, I can at least get half decent images.
I'm not necessarily trying to get images which look identical to comics, I'm exploring different processing techniques to produce something similar or something that emulates that style.
The end result is its own style, which I'm sure some people will hate, but others may like.
"Almost all of it looks like what it is: coldly processed."
It is quite difficult to get away from this. The first and most important thing is a good story. A reader can almost always look past everything else if the story is engaging. I've read a few comics that looked amazing and the story was bad. To me, that is the worse thing a comic can do.
@BeeMKay
I quite like the out of focus background. I've not really considered this in my comic style, but looking at it, I think it has a nice look to it.
Working with adjustment layers and colours can be very influential for creating mood and style. It's something I'm taking into consideration with the stuff I'm doing. Thanks for the examples.
@juvesatriani_S
Thanks for the comment. It's quite fun experimenting with the different looks. I absolutely agree with you that it can be overwhelming considering how much time and effort goes into making something look like something else! I am looking for a quick and effective technique that I can duplicate over and over to make comics quite quickly. I may however, be on a fool's errand.
@Griffin Avid
Good point. There is a big difference between CGI and drawn style. But consider that there are literally hundreds of comic art styles. I've seen some that are terrible and some where every panel is a piece of art. In the independent comics, readers are more willing to accept a style that suits the story and theme of the comic. Linwelly has created an effective comic using Daz renders, but they suit the story and theme quite well, emulating that cinematic quality. This Makes the comic fun to read and that is all a comic book reader can ask for.
I'm still experimenting with styles. As predicted I found it far more difficult to get a good female result. I'm also finding it hard to replicate the same look for multiple panels/images.
The black and white female image was easy to create and I actually quite like the look of it. I'm going to try out a few different poses, and male characters as well and see what they look like on different backgrounds.
I may very well be meandering down a creative path and end up no where. But as long as it is fun, I don't mind.
How you workflow to create those images ?
I`ve been experimenting with this method in last 2 days , and it seems easier to handle and makes me focus doing editing in PShop ( and hopefully to refine the line art in Affinity Designer ) without spend too much time in DAZ studio ( re- render - adjust shader color - lighting etc)
All base (Flat - Outlines) done via DAZ default outline render script . After swtich tje render engine , there is COLOR ID shown in every surface /material . From there you can assign simple color to creating flat render or to mask every element you need to recolor/edit in PSHOP
After that I`m creating multiple shadow variation and AO . So I have multi option without rerender the scene again .
Note : Literally you can remove every texture in your scene when building those layer element , especially if you want to let PShop handles everthing than DAZ , although PwToon help me to create fast shadow and AO render , but in genereal those mapless
Here the screenshot my PS layer
That image is awesome, you've done a great job in creating a comic/cartoon style.
The shadows are the right colour in contrast to the base and they are clean/sharp but without being too digitised. I think you've done a great job of making this work.
The colours are chosen from a limited pallette, which always seems to work for comic images. If you were to apply a black and white filter, I'm pretty sure this would look like a good black and white manga image.
I like that you've done an AO pass. I've not considered ambient occlusion. I might experiment with that.
Your workflow looks similar to one of my techniques. I always work with selection flats, background mask and a colour pass. I also have shadow passes - usually several of them and I use those to paint in different colours.
I usually achieve my shadows by using a single spot light in Unity. I have no ambient lighting and I set the intensity for the spot light to something like 600,000. The light then renders only pure blacks and white, similar to a threshold filter, only you can obviously move the light around the scene.
If you are interested in my technique, I will send you a free coupon for my Udemy course. I mostly work in Unity, but there may be something you can take from that to experiment with in your workflow.
I am leaning more toward black and white sketch style images for my characters. They seem to be more like the werewolf I posted earlier. The issue I can see here though, is they are very dark. They sort of remind me of some of the art found in the 2000AD comics. It is a horror comic so maybe dark would be good.
Best thing is, the technique is incredibly fast. I can create images in less then 20 minutes. This may be suitable for making a big comic series. Let me know what you think.
I am playing around with the darker style and I think I quite like it. I have tried the same image in pure black and white, colour and then colour converted to black and white. I like the colour converted to black and white best. Let me know what you think.
Yes, it's really difficult to come up with something that works... I've borrowed a bit by visual effects that I know do work from movies and such, though I also have some oscillation around the style. I feel that one of the difficultiies is to not alienate your readers too much by straying too far from your "main style".
Also, thanks for the huge compliments on 4th Wall! That eally made me blush!
You are right that it's a side project at the moment, mostly due to time constraints. It's also a comic where I experiment a lot visulally, so it usually is a lot of fun. I hope to put some more time into it this winter, as I hopefully will have more time by then... Nevertheless, I did have one page that was almost ready for publishing, so I put that online today. :-)
The background has a huge influence on the image, as it help guiding the viewer. In my comic I also have panels that use no background at all, or a line-derived blend mode version that's like a very faint echo of the scene to bring more focus to the characters in the front.
Actually, coming from rendering whole images, I was a bit afraid to "let go" of the background. I mean, there's usually a lot of time setting it up, and you would always have a background in a regular photography - which I was trying to emulate in my comic style. But that soon felt very limiting, and a constriction in what I was trying to tell... so I made the background its "own" character. It tries to tell the story along with the other characters of the panel, and as such at times might even go beyond the borders of a particular panel to connect it with the rest of the panels. I don't know if that makes any sense?
Then again, I might just be overdoing it! Who knows. I guess I can tell in a couple of years down the road.
So, don't get discouraged. If there's one thing I've learned it's that you keep evolving at all times, and there's constant changes to your artwork. What is important is that you "start". Put that first page together, share it. That can be causing such a huge explosion of creativity, once you are actually "out" and the tension of having to find the perfect solution eases... Have fun at what you are doing.
BTW, Drew Spence (Griffin Avid) made a cool series of videos where he talks about publishing and artwork, which is very thought provoking and helps grounding yourself.
Mmm... how to put this... I think the dark style works well when you look at the fully enlarged images. But when you have a comic, you are usually dealing with smaller panels, a lot of the detail gets lost and what remains is not telling your image's story.
If you look at how the reader will later see the panel, it will probably be in a size like this:
When you look at what you can actually see at this size, the eyes are drawn to the light coloured spaces.
The largest light space is at the lower right corner, and while it points into the right direction (face), you have the much brighter and straight angled bed sheets section that distracts from the much smaller face. The face itself at this size is a dotted blob. I don't see that he's looking at ther clock or recognize actually that it's a face at all.
In the coloured version, the red time numbers works nicely, but my attention as a reader goes directly to the "Beep Beep". The face is a yellowish something without much detail.
Now, if you look at the same image in a screenshot taken from the original size, you can actually make out the details a lot better, but speaking in terms of "on page size", this panel would eat up a third of a page.
With the coloured version, it works better, because the greens don't drag as much attention to them as the white would do. I like the way the red of the numbers stands out, and his face gets more attention because it's lighter than the greens.
I'm no pro and just give this feedback based on my gut feeling/perception, so please take this feedback with a grain of salt.
Excellent observation.
Thanks for the feedback, this is really constructive.
I quite like the idea of a simple design where there are only blacks and whites, as a way to direct the readers attention to what you want. As you pointed out the largest area of white is what would be most obvious to the reader. I have to do a bit more work on this technique.
I have been experimenting with comic techniques since January this year and I have devised a few different techniques for creating different effects. I have gone with this style as it fits more with my story and the original design of my werewolf that is pretty much the central piece of the story.
I am finding it really interesting working just in black and white at the moment. I am using light to sculpt the objects, which hopefully creates some interesting aesthetic to the piece.
When I first started this journey into comic techniques I had a narrow vision about comic styles, however, after experimenting and coming on this forum I have gained extra appreciation for different forms and art styles for comic books. I now see the advantages of 3D art in comics and it's great that it lets each person express themselves creatively in their own way.
Thanks for all the feedback, I find it very useful.
Pete
I don't usually create a screenshot preview of each and every panel. When I do, it's mostly for testing dimensions, or checking to see if all of the speech bubbles fit.
Here's comparison of a partially previewed page vs a completed one.
These pages are from Unit-M Issue #0.3: Copycat Calamity.
I did check out the beginning of UNit-M on your site. I'd like a chance to work on this page and do some post-work.
Possibly, make a full video of me doing the edits and making some changes.
Is that okay?
Sure, go for it.
I need all the help I can get to improve.
Done. Please let know what you think.
Great video, some really nice tips. You have explained your methods which help the narrative flow of the story per page.
@unitmcomics This story sounds great. The clone idea is great fun and anything with giants is always going to be fun to read. I liked that each character have their own personalities and strategies of dealing with issues. The page with the giant woman releasing the clones from beneath the building looked great, it was a great idea, quite fun!
There's a good sense of scale, and it almost cries out for a splash page, where one image fills an entire page, showing the small main characters in the foreground and the giant in the background looming over them for dramatic effect, possibly a low angle to really sell the conflict for the reader.
@Griffin Avid Great breakdown of the pages. Good advice you gave is skim read the pages or read it from a distance , does the page make sense without paying too much attention. This is a good way to see if the images alone are telling the narrative correctly.
A possible issue at 17:00 - the character breaking out of the box seems to be pointing down to the next panel, so your eye flows down to that, but the panels you want the viewer to read have now been moved to the left. I would say, either leave the panels on the right and have the breakout character pointing to them. Or move the panels to the left and don't have the breakout character. But the final image once it is composited does look impressive with the breakout character.
The brush work for the pecial effects was nicely done and brings the images to life.
For the lightning you could also consider adding a blank layer above, change the blend mode to something like screen or vivid light and paint a light purple or pink, with brush opacity and flow at about 30% and this will cause it to glow in traditional comic book style.
I like your use of brushes to enhance the effects, great work.
Thank you and more good tips for sure.
@GriffinAvid Thank you so very much for taking the time and using your expertise to show how improvements could be made to my comic. I deeply appreciate your efforts.
As previously mentioned in this thread, I’m very much an amateur.
Prior to starting this comic, I had no experience with DAZ3D, comic development, scripting, or really anything to do with comic creation.
I’m trying to learn as much as I can to improve my work, and your thoughtful critiques are tremendously helpful.
My Commentaries
I’ve been trying to go back and add detailed, self-critical commentaries to each and every one of the pages I’ve produced so far.
I’m still many pages away from commenting on the page you’ve edited for me @GriffinAvid, but, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to add your video to that page of my comic. Please let me know.
@GriffinAvid ‘s Awesome Video - Comments
@GriffinAvid, your video was very instructive, and it’s given me a lot of new ideas that I want to try out.
I wanted to comment on a few of the things you mentioned in your video, so I figured the best way to do this was page-by-page.
Page 4 - The One Where Shield is Outside of the Tablet
Link to Page 4
In the video @GriffinAvid, you note how it’s visually inconsistent that Shield (the female character) appears outside of the tablet.
I completely agree.
In my script, it calls for her to appear in the tablet. However, when I started working on that panel, having her on screen beside another screen looked strange. I could never crack this, and kind of gave up. I didn’t want to redo all the surrounding panels, so I went the simple route and dropped the background and just kinda plopped her in there.
Your comment @GriffinAvid, that a comic should flow narratively, with images alone absent the text, is something I’m going to strive to do in the future.
I regularly just skim comics myself, letting the images tell the story. I agree that it's important to try to emulate that level of reader accessibility.
Page 9 - The One Where It’s Apparent That I Use Depth of Field too Much
Link to Page 9
You mention @GriffinAvid that I’m using the depth of field effect a lot, and again, you’re right on the money.
In this particular comic, I’m using it a lot to hide the fact that the mountainous backgrounds look kind of lousy.
Page 10 - The One Where the Duplicates Surround Our Hero in Blue
Link to Page 10
This is kind of a related to my comments on Page 9.
In the video, you mention @GriffinAvid that the scene where our hero in blue is surrounded by duplicates must have taken a lot of computer power to render
It actually didn’t.
In the planning stages for this comic, I used Scene Optimizer to create four different duplicates in DAZ, each with a progressively smaller texture map/memory footprint.
I knew in this comic I’d have scenes with dozens of duplicates in a single panel. As my computer is a dinosaur, and rendering already takes forever, employing models with different levels of quality was my only way to make this script work.
In the scene in question, the models closer to the camera are higher quality than those further back. And then for scenes where the duplicates are in the background, or are blurred by depth of field effects, I use really low quality models.
This strategy has been mostly sucessfully. Render times are down, but viewport manipulation in DAZ is still sluggish.
Page 13 - The One Where Our Heroes Get Thrown and Kicked Across the Desert
Link to Page 13
To your comment @GriffinAvid, in the script, originally, it called for our blue hero to be dragged over by the duplicates that were wailing on him, and then held up like a football to be punted.
When I stated work on this page, I decided that the initial concept would be too busy, and went for a simplified, but visually incongruent setup.
Page 16 - The One That @GriffinAvid Worked On
Link to Page 16
Your changes to this page @GriffinAvid are a vast vast improvement.
Having our hero in blue breaking through the borders in Panel 3 really makes it feel like he’s leaping out at the reader. It’s smart way to convey that he’s hurdling forward, and it’s far more effective than what I went with.
Thinking of the panel borders as breakable to convey depth, particularly to make something feel like it’s coming right at you, is something I haven’t experimented with, but really should.
Switching the order of the bottom panels also makes a lot of sense. As you surmised in your video @GriffinAvid, the reason I ordered the panels as such was to adhere to the timeline of events.
As you demonstrate, it’s far more effective to have the final panel of page depicting the scene where both our hero and the laser are about hit their target. And as you say, it creates better tension leading into the next page.
Finally, the added energy and blurring effect also really make this page pop a lot more.
Thank you @GriffinAvid very much again for doing this.
Reponses to @jepsonpete_63996f7ec6
@jepsonpete_63996f7ec6 I really only settled on using hard-light clones as the antagonists, as I wanted something our heroes could slice and dice without too much in the way of consequences.
I like this scene too. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it, but it's a fun comic-y idea.
I’ve been trying to go back and add detailed, self-critical commentaries to each and every one of the pages I’ve produced so far.
Are you sharing that with readers - or commenting ON the pages?
Or do you mean mental notes that you file away for future reference?
Be carful being too harsh on yourself. Most readers don't notice all the things fellow creators do and sometimes when you point out too many 'flaws' readers start LOOKING for them instead of just enjoying what you did create. Maybe when you hit your next level look back and note where you were, but I say - learn from your own work and use that data to get better.
A possible issue at 17:00 - the character breaking out of the box seems to be pointing down to the next panel, so your eye flows down to that, but the panels you want the viewer to read have now been moved to the left. I would say, either leave the panels on the right and have the breakout character pointing to them. Or move the panels to the left and don't have the breakout character.
There's a comment aboove about the eyes being led downward by that panel change. And I agree, I probably needed to make the wings break more through the top to balance out the panel and lessen the feet becoming an arrow, per se.
In the planning stages for this comic, I used Scene Optimizer to create ...
Scene optimizer is a great resource. Glad you're using it.
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If you are going to share or use the video, I wonder if you could trim it to the main positive talking points.
Like when there's a synopsis or such - or even- make a video of our own ---
Don't get me wrong, I'D LOVE FOR YOU SHARE THAT VIDEO, but I think for pure creator impact, I'd like to see you do something like this and read your book and explain it to your readers and future readers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhcVp1QD5YA&t=3s
I think that would do more to engage your readership.
(but please share away lol)
I’ve been adding self-critical commentary write-ups in the comment section of each page (example). I borrowed the idea from Liberty Lass, a now concluded comic also produced using DAZ3D.
Reader response has been positive so far, and I don't mind if readers are harsh or looking for flaws, as long as the feedback is constructive.
Whenever I get to the commentary on this page, I certainly want to discuss this video.
Frequently, I recognize something is wrong with a page I've produced, but I don't have the expertise to really say why. Your video is very instructive as to what works and doesn't. I'd be remiss not to include it.
Good vid demo @griffinAvid
@unitmcomics yes, I also run into that issue - I set up a page and down't know it it's really effective. That's why I like the Visual Narrative Community Webinars and also Drew's Postwork Webinars over at Digital Arts; you can put up a page for discussion, and the feedback is helping a lot. I mean, there's so many things that I don't even see. But I learned about and try to pay attention to some things, and the challenging and thrilling part is turning the suggestions from the feedback into something that is "your own style".
@griffinAvid another great video, Drew! I watched it yesterday while waiting for some upload to complete, and it's great fodder for thoughth and inspiration.
@Worlds_Edge Thank you very much!
@BeeMKay Glad you liked it. I want to do this more often.
@unitmcomics Can't wait to see how this turns out.
Oh, feel free to use Division at any time.
Though I guess you'll want different comics for different base styles?
Well, I can do one that goes through the pages before a particular page gets post worked.
That's tough because your book is so intricate, but I'll see what I can do.....
What's the best link you want me to pull it from?
That would be cool, but really, only if you are interested.
http://demondivision.thecomicseries.com/ is the most recent updated one. But if you want to do a particular page, let me know, I can send you the single, unedited panels.
I also have a scrolldown version, which so far has the complete Chapter 1, btw. https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/demon-division/list?title_no=213646
It's suffers from Transition issues, literal ones (from page to page in the scrolldown - I'm still not good at intersections) as well as those coming from panels created for a page version now being used in a scrolldown version. Scrolldown is a format I'm really not comfortable with, but it seems to be expected when you want to survive in the smartphone consumer world...
I have decided to begin creating my werewolf comic with a simple cell shading look. @BeeMKay you were right about the very dark black and white images I create earlier. They look interesting as big images, but it looked terrible when I put together 3 or more on a page.
This is a big image, I haven't finished blending the inks, so they may be a bit rough at the moment.
Feel free to have a look through this and I would appreciate any thoughts, ideas or feedback.
Thanks
Pete
That title looks great with the blood stains.
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The Demon Division video is done.