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[maxcavsm]

Okay, here's the backstory...

Forum,

Here's the situation.

I would go into all the painful backstory and exposition required to get me to this point, but I'm going to get right to it, plain and simple.

I had an epiphany at work yesterday that made me realize that I need an outlet for everything that happened to me in Iraq, and eight hours of video games a day isn't doing the trick any more. I want to DRAW about my experiences over there.

I know, weird.

I have no art background. I have no art equipment other that a three ring binder and a mechanical pencil I grabbed from upstairs. I could just draw a bunch of stick figures and call it a day, but I don't think that would help for a minute. I can see panels of well drawn art/manga in my head, and seeing artists from successful webcomics makes me long all the more to make this sudden pipe dream a reality. I've got a hundred different ideas for different concepts. It's the trick of getting them onto paper that has me a little stumped.


Okay, I wrote that two months ago to the day. It's been posted on a few major webcomic forums. Since then, I've found this site, and I've come to love the QC gang.  I've been posting my daily work on the sites, looking for criticism, asspats and the like. So I figured I'd start doing the same here and see what kind of feedback I get!

Here's the backlog of posts over at CAD:  http://www.cad-forums.com/showthread.php?t=70497

For those too lazy to check the link; here's what it look like two months ago:


And here's two months later:

I'll start posting here as well now, and starting with two of my character sketches for my eventual webcomic:



So, THIS is Private First Class Francis Ezra.  I can't find his profile to give you a lot of info, but he's the squad's assistant gunner.  His scrawny frame and early receding hairline makes him "Jeff" to the "Mutt and Jeff" team that is the squad heavy weapons team (the actual machine gunner is a stout, stocky weightlifter named Mikey).   His love of all things "geek" (Magic, Dungeons and Dragons, painting minitures, Harry Potter) is a topic to which the rest of the team gives him boatloads of crap.  He and his testosterone-driven roommate Mikey are constantly at odds with each other.  Ezra, who is the only member of the team without a catchy nickname based on his last name, insists on being called "E-Rock" but without much success. That's all I've got right now; can't find the profile.



This, of course, was done a day later.  I again didn't spend a lot of time or energy into the 240 (machine gun), the armor, the uniform...I was more interested in getting Mikey's shape and a few poses. I was hoping to do three like I did with Ezra, but his ass took up too much room across the page.  So I just used the extra space to have him patting some Iraqi kid on the head (oh, that's the stick figure).

Okay, enough for now...thanks for any help!

PS. Remember, this is with two months of drawing under my proverbial belt...please keep this in mind!

[Narr]

The art isn't bad, IMO, especially for a beginner.  Remember that at least on the internet, stick figures are okay as long as the humor stands up.  Honestly, xkcd is one of my favorite webcomics and there isn't anything that's been on that site other than a few landscape drawings I couldn't reproduce on my own in 5 minutes.  The guy who writes it, though, is extremely witty and insightful so it's a pleasure to read.

Also, I don't think I've read any webcomics done by people with military backgrounds.  One of my housemates served in Iraq and I find his sense of humor hilarious, so I'd be interested in reading more.

[maxcavsm]

YEA! I don't suck! Thanks! Seriously though, thanks for the positive input, I appreciate it.  Definately need the support right now.

Lol...no no...the stick figure was just my being lazy.  I didn't feel like drawing the kid out, although he will eventually be a character himself. 

Well, I made the plunge, and I get the feeling that the damn has more or less been broken.

I ordered a used Graphite 6x8 pad from Ebay and saved myself $100.  Seeing as I had money sitting in my Paypal account from selling my Alienware laptop, the second I got in the door, I made the decision to make it happen.  So it's on it's way, and 1-6 business days from now, I take my doodles to the next level...digital inking and the mess that is photoshop.

After getting a hold of forum master and comic guru Azual (CAD), I sat down with the ol' sketchpad and decided to work on another character.  It was a toss up, but I finally decided that if I was going to even attempt working on this comic, I'd better get my number one and two characters sketched out and ready to go.

So this is Mac.  The narrator for the story that I'm going to try to tell, for the most part...and for all intense and purposes, he just happens to look like a comic representation of someone I MAY know...

It amazed me that when I was drawing the figures how much better my hands and feet (or boots and shoes in this case) are getting.  And definately how well the shoulder holster turned out.   I had no reference drawing to imagine what it would look like on a person from the front, but having worn one of the damn things for as long as I did...all I had to do was close my eyes and voila.  Pretty nice, but the magazine pouches on the left were a little...off.

[maxcavsm]

Well, it's on now.

Anyway, I just happened to be at Best Buy Friday trolling around, when of COURSE, what do I see in the computer periphery section, but that they sell god damn Wacom Graphire and Intuios pads now. At Best Buy! Since WHEN? Well, wouldn't it figure that two days after I have to buy one online and wait for it to arrive that they suddenly start selling the damn things. I could have tried one out first before actually buying one. But no matter. I immediately purchased that, a new massive 24" monitor, and sprinted home to get to work.

And found myself at a dead stop. Photoshop Elements, which came with the digitial drawing pad I'm "borrowing" from Best Buy, is the equivalent of pulling out a chemistry set or a magic kit and trying to just "have fun" with it. You can tinker around with it, but the chances of you actually MAKING something worth while is slim without a great deal of preparation and RTFM (reading the fkcing manual).

And I don't read good. SO of course, I tear into it, start doodling, and realize that photoshop be hard. I was actually chatting on MSN messenger with Azual (Tom from Ctrl+Alt+Del) from England on how to get the damn thing to work. Layers, filters, magic wand, paint can...messy. I'm glad he obviously was willing to help, because the information and step by step tutorial he walked me through got me up and running for the most part, as my new colored picture should indicate.

Well, the consummate of my weekend of tinkering around with photoshop: I spent the last half hour coloring my old Airborne Lieutenant drawing I did as my new Myspace pic. Really turned out nicely, I think.

Now...the question is, do I actually keep drawing using the ol' fashion sketch pad, and then just use photoshop for inking and coloring, like I did with this picture? Or do I do all of my sketching digitally at 10% opacity using a digital sketch pad...you wanna talk about hard? I guess it all takes time and practice.

[Antsan]

Hmmm.
I think, that it looses with the coloring. The depth is missing, if you understand. There are no more shadows, the scribblings up there were just more alive. And I think they are really good, the characters are realy characters, not like my poor concepts.

So I think you should draw on paper and color it digitally. Then you maybe should put the original drawing as multyplying layer over the color layer to get the shadows back.

Just my two cents. Hope, I helped.

[maxcavsm]

Oh, he's a character, all right. 
This is a pic of me after I graduated Airborne school.  I penciled the picture a few weeks ago.



I guess the concept sketches for my webcomic characters are more "posed" because I was doing that on purpose, as opposed to recreating a picture of myself.  And yes, there is no shadow layer here because I'm not exactly sure how to do that in Photoshop. I'm planning on working on that for next weekend (or so I've been told by my "instructor").

Thank you for your kind words on my concept sketches.  I haven't seen your drawings, but I'm sure they are fine! 

[maxcavsm]

From April 30:


Well, drawing by pencil may take a lot longer, but I'm certainly liking the results.  This pic iis of the fourth and final of my "South Park" four.

This is Ski, Mac's roommate.  He's the team...drunk.  Well, everyone's got to have a hobby, right?  But yes, Ski is a bit of a party animal and a lunatic.

I think I've got a solid lineup here.  Time to start putting them in weird and wild situations!



And I do have the obligatory female for the group; as in the webcomic credo, there must be a woman (or six...or all hot lesbians...I'm not sure, but there certainly is a trend).  I've got her designed, now I just need to sketch her out.  Should be interesting...

With each one of these drawings, I get more and more happy with the results.  With this last one?  I think I've made a lot of headway.

[maxcavsm]

Well, woke up this morning and thought all day about how I needed a group photo of the guys of them all interacting with each other.  So, when I got home from work, I went right BACK to work.  The drawing took me about, dunno, 3 hours?  I know, long time, but them's the breaks, especially while I'm still working out the characters; draw two lines, erase one, etc.



The inking went REALLY well.  Did the whole thing in a half hour, then took another fifteen minutes to figure out how to resize it from 20x20 to something normal sized without it distorting.



Well, looks like tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to color this mess.  Which should be about as much fun as a knife to the eye, but I guess we'll take it one step at a time.  Hell, I'm finding new photoshop tricks and tools every time I fire it up, so...

I'd keep going, but it's "Lost" time.  So time's up

[maxcavsm]

Okay, this is such a pain in the ass, I'm wondering if I'm going to bother coloring these things at all.

Okay, yeah, I probably will.

HAHA! 1st of the 337 Infantry Brigade? Lol. The shirt read "1337" yesterday, and I had been meaning to make the guys a part of 1st of the 333rd Infantry Brigade (Triple Three Infantry)...and then I looked at both Mikey's and Ezra's shirts.

All I need to do is add a hyphen between the 1 and the 337, and voila. Sneaky video game reference in the birth of a new infantry brigade. That's good stuff.

Anyway, I'm sure coloring is a lot easier than I'm making it, but it's taking work. I could have been drawing tonight, as opposed to spending the hour dinking around with Photoshop Elements.

But anyway, here are the results:


I've been having trouble with the damnable "magic wand" tool. Most of the time (right now, about 75%), I"m able to fill in the item I want colored properly. The rest of it highlights the rest of the screen or all kinds of random line art. So I'm forced to use the magnetic lasso...which isn't bad, but...

And then what about Ski (far left) and his shirt? It's a black long sleeve with a grey or white Airborne logo over the heart area, but when I had to use the lasso, it washed right over it. Now I can't really use the lasso to "unmark" the Airborne wings...not exactly sure how to bring the white/grey out over it without creating a new layer and drawing white ON the black.

[maxcavsm]

Anyway, have been on a WoW kick for the last few days, so I laid off the drawing until this morning. Then decided that I'm just a little too chicken shit to actually start sketching out cartoons yet, so I decided to work on something a little less daunting.

Middle Eastern Insurgent head wraps!

Yeah, and let me tell you, that wasn't a lot of fun. Trying to draw clothing on a person is hard enough, but trying to draw it wrapped around someone's head a dozen times with wrinkles, folds and those annoying checker tablecloths...anyway:



I was about ready to cop out (and still might) and use the "Sam and Fuzzy" ninja-mafia look, but...I dunno. Wanted to do my own thing, I guess.

They just don't look quite right. I'm sure a lot of it is coloring, shading, etc. I dunno. Just not a great day with the ol' sketch pad. But then again, my hands and feet used to suck, and now they're passable.

[maxcavsm]

Paris Hilton's going to jail. Ha, ha.

Anyway, thanks again to Tom/Azual over at CAD for getting me my 15 minute shading/highlight lesson via MSN messenger today. Good stuff, and 10x easier than learning how to use Photoshop in general.


There were certainly points where I got a little carried away, but I was excited, what can I say?

[maxcavsm]

Well, back to it.
Bending the forum posting rules a little, I posted the actual first comic for my series on several webcomic forums and got the same general advice across the board:

Here's the actual thread:
http://www.cad-forums.com/showthread.php?t=72932

And the general response across all five boards I'm posting on is:

1) WAY too much dialogue.  Spread it out.  Settle down, tiger.
2) Yes, that "thing" in the 1st panel is a closed eye from the inside.
2) People are suprisingly interested to see what happens next.

So, based on wanting to start out on a good first impression/good footing, I'm probably going to revamp the prologue until I get it to make sense through a first read and tweak some of the drawings a bit.  Otherwise, I think it's a hell of a start.

Immediately after posting, I spent another 2-3 hours roughing out the next one, but I got a little carried away when I scanned and tried to ink/color.  It got ugly REAL quickly, as it involves actual drawing/coloring, etc.  So, I redid the entire thing and started inking/coloring the first panel last night with some tricks Azual taught me (shift + click with brush= straight line FTW).



IT IS NOT DONE.  This is a 75% solution here; no text, no highlights, shadows are nowhere near done...but you get the idea.  Took bloody forever, but I think you get the idea.

Anyway, also worked on some other scribblings while watching TV with my wife.  They always take forever, but it's a nice, relaxing time and it's time I can spend with my wife as opposed to in front of my computer in my dungeon.

[Narr]

The redone colored group photo with the shading is actually pretty good.

Let us know once you get a full strip up and running!

Note to self: Check other threads before making self look like a doofus.

[maxcavsm]

Woot! Happy three-month-drawing-anniversary!

I'm now working on comic four for my Myspace site, building up an archive before I actually decide to start up a website somewhere. Here's a few stills from comic 3 and 4.

A character sheet (sort of) for Ezra, and a guy on the metro that turned out very nicely.


A still shot of SGT "Hotpants" the recruiter from comic #3. Obviously, not her real name. While I was sitting in a fancy pants salon with my wife getting her haircut, I toook the time, my sketch pad, and a fancy pants modelling magazine to do the legs on the woman and get them to look convincing and sexy. The rest I thunk out on my own, and I think the results work:


And finally, Mac getting that first haircut at Ft. Benning; was trying to fill up a panel and this came to my head on the trip into work this morning, and then sketched it out on the way home. A panel from comic #4.

[maxcavsm]

Aways nice to walk away for a few days and see what compliments I can catch in the ol' lint trap at the forums.  I really appreciate all the "asspats" as it were.  It's compliments that keep me going; I always sit down to draw something thinking, "This is going to look like crap", and 30-45 minutes later, I look at it and marvel that it all works out the way it does.

Couldn't do much over the holiday weekend with the parents in town, but the fourth comic is posted at my Myspace site in my sig at the bottom if you're interested in some finished product.

Right now, it's at about an update a week with my life and work schedule...what can you do?

Thanks again all.  I'll post here with some more stuff soon (I hope).

[maxcavsm]

So trying to keep out of the 4 panel carbon copy, I came up with this idea. This is panel 2 of 3 for my next comic.



But I'm having a hell of an idea with coloring the damn uniforms. Here's the issue: every "shot" of Mac working on untangling himself from his "malfunction", his uniform changes "patches" of color. I don't think anyone would actually care or notice, but having to color each single patch of each five images of Mac is a pain in the ass using the "shift+wand" then switch panels from ink to color then back and forth. Is there a shortcut? I used the magnetic lasso to color all of the first Mac on the far left, but then I have to go back through and switch colors over and over....

[maxcavsm]

Learn something new every day.

Well, I posted on my sites, primarily because I've spent way way too much time on this one. Time to move on, or the boys are never even going to see the border of Iraq.

So "invert selection". Nice trick. I like it.

I like the "paint the lines brown" idea. I will definately have to give that a whirl. Now I tried for this one the "inverse selection" on a second copied layer of the inking, but when selected 1) it wouldn't let me click once and color the whole selection and 2) when I misclicked, didn't click white space and clicked a line, it would darken the line with a green layer. By the time I got done with some of the colorings, Mac had a dark dark green outline over each and every line. In other words, ugly.

Things got even worse when I added the background. But I eventually just blasted through it and the final product is posted. You can tell that the manually colored the first Mac in the second panel, while I did the trick of inverse selection on the rest of them. The background ended up bleeding through the green that I used in the uniform. I think I just lost track of my layers, so when I flattened it...well...

Anyway, take a day or so to game myself silly, and then it's off to Fort Bragg with Mac to meet his new roommate (comic #6).

Oh, and because I'm using photobucket for posting, it's only allowing 800x600 or 1024x800. While I manually "save for web" inside of Photoshop, I did 600x 922 pixels, and it worked nicely. Anyway, I saved this one 800x600, and the size difference is apparent already.

[maxcavsm]

Okay, I was SUPPOSED to have a visual representation of my issue, but...well, my stupid scanner is acting up.

Anyway, the new scanner is posted...err, comic. Had a nice time with this one. But after I sketched it, I realized that if I wanted to make the argument, I could show that I haven't been able to draw two exact copies of my main character yet. As a matter of fact, one could argue that I've drawn several "different" characters so far.

Too bad they're all the same guy.

So I sat down and tried to do a character sheet, and found that even THEN, I was having problems creaing the same face, over and over from different angles.

Suggestions? How do I get around this problem so Mac looks like..well, Mac?

[öde]

In comic 2 it looks awfully like it's his thumbs against his forehead instead of his pinkies. They separate too far down the hands, I think.

Your progress and current skill is impressive and I can't wait for more comics!