Comic Book Project!! Options

[JapeNZ]

Hey guys my names Jon-Paul Smith (JP, Jon, Oi!, whatever works) I live in Wellington, New Zealand and having recently written a comic story/ script decided to have a go at drawing it too.

So here's an example of one of the pages I've done for my comic:




I've recently (last week) started a blog/ diary of my progress (www.comicbookproject.net) the images above are the next page due to go up. You can also download the script from there.

I haven't done anything like this before and it has been a massive learning curve for me already, as such I would very much appreciate some advice and/ or feedback for my work.

Thanks in advance for your help.
JP

[ChadStrohl]

Looks pretty sharp. I love how the inks really made the art come to life. Well on the curve. Well on the curve

[G-Man]

Very impressive!

[Ron Fortier]

This is very, very impressive. You say this is from a story you also wrote. Am curious how long the story is and where you intend to submit it.
Bravo on a really nice art job here.

[JapeNZ]

Thanks guys, the story itself will end being approximately 70 or so pages long, so i still have a hell of lot of work to do (have inked first 6 and penciled 14) as far as showing it I haven't really looked in to it, once i'm closer to having it finished i'll maybe look to self publish and have an exhibition or something, like i say i'm not really sure.

Thanks again for responding guys, I've uploaded the script so you can read what i'll be trying to draw, and I'll continue to post bits as I go along.

Cheers
JP

Attached File(s)

 Project_1.3.pdf ( 191.58K ) Number of downloads: 0

 

[Greg G.]

Unsolicited Critique, please ignore if you like.

Are you using traditional inks on the pages or digital?

A lot of the mood in the pencils is lost in the inks. If you're doing digital inks then you could really benefit from taking advantage of some of the screen tone patterns available to help preserve the gradients and gray values in the pencil work. The last panel with the woman's face is the best translation, and if you could do it there; then I'm pretty confident you could pull it off on the rest of the page.

Keep up the good work.

[JapeNZ]

Hey Greg,
I am indeed inking these on photoshop as i'm pretty sure my housemate would freak out at the idea of me using loads of black ink on his nice new carpets that said I've only had my hands on photoshop for a few months and am still very much getting to grips with it.. I'd never even heard of screen tone patterns... you sir, have blown my mind!! This will save me so much time, I've been making them myself... very badly as I have no idea what i'm doing on photoshop, and it takes ages.
Thanks so much for the advice.
JP

[Greg G.]

Hey Greg,
I am indeed inking these on photoshop as i'm pretty sure my housemate would freak out at the idea of me using loads of black ink on his nice new carpets that said I've only had my hands on photoshop for a few months and am still very much getting to grips with it.. I'd never even heard of screen tone patterns... you sir, have blown my mind!! This will save me so much time, I've been making them myself... very badly as I have no idea what i'm doing on photoshop, and it takes ages.
Thanks so much for the advice.
JP

Cool cool, this may be of assistance.

There's gobs of screen tone resources online if you just punch it into Google.

Good luck.

[JapeNZ]

Hey guys,
So here's the next page, it's a double page spread that'll make up pages 5 and 6 of the comic, I haven't put in any of the 'crash bang, wallops' and all that as I'll be doing that when I get around to doing the lettering which will happen once I finish the chapter.




Any feedback and/ or helpful comments will be gratefully taken on board
Cheers
JP

[Ron Fortier]

I think you are an extremely gifted artist, but feel you are over-extending yourself with the inks. They seem a tad too much and darken the images more than needed. Would love to see you concentrate solely on your pencils at this stage of your career and see how other, professional inkers would embellish you work. You might be happily surprised. keep em flying!

[JapeNZ]

Hey Ron,
Thanks for the comment mate, I particularly liked the first bit hahaha you may be right about the inks, this was the first page I tried inking (as it has no background I thought it would be a good one to start with) and it was a real eye opener for me of the many techniques and styles people use when inking. Hopefully by the the time I get to the end of the story i'll be doing a more convincing job on this side of the process, this project is mainly about me trying to learn new things so fingers crossed over the coming months that's exactly what we'll see
That said if anyone wants to practice their inks on my pencils then please do so, it would extremely useful for me to see how others with more experience tackle the same subject matter.
Thanks again for your comments Ron, I look forward to hearing your thoughts as the project progresses.
Cheers
JP

[JapeNZ]

Right so here's the next page:




This leads into the final page of the chapter, once that's done I'll be doing the lettering for the whole chapter.
With that in mind is there any advice you guys can give regarding lettering? I've been using Anime Ace 2.0 BB font for the blog stuff and logo bits and I really like it.. however I am aware there are some definite lettering fopa's *cough* comic sans *cough* and would very much appreciate any insight I can get from you ever so helpful chaps

Cheers guys,
JP

[ART BOWSHIER]

I love you work. your inks are too dark. greyscale would make your stuff killer.

[uphillbrian]

I agree with ART in that gray tones would help. you're pencils are awesome and I feel like the art gets lost in the inks. maybe try less hatching? More solid black forms, a la Dustin Nguyen.



just a suggestion of course, I just hate to see such beautiful pencils get lost. loving the pages though

This post has been edited by uphillbrian: Feb 18 2012, 10:04 PM

[JapeNZ]

Hey guys,
Thanks for your comments, I think the idea of using grayscale may be a really good one and something I'll definitely be having a go at. The more graphic inking option is also well worth me looking at, the inking for the project is something I really need to work on and your suggestions are most appreciated;)
I'll post some stuff once I've had a crack at it.
Cheers
JP

[JapeNZ]

Okay so I've had a quick go at doing the first page in grayscale, as with the entire project this is a first for me so I wasn't expecting much and to be honest I'm probably not sold from this one alone.



Any thoughts, technical suggestions or general suggestions would be appreciated.
Cheers
JP

[JapeNZ]

Oh and a big thank you to the powers that be for putting a link to this on the CR front page, CHEERS GUYS!! the more that see it and make helpful suggestions the better (hopefully) it'll be.
Cheers
JP

[JapeNZ]

So this is the final page of the first chapter, due to my being completely indecisive I’ve decided i’ll do the lettering for the first chapter and post it in both line and grayscale… which shouldn’t take any time at all.. haha hmmm



As always any comments and helpful suggestions will be gratefully received.

Cheers
JP

[Ron Fortier]

One of the reasons I love your work, John, is because it is very much unlike anything else I've ever seen artwise. That uniqueness is so refreshing and bravo on the deft use of gray-scaling. You pulled that off superbly here.

[charltonsect]

I'm not an artist (i'm a writer) but these look amazing.

Great job!