Thanks @mitsuki-youko, @Pattu_w, @patrycja.lerch, @snakker, @gregorya!
@gregorya, Btw, the other 2 characteare are Ryonosuke (Ace Attorney) and Dimitri from Darkstalkers xD
Managed to get in a bit more progress during these busy days.
Term 4 progress
Main focus for now is anatomy. Full upper body.
First off some muscle hunting fun as per one of the daily excercices.
Tried to get some more variety in my models this time. Some men/women as well as some leaner folks for a good challenge
And then we finished dressing up Mr. Calaca on the upper part of the body. Decided to put a face on him since it was getting a bit too creepy to see the skull attached to the muscles.
It's actually fun doing these, if you notice any obvious mistakes let me know!
I've honestly learned a LOT from muscles and anatomy with these classes. A bit of a comparison shoot below on how this has helped:
Before knowing anatomy
After anatomy classses
The bases where there, but it's quite better now.
Also kept doing more sketches. At this point I don't think this is gesture practice anymore, it's just sketch practice. I mean, it starts as gestures, but then I ended up adding more shadows for fun.
Overwatch themed this time! I think you'll know who they are if you know a bit of overwatch.
Widomaker's derrier and Reinhardt armor where suprisingly challenging. Reinhardt's armor in particular is impressively complex. Tracer was probably the most simple of the bunch, and by the time I got to reaper I was pooped.
I find it helps keep those observation and sketch skills moving. And chosing different themes keeps it fun.
Manga
One more page! I'm actually quite proud on how this one turned out. With the battle coming to an end, this and the following pages have been hovering around in my mind for a while, so it was satisfying to finally put it on (digital) paper.
1) The obvious points here was on moving the main character out of the frames. Compared to previous pages not only does it make it "pop" more, but it helps drive the eye and it's helped me make better use of frames. That is, frames are not just "containers", but I'm learning to make them part of the overall composition. It also gives higher contrast of the the character on the forefront and elements on the back.
2) Brief use of the outlines for higher clarity and contrast. Without the white lines around the MC on the front, he started to blend in with the BG. However it's not necessary on the second or third frame since there is much higher line contrast in those.
3) The pose in the first and thrid frame are complementary. Even without speedlines on the character, with the pose, the "whip" and the hair flow it's easy to tell where he comes from, what he is doing and what action is taking place. Giving more strenght to that final "YANK". Seki's arm muscles are also notably detailed to enforce the strenght of the pull.
4) The assasins really don't like where this is going. Tried a few times on how to manage an expression of surprise/fear/rage with a mask on. The black BG gives a bit of a "fear" feeling, like things stand still for a secod (also the reason the frame is elongated). The pupil is dilated to the point that it's just a dot. And the final "STOP!" is handwritten to give it more intensity to the expressions. You can also slightly tell the masks are now crumbling.
5) It's hard to appreciate on a single page basis, but these last pages along with the following two are meant to have a quick pace. Things are "moving quickly" and coming to the inevitable conclusion. At the same time, frames are growing bigger (with the following page being a full page frame)
That's all for now!
Unfortunatly it will be a while before I get to do another update. I simply got a lot of work stacked up I'll need to get through in the coming days.
At this point my manga schedule is also messed up due to this, so I probably won't make my own deadline for chapter 26. A shame, but I try not to stress about it since it's mostly a hobby (for now), not like an editor will get upset at me.
All's well ends well. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you all have a good week and weekend. See ya when I see ya.
