DaCeronNine - Art School Journey

[daceronine]

Yep! The good thing is that since it has happened before, it gets easier to identify when the mood is down and how it's affecting the work. Just a step back, resolve whatever is going on , and then we can resume in better spirits.

And progress was still done, so it's all good.

[gregorya]

Nice work on the muscle studies and the fan service.

1) I wanted to capture that shock and surprise reaction on Lydia to what she was just told, so exaggerated it's comical (there's even a tumbleweed on the roof, @mitsuki-youko suggested that xD). What could that have been to elicit such a reaction?

I don't know but It must have been a huge secret. Nice work on the environment.

Nice work on the lower leg anatomy study.

I wasn't sure what idea to use for this piece. I knew it had to be the 3 girls, and I kinda wanted to put them into a semi-casual scenario. Initially, they would just be walking, but that seemed too boring, then the idea was to maybe draw a training session, but I kinda wanted to show a different side of them than just fighting.

I like the cover image for Chapter 30. The perspective and line art are great. And I'm guessing that each of them has a different type of meal they want to eat.

If I'm honest with myself, I'm not 100% satisfied with it. I feel I could do better, with better shading, better highlights, and more detail. I still think it turned out well, but that feeling that it could be better itched in my head for a while. In the end, I felt I was going in circles and decided to wrap it up and move on.

That happens sometimes. Most of the time it happens after you finish the picture. It usually gives you ideas on improving the next picture.

[mitsuki-youko]

Heyos! Glad you're feeling better!

Super nice leg/feet studies

I tried it out and it worked great. Has special characters for spanish (which wild words didn't), and in general I feel it's much better. So I edited chapter 30 to use Komika font instead and plan on using it moving forward. At some point I think I'll have to go back and edit all other existing chapters to use komika if I want to do a printed copy. One of those things you learn in the manga creation learning journey. It kinda sucks I didn't learn about it sooner, but on the other hand at least I learned about it before I even printed anything. Imagine having to discard printed work or have to pay up the wild words license.

Ah yep that is a bummer... I really like the Marske font but Im pretty sure that one needs a commercial license so i avoid using that for manga purposes but its so pretty.. perhaps u can also make ur own font if ur into that kinda thing. I tried it once.

I know you already picked a font but fyi this one is free to just in case ur interested: https://www.fonts4free.net/laffayette-comic-pro-font.html

Oh and apparently all google fonts are free for commercial use! they have a lot of nice fonts there too: https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq

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Other things to research for print in case you might want to look into them imo are:

• Size of your files, which printing template to use.
  https://www.grekoprinting-comixwellspring.com/free-resources/

• how you'd sell it - Amazon? kindle? selfpub? idk if bookbaby exists in your area but i'd look into some just to get a very rough idea if you need to tweak stuff for down the line

For example for the artbook i also thought about the page numbers and how they correlate when printing and stuff (like if i want it on a full spread how that would look in terms of page numbers - its not actually that simple rip) and with bookbaby you can download a template as well and get a rough estimate of what ur looking for.

Though that may just be me putting the cart in front of the horse yet again.. but still imo its nice to perhaps touch upon it when ur planning for the future just in case any tweaks can make it easier.

[daceronine]

Sweet! this is all super helpful!! thanks a lot!!

I took a look at the laffayette font and it looks really good too! no harm in adding it to the collection. It also has special spanish characters, which is an important point for me moving forward. I'll give it a try at least to get a feel for it.

Something I liked about the Komika font for now is that it retains the comic feel, is easy to read, and somehow it's "spacing" is much more efficient than wild words. The same text I used with wild words takes less space on the same size with Komika and still reads really well. Comas and special characters are also well defined, which was not the case with other fonts I explored.

I did consider creating some fonts myself, especially for spanish characters, but in the end there was no need to dive that deep (for now)

I'll definetly be taking a close look at the greko printing resources to learn more about it, though printing will probably be determined by what I can do get locally, especially when the time comes to go to some conventions. I'll also take a look at some services that print and deliver directly, see how it works and what the prices are.

Print is something I'm still not super looking into, but it's growing closer with every chapter/page completed. I almost kinda dread going into it as I feel it'll be a bit of a headache, especially since investment will probably increase then (as I have to be able to recoup printing cost), but it has to happen at some point.

Still, just publishing online used to seem like this huge challenge, and once we figured it out it's now a fairly straightforward afair. Hopefully it'll be something similar.

For example for the artbook i also thought about the page numbers and how they correlate when printing and stuff (like if i want it on a full spread how that would look in terms of page numbers - its not actually that simple rip) and with bookbaby you can download a template as well and get a rough estimate of what ur looking for.

Haha yea, I'm purposely tip toeing around spreads for that reason, but once we get into one shot territory and print stuff maybe we can experiment with that as well.

[mitsuki-youko]

Print is something I'm still not super looking into, but it's growing closer with every chapter/page completed. I almost kinda dread going into it as I feel it'll be a bit of a headache, especially since investment will probably increase then (as I have to be able to recoup printing cost), but it has to happen at some point.

ah i see, you can start early with patreon, kickstarter, and "buy me coffee" - esp if you market well.. tho.. marketing is basically its own job XD

[daceronine]

Haha, yea! I actually have a patreon in my linktree, though the only contributor is my uncle who knows nothing of manga or arts but still supports me with a buck to test the system (bless his hearth). I don't really expect that to kick off anytime soon though, I was just trying to understand how it works.

The plan for now is to look at online services like https://www.marpple.com/en/ or https://www.inprnt.com/ for single works, though I would first need to create side material that I feel is worth uploading for sale-for-support, which I feel will be more feasible once I get near the end of Marc's course.

The actual manga print, I'll probably look into local services to get it for cheap (while still looking good), and take those prints to conventions and keep a few copies to sell online to whoever wants a physcial copy.

I don't really expect the whole enterprise to be profitable, at least not by much, but at the very least to be self-sustainable. I see it mostly as another way to share the work with other communities.

Still a bits of ways to go, but it IS growing closer, which is equally terrifying and exciting.

[mitsuki-youko]

Haha, yea! I actually have a patreon in my linktree, though the only contributor is my uncle who knows nothing of manga or arts but still supports me with a buck to test the system (bless his hearth). I don't really expect that to kick off anytime soon though, I was just trying to understand how it works.

Awe that is so sweet!

The plan for now is to look at online services like https://www.marpple.com/en/ or https://www.inprnt.com/ for single works, though I would first need to create side material that I feel is worth uploading for sale-for-support, which I feel will be more feasible once I get near the end of Marc's course.

That makes sense

The actual manga print, I'll probably look into local services to get it for cheap (while still looking good), and take those prints to conventions and keep a few copies to sell online to whoever wants a physcial copy.undefined>I don't really expect the whole enterprise to be profitable, at least not by much, but at the very least to be self-sustainable. I see it mostly as another way to share the work with other communities.

Still a bits of ways to go, but it IS growing closer, which is equally terrifying and exciting.

Yes! I am so excited for you!

[uggievang]

Not the first time that feeling gnaws at my mind, happens more frequently when the head is not all in there (sickness, burn out, work, etc). Still, there are ups and downs, just part of the journey.

I totally feel this sometimes its for the best and if anything you can always comeback and editi it when your finished with the chapter if you ever feel like it

[gregorya]

The plan, for now, is to look at online services like https://www.marpple.com/en/ or https://www.inprnt.com/ for single works, though I would first need to create side material that I feel is worth uploading for sale-for-support, which I feel will be more feasible once I get near the end of Marc's course.

Good luck with the printing of the manga. Printing and marketing sound like different challenges entirety.

[daceronine]

Thanks @uggievang @gregorya!

@uggievang I rarely go back to edit or retouch, but it's true it's always an option. There's just so much to do ahead I'd rather just keep moving forward. It's all good though, I still like how it turned out.

@gregorya Ha, yea, despite all the talk about it, there's still some ways to go before I start looking at print and marketing at any serious degree. Months of work. Still, time goes by quickly, it'll be here before we know it.

[daceronine]

Was able to get some work in during the week. I can feel the mojo coming back!

Term 4

Feet! lots of feet! Completed the first 10, still got 10 more to go! I had already shared 4 of these, but figured I would include the full set completed here.

Really getting to understand the foot structure a lot more. I think I toe-tally got it now! I can feel it in my sole!

As I move through these exercices, I got the itch to do a few more fanservicy pics to practice more anatomy.

Sari Oaks and "Lance". Sari Oaks is fairly well established in the story by now, while Lance has yet to officially appear. Still trying to think of a good name for him, will need to think of something in the coming months.

Probably the last few fanservicy pics I'll do in a while, since I have a lot more work pending in the queue.

I love anatomy though, and doing these is actually a lot of fun, so who knows, maybe I'll find space to do a few more.

Manga

Finished the draft for Chapter 31, published it on the discord manga forums and already got some really good feedback (also my grammar sucks, good thing some members caught some of the worst mistakes). I can't seem to be able to upload PDFs here, but I'll leave the link to the file directly in discord in case anyone is willing to help review it and maybe share some early feedback to see what we can improve about it before we start working on the pages.

https://discord.com/channels/371283268215242784/1245965680168140821/1251182384083239043

1) In this chapter I finally get to dive in a bit more into Iris situation and the whole arrangement thing. We also get a bit of good girl talk and bonding between Iris and Sari. I really happy how it's turning out, now that this first arc is coming to a close I feel like things are finally slowly falling into place.

2) At the moment it's 14 pages long, which means it's one of the longer chapters so far, however most of the content is fairly straightforward, as it's basically a conversation scene. Hopefully it doesn't take that long to produce.

I think that's all for now! Thank you so much for stopping by! Have a great weekend! Cheers!

The grind never stops.

[leeireo]

Insane how you're able to keep up with the studies while doing your manga stuff as well. Such work ethic you have there... I wouldn't be able to relate lol. Anyhow, all of these look really good! But I must say, your puns shall not go unpunished by the law.

[patrycja.lerch]

Looks good! Lance hair look great. He has an interesting tattoo

Glad girls got some time together. I love Sari's face through the whole chapter. I think everything looks good

[daceronine]

@leeireo Thanks! I'm not sure what you mean, it's heel-arious! xD I actually feel like I fall behind my own schedule quite frequently. But I do love doing all this stuff in general, so it makes it easy to spend hours on it.

@patrycja.lerch Thanks! I feel the tatoo look kinda out of place in this drawing, but it ties neatly with his story (branded at a young age as a "protector"). Glad you liked the chapter! Lots of work left to produce it, but I should be able to get started shortly.

[snakker]

Details and anatomy are looking great! The foot studies are looking really cool. On that last piece, something about the angle of the lower legs (pointing straight ahead) vs the angle of the pelvis, also the size of the lower legs vs the rest of his body gives me a vibe they are a bit big in comparison

Cheers!

[mitsuki-youko]

Eyyy love the rough draft of the manga chapter!!
Its rly interesting getting to know more about Sari and Iris
and Gustav sounds like a rather nice guy too.

[daceronine]

Thanks! @snakker @mitsuki-youko!!

@snakker ooof! now that you mentioned it you're right, the lower part of the legs are kind of off. Not sure how I didn't notice it before, now I can't stop seeing it. I'll see if I can adjust it (and I even made the legs shorter than I originally drew them!)

@mitsuki-youko Heeey glad you liked it. I think it shines a bit of needed light on the two girls. Also works for pacing. As someone else put it, Gustav is more of an ego dork than an ill-spirited guy. Makes it hard to be against him, but also hard to take him seriously. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here .

[uggievang]

Really getting to understand the foot structure a lot more. I think I toe-tally got it now! I can feel it in my sole!

anyway haha its always awesome to see fanservice for men in drawings

[gregorya]

Nice work on the foot studies, Lance and Sari. The anatomy looks good.

Really getting to understand the foot structure a lot more. I think I toe-tally got it now! I can feel it in my sole!

Glad you won't let these foot studies defeat you. It's helpful to be the sole survivor. Puns can be funny.

[daceronine]

@uggievang hehe, figured you might like it based on some work you published recently xD I think I mentioned it before, but when it comes to fanservice, to make it fair I think it should go both ways.

@gregorya Thanks man! I see you also have a nice toe-uch with puns!