Gimme sumthin' to draw!

[Captain Russ]

Needs tightening, rearranging of some panels, and a better final panel, but not bad for a once-over with not-so-rough roughs. And probably a better handling of the hat bit, but herpaderpderpderp.

[V]

You need Neil Patrick Harris in some of those frames.

"It's afraid... IT'S AFRAID!"

[Captain Russ]

Hahaha

I'll think about it.

In the meantime, I realized I hate pencilling tightly. So I'm going right past that and onto inking.

Screw it.

[BillyG]

Russ, what do you recommend for someone that has ZERO natural drawing skill and wants to try and improve? Books, materials, anything?

[Abraham Smashington]

WHAT'S THE SECRET OF THE BOWLER HAT?

[Captain Russ]

Russ, what do you recommend for someone that has ZERO natural drawing skill and wants to try and improve? Books, materials, anything?

3 Ps: pencil, paper, practice. Or substitute the graphite with a pen, so you don't have the ability to erase anything, and just take in everything you do, right or wrong.

No easy workarounds to be found, but I find pouring over Andrew Loomis' books figure and gesture books, Walt Stanchfield's Drawn to Life, and maybe Eisner's sequential book can lead you to glean new things to try and apply each and every day.

You can find the Loomis and Stanchfield stuff pretty easily in pdf format floating around the internet these days.

And if you don't wanna waste that sort of time, maybe take a look at the building blocks of story before drawing anything. My favorite place to go for this sort of thing is The Seven Camels blog. He's a storyboarding guy who knows his shit, covers pretty much everything under the sun (but his best stuff is still strongly associated with his profession), and presents all sorts of information in easily understandable examples.

[BillyG]

Thanks. The pencils and paper I have in spades, the resources to study to get better are where I've never had luck.

[Abraham Smashington]

My favorite place to go for this sort of thing is The Seven Camels blog.

That site is great.

[Captain Russ]

Here's a fantastic breakdown he does of an Assassin's Creed commercial, of all things.

And also a great example of where you can practice when you don't have the time or aren't comfortable drawing in public: look at them movin' pictures.

[Captain Russ]

WHAT'S THE SECRET OF THE BOWLER HAT?

He's just an alien gentleman who got lost on the way to a bitchin' wine & cheese party and got jumped by scientists.

The hat is just an affectation to everyone else, but to Bob it is part of his identity. He's had the hat since he was a babby. Which is why he trusts the scientist in the end (who is also featured on the first page in operating room attire). It's a signifier that the bespectacled one is a good egg and can be trusted by not only Bob, but the reader as well. Each trusts that the scientist, by giving a part of Bob's former life back to him, and hopes Bob will be reminded of where he comes from, and get the gumption up to follow the scientist to his freedom (which of course he does, as this is a two page comic and I can't write a downer ending without it coming off terribly).

[Captain Russ]

So inks would have been done if I hadn't fucked off this weekend (that and options when going digital for inks are innumerable), but they and the roughs for the next comic will be up sometime this week.

Coming up: a reformed pirate, now a maritime lawyer, gets drunk and starts a bar brawl. A bystander, a walking midlife crisis/vacationing tourist, is thrown into the melee. It is entitled (the assignment, not the comic itself) "The Odd Couple."

I think I'll keep tweaking the characters but a quick two-shot of the main characters will be up in a few for anyone who gives a hootenanny.

[Captain Russ]

Needs to be more pirate-y. Panama Jack needs to not be leaning so goddamn much (or it could be he's already drunk and hiding it well).



Gonna redo them in a much more exaggerated, cartoonish style, but it is hard to shake the realistic approach to which I've been relegating myself.

[Abraham Smashington]

those are awesome man.

[Captain Russ]

Redrawing the first page of this latest one, as the story didn't flow as well as I'd imagined it in my head.

I'll post the confusing horror show once the corrections have been made, just so you can see how bassackwards I was when I was mapping it out.

So yeah, expect something new to not blow anyone's socks off sometime this week.

[Abraham Smashington]

your pirate looks like the amazing jonathan