ONLINE 3D Comics using DAZ-Has…
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This has been my experience 100%; for example, a team in China can flat or colour a comic for far, far less and turn a whole comic around often overnight. It's very, very hard to compete, especially when colourists are often forced into making up the time that the others in the process lost (e.g. Penciller took a day or two too long, inker did the same, hopefully the colourist can make it up...). In many instances, even "successful" comic artists don't make a much larger page rate but typically their "success" simply means they know they'll have work next month (six months or a year from now... anyone's guess).
-- Walt Sterdan
I totally agree, no question. One of my points, though, is that it's not limited to 3D comic artists. A quick glance at even successful, professiona,l mainstream comic artists shows that many 2D artists are making the same mistakes pose-wise as the 3D artists, with people who don't stand, sit or move as people do in real life... not to mention what appears to be a total lack of knowledge of human anatomy (I'm looking at YOU, Mr. Liefeld!).
-- Walt Sterdan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ht_yD2cfO0
the same mistakes pose-wise as the 3D artists, with people who don't stand, sit or move as people do in real life...
Unless of course you count the fact that the medium is actually a comic book and not a still life study or a 'guide to human anatomy' reference piece.
The best artwork is a moment of interest captured.
Usually it's an idyllic example of something.
Comic books are capturing characters in great moments- the best moment of whatever activities they are involved in.
3D does not need to be synonymous with "real looking" or even the goal of working with 3D media.
And certainly, real anything is NOT the goal of comics books, graphic novels or pretty much anything anyone cares about.
Separate attention to detail and 'real looking'
Remove the technical concerns from the creative concerns. Two different goals.
I'm looking at YOU, Mr. Liefeld!
That goes for him too. I watched the million videos criticizing his work. I find them interesting, some entertaining.
They would rather use every word (I'm looking at the word trope) and NEVER use the word STYLE.
Cause when you discuss style, a lot of silly nit-picking arguments and points lose validity and no matter how heart felt the sentiment is, all this deep-analysis-slinging is reduced to just an opinion.
And there's nothing worse than going from an Authority to just another person with an opinion about things.
I agree with pretty much all of it; how technically accurate does a comic/toon/semi-toon need to be? There's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief that should allow us a fair amount of flexibility, and I think some here are speaking more towards attempting a certain amount of "realism" to their art but, as you point out, much of that doesn't hold water with the medium.
I do still hold up Liefeld, though, as a bad example. I call it style when an artist consistently exaggerates muscles, uses odd proportions or perspectives, etc. Keith Giffen produced many issues of the Legion where the art was top notch, very solid, and very realistic for a comic; he then did a series called Trencher where it was almost exactly opposite... a totally differnt style. It was a style because from panel to panel, page to page and issue to issue he maintained it, he created an illusion of another view of the universe. Mr. Liefeld often changes things from panel to panel, making it look more like an inabiltiy to be consistant than a style... add in an extra finger here or there and it looks less and less like anything I'd label as a style.
That said, he has many fans and he's rich and I don't and I'm not.
-- Walt Sterdan
I've not paid attention to the guy in 20+ years, but Liefeld's issue with limb proportion and forearm muscle groups went a bit beyond style.
Also, and this important, style is valid target for criticism. In fact, it is the major target above a certain paygrade because in the zone you are expected to be competent in the mechancis. Liefeld's "style" had (and perhaps still does) raise the question of his competence in the basics. To suggest otherwise is to throw out all basis for critizing any render.
He is a good counter-argument held up against the idea that your must be good to succeed. But I've no idea what fell pact Liefeld entered to get where he got.
Yes, sometimes Authority is overbearing and stupidly conservative.
But sometimes your art sucks.
Just because rules CAN be hidebound and pointless doesn't mean there are no rules.
He was guilty of skipping some basic ....I don't know the word.
When I took art in school there were things we did....TRAINING...that's the word.....
When I drew someone sitting at a table, I'd draw the WHOLE figure to make sure they FIT properly and I could accurately show the feet sticking out beneath the table...and the feet would be where they normally should. Same for poeple in cars. I'd draw the ENTIRE figure through the car frame to make sure their head and relative limbs or proportions made sense.
I don't think he was 'classically trained' in art and probably had a shed-load of natural ability.
Ya, ya ya....
Those are errrors - most of the talk about his work isn't about those flubs.
It's non-artists weighing in that EVERYTHING they don't like about his work as some kind of mistake.
And all of them keep talking about his money - which further shows his ART isn't the task.
Which is the great divider. And if this thread is all about ANYBODY MAKE ANY MONEY DOING 3D ART ONLINE using DAZ?
Why are we here?
Who dragged us here and why?
Why are we discussing ANYTHING technical as if THAT's the problem. Or the chanllenge? lol
Most of it's really pointless. For every pro you name, there's an equal con and for every con there's a pro.
Point for point. It's all the same.
But sometimes your art sucks.
And who do we get as judges for suckitude?
And use what criteria?
Arrt- either it speaks or it doesn't.
Without skill, your work might be popular or it might not. But you'll have no clue why.
I, for one, am here to make the point that NOT anybody can make money doing 3D art online using Daz.
That's the whole point of my pounding on how hard it is, and what the barriers are. I know there's a lot of just plain green-eyed monsterism aimed at Liefeld. He's not the first talentless hack to go big, and won't be the last. But he's not Stephen King, okay. King is hackish, but he's also a damned good emotional storyteller, and creepout artist. He just doesn't always work to his potential in favor of volume. Liefeld is actually pretty bad at what he does. Even his greatest creation, Deadpool, is great largely because later writers intentionally made him into exactly the opposite of what Liefeld was trying to do.
It prolly sounds like I'm just trying to hate on the guy, but I don't care that much. It's more that he's the exception again. A wildly outlying outlier. Someone who succeeded when everything should have led to failure. That's not a good model for building your ambitions on. If you aren't already holding a silver spoon, you need to adjust your toolset to maximize the opportunity to snatch one. And that's very, very hard. That's not something everyone can do. Hell, I don't know I can do it.
Daz gives anyone a tool they might use to make a splash, or even hit an epic grandslam homer. But, to extend the baseball metaphor, it takes a hell of a lot of work and planning and to be skilled enough to have a shot of hitting it out of the park, with bases loaded and a full count on the last out. (I hate baseball, btw.) And even then, it takes being part of an ecosystem (a team) that has conspired to put 3 men on base against active opposition (competition). There's so much you can't control trying to art for profit, (like there so much you can't control if your ambition the be the most clutchy clutch player). You really do have to maximize what you can, and if you look to the Liefelds of the world, you have to be asking, "is there anything in the events that allowed them to win in spite of their flaws that I can control and replicate?" Because if there isn't, they aren't a useful role model. I really don't see what Rob Liefeld had other than starting from the inside, to begin with.
And in online markets, there is no inside. Either you have a leg up on a pile VC cash, or you've got to sweat it out the hard way. Either way, you start from zero. It's just that, with deep cash pits, you can't afford to devote more time to climbing rather than hunting for food.
One question I am trying to figure out is whether or not I should set the comic reading left to right like a traditional comic book, or design it specifically for digital viewing and design my layouts so it scrolls down. I'd like to still print my comics someday, but it's so much easier to read an online graphic novel downward on a screen. Decisions, decisions. What are your guys opions on it?
Print is dead.
Okay, that was overly dramatic and untrue. But the answer to your question is, "which element is going to drive more returns?"
Things that you hate. "What are questions as answers, Alex?"
Anyway, that's gotta be the driver. Forcing book layout because books does you no good if no one goes to your site or buys your books. Using an infinte canvas does no good if everyone who sees your story wants a book in classic layout. Something has to give.
I suspect that merch driven stuff is dying, and Patreon really is the current direction to aim, in which case you need to subordinate the book layout in favor of the web (mobile) layout. But I could be wrong about that.
I agree, for the most part; something many people have done (and DC is using it with their Digitial First comics on Comixology) is to create their pages for digital viewing that are actually half-pages of a regular comic; when they gather their pages to go to print, they create their print versons 2-up. You can pop by Comixology and previw some of their Digital First comics (I think Batman '66 meets the Legion is running at the moment) to get a firmer idea.
-- Walt Sterdan
So would it be better to create a comic using 3Delight? That way it naturally looks less photorealistic, and the brain focuses on the story instead of getting hung up on non-realistic details.
I'd still probably stick with Iray because it uses gpu, but sometimes I wonder. Ultimately, I think if the reader loves the story, it doesn't matter what render engine you use. Your art could be stick figures. But art is extremely helpful in hooking new readers.
You can easily make nonphotorealistic Iray stuff, see my gallery for examples. The trick is that it takes a bit of work and experimentation to develop a fast workflow for it.
With decent GPU, I think you can actually do this faster than 3dl, even.
Nah. You can do NPR totally within the realm of the unbaised renderer. Here's an example from the current Blender short film project, Agent 327
Something like that would be perfectly all right, me thinks. The main thing is it's got style. Care with atmosphere, lighting, frame constrction. There's a bunch of rule of thirds stuff going on here, as well as spot lighting and DOF. It's still done with basic photoreal tools, tho.
This made me laugh so hard LOL
I keep encouraging my son that art (or anything) doesn't have to be PERFECT and that some of the most famous artists have books and books of 'trying to work out hands'
I don't know Mr. Liefeld, but I kinda feel sorry for him, everyone yelling at him.
so how do I get good poses ?
I check photo stock for a real person in a pose I want, often action shots
then I manually pose the figure to match.
yah, time consuming but great results
When ever I'm drawing and I'm getting the hands all messed up I always yell, "Dammit! I suck like Liefeld!". Now if I'm drawing and my boyfriend in is the room and I screw up and say "dammit" he says "You suck Blowfeld!"
I remember 1st seeing Liefeld in New Mutants and X-Force back in the 90s. I didn't notice all the errors you guys are talking about. I was just a teen with not much art training. I liked his stuff back then. I remember thinking his art was a lot better than some other main streem artists at that time. I also remember thinking he was way better than anything I could do (felt that way about a lot of artists, still do.)
I haven't seen any of his more recent stuff. I still have those New Mutant issues and some of the X-Force issues too. Tempted to go back and re-examine the art and see what I missed.
I'm guessing I must have had some comics with his art when I was a kid because I remember the issues people complain about his running poses with the arms up at a 90 degree angle to the body and how people don't actually run like that. But I remember (and it still gives me that impression) of urgency in the characters movements that you just don't get with a correct running pose. I believe that is what Liefeld was going for with his art. While not technically correct, it was "impressionistic" where it conveyed emotion or helped fill out the story where text just wasn't going to work.
https://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2960508/worst-rob-liefeld-drawings
sums it up
I've had some success with comics that I heavily use DS for. Something I haven't seen come up is the viability of putting a digital comic on Kindle, or better yet, Comixology. Anyone can put make a comic for Kindle and sell it on Amazon just like any other Kindle book. Comixology has a lengthy submission process, but it's also viable. Both offer better prospects than posting to a blog alone. There's also Nook, Google Play books, and ibooks.
Most made-in-3D comics I've seen have suffered from poor framing and pacing. For example, let's say a character has a long speech that takes him or her through a wide gammut of emotions. it would be best for a wide range of facial expressions to correspond to those emotions. This would take several panels, but in many 3D comics, you'll see that same block of text but with only frame. It roboticizes the characters. With regard to framing, I see a lot of 3D comics where the camera is flat-on facing the chracters in every panel, no variety in angle or range.
Neither of these are really by products of working in 3D but are more attributable to individual artists.
Unfortunately, one big problem with 3D comics is directly a results of working in 3D, and that is that they just plain don't look right. The image that @Singular Blues posted is awesome, and the style of it seems to lend itself to comics. But when you add other comic elements to it, it no longer looks right, at least not to my eye. It's also common for everything in every scene to be visible in every panel in a 3D comic, and that's hardly ever the case in traditional comics. I'd say the vast majority of panels are mainly characters, with a gradient background or hatching or something. But other than establishing sets and the beginning of scenes we rarely see details in the setting in traditional comic panels.
MY EYES!, MY EYES, DAMN YOU!
*pours battery acid in his own eyes* Aah.... that's better.
The background problem is one I've been thinking about a lot. You are right, that background should only be present in comic style narrative when needed. Typically action scenes where the context of the action matters, and establishing shots. That's not always true. I remember seeing a Spider-Man fight that had to be 4 issues running (pretty epic fight) and almost every frame had a background. But largely the case. And 3D doesn't lends itself to that, straight away. But I think it's possible to do it, and that kind of thing would help a lot.
The word bubble thing is more tricky, but I think it's solved by aliasing the crap out of the borders. Maybe a smidge of Gaussian to boot. You want the lines to still be recognizably there, but you want them be less sharp than they'd be, traditionally. In combination with omitting backgrounds until needed, you can overcome a lot of the problems.
It really boils down to photo real renders being busier than most sequential art. Things like DoF and blur can make a big difference
Going back to the Agent 327 picture example, it really looks like (this a promo still and doesn't appear in the short), the background was a separate render with DoF aimed along the counter top. Agent 327, the chair and hair dryer were then composited in. A lot of the realism of the scene has been taken out, and a lot more focus on 327 created. I figure, if your try to work the comic effects to somewhat blend with the texture of the background plate, it would work better. This means, among other things, making the lines less black and bubbles less white (because that 100%-ness is jarring. There's very little of that purity in the rest of the image.
I have also done professional creative work and I agree that a pro should always be thinking of money... but most people asking how to get started aren't pros. I hope you noticed I said that making money isn't as rare as commonly believed, it just takes a combination of traits and history.
Yeah, not sure what happened with my word bubbles there...Manga Studio didn't like the low resolution of the original file, is all I can think of. The lines are normally very sharp. It seemed to illustrate my point adequately so i didn't bother fiddling with it.
I agree about your advice regarding blending the speech bubbles and other comic elements into the art. I think the big problem with how I'd done the example above is the utter flatness of the white and black contrasts too much with the detailed artwork. Setting the balloon's opacity lower would probably help, or eliminating it altogether is just indicating dialogue with lines or something. Bendis used to do that it Sam and Twitch, if I remember correctly. Something like this would probably work, it already looks much better to me.
But then again, it's hard to know if it would be as pleasing with more realistic characters.
Wow, that was educational. Well, I won't be using Liefeld's drawing as an example for my art. My teen self didn't notice the problems in his art, but now I see it when pointed out. I'm starting to wonder if Liefeld has the same depth perception problem I do and that's why he gets proportions so wrong. It would also explain why I didn't notice some of the problems. If that’s the case, he has been lucky as hell to get where he is.
I get why people don't like him. His art has some major issues, yet he has made way more money than better artists. That being said, hating on the guy as much as the author does is a little ridiculous. I hate very few people that much. The ones I do hate that much are literally dangerous people who have hurt innocent people or have the potential to hurt innocent people. I dislike a lot of people, but that’s different than downright angry, hate. Anyway, just my take. Thanks for the article.
I know nothing about cartoons, so take this with a grain of salt...
Seriously? People commenting that some cartoons don't look like real life characters? Huh?
Yeah, I get it...it's nice to have characters that take what's real and improve on it because it has bigger impact and stuff. But geez, it's cartoons guys. I mean, have you ever seen Southpark? Hugely successful, right?
Somebody must love this Liefeld guy's work. Apparently he's hugely successful too. Personally, I think his stuff looks pretty bad. But I'm not a comic person.
Anyway, pardon the intrusion. Keep pounding on the guy.