http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SesewratXKQ&NR=1
Hi
From what this guy says making comics cost the earth,like 50 bucks a page in pencils and other materials. What is your experience if you ever done comics by hand?
thanks
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SesewratXKQ&NR=1
Hi
From what this guy says making comics cost the earth,like 50 bucks a page in pencils and other materials. What is your experience if you ever done comics by hand?
thanks
The video is referring to how much it would cost to pay to have the pages done in pencil or ink by other artists.
The cost of supplies to produce your own comics is much less. However, you should consider your time in the equation. How much do you consider your time is worth when creating the comic including the pencil/pen work?
The creator of the video must create the comics then pay to have others to pencil or pen and ink them into colour version.
Ill do everything myself hopefully
Many 'comics' today are published on the web. Standard bond (printer) paper and a number 2 pencil would suffice for supplies to initially draw the comic. The cost of a computer, scanner, and a program to 'colour' the scanned images would be an initial cost but as you produce more comics that cost can be averaged out so it is not so much per comic.
The cost of a program that you feel comfortable with to do the lines and colour fills can vary from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. Or it could be freeware software. :)
Only you can tell what program feels right to you.
If you do the drawing, line work, and colouring within a software program or programs. Then you can skip using the paper and pencil step. ;):D
there are many many ways of doing this sort of work - if you are interested let us know what sort of thing you like and we can give you some pointers I am sure...
well i got xaraxtreme. I normally draw on bristol paper, but i got scanner and all that. I just scanned a drawing and cpoied to xara but couldnt color the face of the person, only the entire drawing. Maybe I`ve missed some tutorial or something. Ideally i would draw people, scan, then do the additional drawings,like geometric forms(buildings) on xara.
Woodwater - the whole drawing is being filled in because likely your shapes are not closed on all sides. Xtreme can't fill in open shapes.
Bob Hahn has a couple of video tutorials on how to color comics in Xara on YouTube here and here.
I find the first method easiest - make a layer below the line art layer and make closed colored shapes.
just what i was looking for.
The basic Xara tutorial doesnt seem to talk about this
But doing an entire page of comics with all the squares and rectangles looks more complicated. Are there any videos on that?
thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBY6v...eature=related
this 3 part one appears even more compreensive though its done with Pro
But doing an entire page of comics with all the squares and rectangles looks more complicated. Are there any videos on that?
hanks
Hi
I found some comics I did in my teens. I imported this one to Xara, but of course couldnt do much to it as it was already inked
You could colour the comic.
From what I see xarastrem has no layer gallery available?!:eek:
PS: sorry i had to be on freehand to be able to open it
I suppose you could make a new layer and trace new ink lines over your original image, though that would be more work.
I haven't tried Xtreme's bitmap tracing on something like your line work, but that also might be an option if you don't want to retrace your inking manually. It would likely create a large number of objects, though.
About the layers gallery - In version 5, it's now the Object Gallery. Are you using Xtreme or Xtreme Pro? Xtreme Pro's Object Gallery shows more information about the objects on each layer.
By the way, good job on the comic! You drew better than I did when I was that age.
Xtrem.
I just tried doing a comic on Xara. I did the frames then began to draw people. The biggest drawback is the i cannot draw buildings behind people with rectangle tool because I cant cut any lines from the rectangles, i have to draw the buildings first it appears. Then the coloring. It`s more difficult to color people as I dont always draw them as closed objects.
Anyway it appears it`s best to sketch everything by pencil first and scan
Here it is by the way
About the rectangles - have you tried drawing them on a new layer behind the one where your people are? That way, you don't have to cut the rectangles apart.
One good thing about using a vector program like Xtreme is you have the flexibility to move individual objects behind or in front of other objects. You can drag the shape below another using the Object Manager, or select the shape and use the keyboard shortcuts to move them:
Control-B - moves shape to back of layer
Control-F - Moves shape to front of layer
Control-Shift-B - Moves shape behind one step
Control-shift-F - Moves shape forward one step
I looked at your file, and I noticed that you have your background rectangles filled with white by default, which means if you put something on a layer below that, you won't see it.
You can set that so shapes have no fill. Make sure nothing on your page is selected, and left-click on the box on the color line that has a criss-cross pattern on it, next to the little eyedropper. That sets the shapes to have no fill.
If you want all your shapes to have no fill by default, go to the Utilities menu - Options, and click on the General Tab. Check "Give new objects most recent attributes". Then, any shapes you draw should be clear by default.
Now, if you make a new layer and drag it below your lines and start making colored shapes, they should show up beneath the lines.
It's true what you say about drawing people - the lines aren't always closed. That's why Bob Hahn did his coloring on a separate layer underneath his line work in his video.
I hope that helps.
Here's a quick-and-dirty attempt at coloring your sample file to show you better what I mean.
http://www.dan-dare.net/Homepage.htm
Dan Dare comics has just th kind of coloring I `d love to use in my comics. I wonder what materials his creator,Hampson, used for coloring?!
The comic images were hand drawn and inked then printed on pulp stock back in the 1950s and 1960s. The images on the website are scans from the comics.
Hampson made great use of photo referencing, which is as important if not more important to the way it was rendered than anything else, and a whole team of artists were involved:
http://www.tameside.gov.uk/blueplaque/frankhampson
http://www.frankhampson.co.uk/photorefs.html
further digging around on google may turn up references to actual materials he used, but typical of the time would have been [bristol] board and coloured inks [eg Winsor and Newton or Dr Martin's] - but I have no specific reference for Hampson in this regard
One thing - you could not have picked a much more expensive to produce example if you'd tried ;)
But it appears I can do the same with Xara, judging from some drawings members have done like the ones by "markmywords"?!
I didnt want to read the entire tutorial,too many videos. Apart from the two by Bob Hahn ,which do you advise?
I`m busy teaching and playing guitar in a band so time is scarce.
thanks
no shortcuts ;)
the point about Hampsons work on Dan Dare is that they went to the lengths of posing in costume with props for camera, getting all the detail right down to the lighting corrrect, to give reference for the drawing - an ideal way of working, but labour intensive
sorry, but if you do not want to read the tutorials, or watch the videos, then you are not serious about this are you?
how to do this digitally is there - but there is no sound-bite answer
http://www.xaraxone.com/guest/guest88/index.htm
its all here and in the basic tutorial right ?
Im serious about it but had little time so far
We may be at cross purposes here ?
Bob's tutorial shows you the basics of how to color with xtreme
Paul's tutorial which you linked is a good example of how to apply digitally, a particular kind of effect, but.....
that's all that these tutorials are: how to do it digitally....
if you do not know how to color work in the first place, what you need is an art class ...
Bob Hahn goes a bit fast on his videos so I tried to do an eye like he teaches while watching the video and replaying over and over again. I`m not disappointed, but when I tried to make the eyelid shape at the end the lines wouldnt show up. Anyway I leave it for tomorrow
Here it is what I`ve done
but isnt the coloring done with softwares these days?
I used to color with filter pens. I dont know exactly what kind of inks designers used in the past to color their comics. There are no comics schools here. Unfortunately it is regarded as a lower form of art, or used to. Architect was the thing to be
yes commercial art mostly is done on computers - you can get art classes for this too, at least here :)
anyhow as far as inks go:
I don't quite go back as far as 1950 :eek: but in the 1980/90's I used rotring 'artistcolor' [no longer made] which was a waterproof translucent [transparent] ink
The technique was to build up the color by applying several layers - as the color was waterproof once dry, the next layer[s] would not physically mix, but simply add to the depth of color - by laying one color on another you could get subtlety - where the color was applied thinly the board texture would be clearly visible - if you needed a color to be opaque, you mixed it with white before applying it
Added refinements would be to wet the board first and let colors flow and/or mix before drying - this would alter the texture and the look of the board too.
And of course there are water soluble inks as well.
Is it possible to mimic this technique in xtreme? - Probably, but it is going to be a bit involved I reckon [Compared to using a program that has a liquid ink brush, such as Corel Painter, but even then you have to learn how to use it of course]
Most people who give tutorials on Youtube tell us to get Photoshop for colouring. Anyway I liked the colouring by "markmywords" all done with xara.see here
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=29089
Fair enough :D - a great example to follow
In my own experience...
I use Manga Studio for all of mt B&W inking, Any software can be used for coloring, I prefer using Corel Painter Essentials (as I own only that, it came with my Cintiq and I like it). And Project Dogwaffle pro for lighting/particle effects.
I then use Corel X3 (powerclip) to draw my panels and insert my combined artwork.
There are a couple of pencil/inking tutorials available at gnomon which really show some skills in comic book artworks... if I'm allowed to post links I would.
Cintiq would be a good investment of you are planning on going professional.
Cintiq is great but costs the earth. At the moment I got Photoshop on trial for a monthg. From what I`ve seen so far it`s easier to color with it than with Xara but apart from that not really better. I may download corel and see what it does
I think i found the trick. Do sketches with pencil, import, then use the freehand in the colors we want to color the comics and use some of the highest thicknesses,like 16 or 48.After coloring we draw the black lines and finally do the ectangles with pen tool. This is what I did with the Alix comic. Any suggestions?
That works well. Each individual will have a way to work that fits their method and feels comfortable to them.