teaser

If you are wearing jeans and leather, not cracker jack clothes, then this teaser is for you.  For the rest of you, well, i didn’t write this, and if you don’t know then i’m not going to tell you.

CHECK OUT THE REST HERE.

http://autowagon.wordpress.com/

Effective communication

I associate everything with my passion for comics.  Everything is comics.  Call them communication, literature, representation, instruction, or just storytelling and art. Comics can do all of these things and comics can do them the best.  That is my assessment.

Now, comics are associated with entertainment first and foremost.  So in our society they represent a commodity of stories.  Entertaining stories have been teaching tools throughout history, but today they have turned their aim towards something that can be sold instead of something of real educational merit.  That is not exclusively true, but it is common.

The RSA organization has been providing lectures to their youtube channel for some time.  They have been teaming up with an artist for a multimedia example of what is being talked about in a living cartoon style.  While this remains film it is a real eye opener to what elements of visual communication can be provided by a cartoonist (comic artist).

For example, go to their youtube channel here, http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/17/O_3a2hf3y0s and above the scrolling list click on the most viewed option.  You’ll notice that all the RSA Animate videos jump to the top. Isn’t that a clear indication of the power of the clear effective communication that our two dimensional medium can provide?

These are not stories!  These are boring ol’ lectures!  So the main point that i am trying to make here is that the comics medium can provide more than most of us take advantage of.  The comic book is not just the story equivalent of a Hollywood film.  It is the toolbox that allows us to teach (and entertain) more effectively.

MASTER OF KUNG FU

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

1 HOUR-6 MORE HOURS-A LOT MORE TO COLOR

My first youtube videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82zXji9a9Q4&feature=autoplay&list=ULgvKy349nB7E&index=1&playnext=1

These are just some boring videos of me drawing and mumbling gibberish, but maybe that’s just your sort of thing?  It turns out that not only am i bad at talking with people, i’m even more incoherent when i’m talking to myself!  Thank God my dog understands me, then again maybe he’s confused too. . .

I’m really liking Manga Studio EX4

I just wanted to throw up a couple links.  I’m learning more and really starting to get enthusiastic about this program.  I’m getting crazy ideas about setting up all my computer stuff at a 24 hour comic event.  This software streamlines all your comics process from an editable script that will instantly reword right inside the word balloons for an entire story, to inking, panel layout, generating perspective grids, et cetera.  If you are decently familiar with Photoshop and use it for comics you will find this program to be more purpose built to suit your needs.  I still use CS4 for initial scanned in cleanup purposes, but image adjustments and levels and all that also exist in Manga Studio.  There seem to be limitations to dpi and file type, but I’m still not as confident to discuss this as Jesse would be (if he familiarized himself with the program-hint hint).

The Join Lines Tool, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoVjMcaN3x4&feature=player_embedded#at=14 .

The Rulers Layer, this tutorial has like 20 parts, and i am enjoying it immensely after wasting a few days trying to find a specific tutorial that wasn’t made by f’n retards.  This guy is a breath of fresh air.  (Really, who needs a creating word balloons tutorial that goes: use circle tool, use triangle tool, select your eraser and erase the inside.  Thanks! A-holes! Every-stinkin’-one of you!)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiUYrz82TaU .

More (part 10 perspective ruler): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-i37RDWkl8&NR=1

Part 11 perspective grid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO9W5Xngyg0&NR=1

And that is just some stuff that i thought you guys might be interested in.  There are a number of features i like already and i just keep finding more as i go.  I hope this might help get some of you on track faster than i did.  As Howard already knows they (Smith Micro) have been offering special 4 day only sales on EX4 version and you can get it for $100, if the $300 dollar advertised price has turned you off of this product.  Coming from a comics geek like me it is priceless.

$1.00 watercolor set, brown, water. fix in photoshop.

What I learned from Jesse Reklaw

So, I’ve been taking Jesse Reklaw’s rad Image Science class, and I’ve already learned lots of useful stuff. For instance, I drew this comic in class and was able to successfully drop the blue ruled lines from my notebook paper and get it to look all nice!

(For those interested, the quick ‘n’ dirty on how I did its: Scan in color, go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and turn the lightness on the blue and cyan all the way up, remove any remaining darkness from the lines with the Dodge tool set on highlights, then double the DPI and Threshold it so it’s a nice bitmap.)