Advice for beginner: making comics/art?

[guitarro]

Hey there,

Been on the forum for a long time, but only as one of those jerk lurkers who only comment once every few weeks.

I've been on a writing kick the last few days, and wanna continue with my momentum while I still have it.

I've never done any kind of art, comic, or 3d poser work, and would like to know where a good place to start might be. What programs are good for beginners? What are some quick tips to get going?

Any advice would be appreciated, there's a lot of talented people on these forums.

[morwalugi]

A good place to start?

I'd say buy 2 to 4 Barbie/Ken/cheaper Dollar store dolls,
some playdough/clay to stand them up in and
a digital camera

and just take still photos of the dolls acting out your fantasies
and then add text to the still photos

[guitarro]

[Clickme]

To take hte troll advice and make it usable, clay to stand them nad dolls ot pose would actually be useful as models ot draw off of. I have a revoltech Ayanami Rei figure that I use sometimes for poses that a lot of figures aren't able ot take, including my drawing figure.

You do need a good eye to draw freehand from a model, but figures are a great way to develop that eye since you cna compare back and forth between the drawign nad hte figures to compare.

[morwalugi]

The idea's quite usable as it is.

If you go the software route you're going to invest time learning how the software works.
Then you'll have to download the various add-ons if you want to add stuff the < DAZ> figure
is placed against.

A major investment of time and money.

Which can just as easily be spent in the toy department of the S-Mart
buying Barbie her new gown.

Since the camera can be shot jpeg or avi ( or mpeg) you can look through the viewfinder
as you move the camera about around that model,shake it about like
in the old Star Trek series

To draw what the camera can do in a matter of seconds of a change in POV
would be quite a undertaking

You can also take watercolours and coloured lights to do simple
visual f/x on that models

And once you've got those video clips and ,jpegs of Barbie (with little green
water colour dots spreading or maybe little red dots on her 'hooters')
you can go beyond comic captioned stills and add audio tracks
to make simple videos of
Barbie the Green Beast vs Ken the Running Amputee ( hide that arm somehow
on the doll)

In the 1960s TV did very well with kiddie shows such as Thunderbirds
with what were essentially Ken and barbie dolls in props

Get the Imperial Toy squeezable dinosaur and those 2 inch tall dollar store toys of soldiers and knights and theres more adventuring

tf wise,a visual of the actual doll might look terrible
however since its a solid object a projector
( maybe a spotlight these days ? )
shone against something the
size of the 9 inch and up size dolls will project
a sillouette/shadow on a screen

have that digital camera take stills of that shadow
and add some playdough to Barbie's face and you've goy a
series of stills of Barbies expanding snout as she
turns into a werewolf

[sodacat]

http://nebezial.deviantart.com/journ...l-XD-363842751

Basically the advise is to just do it. Do it badly. do it all. Do it for seven years. After 3 years you will learn humility, after 5 you will learn skill, and after 7 you might really have something.

[Soty]

Hm... Well I guess step 1 would be learning to draw?

But that's a whole other thread, I guess. Re:comics, you definitely want a photo suite, like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or the Gimp. These should all have some basic tools you'll need/want, like automatic outline tools so you can create your comic frames as just white-over-transparent, then add a black outline. (Though black or black-with-white-borders look pretty keen too, with the right treatment.) Can use shape and pen tools to create word bubbles in about 4-5 clicks. Also handy.

But I guess if you've no stand-alone art, I wouldn't recommend starting with comics. They're a huge pain to finish well. Maybe start slow and make sure you're happy with a one-off style, first.

As for Poser-comics... er... I'll not get into it. I'm kind of a 3D snob. XD

Hope this was somewhat helpful.

[siliconstag]

Artist, here. I used to animate for TV (mostly 3d VFX stuff for the Discovery Channel and similar) and currently a freelance illustrator. There's really no better advice than "do it". If you don't have passion, curiosity, and willingness to take crits, it'll be hard to get good. But, there's nothing stopping you from just trying anything even if you're going to suck the first dozen times you do it.

If you think you'd like drawing, hang out on art specific forums like cgtalk or apedogs. If you're into 3d, there are lots of forums specific to every program you could want to do 3d with. Watch lots of youtube tutorials. Torrent a bunch of programs and poke at them. When you find a medium or program you think you could grow to love, dive into it seriously. Figure out its quirks and how the people who make really stunning work with it think and structure their projects.

Seriously, the internet is a pandora's box on information on art techniques. Take a look at these art progressions on Deviantart http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/278254127 You can't get good all at once. It usually takes years, sometimes decades. But, you can get better faster if you dive in, really figure out how your medium operates, be self critical without letting it stop you from working, and keep in practice.

Hope this helps