To filter or not to filter? Are CGI and photography really art?

[Fuzzy Modem]

To filter or not to filter? Are CGI and photography really art?

The splinter under my finger nail. The bloated testicle in my cereal bowl. Photoshop filters. People hate them on site. Almost as much as lens flares. It seems instinctual.

So a bit of background. I’ve been working on a Photo/CGI comic book.

http://crossovercomic.com/

Essentially it’s a movie storyboard with speech bubbles. People seems to like the writing for the most part, and I’ve gotten a lot of praise for the imagery and the use of CGI, but nearly [i]everyone[i/] complains about the filters. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I really like it- but those filters look terrible.”

A quick breakdown of what I’m doing here:

I start with digital photographs. Over the past four years I've amased more than ten thousand.
I use the photographs for three things.
First: My Characters are all shot in costume against blue screen. Thus far I only have one CG character (one of my other character's pets.) I have nine costumes now, the elf costume being the latest and far and above the most ambitions. It was made with tree bark, porcupine quills, modeling clay, sharks teeth, taxidermy eyes, and half a gallon (literally) of liquid latex.
Second: Textures. I try to use photos for all my textures. It helps blend the GC with the photo elements.
Third: Backdrops and sometimes foreground elements, depending on how many camera angles I'll need of the same area. When I shoot a location I try to get a few hundred angles so I'll have anything I might need.
I use photos wherever possible and only resort to computer graphics when I cannot logistically photograph the subject- such as a spaceship or a dragon. I've considered making scale models, but the ability to adjust lighting on the fly with CG proved more important the the greater realism offered by physical models.
I model in Rhino CAD and export to Maya for texturing and rendering. I also make both a high quality and low quality digital double for each of my actors in case I need a pose I didn't get during the shoot, or for shot involving dismemberment or death, or for things like creating an army.
Weapons and buildings are also created with CG, but always textured and referenced with real objects and buildings. Swords and guns are hard to match with the live action characters, but look much better than the props I originally tried to use. Now I have my actors pose with green wooden dowels that I just paint out in post.
The last step is Photoshop. Here everything is composited and matched for color and clarity. Grain is removed, blurred areas are sharpened, and sharp areas are smart blurred. I add blood, precipitation, shadows, frosty breath, glows and reflections.
For any close up shot of a character I paint in shadows based on a CG head I use for reference rendered in a separate pass with the CG lighting.
After everything is properly composited I use a complex combination of layering and filters to give the image a painted look. I've worked longer and harder on perfecting that effect than possibly any other aspect of the comic. No one filter does the trick so it took a lot of experimenting to get it right. The secret recipe is:
Three identical layers.
Top layer- Find edges filter. De saturate. Set to color burn. Adjust Brightness +75, Contrast +25 Manually paint out certain areas (stars for instance always end up black)
Middle layer- Remove from original document. Increase size to 3200 x Height. Smart Blur at radius of 10 and a threshold of 25. Run water color filter. Add back to original document.
Bottom layer- Unchanged from original. Adjust the opacity of the other two layers to the desired level.
The last step is to add the text bubbles. Which I always compress at a separate, higher level to maintain quality. The script for the first book is 144 pages and is translating to about two pages of comic for every one page of text. The script took me seven months to write, twenty two drafts, and more than eight hundred pages of notes. I'm still stuck on the last fifteen pages, but I'll finish them eventually.

Those this is obviously A LOT of work. And if I want to finish within my lifetime, I need to find ways to speed up the process.

The filters cut my production time in half. HALF! They hide all my seams. Without them the compositing would be painfully obvious. Like a pop-up book. Worse than the cover of the National Enquirer. I don’t use them because I prefer them but because I need them. The only alternative is to spend hours and hours in photoshop painstakingly masking each seam by hand.

I even get people accusing me of “cheating” -trying to pass my work off as hand drawn when it isn’t. WTF?

Unless someone has a better idea. And so far I’ve gotten a lot of criticism but no suggestions. It’s killing me. I need a third option. Anyone?

[HunterKiller_]

Some panels do look unfocused or a bit sloppy, and some panels do look like 'filter over-kill'. Otherwise I think it's really cool. Unique approach and interesting results.

[Bora]

I would say, you use tools and techniques depending on what you want to create. What I mean here is, you are taking a short cut so you spend half the time to create a comic, but the sacrifice shows because the imagery isn't impressive and some people frown upon it.

Fair enough if its a storyboard and you want people focus on the writing, but then why don't you make the illustrations way more simple. There still seems to be lots of focus and effort put in the effects

What you're doing here is like -perhaps this isn't the best example but- baking a ready made cake out of the box and expect people to appreciate your cookery. Whereas if you've made it from scratch, that's when people look up to you.

Nothing wrong with filters, they help a lot. If you think about it, everything under Photoshop is a filter. having access millions of colours, undo function. We're allowed to use these kind of functions because they are less automated and basic.

As long as people can't name the filter you've used, its fine. When you put so many together, like hunterkiller said, it becomes overkill. Look at Max Payne comics in the game, and ask your self why people liked it so much. Of course the narrating helped, but it was the simplicity and good mix of cgi and photography what made them good.

[subversive-imaginati]

To be honest, the reason you're getting the comments is probably that the comic is undeniably ugly. You might have the world's greatest story to tell but I couldn't get past the horrible filter overkill, the often bad panelling, the overuse of some filter/tool that turned otherwise okay CG into eye searing overkill and general stiff/shoddy posing to actually want to know about your story.

The filters might be saving you time but it's detracting from the comic as a whole. The work is rushed and slapdash and it shows painfully. People don't like to read eye searingly bright pages, bad panelling or filtered photos that are so confusing that they really have to wonder if you're trying to cover something up with the filters.

[Flake]

Some panels do look unfocused or a bit sloppy, and some panels do look like 'filter over-kill'. Otherwise I think it's really cool. Unique approach and interesting results.

Pretty much what I was going to post.

I think maybe it's not so much a question of avoiding the filters as it is of just toning them down a bit or using less obvious ones.
Any chance you could post an unfiltered version of a page or two so we can see how they look pre-filterification?

[masque]

people respond negatively to mechanically-stylized images because they are mechanically-stylized: the mind, eyes, and hand of an artist are not apparent. filters have a place in digital imagery, but they can't supplant the skill and technique of a human artist, and always tend to look like shallow imitations, particularly when used as heavily and repetitively as in your comic. it is very hard to decide whether you are trying to mask poor photography or imitate hand-drawn images with filtration, neither of which are very laudable intents.

the idea of a photo-composited comic is not inherently weak, but the idea that a collage of imagery can be assembled and made "artistic" by waving a filtration wand over the assemblage is. yes, it could be very time-consuming to make high-quality photo-composites from your source material, but i think it would be a much more acceptable approach than trying to make the photos look more like drawn or painted images.

[Fuzzy Modem]

Here is a before and after->

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/winnieswjr_filtercompare.jpg

[Crush]

From that posted example, I prefer the photograph; but even then I don't think it's particularly effective

I can see that you are playing with them in photoshop before actually filtering them as the lighting isn't very unified, so maybe set up your shot and take a single photograph instead of taking many photographs and then mushing them together

This is just what I'm seeing anyway...

[masque]

your example reinforces the point that filtration doesn't solve anything -- the lighting and composition of the panel as a whole are weak: there are mismatches in both lighting and perspective of the individual elements, and the composition lacks any strong focus. filtration isn't going to fix or even prop up any of these problems, but instead tends to look like an unsuccessful attempt to disguise them.

Photoshopping can go along way to enhance imagery of many types, but if the underlying principles of design and composition aren't well-respected, no amount of filtration will salvage an image.

as a pre-production storyboard or pre-viz, such defects are often overlooked because the images aren't final product, just general guides. but for final repro art, a lot more attention should be given to the basics, because they're the foundation of effective image-making.

would you mind if i put up a "paintover" of your example panel to show you what i mean?

[Fuzzy Modem]

would you mind if i put up a "paintover" of your example panel to show you what i mean?

That would be great.

[masque]

The first issue was the overall composition -- with the panel cropped and dialog added per your strip page, the panel is carved into three separate and basically rectangular units: dialog balloons, child, and shaman(?), and the bright area in the center solidly divides the frame in half. The elements aren't working well together.

The perspective of the figures -- low-angled up-shot on the shaman, but looking down on the child -- make the position of the figures look artificially arranged, because there's not enough difference in their position within the frame to "agree" with the perspectives. The apparent eyeline of the scene also doesn't agree with the perspective of the structure, though it's free-form style masks this somewhat. The aerial (atmospheric) perspective works OK for the center of the scene but doesn't carry through to the left of the frame well at all, making the picture depth ambiguous.

The lighting is inconsistent -- only the child seems to be lit by the rather intense close-to-the-horizon sunlight. This make the shaman look pasted in, and the structure has shadows on the wrong side (oops! ;) ).

187890

Using the main picture elements, I distilled the scene down to a fairly typical two-shot, bringing the figures close and even overlapping slightly to establish their relative positions in the picture depth, and giving them more vertical separation to get the perspectives to agree better. Not perfect in that regard (better to shoot them in the same pic), but an improvement I think. A light spill was added to bring both characters into the lighting scheme, with some tweaking of the tonal structure and saturation of both to make them seem in shadow but receiving plenty of reflected fill light. The structure was scaled down a bit and some bright highlights painted in to tie it into the key light (the sun). Its base was repainted to match the apparent eyeline better (this would be more accurate if I'd designed the structure and knew it better:) ). The horizon is no longer broken, giving the BG better continuity. The dialog was placed to accentuate the progression from FG to BG as well as insure correct read order. In terms of composition, the scene is still divided, but not as harshly, and along two diagonals rather than the rectilinear division of the original.

This isn't a perfect solution by any means, and it's been assembled rather roughly -- after looking at it again, I think I think I'd also try placing the child in the extreme FG and move the shaman back a bit in the picture space. There's also not yet quite enough definition of the characters' individual depth picture space. But it does show how various aspects of the scene can be improved to enhance the visual appeal and even the "realism" of the scene, without the heavy filtration.

Please don't think that I'm ruthlessly panning your efforts, you've obviously put a lot of time and creative effort into the project, and that's very praiseworthy. Some of the panels work quite well. But imo the question of the negative reactions to the imagery goes deeper than just the visual character filtration lends to the images. It may also reflect an unspoken reaction to some of the other more fundamental issues like composition, lighting and visual narrative.

[Crush]

Nice post masque, Fuzzy Modem, pay attention to that man :)

[tensai]

goddamn masque. that's a hell of a productive crit.

[Fuzzy Modem]

I've posted on alot of art forums over the years. That was the single best crit I've ever had. Thanks man. Sincerely. That was awesome. :)

My background is in video production. I probably shouldent mention this, but I don't actually own any comic books, and I read them very rarely. If I could somehow have told this story on film that would be my medium of choice, and that's basically how I'm going about this, rendering single frames rather than animations. I have alot to learn, but, fortuantly I have alot of work ahead of me. I've finished 39 pages. That leaves 1113 pages to go based on the script which is translating to about two pages of the comic for every 1 page of script, or about thirty seconds per page as a movie storyboard.

The point is, I have plenty of room to improve, and plenty of time and material with which to do it. This is somthing can learn to do. I feel pretty optimistic :)

[Fuzzy Modem]

Worked my ass off on this new pannel. Still a WiP, but no filters yet, and I think it's looking pretty good. Thought I'd get some feedback.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/border_devastation_test.jpg

[life on the sofa]

well the last one, for the situation..IT IA WAY TOO BIRGHT that explosion in the background is almost blinding and with the photo part in the foreground that explosion is just ruining it im afraid, you losing alot of the image behind smoke, but then the smoke you have created is a white confusing blurr in the centre, the smoke just before the cliff is good but then as ot reaches the centre it goes nuts turns white and looks more like steam or cloud..and i might be wrong but i can just about pickup a couple of lenseflares (top left and slighlty left of the centre) the left half of the picture..im just lost man..im sorry:(..what is the black lump with orange dots on the left. and explosion of realy dark black smoke..or a tree on fire or wht?..i dont wana sound harsh but it realy isnt clear at all there.

in short:

i would just dull down that explosion top right, and clear up the left hand side because its nuts about two lenseflares BRIGHT BRIGHT colours lose the lense flares tone the fire down a bit because its way way way too bright lose all the white in the middle because it looks good untill there is alot of white and "lense flare-ish" glimmering..i like the picture and the composition but those things would realy make it easier on the eye.:)

hope that is somewhat helpfull/:)

[asspat=MASQUE..:O...wow baby thats a hot paintover/crit..CRIT OF THE YEAR GOES TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. to be honest i thought it looked ok as the original in fuzzys first post of it but you kinda made it better..just a little bit.the characters are more interacting now .:)[/asspat]


sofa

[masque]

i can sum up my 1st impression in 3 words:

way
too
much

it looks as if you're trying to tell too much in a single panel, and as a result, the story gets jumbled, with the elements fighting one another for attention. i see at least three panels in this one image, maybe four, depending on dialog/plot requirements.

think of the story this panel tells as a video sequence. would you have one very long panoramic with all this business going on for minutes of screen time while your actors stand off to one side and basically do a V.O.? not if you want your audience to stay awake ;). there's no tension ramping, no drama. if the destruction is the key plot point, build up to it:

1) medium two-shot of the characters, standing silhouetted against a smoky but rather ambiguous BG, maybe some reddish back rimlight to presage the fire. they gasp at the destruction (but don't describe it -- make the audience wait for it!)

2) CU (maybe XCU) of one character glancing up and L, horror on his/her face

3) med-wide shot of jets zooming L to R across panel, maybe with some weapons fire directed off panel bottom.

4) NOW the payoff -- huge panoramic destruction! but make sure the viewer knows what's being hit (it's pretty vague as it is). characters are present panel R but MUCH smaller, just enough to show their relationship to the scene, and seen from above (so they don't look like they're standing on a ledge higher than the mountains in the distance). same with attacking jets, they need only be suggested in the distance (you've already seen 'em in action).

of course, i made a number of plot assumption here that may be completely off-base, but you catch my drift. creep up on the big scenes, build some anticipation and tension, then uncork the razzle-dazzle.

technically, i think you need to spend some serious time studying perspective. nothing screws a composite more than perspective mismatch, and it doesn't have to be a huge error, either. many might not be able to pin it down, but something will just look "off." it applies to everything, landscapes, cityscapes, people shots, even space vistas. you're not all that far off within the individual elements (couple, aircraft, and landscape), but when put together, the mismatches become more obvious. this is another argument for telling the story with more but less complex panels -- each would likely have simpler perspective requirements.

[Fuzzy Modem]

There are two and a half pages between the last finished page and this pannel. I take alot more time to develop all this, I'm just getting ahead of myself on this one and I'll come back to the other pannels.

Bit more work. Darkened it up a bit. Played with the color. Added come glows.
Pretty close to finished now I think.

Unfiltered:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/border_devastation_test_02.jpg

Filtered:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/border_devastation_test_02f.jpg

[Elwell]

Fuzzy Modem,
There's nothing wrong with not drawing, not being able to draw, or not wanting to draw. However, there are basic principles of visual storytelling that are true no matter what medium you are using. I'd recommend picking up a copy of Molly Bang's Picture This: How Pictures Work (http://www.amazon.com/Picture-This-How-Pictures-Work/dp/1587170302/) for a deceptively simple introduction. Also, comics and film actually have far less in common than first appears. The two indispensable books about comics storytelling (again, irrespective of style or technique) are Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X/) and Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art (http://www.amazon.com/Comics-Sequential-Art-Will-Eisner/dp/0961472812/).
Also, check out the infamous Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77013) thread.

[Fuzzy Modem]

The two indispensable books about comics storytelling (again, irrespective of style or technique) are Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X/) and Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art (http://www.amazon.com/Comics-Sequential-Art-Will-Eisner/dp/0961472812/).
Also, check out the infamous Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77013) thread.

Thanks for the recommendations. I know what to ask for for my birthday :)

Okay. Added some falling bombs. Can you tell that's what they are?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/border_devastation_test_03f.jpg

Think I'm gonna call this one done and go back and work on the pannels that come before it.

[kool-ka-lang]

I may not be all that good in critiquing, and my skills aren't all that great, I think I can still help out even just a little bit.

Too many colours are going on in that last one.
There's some green on the left, bright light blue on the planes, bright yellow orange in the middle, darkness, in the bottom, whitish pink in the upper left, and two dudes in the right standing out like sore thumbs.

You need to make those colours work together, and omit some of them, the green part probably.

Of course, I know its just a wip, so you could've already been thinking about that.

[life on the sofa]

dude, just NO to that last filter...you lost any realism after that. and with you adding MORE stuff (bombs etc) the fact people have told you its too busy already have had no impact. that image needed claring up and simplifying your trying too hard to put soooooooo much into it.

kook-ka-lang is right about colours there is just a total mismatch, the horrible blue glow, the blinding orange, yellow of the fire, the pitch black of the ground none of it works those fighters at the top having a blue glow was bad anyway to be honest but with you adding more from bombs is just taking the biscuit.

you need to decide what you want to be the focal point because at the moment i dont know where to look.the two guys in the foregorund?..seem like an after thought to me. the explosion in the distance?..the dropping bombs?...the fighters at the top?..the explosion bottom left?..the sunrise top left?..the bright mess in the middle?..the "tree"..?..on the left im just..confused. you need to stop adding things and start removing things, get rid of the multiple explosions, get rid of the bombs, get rid of the fighters in the distance get rid of the flilters.

you say filters half your production time, well to be honest thats just lazy, dont take on more than you can handle quality is more often what people prefer to quantitiy-your sacrificing quality for quantity.

and in answer to your question, no i cant tell that they are bombs straight away.

this picture would look good with the landscape that is there...none of the stuff in the middle but i understand you want it to be a battle so maybe have a small explosion or two and keep the fighters up top. the sunrise top left, the mountiains in distance and just fields in front of that rock.



if what ive said sounds harsh, wrong and you disagree you can PM me and i will be happy to reply. it only sounded harsh because im trying to be blunt and to the ppoint whislt being helpfull.


sofa.

[Fuzzy Modem]

Okay- Two new pages->

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/Prologue_p018.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/Prologue_p019.jpg

[subversive-imaginati]

That is probably one of the worst sequential and pacing examples I have ever seen and that saying something since I've seen some pretty bad examples. Not only does your overly filtered, badly collaged photos let you down but your writing/direction/composition is decided sub par on top of that.

My advice?

FORGET PRODUCTION for the moment. Stop trying to run before you can walk.

Go back to the drawing board and actually LEARN how to do a proper comic sequence. LEARN how to control the pacing and how to direct your viewer to what you want them to see.

Presently your comic is one big blob where everyone speaks in monotone monologues. It would be badly written and directed even if you had the wherewithal to actually do a film rather than a comic. Comics don't work with long monologues, even films have difficulty with them.

[Fuzzy Modem]

Meh. I'll learn as I go along. I have enough reserved issues for the first run of the comic to alleviate any self doubt, and as a result I'm locked in. I can't very well give up now that I have people waiting.

Don't worry though. It's not as if I'm planning to quit my day job or anything :p

Heh- Look at what the comic looked like this time last year->

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/20060117.jpg

I'll improve, with the help of fine artists like yourselves, and I'll have a "sub par" comic to show for it, which is a fair sight better than nothing. :)

Keep the critz coming though. Don't think I'm not hearing you. Thanks :)

[Seedling]

Hang in there Fuzzy. If you wait until you’re good at everything to start a big project, then you’d never start the project. Better flawed than nonexistent. Learn as you go and have fun with the journey. Also, remember that no matter what you make, it will never please everyone.

I'd recommend picking up a copy of Molly Bang's Picture This: How Pictures Work (http://www.amazon.com/Picture-This-How-Pictures-Work/dp/1587170302/) for a deceptively simple introduction.

HOLY SHIT! I have been looking for this artist for the past decade. Long ago my piano teacher had a copy of Little Red Riding Hood by this artist. That’s one of the images from LRRH on the cover. The second half of that book was all just fun, simple compositional studies done in cut paper. It was the single most educational source on composition that I’ve ever run across. Hello Amazon, take my money, please!

[Flake]

Better flawed than nonexistent

Yeah, this.

[Elwell]

HOLY SHIT! I have been looking for this artist for the past decade. Long ago my piano teacher had a copy of Little Red Riding Hood by this artist. That’s one of the images from LRRH on the cover. The second half of that book was all just fun, simple compositional studies done in cut paper. It was the single most educational source on composition that I’ve ever run across. Hello Amazon, take my money, please!
Trust me, it's even better than you remember.

[Jason Rainville]

Trust me, it's even better than you remember.

This sounds like the book I've been looking for (need help with design and composition) but just for clarification before I buy, since I'm a putz and need it spelled out for me:

Is this a great instructional book on composition that could help me in illustration and graphic design, or is this 'just' an artbook featuring pieces by the artist?

[Elwell]

Is this a great instructional book on composition that could help me in illustration and graphic design, or is this 'just' an artbook featuring pieces by the artist?
Definitely the former. It's not so much a "how-to" book (although there are some suggested exercises at the end), but she goes in-depth into theory and why certain colors, shapes, and placements within the picture have the narrative significance that they do.

[subversive-imaginati]

If you wait until you’re good at everything to start a big project, then you’d never start the project. Better flawed than nonexistent. Learn as you go and have fun with the journey.

Nobody said he should wait until he's good at everything, but some practice and prep-rendering definitely wouldn't go amiss in this case.

I suggested he halt production because he should spend time in the actual prep phases of preproduction rather than in production itself. I don't see how blundering about trying to fix poor rendering and poor writing as he goes on and then having to go back and redo large chunks of the project later is going to be quicker than spending a little time in preproduction and learning.

[Seedling]

Sub, I’m not picking a fight with you. I’m just giving advice. Fuzzy can pick the best path for himself if he’s got different options available.

[subversive-imaginati]

No fight being picked here either, I was just pointing out that stopping actual production and picking up some learning first/doing some extra planning is not the same as never getting the project done because you're waiting to reach some level of skill, and that your advice does have a drawback in that he might well find himself a year later having to redo large chunks of it because he's matured as an artist.

[Seedling]

I suggest seeing to your own improvement before telling others how to proceed, Sub.

http://subversive-imaginati.storm-artists.net/browse/index.php?cat=&order=date&reverse=&offset=0

[Fuzzy Modem]

You both have valid points.

I have, in fact, started over from scratch before, but I don't plan on doing it again.

[subversive-imaginati]

I suggest seeing to your own improvement before telling others how to proceed, Sub.

http://subversive-imaginati.storm-artists.net/browse/index.php?cat=&order=date&reverse=&offset=0

Year old doodles makes any point I make instantly invalid? That's a poor argument to drag my art into this and imply my comment is flawed because my old artwork is nothing spectacular and all because I disagreed with you? My gallery has nothing to do with my comments. You know something? I didn't come here to pick a fight, I merely disagreed with your comment in terms of efficiency in planning. Some of my best critiquers are those who can't draw, does that make their very good critique invalid? I would say not. I happen to be very good at planning and I know that running into a big project without proper planning can waste way more time than spending a little more time on preparation will.

Just because you imply my old work is poor doesn't mean I don't possibly have skills or that my viewpoint is invalidated by your derision of my doodles. In fact I've spent the last year or so mostly practising and not posting new work because I'm busy laying a solid ground work for my portfolio.

My apologies to you Fuzzy Modem, I didn't mean to turn your thread into a battleground. I'll withdraw now since I have nothing further to say and I have better manners than to continue what someone else has started.

[Flake]

Anyone else getting "madster" flashbacks?

[Fuzzy Modem]

Need some feedback on a potential solution. I printed out a page, traced over it, scanned in my tracing and reapplied it as a darkening layer. Do you think this might be a viable option?

Before
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/doodletestbefore.jpg

After
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Fuzzy_Modem/doodletestafter.jpg

[Bora]

fuzzy. I suggest you stop thinking of making minor filtery changes to improve your work, instead try to make big decisions, like bob ross would say.

there is a really good tutorial here in CA :

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71673

Its a great example of how to solve problems and looking to improve.

[tomwaits4noman]

I know I am jumping into this late,
probably some of the stuff has been said took quick read through

You want to use photos... fine not a problem if they are from your own collection.

If you are doing digital collages grand... study how the pros do it, what techiqnues they use.

I do see problems with filters and how they images blend together they are not always seamless, even if its 5 or 50 images from in the one pic

would suggest looking at Dave McKean, lot ot collage, pictures, photoshop

http://www.comicartcommunity.com/gallery/categories.php


I understand that starting from scratch is not possible but you can change the style, work it into the story.

Take any major comic book from start and you will see a progression after a year or two.

Example Spawn. I choose this purely because I collected issues from 1 to about 70 0r 80.

After 20 issues or so Greg Capullo took over pencils from Todd Mcfarlance, turning point at issue 32 book started to become much darker. Issue 1 looked way different to issue 32 or even issue 50 or 70.

Whatever method you choose takes time ok so you are not hand drawing the images, a style choice.. not an issue for me, think you need to hone the tools you have, and use fundementals, study your medium.

comic books are not storyboards with text. The panels may be key actions of a scene but the placing and relation of panels to each other are a key part of the flow of the story.

another link http://www.comicartcommunity.com/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=11

comic pages.

I have a tutorial from Wizard about panel design, I 'll scan it later and post them here. best of luck with project. like what i see so far.

[dose]

I'll echo what others said- you need to learn how to design a composition.

Learn how to control where the viewer's eye looks using contrast- particularly contrasts of value, color, edges, & texture. Whether or not you use filters to achieve this doesn't matter. Without this kind of visual organization in you images no amount of tweaking or filtering will make your image work.

People like to think art is totally subjective, but there are elements of design which are objective- based largely on the human eye being attracted to contrast. Other parts of design are so culturally ingrained that they might as well be objective. You need to learn those things.

[Jason Rainville]

Useless bumping of a thread, I know, but I just have to say...

I just recieved "how pictures work" in the mail yesterday. I was kinda dissapointed at first that it was a short read, small book, 92 pages, mostly pictures... But jesus christ, I have not learned (or rather, had 'click') so much ESSENTIAL info in one sitting than I did last night. It's funny, because on a basic level I knew these things, I just never really thought about it/applied it before. Seeing her progress on that one red riding hood pic had more juicy info packed into it than most tuts I see flying around.

Absolutely brilliant. A must have :hatsoff: