Mahran Teaches Comic Book Penciling - Mentor: Mahran - *** CLASS IS FULL!! ***

[SpawnSC]

Mahran has offered to mentor me on comic book penciling. I look forward to learning and growing in this field of art and can't wait to get started.

A little bit about myself..

I'm 26 years old and recently started to get back into art again since high school! so i'm way way behind and forgot a lot. I've been back into for about 2 months now. I'm very into comic book style of art and love how you can tell a story through art.

Wieringo has given some of the best advice to all artist..

"My best advice and encouragement to aspiring artists is to never give up, never let anyone tell you that you can't reach your goal." -Wieringo

I've really put that quote in my head and his right in every way.

Some of my inspirations are:

Todd McFarlane
Greg Capullo
Jim Lee
Michael Turner
Nat Jones
Frank Cho
and many more..


Mahran where shall we begin?

[Mahran]

Hey, lets get this thread going then.:yayca:
I've done a few Joe kubert penciling assignments myself and I've found them very beneficial. So lets do something similar to those here.
Alright, first assignment...
Draw a character sheet for Spiderman/Peter Parker.
First, get some good reference on how spidey looks from the front, side and back. Same for peter (choose any style you like)
Then do 4 drawings:
1- spidey, full figure, front view
2- spidey, full figure, side view
3- Peter parker (with no mask on) face only, front view
4- Peter parker (with no mask on) face only, side view

have fun!:rocker:

[SpawnSC]

working on it :)

[SpawnSC]

im having a bit of trouble, maybe i'm trying to be to perfect. ill scan what i have when i get home.

[Mahran]

Hey
No worries, it'll probably be better than u think :muscle:

Did this panel a couple o days ago...

[SpawnSC]

ok.. i'm not proud of these at all. i know they have many faults and thats why i'm here to improve and grow. Sorry it took so long but with Christmas shopping and all it got me a bit behind! Plus I hate drawing Spider Mans costume lol

http://www.HeroesHideout.com/scans/peter.jpg

http://www.HeroesHideout.com/scans/spiderman.jpg

[Eddie_L]

Here's my take on spidey

[Mahran]

Great work Spawnsc and Eddie! Give me one or two days to go over these in photoshop.
In the meantime, don't put down that pencil :lifedrawing:

[Mahran]

Merry Christmas all!!!
New man will be joining us, welcome "chimp"

We're gonna be doing a bit of work on faces these coming weeks, so don't stop drawing 'em heads. Either draw from a good comic book reference or do a little portrait work, it REALLY helps in getting a feel for the 3d structure of things.
This is my latest portrait. 2B pencil on bristol board. Not very happy with everything I did with it, but all in all, not a complete disaster.

[chimp]

Hey all!:rocker:

Heres the two of spiderman, i'll do peter parker later tonight :D
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c356/chimpchimp/Untitled-2.jpg
I couldn't find any references of him standing up still, just the typical dynamic jumping and webslinging, as to be expected i suppose :)

[Odouri]

is this class available for all to join? may i join?

[SpawnSC]

is this class available for all to join? may i join?

That depends on how much Mahran can handle, because his the one who has to grade all the work. If nothing else, maybe he can start a second session later on and pm the people who were interested.

[Mahran]

is this class available for all to join? may i join?

I think I would just be able to squeeze you in. So, yeah, welcome aboard Odouri! I really do have to put the time and effort into these critiques that I'll be doing, so I don't think I'll be able to take on anyone else after that.
If u like, why don't you get going with the spidey assignment and I'll go over it as soon as I'm done with Eddie L and Chimp.

Spawnsc, will have your critiqued assignment up in a few hours. Good work there, buddy :yayca:

[Mahran]

Spawnsc, great work on the spidey assignment. Very good use of reference. Very nice rendering on the blue/black parts of spidey's costume! And yes, I agree, drawing the webs well isn't easy at all. If done well tho, they really help in giving spiderman a good 3d feel. Will try to put up a mini tutorial for that soon :^^: I've drawn in blue over the areas that still need a bit of work.

If you guys prefer just typed crits (no blue line corrections over artwork), let me know (Don't mind either really, whatever makes you guys happy). All in all, Very good stuff. Keep practicing from reference (Mcfarlane, 'Ringo, Jim Lee, whatever style you like). We'll all improve a lot faster if we try and learn from the top artists' lines and rendering techniques...

[javvie-pl]

Ah, I love an idea. Mahran, I beg you can I join here ;_;? I always wanted to do some exercises in comic drawing and designing. If you won't now, I will waiting for my chance, cause I will watching this thread ;)

[SpawnSC]

Spawnsc, great work on the spidey assignment. Very good use of reference. Very nice rendering on the blue/black parts of spidey's costume! And yes, I agree, drawing the webs well isn't easy at all. If done well tho, they really help in giving spiderman a good 3d feel. Will try to put up a mini tutorial for that soon :^^: I've drawn in blue over the areas that still need a bit of work.

If you guys prefer just typed crits (no blue line corrections over artwork), let me know (Don't mind either really, whatever makes you guys happy). All in all, Very good stuff. Keep practicing from reference (Mcfarlane, 'Ringo, Jim Lee, whatever style you like). We'll all improve a lot faster if we try and learn from the top artists' lines and rendering techniques...

Thanks Mahran! I prefer the blue lines because i'm a visual learner. I will practice from some more references and post them here. :lifedrawing:

[chimp]

Heres peter, the one on the left came out horrible, the right isn't too bad.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c356/chimpchimp/705.jpg

I suppose this would be appropriate here also, as it was a study using reference :) More of a still life though >_>

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c356/chimpchimp/703-closeup.jpg

[Mahran]

Eddie
Very good work there! I really like your figure proportions. Spidey looks tall and imposing (which is good). Also, you have a good feel for muscle structure. You probably know this already, but spiderman (the average sized comic book hero) is about 8 heads tall. Superman would be 9-10 heads tall, which makes him look more big 'n' muscular than spidey. BTW, regular people would range from 6.5 to 7.5 heads tall. I've added a few suggestions in blue and red for u to try out...

[Mahran]

Ah, I love an idea. Mahran, I beg you can I join here ;_;? I always wanted to do some exercises in comic drawing and designing. If you won't now, I will waiting for my chance, cause I will watching this thread ;)

Welcome aboard Javvie-pl :mittenbop:

[Eddie_L]

Eddie
Very good work there! I really like your figure proportions. Spidey looks tall and imposing (which is good). Also, you have a good feel for muscle structure. You probably know this already, but spiderman (the average sized comic book hero) is about 8 heads tall. Superman would be 9-10 heads tall, which makes him look more big 'n' muscular than spidey. BTW, regular people would range from 6.5 to 7.5 heads tall. I've added a few suggestions in blue and red for u to try out...

Thanks Mahran, I would try your suggestions. I'm trying to learn anatomy and muscle placements, and they are hard!! But I'm moving along slowly. Can't wait for the next lesson!!

[Mahran]

You're welcome Eddie L.

Chimp, am working on your assignment. Should be finished with it quite soon, good work there!

[Mahran]

Chimp, first of all, I'm really happy with your sense of form. You've given your drawings quite a bit of depth with your shading, good work there. You are thinking and drawing 3 dimensionally and that is very important, keep it up. As I've done with the rest of the guys, the blue lines are drawn over the areas that still need a bit of work...

Still life: Very good textures! In fact, why don't you post the methods you used for rendering the different textures in that still life :lifedrawing: . I'm always interested in seeing how other people render things in pencil :painting:
Things to work on:
1- Your contours: they're a little bit jagged
2- cast shadows: sadly, no magic formula here, just careful observation and lots of practice

[Mahran]

Hey all
Some of you guys have mentioned having trouble drawing spiderman's costume. Put together a mini tutorial for you. If you guys find this helpful, let me know and I'll try to post some more in the future.

[SpawnSC]

nice tutorial :) when is the next assignment?

[Mahran]

Hey Spawnsc, here's the next one...
Assignment two:
This is a big splash page (a panel filling the whole page), which would be ideal for the opening page in a comic book.
Use an A4 piece of paper (bristol board is best).

1-Spiderman is webslinging in the foreground.
2-He is closely followed by Felicia Hardy (the black cat).
3-The background is New York by night (or similar city).

We've already done spiderman before so you guys know what his costume looks like from several angles. For this assignment, you should first find good references for Felicia Hardy and New York (do a google image search for both). The other thing is to try and use proper one-point or two-point perspective for the background buildings. Drawing convincing backgrounds is really important, so realistic looking buildings is a must for this assignment.
Have fun and PM me if you have any problems :yayca:

[Mr.Dabit]

I'm back. Just had some thinking to do. I realized I'm not that bad of an artist. Just got discouraged. I like the Spiderman stuff a lot too. I want to join in, if you don't mind. We could still go through email, but I like competition. You want me to do assignment one and two, or just start with two?

[Mahran]

I'm back. Just had some thinking to do. I realized I'm not that bad of an artist. Just got discouraged. I like the Spiderman stuff a lot too. I want to join in, if you don't mind. We could still go through email, but I like competition. You want me to do assignment one and two, or just start with two?


Hey, hey!
It's good to hear from u again. Please don't get discouraged, everybody goes through these bad patches. The thing to remember is that while some of the top artists are mega talented, the majority however, had to put in ungodly amounts of hours to get where they are now. You have very good potential, so don't worry about stuff.
You can go ahead with assignment two if you like, seeing as we've already done something similar to one :lifedrawing:

Let me know if you have any problems :yayca:

[Peter Berkovski]

Hello Mahran, I hope there is little chance to join here,I realy realy wish someday to begin comic book artist,please please please can I join?

[xcmiller]

Any way I can get in on this? I can help crit a bit since I'm a big comic guy and I'd like to go along with these exercises if possible even if you can't take the time to mentor me as well.

[Paperdoll]

Hmmm... seeing the thread title this might be a pointless post but since it looks like it's exactly what I was looking for... if there's any chance that I could get into this, I'd really appreciate it, since it's one of my aspirations to be able to do my comic book art... but eh it's all good :) I still like to check out these threads, always good advice.

[Mahran]

Hello there, thanks a lot for the interest. Well, this "class" is technically full, but I think I can meet you guys half way. If you like, you can follow the assignments and ask me any questions you might have. Also, any comic book chit chat is welcome. I would be able to offer you written crits for your work, but I don't think I'll be able to do more "draw overs" though. The reason for this is that they are very time consuming and it wouldn't be very fair to the guys I'm already mentoring. The other reason is that I'll be penciling a new book starting February, and that is gonna take a huge chunk of my time.
Hope this is an acceptable compromise :^^:

take care lads :yayca:

[Paperdoll]

More than acceptable for me :) any help is good help so thanks for that ^^ much apreciated. I'll get working on that Spidey sketch right away.

And good luck with your comic book work.

[xcmiller]

Works for me as well, and thank you!

[Mahran]

More than acceptable for me :) any help is good help so thanks for that ^^ much apreciated. I'll get working on that Spidey sketch right away.

And good luck with your comic book work.

Thanks!

[Peter Berkovski]

Thank you so much Mahran :) much appreciated

[Paperdoll]

Ok so far I only completed the face exercises since once I "finished" the full body one I realised the paper was too small for it X_X so I'm gonna post it anyway but will try and get it done by tomorrow an actual full body pose (both of them), yes, with feet and all XD sorry about that. I'm still happy with this one since I'm very much a begginer at male anatomy... still not very comfortable with drawing it so had to look for a reference. I feel the need to point out every single flaw in the drawings but I'll shut up now XD I also didn't finish the costume, since I'll be doing it over etc.

After that I'll try to tackle the second exercise.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d179/Paperdoll18/Spidey1.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d179/Paperdoll18/Spidey2.jpg

[Mr.Dabit]

Hey i finished the spread. Should have tightened up the city, but I drew it behind spidey and cat, and I didn't want to mess with them. I can't wait to see the others!

[Mahran]

Ok so far I only completed the face exercises since once I "finished" the full body one I realised the paper was too small for it X_X so I'm gonna post it anyway but will try and get it done by tomorrow an actual full body pose (both of them), yes, with feet and all XD sorry about that. I'm still happy with this one since I'm very much a begginer at male anatomy... still not very comfortable with drawing it so had to look for a reference. I feel the need to point out every single flaw in the drawings but I'll shut up now XD I also didn't finish the costume, since I'll be doing it over etc.

After that I'll try to tackle the second exercise.



Looking good there, paperdoll!
will wait till you've posted the body shots and give u a couple of pointers then.
good stuff, keep it up!

[Mahran]

Hey i finished the spread. Should have tightened up the city, but I drew it behind spidey and cat, and I didn't want to mess with them. I can't wait to see the others!

Mr. Dabit
Good work, buddy. Am working on your assignment, give me a couple of days, ok?
take it easy :rocker:

[Peter Berkovski]

Hello everybody, here is my page, I'm not happy with the result :(

280033

[Mr.Dabit]

Man atlantik. You just stomped on mine!! I could've done better.....

[Peter Berkovski]

Man atlantik. You just stomped on mine!! I could've done better.....
Hey buddy, I think you can do that better than me, just that you need is practice and practice,don't stop drawing and you can come really better artist.
Have fun!

[Mahran]

Hey
Very good work there. As usual, very good use of reference for the characters. Good looking poses as well! I've added a couple of things for you to try out on the pic. Also, since this is a 2D medium, comic book artists always try to put in as much "depth" as possible in their scenes. Here are a few ways to do this:
1-Have your characters overlap one another.
2-Vary the sizes of objects/characters. The smaller an object is relative to other objects in the panel, the farther away it will seem.
3-Vary your line widths, objects closer to the foreground should have a thick outline while objects in the background would have a thinner outline.
4-You can create depth by using a lot of blacks for the foreground, greys for the mid ground and keep the background mostly white.

Hope this has been helpful :rendered:

[SpawnSC]

sorry ill get this done asap im having to finish up some projects that i have a schedule on. I just finished my drawing for the 100 artist project http://www.100artistsproject.com/ and finishing up my sketch cards for the american cancer society. I just didn't want you to think i skipped out! little more time and ill have my assignment 2 up.

[SpawnSC]

Hello everybody, here is my page, I'm not happy with the result :(

280033

I think it looks great :)

[Mahran]

Hello everybody, here is my page, I'm not happy with the result :(



I must say, I like your take on spidey and felicia very much! You've used some very good poses for the characters (especially spidey, very dynamic). Your buildings are realistic and well rendered. A very nice composition as well. The one thing you could work on is your foreshortening. Spideys arms are a tad off. Again, I really like this very much.
Keep 'em coming atlantik

[xcmiller]

Sorry I've been a bit behind lately with work and all. Shall post my work as soon as I can, I'm almost done the character sheet for spidey. Those pages look excellent guys. Great exaggeration on the perspective on spidey atlantik. Dabit you have such great potential with your drawings, just keep drawing stuff like that and I'm sure you'll notice major improvements each time, which also is part of the fun of learning a new way to draw.

[Mahran]

sorry ill get this done asap im having to finish up some projects that i have a schedule on. I just finished my drawing for the 100 artist project http://www.100artistsproject.com/ and finishing up my sketch cards for the american cancer society. I just didn't want you to think i skipped out! little more time and ill have my assignment 2 up.

No worries, man. It takes me up to 2 weeks to finish assignments. So take as much time as you need :grandpa:

[Paperdoll]

Woah atlantik... love the clean look and shading. Felicia's pose seems a bit off to me but I'll let our mentor be the judge of that :p

Sorry for the delay regarding posting my drawings... work's been insane and I haven't had the time to actually sit down and do some research etc on everything I need to pull off the drawings.

But awesome work people. I'll post mine as soon as I can.

[Peter Berkovski]

I must say, I like your take on spidey and felicia very much! You've used some very good poses for the characters (especially spidey, very dynamic). Your buildings are realistic and well rendered. A very nice composition as well. The one thing you could work on is your foreshortening. Spideys arms are a tad off. Again, I really like this very much.
Keep 'em coming atlantik

Thank you Mahran for the good words, I appreciate that and I want some day to become a comic book artist and I'll do my best for that.Cheers!

Thank you guys, I'm glad you like it !!!

When is next assignment??

[Mr.Dabit]

Man, it's been two weeks since the last submission. I hope no one got discouraged.... I want to do the next assignment so I can redeem myself from "teh suck" of my last one! :teeth:

[ElementalMist]

This thread is awesome, I know it is full, but just looking at the corrections and working on the assignments has been helpful. I also like the advice, it is really just too easy to get discouraged when trying to hone ones drawing skills.

Here's to an ungodly amount of hours in progress. ;)

[Mahran]

Hey all, I'm afraid I'm on holliday at the moment. Will be back on Feb 7. I'll have a new assignment posted as soon as I get back :lifedrawing:
take care guys :rendered:

[Eddie_L]

Sorry for taking so long. I've been so busy, finally had some time to sit down and draw. The drawing is a bit dirty from all the erase marks.

[Mahran]

Hey
I hope you've all been doing well. Eddie, will have your assignment ready in two or three days.

ASSIGNMENT THREE

R.A. Salvatore (superstar fantasy writer) wants you to pencil a cover for his new graphic novel "Servant of the Shard".
The cover consists of:
"Jarlaxe and Artemis Entreri are battling a band of Orcs. Background is a desert/sandy terrain."

1-Get good references for the two characters: Jarlaxe and Artemis Entreri as well as their favored weapons.
2-Design a few variations of the "orcs" before starting your drawing. Take your time because designing impressive secondary characters is not easy.
3-This is a fight scene, so dynamic figure work is important.
4-You'll be leaving out the time consuming perspective work on this assignment. Just focus on the figures for this one.

Any problems at all, please feel free to post or pm me :lifedrawing:
Have fun!

[Peter Berkovski]

Thank you Mahran, I start to search for good reference ;p cu soon!

[Mahran]

Hello Eddie L
Very good work! You've got a lot of talent there. Keep practicing and try to spend a little bit more time with the reference stage.

Keep up the great work!

[Eddie_L]

Hello Eddie L
Very good work! You've got a lot of talent there. Keep practicing and try to spend a little bit more time with the reference stage.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks Mahran!! I'll work on assignment 3 this weekend. I googled the two characters, but nothing substantial showed up, do you have some links to the two characters for reference?

[Mahran]

Thanks Mahran!! I'll work on assignment 3 this weekend. I googled the two characters, but nothing substantial showed up, do you have some links to the two characters for reference?

Here you go Eddie_L

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarlaxle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Entreri

Artemis is the human and Jarlaxe is the dark elf

[Mr.Dabit]

Has anyone started? I'm waiting one the first submission, because I got bad results when I posted first.... I was too cocky.

Somebody post their WIP so I know what I should expect from myself.

[Peter Berkovski]

I think these days to post some orc designs ;) come on guys,I know you working hard on this,let us watch out ;)
Cheerzz!

[Mr.Dabit]

But the only

A lil 5 min sketch of an ogre. This is the look I'm goin for. I'm gonna refine this and make about 4 more. Haven't started the main characters yet.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g257/EliasTheShiznit/Image001-1.jpg

[Peter Berkovski]

hey guys,it is long time nobody post here something, I think this is hard assignment and maybe it is better to take the easy way,I mean we should to continue with character sheets and then go to these whole page assignments,what do you guys think?

[Mahran]

hey guys,it is long time nobody post here something, I think this is hard assignment and maybe it is better to take the easy way,I mean we should to continue with character sheets and then go to these whole page assignments,what do you guys think?

I'm game either way :yayca:. I'll wait for some more posts and see what you guys think. Just let me know what you would like.
I'll try and help out as much as I can.

take care all :rendered: