Bayani

I don't see why you couldn't learn both ways at the same time, then ultimately decide which tools you prefer.

I believe that you can learn alot from seeing the progression of your work and just letting your work sit with its flaws. Moving on to something else is more preferable than erasing and backpeddling ad nauseaum over your piece. If students of art (or anything else for that matter) relied on being able to backpeddle and "fix it later" it could become a crutch. There's a risk that they may develop bad habits because there's less engagement/attention paid in what they're doing at the present. If you're disciplined enough to avoid that sort of trap and have the work ethic to challenge yourself to get things right the first time (and learn to just let things go and move on), gl and have fun.

Again, as others and myself have pointed out, covers are illustrations and should be distinguished from comic book art, which are (again, pointed out) the actual pages inside the comic book itself. That distinction doesn't make Alex Ross's work and the way he executes that work any less impressive. Cover artists play an important role in the industry. Geekboy doesn't consider Alex Ross to be a great *comic book* artist not because Ross isn't traditional pencil/ink/color guy, but because he doesn't consider Ross to be particularly effective at telling a story with his work in sequential art.

On another note, I love those two books (Understanding Comics vol 1 and 2) as well as McCloud's Zot!. There was some fantastic story-telling going on in Zot! too.

Storytelling is difficult and if you don't do it well, it shows, and it becomes painfully obvious. With all due respect, you've got some misconceptions about the comic book medium and the process, which Sorah, being closer to the industry, would be happy to point out. I think those misconceptions have led to a vast underestimation on the value and significance of the inking and storytelling in measuring sequential art against other mediums of art.

I won't comment about his personal life and troubles, but I think he had quite an impact in the music world.

Fox News just confirmed it. The local news feeds are reporting it too.

Bummer. =( I just heard Michael Jackson died from a heart attack.

*finishes updating his virtueverse page* Wheeee. Ok. breaktime over. time for more workity work.

Michael Bay had that Verizon commercial.

Sup, homies?

Still haven't made any decisions yet but I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. ^_^

I'll be interested in seeing how his Wonder Woman title works out then and whether or not he can keep it on a schedule. I do enjoy his illustration work and have made several attempts at getting a convention sketch of a friend's character,(stupid random names out of a hat) but after seeing some of his fill-in stories and other sequential art, I still think it's not quite his forte and there are *comic book* artists better suited to the task. I know I'm not the only one who thinks so, either here or in the actual industry itself.

I would agree that he's a great artist in general and yes, his work appears on comic books. Cover art and sequential art, however, have different purposes and should be distinguished from each other. The real meat of a comic book is the story inside and not the cover, and as such, I think it comic book artists should be defined as the talents who work on the pages inside the book.

Film narrative/cinematography have some parallels but the key difference between those mediums and comic books is that comic books are not moving pictures and that presents a whole different set of challenges. Both comic book writers and artists will attest to that. The sequential art in comic books not only has to show you what's happening in the panel, it has to give the readers clear and strong indications on what's happening between and off panel too. That’s a subtlety that most readers and aspiring comic book artists do not ever really realize.

But, I would imagine that if Hughes' sequential pages were as strong at story-telling as his covers are at attracting customers judging comic books by their covers, the powers that be at DC would toss him an offer he couldn't refuse and pair him up with their best writer on a monthly series. It would be impractical from a business standpoint alone not to do that, so I wouldn't be so quick to assume it's just a time issue and not a skill issue. It doesn't diminish his work any less, but like any other professional, artists do have different strengths and weaknesses.

You stated your belief that the best comic artists are those who aspire to be like artists outside of the comic books. To me, that sounds like you're implying that comic art style doesn't quite measure up to some higher standard that you have in mind.
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I disagree with considering Adam Hughes a great comic book artist. His covers are beautiful but his interior pages aren't nearly as strong. A great comic book artist can do both cover art and sequential art. Composition for sequential art is much much more difficult than composition for a single image. At the forefront of sequential art is the artist's ability to tell a story and that should not be overlooked. Lots of comic book artists do work outside of the funny pages and it's a bit unfair to imply that comic book artists aren't Artists. It does not give them enough credit for what is a rare and often times, under-developed skill.

Well, a bad ink job would ruin the composition of a piece. Most of the great inkers I've met and commissioned from time to time (Rubenstein, Layton, Hanna, Scott Williams, Martin) all prefer to ink the original artwork as opposed to a photocopy. I imagine they'd much rather ink a physical piece rather than digitally ink it. They've all said the same thing: there's just more life in the original, physical piece. Inking is not tracing lines. Inking adds and enhances the rendering of the subject matter and great inkers accomplish this through their feel for the actual shape, edges, shadows, and spatial relationships of the subject matter.

Now if you have an artist who's drawn really tight pencils, I think you can use photoshop to process the lines so they look like they've been inked. I believe some of David Nakayama's work had been treated like that before being colored and published by Top Cow.

*is ready to tug his hair out because of work* Blah. BLAH I say.

I suppose if you could make a compelling case for it I don't see why not.

Thanks for the entries so far. Looking forward to seeing what else pops up. =)

What are the main weapons of the kitteh inquisition? *raises an eyebrow*

*yawns sleepily and nurses a cup of coffee, then notices a lipstick mark on the collar of his dress shirt*

Whoops.

*reaches into his office cabinet and puts on a fresh shirt*

So, how was everyone's weekend?

A few months ago, I put up a thread requesting volunteers for villains to be used in a future commission, and round out an interesting Rogue's Gallery for Bayani. I've decided to change things up a bit and make it a series rather than just a single splash commission. I'm hoping to have the commissions done on a quarterly basis starting in the fall and I've already selected three toons so far and I'm looking for a fourth.

1) Kim Paler (FireBrandi)
2) Blackthorn (Thornster)
3) Mad Butcher (Clobbertime)
4)
5)

Same dealie as before: several screenshots of the character and reasons why he/she/it would be an excellent matchup for Bayani as well as background into why they would battle. The level of the commission will be pretty similar to the more detailed pieces in the "featured" section of my dA gallery. The selection will be based on how solid the background story and character design are so take your time and make a good pitch will run for a few weeks.

*calls a cab for the woman he brought back from the club and sneaks her out before freshening up for work with a cup of coffee*

*stumbles in from the clubs with a woman in tow, blessed with...huge tracts of land and sneaks off to a quiet unoccupied room*

Really? I've run into about 30 pinoy in-game over the past few years, and there's a pretty sizeable group of Filipino artists on dA who've banded together and started making their own comics with Filipino superheroes called the Bayan Knights, and I'd say about a good two-thirds of them have made pinoy characters with the red/white/blue/gold costumes. Years ago, I figured if a Filipino superhero were to ever go "mainstream", they'd end up going with a flag costume and because of that I shied away from it. I did design one a year or so ago for Bayani's predecessor ( Lawin ) because I found a costume set that could really pull off four colors. Personally, I think Bayani's costume is just too good/iconic for him to change at this point given both the art I've collected of him and that the flag costume doesn't quite fit the character, who's more new school than old school. It's become my version of a throwback jersey for the most part.

Bandila's look is pretty solid, though I think a white mask would be better than the current one, given the top.

*blinks again* that's one dirty looking sock. o.o

Arc Name: Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa
Arc ID: 230100
Faction: Heroic
Diff Level: 40-50
Playtime: 30-60 mins

Challenge the Filipino martial arts masters of the Limang Paralaan.