October 2011
39 posts
Can question duck meet a REAL great white next time?
Heh, that’s a great idea actually. But I’ve been kinda running a sort of Scare! week so… ya know.. maybe. I’ll think on it. It’d be kinda fun to see a Great White’s :| face.
What size canvas do you normally work on?
I usually just start sketching on a blank canvas of 300dpi at 12x12 inches. And then after a sketch or an image starts to look cool or interesting, I use the crop tool to make the canvas the “right” size for the image.
If someone were to draw a question duck comic, and send it to you, is there a chance you'd upload it?
Man, where you been at?
I upload Question Duck fan comics all the time on the official site! They don’t appear on the tumblr though, mostly because this is sorta 90% of the time art by me. But I always like putting them up on the site, sometimes on the regular update days or on Sundays now.
The official Question Duck e-mail address is “questionduck at hotmail dot com”
Any and all Question Duck related inquiries can be sent there. Fan Art and comics are always amazing. And I’m always in need of new questions to ask!
Any way you might be willing to make a tut or share your method?
There’s an old one I have but it’s definitely worth updating rather than giving people rather misleading information. It’ll have to wait though.
How do you get the brown haze-like coloring on most of your art? Do you actually go in and paint in those colors or is that just a manipulation after the fact?
It’s a very simple manipulation after the fact. It allows me to work in black and white to get the values just right, and then creating a “Gradient Map” layer allows me to adjust and constantly readjust colors with plenty of flexibility.
For sketches, I have a set of go-to gradient maps which apply some fairly pleasing effects. But there are plenty of times when a simple gradient map isn’t enough so clever manipulation of a gradient map, or multiple, must be used to create the desired effect. Switching one such layer to “Soft Light” or “Overlay” or whatever can do interesting things like beautiful inner glows.
It works very well for the Salamander, creating incredibly hot fire for the opening pages.
What does the process entail?
To give a quick overview, it starts with a black and white rendering of the character. And then switching to the Channels window and then applying color by drawing directly on the Red, Green, or Blue channels.
It’s odd at first, and without experience mixing your own paints and colors I’m afraid it can be very tricky. But if you do try it, don’t be afraid to just play for awhile and paint over and over and over until it begins to sorta work.
After you get some nice colors lain out, then you should go back to the regular layers and start cleaning that mess up.
I’d like to play with it more myself before whole heartily endorse the method. And if it’s good, I’ll see about going into more detail about how it’s supposed to work.
So envious of your copy of Local, you don’t even know. Did you get to play the ME3 demo?
Nah, I wasn’t in the mood to wait in line but I watched people play from the sidelines. The whole thing looks good, looks like Mass Effect, except with a rock solid higher framerate. I asked a nearby developer about this and they said it was even an old build from E3. If anything at least ME3 is going to perform very well on the 360.
You got a Megan sketch! Did you commission it, or did Kelly do it for free?
Kelly was very kind and doodled it in for free. I doubt he remembered I even bought a book from him yesterday. He said it was for lugging that heavy thing to the con.
NYCC Day 3 Mission Complete Screen
-A relatively relaxed day, all for the better as it seemed no one had the energy left to do any work whatsoever. But the time was enjoyed.
-Still dead tired by the end of it all.
-Mass Effect 3 is shaping up rather nicely, though I would have thought higher quality art assets were preferable, the new 40-60 fps target frame rate should make combat a real fun experience.
-“Local” is now signed by both Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly.
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-Hey, you should get this book. It’s a good book.
-I played with a Cintiq 24HD for longer than may have been polite. I have rarely ever wanted anything more than that device.
-Phil Noto would indeed like to make a book of photos from the archive of Henry Pym. I would gladly encourage this effort.
-Amanda Conner was very busy. However, the Tiny Titans guys were just as awesome!
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-Get their books too.
-Must work on commission. Question Ducks should return to their normal update schedule as soon as tomorrow.
NYCC Day 2 Evening Report
-Biggest single convention day I’d ever been to. The flooring was literally being torn up by the shambling masses of people.
-Robert Kirkman and Rob Liefeld are pretty funny guys together. Their infectious happiness about their book “The Infinite” makes me want to pick it up.
-Arizona Ice Tea is a poor drink to carry around all day once it becomes warm and unpleasant.
-Starcraft as a spectator sport makes so much more sense when you can be in the audience watching.
-Picked up a couple really independent books, I should hope Comic-Con eventually reduces the prices for these guys to get tables. There’s really no financial reason for the con to do so, they’ll always sell all their tables and sell out all their tickets whatever the cost. But it seems very hard for a small independent studio to recoup their costs setting up as Small Press. Anyway, if I like these books I’ll be sure to let ya know.
-This is the first con where I had roughly zero interest in picking up a new toy or piece of clothing or merch in general… This is probably a good thing.
-Once in the con, it feels like another world and the news gets so far from my mind. In turn it’s always pretty deflating to turn on the news or check the latest on the web.
-But I rather wish I’d known the protesters moved over to Times Square, cause it’d have been just a couple blocks out of my way to see it up close. Nice choice of location really, it’d make for really good photos. However if I may suggest, they could get a lot more mileage from taking their protests to the windows of all the New York morning shows. (Hello FBI person, how are you?)
-Portfolio reviews on Saturday were near impossible to get, even with several panels dedicated to it. A good percentage of the crowd just seemed to be carrying their dreams in these big flat rectangle bags, all hoping someone who “made it” will grant them their blessings.
-Blessings are awesome. I’m happy to report, portfolio performance is so far pretty positive. I’d like to tell ya more, but I’d rather not jinx anything just yet.
-Note to self, bring giant copy of “Local” for Ryan Kelly and Brian Wood to sign tomorrow and all your missions this year will have been completed. Alternatively, Northlanders Volume 2 would be easier on your back.
-Optional Side Quest, get drawing of /co/lette from Amanda Conner.
NYCC Day 1 Report morning edition
-This is the first con —that I haven’t tabled or volunteered at— that felt like work. In a good way.
-Reviews go well, the work is well liked and I’m taking notes on criticisms where I can improve. Small press folks react very positively and I’ll look forward to working with some in the future. In either event, it’s encouraging as well as always educational.
-The Panels are awesome, I enjoyed in particular the unusual one based on talking Food and Comics and where they overlap creatively. Admittedly, after the panel I was all too aware that they don’t any more than Comics and Music, or Comics and Interpretive Dance.
-I’m curious to try coloring with the color channels instead of traditional layers. The vibrancy is astounding.
-Sara Pichelli is my hero.
-No seriously, she is awesome.
-I always seem to just pass by Stan Lee at every NYCC.
So the whole Occupy Wall St thing... →
motherjones.com
I’m really not looking forward to hearing about a riot or anything even remotely like it over this weekend. This is probably kinda selfish of me to say, but it’ll really dampen my mood at Comic-Con if things are on fire in lower Manhattan. We’ll be way over in the East side quite a long ways a way from Zuccotti Park but it’s none the less going to be on our minds.
I love ya guys, civil disobedience is a great thing. But I’m hoping it’ll remain civil, from the police AND the protesters.
I’d been psyching myself up for comic-con and reviews for the past year, and I’m even ready to be disappointed on that front. But the last thing I need right now is to see my favorite city in the world tearing itself up while a bunch of innocent nerds are just trying to have a good time. It could be heart breaking.
Now, I don’t give the chances of anything city stopping happening much credence. New York is resilient, and lots of the protesters care about the city as much as I do, probably even more. But I’ve always got to think about the worst, especially while hoping for the best.
ps. I forgot the caveat that I find some of the requests by the park owners to be reasonable, especially the efforts to clean the place up. I hope that goes orderly. I just worry, especially with the way the social media sites are playing this up, that the sleeping bag ban will blow up the way they keep talking about it.
What exactly is the duck saying? What i’m making out is “Is marvel going to sell ____ comics ever again? “
Soleil Productions, a major publisher in French comics which does some awesome looking stuff that is going to be hard to find in English if Marvel completely gives up on bringing them over and translating them. Pretty much the question came up as I look at my lonely edition of Sky Doll.
Just a quiet thought...
I don’t like not drawing Question Ducks. I don’t think I can stay on break from it for very long at all, even with other drawings to do.
I’ll try to remedy the lack of Question Duck in my heart, tomorrow.
I am quite impressed by your rendition of Ebony Hide from Elephantmen. Would you ever consider drawing Hip Flask?
Sure.
psuedofolio 2 →
psudos.daportfolio.com
A more “proper” art portfolio, having gone over the options I’d decided using the new daportfolio service seemed a fine enough alternative over other available free options. The interface is nice enough, and simply filling it with art is as deep as I’m ready to make it.
The collection is likely to change over the next few days as I pick and choose what to show, how to organize it, and agonize over the notion that IT WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH… ahem.
