Grrl Power #1413 – Discombobulate a dragon
The thing I’ve recently discovered about drawing big dragon guys covered in scales is that it rapidly becomes tedious to draw a big dragon guy covered in scales, on account of all the scales. His face doesn’t help either.
I already knew that, academically, but these pages have driven the point home. On top of that, I recently found some time to catch up on some comic reading – I’ve been supporting the Gold Digger “Colorize the first 100 black and white issues” kickstarters, and was reminded that I wasn’t really taking advantage of the medium of comics fully. Good art (or as good as I can manage) is fine, but if good art is all a comic can offer, it’s probably going to be a little boring. I love Joe Madureira’s art, but… I don’t care about the story in Ultimate Avengers at all. Battle Chasers better, but honestly, I think the art actually detracted from the few moments of levity in those books.
The ideal solution, IMO, is something like One Punch Man, equal parts fantastic and goofy art, and never takes itself so seriously that the humor is atonal. Obviously I’m a huge fan of Gold Digger and there are a jillion other examples, mostly in the manga genre.
So today we get… not quite Super Deformed dragon guy. I think proper SD is where the head is at nearly as big as the body. Also, I just like to occasionally take the time for a back and forth panel sequence, where you can see the gears turning in someone’s head, and the page isn’t 85% word bubble. Which I fully admit I am the poster child for that style of comic.
Kobold Sydney vote incentive! Is finally done!
So… you know, check it out. Oh, and as usual, Patreon has a scales only version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
You commenting about the problems of drawing scales reminds of of what a fantasy artist once said about drawing piles of gold coins before he learned to ‘fake’ it. Before he learned that he didn’t have to draw every single coin and mastered the technique of making it look like he had drawn them, while in truth he only drew enough outlines to make the human brain see it as a pile of single coins.
I had a thought about just such a concept yesterday.
As long as the idea gets conveyed convicingly the art dosn’t matter.
My explnation. One Punch Man. Art was total shit, nobody cared, the story was too damm good.
Dave B your art is great, but at times it dosn’t need to be as long as the story gets told.
> Dave B your art is great, but at times it dosn’t need to be as long as the story gets told.
But DB’s chibi art IS great, too!
I appreciate Dave’s dedication to his art but honestly I’m mostly here for the jokes.
The common dragon curse they see a lone adventurer in their cave and think , he’s harmless I’m about 10 times taller than him .
“But they are game for the munchkin an only a lunatic or a munchkin lurk alone in a dragon cave ” and lunatic population of given area is not extensible.
Maxima is a supemunchkin , superman level.
Does Digital Art Tools still not have libraries of ziptones like the sheet based ones Adam Warren used to get around repetitive ink patterns?
We all understand when the comic requires too much effort with a production deadline. Everyone around Dallas Fandom knows Fred’s Megatokyo initial issues over artwork obsessions that caused months of wastage and led to a domino downfall.
Another Megatokyo fan!
He’s still putting pages out, if OMG painfully slowly. I also try to catch his occasional live stream on twitch. They can be an interesting, but not *too* interesting, second-monitor video to help keep my brain happy when I’m doing my own writing.
Also, the man is too self deprecating for his own good, along with other issues.
But if Egoma were to best Gaxgy in a… respectful exchange of martial prowess… then how would Gaxgy be feeling about the situation?
Aside from “very surprised”, which I believe we can take as given.
Years ago I had to draw a large tree as the center piece for a theater group T-shirt and was faced with the similar prospect of drawing hundreds of leaves and tiny branches. I discovered that I could just draw the major branches and just scatter “leaves” like a cloud within the outline of the tree. The “leaves” were just a small, spread out “V”. Took maybe 10-15 min for hundreds of them. Came out great.
I genuinely like the shifts in art quality on this page. The regular shots, the highly detailed closeups…then the sudden lack of details, like a visual version of a record scratch “stop every and hang on for one moment!!” And then the super detail followed by the regular artwork. It’s brilliantly well-done!
Why is there a Coke machine on a space ship?
Know it says Cuke nut not fooling anyone.
Is this a commercial transport like a space bus?
Like Swedish Meatballs, every race will come up with their own version of Cola.
Even the ones for which it is a deadly poison.
Well done being the serendipitous tumbleweed, Sydney.
Cora, that is not something you tell a dragon (or man) who is that level of smug and expect them to leave it untested.
*Giggle/snort!* I love Maxima’s little smirk in panel 7 – and everyone looks so darned cute in the last panel!
Dubious, intrigued, and a little bit *concerned*. He knows Cora, trusts her judgement, but at the same time is pretty damn certain that he could best even the most skilled Stygian, so there must be *something* going on…
I guess he isn’t accustomed to the concept of small people having strength that isn’t proportional to their size.
Like some kind of “super”…. “strength”.