#there are exceptions to the redrawing panel thing

[whatlurksbean]

What's something you learned about comic making/comic drawing through your experience? Like any mistakes you made and learned from? :3

I've learned so many things, i guess the biggest i can think of is simplify simplify simplify.

Don't give characters more than 3 colors, 4 tops. No gradients. Fuck gradients. Fuck stripes too but they look nice so : / I guess they get to stay.

Don't keep redoing panels, I give my panels two attempts max and then pick the better of the two. You have to move on or you will be perfecting 1 panel for a week that people will glance at for 3 seconds and then be behind on all other work. Dont do it, it's okay to look off. Nothing can be perfect, it's okay.

And also I think i've learned that it's okay to just, change things. Like if you're getting burnt out on something and need to draw differently, just do it. Consistency doesn't matter if nothing is getting done.

For example I hate backgrounds dearly, so i switch between lineless or lined, or textured or gradients. I get so bored with them. If I stuck with the same thing for 800 pages, i'd turn into a bird and fly away.

It's okay to do new things with art / art styles / methods, most readers will not notice, and those who do won't mind. Be free

[sabertoothwalrus]

any art tips about writing funny scenarios? i feel like i understand drawing but ive been in a total writing rut, especially when it comes to comedy :/

I think the main thing to consider is What Is The Punchline.

Something I see often in beginner joke-writing is having too much after the punchline. You don't need to have character A dunk on character B, and then have characters C, D, & E all reacting to it. UNLESS the reaction is the punchline. Remember how funny vines were? A lot of that came from them being only 6 seconds, and often cut off at the end. The Abruptness can absolutely add to the timing.

The other main thing is that comedy = contrast. Yesterday was April Fool's Day, and something I was seeing a lot of people do (myself included) was make some kind of "announcement", and then say some variation of "haha sike!" The thing is, this only works if your audience could have realistically expected you to make that kind of announcement in the first place. If an artist who has been staunchly and vocally against AI art posts an AI image, then... that's not really a joke? Your followers will be confused, not only because you're acting out-of-character about an issue that's politically charged, but also because you're still using AI art.

My own version of this joke was to redraw an old comic, which is something I love doing! I love revisiting old media I used to like, and I love redrawing art to track my improvement. My followers (hopefully) know this about me. The twist was that the comic I redrew was voltron, specifically klance, because I have the experience to know this would give a lot of people a lot of whiplash. Even after almost 9 years, just simply seeing the characters was enough to send people careening into a weird spiral of nostalgia and fear for my sanity, because of how controversial the show and its fanbase had become. But since most of the controversy was because of extremely-online drama, it was ultimately harmless (and people that are genuinely still into the show got some new art for it teehee!) I'm going to use a recent comic I did as a another example.

^ this is a comic about Ace Attorney, but honestly you don't really need to know anything about Ace Attorney except that "7yg" is a shorthand the fandom used for "7 year gap".

Panel 1: Setting the expectation. it's during the pandemic, so it's normal for people to have hand sanitizer on them. A precedence has been established.

Panel 2: Additional Context. Phoenix rummages through his pockets, which tells the audience he has a lot of stuff in them, and that he's identifying objects more by touch than by sight.

Panel 3: Anticipation

Panel 4: The punchline! Oops, it was lube! Small bottles of lube DO look & feel very similar to bottles of hand sanitizer, but people-- especially during a global pandemic-- do not typically carry small bottles of lube on them. Personally, I think Phoenix Wright could be the kind of person to have lube on him (for any number of sexual or non-sexual reasons), but the audience doesn't necessarily need to know that about him. Part of the joke is the nonchalance in his reaction; all you need to know is that Phoenix himself is not that surprised or embarrassed about having lube with him, or about having just dispensed some of it into his friend's hands.

Comedy is hard to explain!! It's also not very funny to explain. It really takes a lot of practice, and everyone has different tastes in humor/context/expectations anyway, so you're never going to make everyone laugh. Knowing your audience will definitely help.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi! I have a webcomic with a drawing style that's like anime but with some western influence, something similar to Avatar the Last Airbender or Teen Titans. But the coloring style is very flat and simple with almost no shading except for important impactful panels. So I have not been coloring the palms of my Black characters lighter since I felt it was a level of detail higher than my flat coloring style (but I would definitely do it when coloring a more detailed illustration) However I did see a peer of mine who was politely asked to lighten the palms of their dark skinned characters in their comic and their art style was more cartoony than mine (think like Steven Universe but more realistic proportions). They did start coloring palms lighter as a result and it's making me wonder if I should do the same. I have been running this webcomic for a few years and I would have to update a lot of panels since I'm a stickler for consistency, but do you think it's something I should do?

Well first, I wanna enforce here that it's never "too late" to not be racist. So if what you were doing was an issue, there is never a need to keep digging in your heels due to time. So never allow yourself to think you can't just stop. You can!!

I think this varies person to person; I don't particularly care if some cartoon styles don't have palms. But it's also not that hard to add palms either, so if you think it would make your Black character design more intentional (and it would!) just add the palms. You don't even have to go back and redraw, just start doing it now 🤷🏾‍♀️ people will go "oh! An art style update!" Webcomic artists grow in their style over time all the time, it's not a bad thing!

[inthehouseoffinwe]

Redraw of an AU I started writing and drew a panel of four years ago. Featuring Obi-Wan and co accidentally flying through a wormhole and crashing in First Age Beleriand. What could possibly go wrong?

Version without writing, original from 2021 + excerpt from the fic under cut.

Featuring my design for Maedhros and Maglor, and an Ahsoka redesign.

Art only allowed for personal use ie. phone/laptop wallpapers.

Do not repost or upload. Reblogs are always appreciated.

Except from the scene:

Maedhros was making his way to lunch when the young soldier came running through the gates, pausing by the redhead to bow before running to Maglor’s office. At the end of the hallway, he paused. Maedhros quirked an eyebrow.

“My Lord! I have an urgent message for Lord Maglor... But perhaps it would be easier if I told both of you.”

Maedhros inwardly frowned but nodded and strode to his brother’s room, the soldier jogging to keep up with his long strides.

Maglor was carrying on with the reports he’d almost fallen asleep on the night before when the sharp knock caught his ears. The door opened.

“My Lord. Commander Lintiel has found the foreigners.”

“Tell me what happened.” Maglor commanded, waving in the two elves.

The soldier proceeded to tell them of a transport that fell out the sky and the strange occupants within it. How their weapons shone with light and their skill in combat and survival.

“I would not have believed had I not seen with my own eyes. They do not seem hostile, but remain under guard. There are two Generals, a Captain and a Commander. The younger General is a former student of the other; he now teaches the Commander.”

“How long until they arrive?”

“Sundown.”

“And the orcs?”

“All dead. But their numbers have been increasing.”

Maglor shared a look with his brother.

“Thank you. Brief my Captain on the situation then get something to eat. You have done well.” Maedhros dismissed the guard, who left with a bow.

The door closed and the redhead pulled up a chair with a sigh and a wry smile.

“Since when did you get foresight Kano?”

Maglor looked at him flatly.

“Not foresight. A feeling.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Yes.”

“Alright alright.” Maedhros conceded, raising an arm in surrender.

Maglor rolled his eyes, but capped the ink pot and leaned back in his chair, a single hand rubbing his eyes.

“So, oh great Lord of Himring. How do we handle this one?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you? You said they weren’t a danger.”

“I said they’re not necessarily a danger. Clearly, whoever or whatever they are, they have skill and could most definitely be a problem if they wanted to. We must be cautious.”

Maedhros smiled sharply.

“That will be no trouble.”

Maglor gave him a reprimanding glance and stood, walking to the main entrance of the fortress.

“Do try not to frighten them away, dear brother,” he said dryly, “they are not hostiles.”

Maedhros rolled his eyes.

“Another... feeling?”

Maglor scowled.

“If I say yes, will you listen?”

“I trust you, brother.” Maedhros replied, now serious. The two elves paused by the gate. He looked the younger in the eye. “I know you will not lead me astray.”

Maglor smiled and nodded, the weight of the words not lost on him, and the redhead returned the smile. An hour passed in which guards were surreptitiously placed around the premises, but the two lords knew the security would most likely be seen. One did not simply become a general, and by the sounds of things, these foreigners were young even for mortals.

There was a signal at the gate, and Maedhros nodded. A few shouts later, the gate was opened and Lintiel rode in ahead, leaped off her horse and bowed to the Feanorions.

“My Lords.”

Lintiel as an elf of the Gap faced Maglor, who stepped forward.

“Lintiel. Report.”

The news was as expected, almost the same message the young soldier had given.

“As of yet they have shown no signs of hostility towards us.” She paused for a moment, weighing up her next words and Maglor gently pushed her on.

“Speak, my friend. You would not do so unless you were sure of something.”

Lintiel frowned slightly and replied.

“I know I have met them for barely a day, but I feel drawn to these strangers, they radiate a strange inner light. Nevertheless I am wary.”

The brothers exchanged a surprised glance, and now Maedhros replied.

“You have done well, Lintiel, we will take your words into consideration.” Maedhros now called with a loud voice that all the soldiers could hear. “Eat then rest, all of you. It has been a long hunt.”

As the soldiers bowed then made their way through, Lintiel muttered to the two:

“They speak only the tongue of Men.”

She called the soldiers surrounded the four travellers forward, gave a short bow, then left, gesturing for the cavalry to follow and the four to stay where they were.

Once alone in the main hall, Maedhros and Maglor analysed the beings before them, taking note of them doing the same. Some time passed before Maedhros finally spoke, projecting his most kingly aura.

“So. You’re the ones I was told to expect.” He paused, ignoring Maglor rolling his eyes at the drama. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Obi-Wan stepped forward with a bow, not at all intimidated.

“I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. My companions are Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex of the 501st Legion. We seek shelter and a place to rest. Unfortunately our transport has been damaged beyond repair and communication to our men will take some time to figure out and re-establish.” Obi-Wan paused. “I should also mention that Ahsoka here is of a species common to where we come from. She is no creature like the orcs.”

Maedhros nodded once, but still stared disconcertingly at the four, watching as the Captain’s hand tightened around the strange black weapon, and the two youngest beings grasped the silver hilts on their waists.

Only the Master did nothing, meeting his eyes with firm resolve.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Batgirl and Robin Car Doodles

I was locked in a car for 8 hours yesterday and had to do something to keep from going insane. I'm not super happy with these renders, but I figure someone out there will enjoy these.

Flat color drawings and design notes under the cut:

I love Batgirl and Robin duos! They're such cutie patooties! Here we have Dick Grayson Robin and Bette Kane Batgirl, Jason Todd Robin and Barbara Gordon Batgirl, Tim Drake Robin and Cassandra Cain Batgirl, and Damian Wayne Robin and Stephanie Brown Batgirl!

All these pairings are accurate to the comics---these characters existed as Robin and Batgirl at the same time and teamed up frequently. The only one I'm missing are the famous Dick and Barbara duo and Cass and Steph during Steph's Robin run (and technically Damian and Babs, but. . . .eh).

I have a /thing/ about giving heroes kneepads. I've seen what they do to their knees! If you have no invulnerability, you will either wear kneepads or I will make you suffer the consequences! Hence Dick, Bette, and Jason's trashed legs here.

I am greatly entertained by the fact that while the Robins' suits stay very similar from person to person with only some style differences, the Batgirls have cycled through damn near everything. Robins range from "how much skin are you covering and how much black are you wearing?" But Batgirls have been everything from "Robin but Girl" to "Knockoff Batman" to "Batman if he was small and possessed by a spooky eldritch entity" to "EAT MY HOMEMADE PURPLE!"

Batgirl Steph originally looked exactly like Barbara but with more purple and less yellow, but I wanted to highlight the contrast between Batgirls, so I went for her Batgirls! design here: that one has the lower face mask that nobody else wears. Buuuut I was also giving everyone white-out eyes for stylistic consistency and because it's easier to draw, so I went for a Raven-esque shadow effect from her hood that I think worked decently. I also gave her a bat-eared hood to match with the other Batgirls all having ears somehow.

(Bye-the-bye, while Robins and Batmans are usually drawn with whited out eyes in their masks, Batgirls in Barbara's suit style are not, and neither are people with Bette style masks. This is fascinating to me because the whiteout lenses aren't actually canonical---it's a stylistic choice that all live action adaptations remove, and many individual comic panels that are close-ups of faces demonstrate that you CAN in fact see their eyes behind their masks. This is with the lone exception of Cass, who I believe has a spiderman thing going in her full-face cowl).

For similar contrast reasons, I gave Babs her navy blue style instead of her OG purple, even though she usually looks better in purple. Sorry Barbara, you generally look best as Oracle anyway.

I hate Damian's edgy gray robin suit with a burning passion. WHERE IS THE GREEN!? YOU KNOW: THE COLOR MOST OF US ASSOCIATE WITH DAMIAN! WHERE IS IT YOU BASTARDS?!?!

Anyway, while I liked the posing, the renders definitely suffered from lack of sleep and car jostling, so I think these may be good candidates for a redraw sometime next year.

[rottedraptor]

‘archie’ comic panel redraw thing except it’s cody crushing over junior and joseph is very much done with it

(my artstyle is very inconsistent im sorry 🥀)

[kailysander]

So I found out about you after doing some research on I story in writing that is heavily based on religion. It’s just a document right now, but I would love to make it into to webcomic except my drawing skill arnt really that good. I saw your art and I thought it looked absolutely amazing so I was wondering if you have any tutorials or just plain advice/examples? The way you draw faces and bodies/poses is amazing and I wish I could draw like you 😭

Thank you so much and sorry it’s taken me so long to respond!

The biggest thing about comics is that you need to get comfortable with drawing things you’re not very good at drawing. Generally, these are the basic classic fundamentals you’ll need to study in a more academic sense, meaning you must learn a bit of construction/formal technique that may change your current approach drawing as an action— it’s better not to draw in pure construction lines when studying these:

Anatomy

HAND anatomy

Perspective (1 point perspective is all you really need 80% of the time, but it’s good to know 2 point and beyond as well)

Color theory isn’t NEEDED per se, but it’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I see people haven’t taken time to study it

Unfortunately I don’t have any good tutorials to link because I had a formal education— I’m sure you can find some decent ones on YouTube tho! Gnomon tends to be decent for figure drawing, but you can also look for tutorials made specifically for animation if you have a more simplified style.

Beyond this, it’s really important to get comfortable moving forward from things you’ve drawn “badly.” If I’m struggling too much, especially with an unimportant panel, I usually give myself a time limit of around fifteen minutes to fiddle with it before moving on.

Genuinely tho, the best way to get good at making comics is just to make them. It’s really the only way to practice at it, so I would just reframe art as a “genuine documentation of your skill at a certain time” rather than something that is supposed to be perfect. My art at the beginning of GH is definitely less refined than what I put out now, but it’s a genuine reflection of where I was in my artistic journey at that time, and it’s my opinion that anything genuine you bring to the world is always good.

2020 > 2023

Really, just working on comics consistently will improve your skill exponentially because it’s all applied practice. That being said: Do NOT start redrawing the beginning of your comic once your skill has improved. That is the devil speaking. You’ll never get to the meat of your story if you keep starting again at the beginning! It will be there to redo once you’re done if you so choose.

Anyway—- I’m wishing you the best with your endeavors! Comics are a lot of work, but so worth the effort!

[ninakoll]

For comics, what is your work process like? How do you get from idea to a finished comic?

HELLOOOO OAAA omg this is a tough nut to crack as im a pretty chaotic writer in that way...... i think it depends whether i'm creating longform or shortform, i actually recently talked abt this elsewhere so i can bring an example based on the sylvanian discourse comic as shortform! long post with sketch pages and thumbnails etc ahead, ill put it under a cut! 🧡🧡

usually i start by jotting down really loose ideas which i do in my native language; ill translate it for you but i sent myself a mad scientist-esque message that went like: "kohaku giggling at his phone, rinne asking what's so funny and kohaku tells them that love assigned them sylvanian families creatures, and shows them. niki's is obvious, everyone agrees. same with kohaku's, plus rinne does pleading face emoji at how cute it is. rinne's critter could get criticism on being uncool? google. himeru's reaction to his own is no way.. himeru is this one and shows a pic on his phone to which everyone is like ..:3 himeru we didn't know you'd thought about this already but himeru just demands everyone to agree with his choice more than aira's. aira later gets a text from kohaku that himeru didn't agree and aira is PISSED"

sdfsdfdklhs so this was my script, as you see the story changed a little while thumbnailing bc i figured out a funnier way to write it; + i cut the scene change for pacing reasons and constrained the ending into one panel with texts on a screen...! then i had to start finding the critters to assign them, i presented my assignments to friends to check if im accurate or out sailing:D:D mwah mwah thank you to my council of love

next step was writing dialogue which i did while sketching the pages super loosely as little thumbnails, i like to get my layouts solidified when thumbnailing too and i usually do my cleanups straight on the scaled up thumbnails. when i write longform i usually thumbnail out more than 6 pages at once to see how the pages flow and write loose mad scientist type scripts chapter by chapter. i rly do miss working on longform comics 😭😭😭 (my webcomic FLFR became abandoned bc i deleted my twitter years ago and realized later that my only way of accessing my webtoons account was thru twitter. customer support said its gone forever so 🇫.)

as you see in this example i rly like to have my text flow and kind of lead the reader's eye thru the action... i think all comic artists have different approaches to certain things but i like loose and dynamic paneling very much; it's so much fun to play around with!! i'm also so so pleased that people noticed in the comic how kohaku was becoming more and more excited and confident with every showing, it was a little difficult to figure out how to make a repetitive and essentially very boring action (someone holding up their phone) work in comic format without feeling copypasted or trite. more thumbnail examples from my sketchbook for the rinniki comic (i like that i wrote notes for myself on top of drawings, like "üldine" to refer to the panel being a wide shot:DD wonderful overlap of storyboarding and comic work!!):

overall i like writing comics since you can add endless details. what makes comics work for me is giving up on being a perfectionist or you will never finish a comic. one finished comic is better than the perfect comic in your head because you'll have the experience and free space in your head to write another comic, instead of the first one stewing in your mind. :D and so on!! be bold, don't be scared to draw ugly, and draw bad comics. and definitely write it with an audience in mind, except the audience is 50 versions of you and what you enjoy/like most!!

i started my first longform comic in high school and idk how but i managed to finish it, it's not a great comic, but i'm proud that it's done and it taught me a lot. same for FLFR which i hope i can rewrite/redraw some day since it's a story i still want to tell and the characters are rly near and dear to my heart, but i think i totally got burnt out from juggling work, comics and things going on in my life at the time :( surprisingly i also enjoyed working on a comic project where the client wrote the script and had character designs ready but mainly because the client's script writing style was similar to mine which at times was like "idk they fight and something funny happens here"

thank you for this ask!! everyone start drawing comics NOWW 👊💥

[eschergirls]

January 2025 Update & 2024 Supporter Thank You

Hi everyone! December is over so it's time not just for the January update and thank you post, but also to thank everybody who supported Escher Girls in 2024!

This month has no major external site updates, but we have updated the site internal software which should hopefully fix some errors. We've also fixed the formatting in the way the site displays gifs and videos in previews in the tags, so there shouldn't be giant white spaces between each post.

This month I didn't have a lot of time to fix up old posts because I've been jumping from appointment to appointment for the health thing I mentioned before. But I was able to fix up a few posts.

Specifically, I restored this post of Kevin Nash's short-lived comic book, a panel of Gamora's butt sucking in her thong and also her entire body I guess?, this cover of Shanna: The She-Devil in a boobs and butt pose, Nikki Doyle being turned into a snake by a snake, and two really good fan-art/redraws of Nikki Doyle, one by Keskerist, and another by JustTheMiles. I also fixed up and sourced the Samurai Champloo bomb-boobs video from a very old post.

All restored/fixed posts have working images, videos, and animated gifs (a lot were broken or deleted by either Tumblr or during the move to the new site), and have added image descriptions for screenreaders, sources, and link to the corresponding cross-post on Tumblr and vice versa (except for the cases where Tumblr removed the post entirely either because the submitter deleted their blog/submission, or Tumblr's algorithm mistakenly tagged something as nudity, usually a solid coloured bodysuit, in those cases I've tried to find an archived version to link to). For very old Tumblr posts that don't allow image captions, I've linked the images to the image hosted on EscherGirls.com which does have image captions.

And now I want to give a big thank you to Escher Girls' Patreon subscribers for all of 2024 regardless of when you subscribed or for how long. I really appreciate all the help people give me to help keep the site up, pay for hosting and domain costs (which keep going up due to inflation v_v), and allow us to keep the site updated.

So thank you so so much to the following people for being 2024 Patreon subscribers:

Anne Adler Cat Mara CheerfulOptimistic Chris McKenzie Em Bardon First Time Trek Greg Sepelak Karrius Ken Trosaurus Kevin Carson Kim Wincen Leak  Manuel Dalton Mary Kuhner Max Schwarz Miriam Pody Morgan McEvoy randomisedmongoose Rebecca Breu Ringoko  Ryan Gerber Sam Mikes Sean Sea Who Used To Be Much More Annoying SpecialRandomCast  Thomas Thomas Key

And also special thank yous to JohnnyBob8 and PJ Evans for their donations through Ko-Fi in 2024!

And also a huge thank you to everybody in general who reads, submits, reblogs, comments, and otherwise interacts with the blog! Escher Girls' audience is truly great and I love seeing all of your responses to my posts and your captions!

Also, if anybody is on Fedi and wants to talk to me, I'm at https://urusai.social/@ami_angelwings.

Thank you so much and see you next month!

Ami

PS: As a reminder, we added a button that links to the Escher Girls Tumblr and to our RSS feed for those who want to follow that way. (For newbies, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is basically a feed you can read using an RSS reader. Simply copy and paste https://eschergirls.com/rss.xml into an RSS reader and it will keep you up to date on Escher Girls!)

Make sure it is eschergirls.com and not eschergirls.tumblr.com, as that is Tumblr, and not the self-hosted site.

If you have any issues with the site or suggestions to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know!

If you wish to support Escher Girls, you can subscribe to our Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ami_angelwings or donate through Ko-Fi at: https://ko-fi.com/amiangelwings.

[sge-witchery]

Coven Review

Now that it has been a few days since I read the new SGE graphic novel, I figured my thoughts are coherent enough to write an actual review! I should preface this by saying that I am a huge fan of the coven and these three characters are the reason why I’m still in the SGE fandom, soooo there might be a little bit of bias due to how starved I was for canon content.

My first impression of the graphic novel was favorable. Starting from a merely surface level perspective, it’s very appealing. The book itself has a cool cover design, and I enjoy the artwork a lot. I feel like it’s a good blend between a comic book style and a more stylized graphic novel style, which I liked (and I will definitely be doing some panel redraws once I have time).

Speaking of the art though, let’s discuss the designs of our main witches. Before now, we never really got much art of them at all, other than the horrendous portraits in the EverNever handbook (no offense to the handbook artist or anything, I just don’t like them). Anadil is PERFECT. I actually recently drew her in a similar outfit that she’s wearing in the graphic novel without even knowing that was her design. It just suits her so well! I’ll talk more about her later, but she is iconic in this, and her design is no exception. I was a bit on the fence about Hester’s design at first ngl. I think it’s mostly the shirt. It almost seems too… comfortable? Idk how to describe it, but I think I would change the shirt to a darker grey button up and make the tunic/sweatshirt a bit longer so it more resembles a cloak. That’s me being nitpicky though. I like that she cut her hair, as we see has changed from the photo of all of them, and I think that really suits her. I do have a couple issues with Dot’s design. I feel like she could’ve been drawn more consistently plus-sized throughout the novel. Maybe that’s too critical but idk. Her skin tone could’ve been a richer brown as well, it just seemed a little ashy to me. That’s just my opinion tho, and other than those two things I really like the design! The dress really suits her character, and her hair looks excellent!

I’ve honestly never really read SGE for the plot. Like the plot is fine (sometimes), but I feel like for the most part it’s more of a character driven series. I feel like I went into this graphic novel feeling the same. The plot was actually relatively interesting on its own to be honest. The disappearing faces and mysterious murders are exactly the type of mysteries I’d expect the coven to solve. The introduction of a magical substance, though similar to plots in other fantasy series, was compelling enough. However, I do feel like there was a bit too much exposition about the island that I didn’t care about at all. Granted, it could be partially because I was solely reading for the coven, but I also think some of it could have been consolidated. I also wish there was more coven backstory! Oh well, I guess that means my fanfic backstories can be canon in my head. Anyways, in terms of the writing in general, it was pretty typical of SGE, in a good way and a bad way.

The good part is the banter. The banter between the characters is one of the things I’ve always loved about SGE. It’s hilarious and usually done really well. I missed the coven banter, and the moment they all started talking to each other I immediately was reminded of previous scenes between the three of them. The bad part is what I can really only describe as audience disconnect. It’s kind of like Soman can’t decide if his books are middle grade or not. Like ik in the original series, there would be parts that are quite violent or have unintended implications, and then he would try to tie it together with some message about morality, friendship, family etc (book 2 is coming to mind with everything I just said). I feel like the main problem I had with the graphic novel was that after the murder and mystery, the attempt to spell out the #friendship message at the end came across like he just remembered he’s supposed to be writing for middle schoolers.

This phenomenon is also why I think he’s so hesitant writing explicitly LGBTQ characters. Which, Nico di Angelo and Will Solace? Sundew and Willow? Your witches can be official girlfriends in a middle grade book, don’t be a coward (half joking). I would discuss the past portrayal of queer characters in SGE, but this is already super long. Either way, given that past, I wasn’t really expecting much from Hester and Anadil, but there were actually quite a few moments between them that made me so happy. Especially Anadil catching Hester, bc that’s such a great callback to their whole thing in book 6! I also really liked how the dynamic between them kinda followed an arc that wasn’t finished at the end of the series. Bc it seemed like in book 6 Anadil was starting to be more assertive, both in coven decision making as a whole as well as in her dynamic with Hester, and it was nice to see that explored more.

And that brings me to arguably my favorite part of the graphic novel: the characterization! Starting with Anadil since I was just talking about her, I loved her characterization in this. In the past, I’ve seen people in the fandom say she doesn’t have a personality, to which my younger self literally wrote an entire essay to dispute 😭. The part of that lovely opinion piece that’s relevant here tho is that she does let herself be more emotional and opinionated around her coven and lets her personality shine through. One scene in the graphic novel that I thought really showcased that was when she got pissed that Hester called her “emotional.” And maybe I’m reading too much into that, but I think it makes sense that she’d get upset about getting called emotional when she prides herself, especially in the first three books, on being emotionless. It probably especially would hurt being accused of that by Hester when she’s one of the only people Anadil lets down her walls for. To close this off, because if I’m not stopped I could yap for hours about this, I like how in this novel, Anadil seems to have grown into becoming the reasonable, logical member of the coven, something that fits with her unfinished character arc in book 6. I think she is definitely needed with how impulsive both Hester and Dot can be at times.

And in regards to Hester and Dot, it was so satisfying to see lingering plot lines from the books finally be addressed and resolved. I talked about this in my other post as well, but I enjoyed Dot voicing how she felt like Anadil and Hester didn’t need her. It was clear that Dot had been struggling with that before, but along with a lot of the bullying she faced, it wasn’t addressed until now. And her covenmates telling her they needed her made be so happy. Despite it being a little bit of a regression, I’m glad Hester’s obsession with being the leader was also addressed. She really needed to learn to see her covenmates as equals in regard to skill and decision making, and I’m glad she finally did. Something I found interesting too was how much Hester dislikes being compared to her mother. One of the first things we learned about her character was that she doesn’t want to be like her mom, but in the sense that she wants to be a better, smarter witch. I’m curious how the reasoning has changed now that she’s not necessarily on the “evil” side. Not really characterization, but I also loved seeing Dot use other foods and desserts besides chocolate in her spells. We knew she could do that because she turned things into veggies in AWWP, but that was never brought up again and it’s great to see she’s grown and expanded her power along with her confidence.

Overall, I enjoyed the graphic novel for its characterization/ character development, its fun character interactions, and its cool designs and artwork. It obviously has its flaws, but to me, flaws make the SGE fandom more fun (and any fandom, for the most part). I was very happy to see my favorite characters again after years of wondering if this project was really in the works, and I think it MAY inspire me to create some new fan works. This is way too long and I doubt anyone will read all of it, but I love these witches; I couldn’t help myself 😅

[ja2m0n]

Can I know more about ur mcsm au?? The art and comic drafts are great but I don’t know what the au part of it is… keep it up tho I’m following along!!!

Thank you so much for asking! I'll be covering the overall comic im making and the ideas i have in stored for it. ive been collecting ideas and things that others like for the past couple of years and putting it into this comic, but anyways! 

My MCSM epilogue AU is focused on the aftermath of season 2 and picking it up where it left off with my little twist as well with the fandoms likings of headcannons. In this series, Jesse is still being controlled by the gauntlet dispite it not being under romeos control nor on Jesses hand, the gauntlet has its own thoughts and is being controlled by the idea of adminizing Jesse. Throughout the series, youll be able to see him slowly become into one, there will be betrayal, friendship, and romance (not heavy based)

Using the Radar arc focuses on betrayal and friendship. 

Most of the characters show will be:

Jesse

Petra

Aiden

Romeo

Radar

Stella

it consists of Jesse trying to figure out weither or not he has done the right decision for not convincing Petra to stay at Beacontown. Upset at himself, he beings infuriated, wanting to see Petra to at least "convince" to her. throughout the arc, Jesse slowly turns into an admin without knowing that he is (except for the way he acts). Jesse becomes weary of the people around him and isolated himself, radar being the only source of the outside. not trying to be removed as his intern, he would become angry at anyone who wont follow under Jesse. Jesse opens up to Radar more snd more, talking about Lukas which goes into the second arc

The gauntlet is the source of Jesses admin powers but why is that? The gauntlet never left Jesses side, it remains under his skin, slowly taking him over and making him into an Admin slowly.

provide image here from 2020(?) (will not use)

Who Are You arc focuses on romance (not heavy based) and betrayal 

Most of the characters show will be:

Jesse

Lukas

Radar

Petra

Jack

Romeo

Jesses true nature begins to arise and most catch. of course except for Radar, still loyal and not giving up. Since the isolation, Jesse gets tired and sends an invite to Lukas to help him convince Petra.

Using the Radar arc will take at least this year to finish , or eariler depending how much i can do. so for now i leave you this, the closer we get ro Who Are You arc, the more information ill drop wink wink. Thank you for this question once again!

unused redraw of the first comic panels

poster for the first arc wip

[jokerislandgirl32]

I want to draw Zach, but I have art block. I know you are the best to go to for info on that. :D

Oh my goodness, thank you, I feel flattered, 😂. I’m the Zach fangirl for sure! I am glad you have such confidence in my ability to help get you out of your art block, and I hope I can help because I actually do have a few ideas! See below the cut 😁!

The first thing I thought of when I saw this ask was your previous Zach art, specifically the pieces where you draw him in different outfits: either alternate outfits he wears in the show or outfits you come up with yourself. You have done such a wonderful job creating these pieces, and it would be amazing to see more like them!

Within the fandom we often see Zach drawn with his regular outfit, his trench coat, and his Count Zachula costume, but we usually don’t see his other outfits (no judgement to the wonderful Zach artists, I love you guys and your Zach art! It’s just an observation!) I particularly think Zach’s fencing outfit and scuba outfit would be a fantastic addition to the Zach fanart world!

I mean his fencing outfit is so cool, the red accents are in all the right places and the V logos are perfect!

And it’s much of the same thing with his scuba outfit. The pockets or panels, or whatever you’d call them, on the sleeves, and the red trim on the sleeves and belt area is just so cool. It’s like stripes which is not something we often see from Zach (except his swimsuit, and I wanna burn that thing 😂).

Another type of outfit I think he’d look great in, and that we don’t see in the show, would be Zach in a suit or vest.

The man owns his own company, he of course has to dress snazzy for board meetings and special events. Therefore…suits, vests, dress pants, ties…would all be apart of his wardrobe for these events. And he’d look so fetching in such outfits, okay 😅…I’ll stop.

Finally another outfit idea/concept would be motorcycle Zach. It’s silly, I know… Don’t ask me why, but I just envision him riding a motorcycle with custom Varmitech riding gear. It’s an unhealthy obsession really, I should not think about motorcycle Zach as much as I do.

And a few other ideas could be Professor Zach, a revamp/redo of his atrocious swim suit, or a screenshot redraw of any of the screenshots I included here or any of your personal favorite Zach screenshots (I can also send you some screenshots for inspiration if you’d like).

I’m unsure if these ideas will help you, but I hope they do, please feel free to ask me for more suggestions if these do not work!

[aerosolsprite]

SHITTY COMIC ALERT!

@moosemann404 part two will be uhhhhhhh soonish ENJOY MY HORRID ART ABOUT THESE TWO FELLAS! also i kinda wanna write it as a written thing but you didnt hear that from me…

transcript:

wheatley: *yapping*

doug (cutting him off): ballroom dance? you? i find that hard to believe…

wheatley (playfully miffed): “what’s that supposed to mean?”

wheatley: “but yeah, my mum and dad enrolled me for a while. to help with the clumsiness i suppose.”

wheatley (quieter, to self): “lot of good that did…”

doug (deadpan): mhm.

wheats: “fine, i’ll prove it to you. turn on that radio over there, and if you can get it to play something other than that jaunty little ditty, i’ll tell you what dance it is! go on!”

radio: *click*

wheatley: “oh, this one’s easy, mate.”

wheatley: “a waltz!”

doug: okay but

doug: let’s see you actually do it

wheatley: “easy!”

wheatley: *hop*

wheatley: *grasp*

wheatley: “1… 2… 3… 4… 1… 2… 3… 4…”

TIME SKIP

wheatley: *panting*

wheatley: *sighs and drops to the ground with a fwump*

wheatley: *rambling internal monologue that get cut off by realization*

wheatley: “oh. that’s the word i was looking for.”

wheatley: “love.”

wheatley: *shoves self up*

wheatley: “there’s still a chance. until i find his corpse there’s still a chance.”

wheatley: “c’mon, me.”

wheatley (looking badass): “we’ve got a scientist to save.”

FUCK TUMBLR FORMATTING IN ITS TIGHT JUICY HOLE anyway bonus panel and ramblings under the cut!

i really, REALLY wanted to fit this in but it didnt flow… just know it was there. IN A WALTZ YOU DRAW BOXES WITH YOUR FEET I HAD TO INCLUDE IT OKAY

wheatley’s dialogue is meant to be like how i imagine his handwriting

the brush i used for the portals is legit so cool im mad

doug is depicted like how he draws himself!

my usual art style is NOT like this but i wanted to give the vibe of the comics a little

doug’s dialogue is meant to look like his wall writings

the not-so-subtle companion cube thing is meant to look like feet dragging through the dust bc yk. its not there they drew it with their feet. except for the heart obvi.

leave it to me to leave the part i really wanted to articulate for later…

the “click” is meant to look futuristic

wheatley’s sound effects are in his handwriting

all other handwriting is sadly my own

i am FUCKING PROUD of that last page

i may redraw the bonus page once i gain actual talent

the “jaunty little ditty” is the standard radio music from the games

i KNOW wheats is being a dumbass in some of this. thats him being a dumbass, not me. mostly.

there’s dialogue i was planning to alter but didnt get around to. this will be fixed in the theoretical fic.

the “theres still a chance” bit is about finding doug and warning him about Her btw. because of where the good fic this is based on left off.

THE TRANSCRIPT WAS ORIGINALLY IN CHAT FORMAT BUT THIS WHOLE POST ACCIDENTALLY GOT POSTED IN COMMUNITIES BY FUCKING TUMBLR SO I HAD TO COPY PASTE IT

[deoidesign]

Just wanted to say I absolutely adore your comic! It reminds me of all the comics I would read when I was little (except now they're gay), the style and shading is amazing.

What would you say is your favorite part of creating your comic, and do you have any tips?

Thank you I'm so glad to hear that!

I think my favorite part of making comics is the way it sort of feels like a puzzle. It's super mentally difficult but it's extremely rewarding to figure out plots and work out my best execution of it! I also LOVE editing, it's where things get to really pull together.

As for tips, I'm not sure what you mean! so I'll just share a few tips for a few different ideas...

Saving time

to save time I save every head I've ever drawn in a file so I can reuse the head (I redraw the face) which allows me to skip the sketching stage, since I only need to sketch for heads!

I also make my backgrounds a single very large image so I can reuse parts of it throughout the whole scene, recolor it for different times of day, etc, which saves a TON of time for me. Then, I just add in some spot blacks on top to make it feel cohesive with the character art! (this ALSO has saved me a TON when I've been converting my pages from scroll format to page format, as I have a high quality version of the background to use when I need the panels to be wider!)

But the biggest thing that saves me time is my line confidence.

So, next I'll talk about lineart tips!

most important is to draw from your elbow and your shoulder, instead of your wrist and fingers. this will get you cleaner lines, but will also save your body in the long run! The wrist is extremely fragile, so start learning to draw with more of your arm NOW rather than later.

Next is practicing line confidence! this basically is what gets you to draw the right line the first time, saving you a ton of time! These two tips sort of go hand in hand.

writing tips

First and foremost, you should be having fun! and I'm so serious, if you are working on a scene that feels like a drag to you, it will drag to your readers too. Whatever you feel like that scene HAS to be there for can almost definitely be accomplished in a different way!

but, really, I like to try to keep the big picture in mind. What is this scene accomplishing, what needs to happen to force these character changes, what needs to be revealed, what information about the world is canonized, etc, rather than thinking about your story as "events that have happened and will have to happen"

building off of that, my personal rule for establishing information is 3 times: If you've mentioned something three times, you can expect the audience to remember it. If you've mentioned it once or twice, it's really pretty likely they'll have forgotten by the time it's relevant.

This is getting really pretty long, I could get into character design tips, worldbuilding tips, tips for characters emoting, layout tips, marketing tips, business tips... there are SO many skills that go into making a comic, it's extremely hard to offer tips without knowing what you're looking for!

[blubushie]

Unrelated to the other things about Cheavy being discussed but in his recent comic redraw project there'a a panel that dead serious draws Demo's vest as a warmer more saturated brown than his fucking skin. The whole panel was saturated except for his skin tone. How did he let that slide 💀 Also he reblogs whitewashed art

I've noticed that there's actually a bit of whitewashed art in the fandom in general and I wonder how much of that is like... a slim pickings thing? With people being more likely to let things slide because there's fewer of it to go around and people are worried about scaring off fanartists from depicting certain characters. Especially Demo, who is so rarely drawn already.

Iunno it's just something I've noticed about how aggressive people on Twitter can be over even small mistakes/details. My social anxiety wouldn't let my arse be an artist online out of fear of being dragged for mistakes I didn't even know I was making. I like to maintain an idea of ignorance over malice but much of the internet and fandom always assumes malice first, especially with artists.

This isn't me excusing whitewashing of course. It's just something I've thought about before—if people are less likely to bring up mistakes in art, especially those kinds, because they don't want to scare away artists or offend them or something. Which, like, to be fair, you can gently go "Hey, his skin tone is a bit light here where in the original media it's darker, but his clothes match the same so it doesn't look like a lighting issue, do you want resources on how to paint/colour melanated skin?" compared to "his skin tone is like one shade too light and therefore you're a mega-racist". And the artist's response to the first will also help you understand where they're coming from, like if they're doing it because they think the character "looks better" with lighter skin a weird racist Eurocentric beauty standards kinda way, or if they just genuinely made a mistake and didn't realise the skintones were that different, or they fucked up the lighting, or whatever else.

[seeminglydark]

A cool down for the evening, a quick re-sketch up of the first panel of Sully from the Creaky arc in my webcomic Seemingly Dark. I don’t plan on changing anything if I do an redraw, except maybe add some things I didn’t have time for or fix errors, but I thought it would be fun to see how it would look now, a couple years later.