#why the comic full page art look so good?????

[lightmonx]

Some random BoBoiBoy thing

You're telling me BoBoiBoy isn't his real name?!?! I always thought that was his name

Anyone play the BoBoiBoy card game? I remember when they first release the first pack (pek adiwira), BoBoiBoy Solar and Kaizo (if I'm not mistaken) is the most powerful card there is

Speaking of the Boboiboy card game, I like that some recent pack contain artwork using the comic style and not all a 3d render. I also like that they show what card that each pack contain so you don't get to have double

Anyone remember the first comic that use hand-drawn (?) style? I want to try reading it but I can only find no. 3,4,5,6. The other three volume (1,2,7) I can find is expensive (come on, RM100+??????).

I also remember that the first issues of the Boboiboy comic, all using the 3d render, also the fact that they have some random 4-koma that I'm sad that they don't add with the Galaxy S2 comic

I also plan to read Galaxy S2 comic but that's going to take a while since the total is more than (RM165) considering the fact that the bundle is sold out (somehow?????)

I also recently read the Boboiboy Galaxy comic adaptation of the second movie. It's pretty good. I also remember that the first comic adaptation of the first movie always sold out in all stores

Good times

Oh yeah, Boboiboy Sopan I can't. The name is too funny

[spirallingstarcases]

for @josephtrohman ‘s bday :33

a tiny liddol winter pining joetrick + cats for kelcis bday :3 everyone go wish her a happy bday or else >:(

close up!!!

[lilybug-02]

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to The Chara Timeline ✨

I FINALLY made drawing references for you guys, yippie!✨

It’s wild how long I’ve been working on this comic without reference sheets. I’m never that consistent with my art style, so I figured it was a waste of time 🫥💀😔 this is my first full comic okay…

Thoughts and Feelings About the Comic Below ❤️💖💕💞

Wow. It’s been 2 years??? I thought I would be done with this comic in 2 months! I don’t know whether to feel worried or accomplished!!

(With months between each update, I understand why it’s been 2 years. I’m a slow writer and artist and well- many things have come up in my life that had to come first, like my sisters wedding! 💞 and college 😅)

I want to thank my family and friends (WHO DO NOT READ THIS COMIC- THANK GOD) 💕 AND I want to THANK YOU! The readers! 💐💐

You guys are relentless! I’m as impatient as traffic and yet you guys wait for weeks or months at a time for like 4 pages?! You guys don’t even complain!!! I truly want to thank you all for that ❤️ it helps me so much. Being busy and getting burnt out are common and it helps me feel relaxed that i'm not on a timer. Literally tho- you guys keep this comic chugging I swear. Tysm 💐

Unorganized rambling about the comic ahead :) ⭐️🔥

—

My feelings with this comic are actually so complicated. On one hand I hate looking at my older art because GOD IT LOOKS SO OFF I want to stab it, and then on the other hand I am so so proud of myself for even continuing it this far. Ngl the weird route has been one of my favorite parts of this comic. It took me FOREVER to figure out an ending, but damn do I still get chills >:) hehe.

I’m still miffed that I named this project “Deltarune: The Chara Timeline” I could have gone for something so much COOLER. Doesn’t help I use like 7 different titles for it either. We got Deltarune the Chara timeline, Deltarune chara timeline, THE Chara timeline, chara timeline, Ct??? Man,,, I’m crazy. I take after my family so hard. We have 3 names for each of our dogs 💀.

Comic/Animation Tip i have learned. It is VERY GOOD to make the character relatively simple in design. Shape language is also super important, ((but I never really got around to doing that before I was half way through the comic, woops.)) These things can make ur process go by so much faster. This whole comic has been a HUGE learning curve. LIKE OH MY GOD. I had to learn how to draw backgrounds, write dialogue, plan a story, learn how to draw fast and draw noses (which god damn I really still can’t). And I had to learn how the heck to squeeze art into a tiny page and make it not look grainy. It's intense!

Anyways.... this has been such an awesome opportunity! Thanks Toby Fox!

I totally ran out of “art time” for my iPad and wanted to finish this today. So it’s a bit rushed. I’ll add weapons and possibly the other characters later :)

Oh shi- I forgot to add this grainy image of the next few pages lmao

[caemidraws]

M A S T E R P O S T

[General Tags]

₊˚.⋆ #dnd related art

₊˚.⋆ #comics and other funny things

₊˚.⋆ #tarots, full deck in progress

₊˚.⋆ #pettirossi content*, from full illustrations to session notes

₊˚.⋆ #marsilio (computer, show me pictures of the blorbo)

(*more links for the comic under the cut)

[Useful Links]

The other social

About me

Previous Asks

[Comic (TBA) - Prologue]

Cover | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

[How to Support]

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Comms (CLOSED)

:･⚔ ||| P E T T I R O S S I ||| ⚔･:

[fantasy/horror webcomic written by @jonesylium, illustrated by me]

Inspired by our dnd campaign, the comic follows the events that brought a group of unfortunate characters together, in a city ruled by factions and tall towers, scarred by night runners and obscure legends.

 ⬇  ⬇  ⬇  Find out more on our comic here  ⬇  ⬇  ⬇

Serious business aside...if you ever wondered what's going on in my art or who are the characters I keep drawing without providing any context - you're going to find out (some) more!

⚠️DISCLAIMER⚠️

This is our first experience in the field, as it's the first comic (of more of 3 pages) we've worked on together,,, We just really wanted to make a media with our characters, and while we know it's a wonky attempt, the dnd urge to share blorbos is strong--

(TW list in the FAQ section)

[ ₊˚.⋆ Comic Pages ⋆⁺. ]

Cover | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

[ ₊˚.⋆ Session Notes and More ⋆⁺. ]

⚠️⬇ Spoilers Below ⬇⚠️

Misc | Side Tales | Colors | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

[ ₊˚.⋆ Lore / Asks ⋆⁺. ]

⚠️⬇ Spoilers Below ⬇⚠️

Random Infos 1 | Random Infos 2 | Asks (WIP)

[ FAQ ]

☆ When are we getting new pages?

On every Thursday, at Midnight (Central European Time).

☆ Any trigger warning?

I'll be updating the tw list on here as the comic proceeds.

First chapter: blood, death, scars, burns, gang violence.

☆ Where should we send our asks?

You can send asks to me, @jonesylium or @pettirossiofficial! I'll do my best to reply any question concerning the comic but it'll may take some time in case I need to doodle something or need to wander the woods for 3 days to think about a good reply idk

☆ Who does what????

@jonesylium: writing and lettering (typos)

me: sketching, inking, coloring, crying

☆ Who are the characters???

Andrea [he/him]

Mars [he/him]

Misericordia [they/she]

the Twins (coming soon) [he and she]

Quarzaldo (best name btw) [he/him]

Solvi [she/her]

Toloc [he/him]

Ultima [she/her]

Will [he/him]

⚠️SHORT REF SHEETS COMING SOON⚠️

Special thanks ₊˚.⋆ to who's playing Everyone Else, aka @shaykan

☆ What is a pettirossi? Is it something you can eat or what

It's a pun about petti-rossi translating to red chests (red=rossi, chests=petti) and the italian name for robin (the bird!!!). We needed a gang name that sounded bloody and cool but not edgy.....

☆ Do you take requests?

You can hope to 'lady macbeth' me enough to make me think it was my own idea to draw something

☆ Why haven't you replied to my ask? :(

I either forgor OR your ask had a compliment in it and I'm safekeeping it in my askbox so that I have something nice to look at when I get sad

There are chances I go back to older asks so don't lose hope.....

[creaman]

Hi there! I apologize for taking up your time, I am just so curious: When you tackle a comic, what does the process behind it look like?

Asking because I found myself scrolling through your blog once again and couldn't help but marvel at all the beautiful effects you use, at how flawlessly the structure guides the viewer's eye across each page, how the graphic weight seems to always be in just the right places…, and wonder how you learned doing this. Everything you put out looks incredibly professional and I aspire to reach your level of skill 😌❤️

Thank you Finz!! You're no bother at all, I'm an open book. This is such high praise for a guy that really doesn't have a set process, I feel like a hack. Ha. Rest assured my style is still developing. Besides the referencing of the linework and composition of official comic books, (practicing by redrawing panels for fun), explaining the process makes me feel like a serial killer but I will do my best.

(WIP Riddler panel, scrapped Scarecrow composition)

My comics usually stem from a single panel or concept — I like to focus on/emphasise particular panels of my pages, the heavy hitters, the main piece that catches your eye. I know I'm not a profoundly technically proficient artist so I prefer visually interesting elements and formatting, i.e. drawing characters outside their frames, negative space, notation, perspectives etc.

(Kung Fu Panda 4 sketch god I hate Kung Fu Panda 4)

I like to establish 'main focus' panels, the bits of the comic that really, well. make people want to chew on it. This is where the technical effort is concentrated, really, and the rest of the comic is generally build around these concepts.

('Restaurant Balthazar' focus panels)

Textures and effects are done on individual panels first, then the entire page as a whole to even out the unity. Generally, blocking in shadows, hatching for visual interest + middle tones, then textures/half-tones, then highlights.

(Script excerpt WIP)

I'm not a writer per se, but having a vague 'script' in your pages helps with pacing and direction. Comics are a versatile story-telling medium. I only really do scripts for comics longer than 2 pages. An optional but recommended strat is to send your script to a friend for a second opinion.

(Script excerpt — 'Restaurant Balthazar', annotated by @vincepti0n I don't know why he drew a face in the middle)

With the script crudely slapped together, I rough out the thumbnails and composition with the text, prioritising coherence and clean integration of previously mentioned 'main focus' panels.

Settling on a composition sucks the hardest. Drawing is fun, thinking makes brain hurty. Variety is good! Close-ups, wide shots, visual metaphors. Every panel is its own artwork.

The text bubbles are usually added in post, yes, but I'm just one guy and I don't have a writer to call me a good boy for doing things correctly. Bite me.

(Early 'Restaurant Balthazar' drafts)

In addition, keeping the text graphics in mind help create a sounder composition wherein even if the panels don't read cleanly left to right + top to bottom, the text can stagger and create the same reading order effect.

Panels and concepts are constantly tweaked, and my comic process is still highly experimental. A lot of industry standard comics aren't illustrated to their full potential due to deadlines and such — I strive for visual epiphany by treating each panel as its own artwork, and every page as a a bit of a mural.

(Old art hurts the soul)

Constantly experimenting allows you the insight of looking at your current art in comparison to your older works. In more recent works, I've been blocking in more shadows wiht lineart with thinner lines and more line weight, and learned to integrate the subject characters with less plain, abstract backgrounds.

TLDR: I have no idea

[thewebcomicsreview]

I'm hardly the first person to notice this, but good god webcomics are the least time-efficient possible way of telling a story, aren't they?

I've been trying to figure out a better method of telling a story so that I could finish it before I die of old age (or, perhaps more relevantly, before everyone loses interest). It seems like no one really wants to read prose on the internet, but also people don't really like a comic that takes a year to go anywhere.

The main bottleneck is dialogue. You can only get 2-3 lines in a standard comic panel, so even a short conversation of character texture can take several pages. It makes me wonder if the Single Panel With Text Beneath It style (like ForEach) isn't just the Objectively Correct™ way to tell a comic on the internet. It's very efficient on the art, you can include narration if that's your jam, and it's very easy to make it work on mobile. (Also the art being separate is a boon if you want to make marketing materials). But everyone will correctly call you a Homestuck rip off.

Though the other thing Homestuck did was make these sprites of the characters that could be used to crank out a bunch of panels for scenes where nothing visually interesting was happening. You don't really see that copied as much

Not openly, anyway. There's a stigma. I've thought about rebooting Legend of the Hare as a visual novel, where that kind of thing is arbitrarily more accepted, but it does start raising the question of why you're bothering with the visuals at all. I don't think the kind of person who makes webcomics is usually looking for an excuse to get out of drawing, even if it lets them increase their page output dramatically. Making sprites that don't look like absolute ass is also really hard. Homestuck sprites have a really specific janky charm to them that I've never really seen any other comic pull off.

And, yeah, you could always just use a simpler art style, like Order of the Stick does, but it's super hard to get anyone to read a webcomic with great art, let alone simple art designed to maintain a high page output. And, again, why are you making a comic if you don't want to draw, unless you just naturally happen to draw that way and be really fucking good at it like Rich Burlew is?

It seems like the only really good way to tell a story in a reasonable amount of time as a webcomic artist is to make enough money off it that you can work full time, and, um, that's not really feasible either.

I don't have an answer I like. I guess just kill yourself in the content mines working webcomics as a second job that doesn't pay you anything.

I don't have a conclusion, capitalism is a nightmare.

[mercurialrain]

I Couldn’t Have, I Was Playing Hopscotch with Hawkmoth

Felix slid into his seat next to Dupain-Cheng, wondering what would happen today. 

It seemed that her new policy of dealing with Lila’s lies and the simultaneous ire of the class was to say whatever crazy thing popped into her head whenever they accused her of something. It had been rather entertaining, to say the least. 

The first time she’d done it, their faces had been so comical that it had made Felix wish he’d brought his camera to school. 

“Marinette! How could you shove Lila into the lockers?” Kim had stood in front of the crowd, his arms crossed in what was clearly meant to be an intimidating pose. 

Marinette had looked up with a blank expression. 

“I couldn’t have, I was playing hopscotch with Hawkmoth. He’s a really bad loser, so I had to leave before he had a full-on temper tantrum.” She had said it with the blandest tone he’d ever heard her use, which only added to the effect. 

Everyone’s mouths had opened and closed like a fish’s, trying to figure out how to respond to her answer. It was obviously not true, but how did someone respond to that?

She’d held Kim’s gaze, no trace of amusement on her face. 

It had worked exactly how he suspected she intended; they hadn’t managed to come up with anything before Bustier had come back in the room, breezily instructing everyone to turn to page 294 in their textbooks. 

The next time, it seemed that they had come a little better prepared, allowing Alix to lead the charge. She was notorious for having a witty retort to everything, so it made sense. Unfortunately, Marinette had also come with a plan. 

“Marinette! Care to tell us why you sabotaged Lila’s project in the art room?”

Marinette had held up a finger, digging in her backpack. The class had watched with interest, as this was the first reaction that hadn’t been outright hostile or bland. 

She’d pulled out her tablet and typed something before turning it around. 

Can’t talk. I lost my voice after too much yelling at the heavy metal concert I went to last night. 

Alix had blinked at the idea of sugar-sweet Marinette attending a heavy metal concert, but recovered quickly. “Ok, so type out why you destroyed her project!”

Some more typing, then a response. Couldn’t have, I was helping scientists extract DNA from mosquitoes in amber to make dinosaurs.

“That’s the plot of Jurassic Park!”

Where do you think they got the idea from?

Alix had stared for a moment more before throwing up her hands. “This is useless, she’s clearly gone off the deep end!” She’d stormed out, leaving the rest of the class behind, unsure of what to do now that they’d lost their ringer.

Again, Bustier had made the decision of what to do for them, coming in with a reminder of the worksheet they had due at the end of class. 

Needless to say, Felix believed that this was a very good use of her creative mind. Watching her outsmart the idiots of the class in her own way was endlessly amusing and had quickly become his favorite part of the day. 

Today, before the daily confrontation, Bustier had assigned them a project, a partner project with their deskmate. For Felix, that was Marinette. Since they’d been working on the project all day, Lila hadn’t had the chance to leave and lie about anything, pushing the confrontation to likely after the lunch break. Felix could hardly wait to see what she said this time. Maybe this project would allow him to get to know and understand her better.

“So for the project I was thinking that we make a PowerPoint-” Marinette cut herself off, staring at him with a puzzled expression. “You’re almost smiling at me. Are you feeling alright?”

Felix immediately wiped his expression, mildly mortified that he’d outwardly shown his amusement, but forged ahead. “I see you got your voice back. Was the heavy metal worth it?”

“What? Oh, that. I’m fine.”

“Oh, I know. Your recent interactions with the class have been thoroughly entertaining.” 

“Glad you’ve been enjoying it. Confusion is certainly better than outright hostility.” She sighed, suddenly looking very tired. 

“It’s about time that you started retaliating, even if it’s just by scrambling the two collective brain cells they have left. I don’t know that I could’ve put up with Rossi’s bullshit for as long as you have with the patience you’ve had.”

Her eyes snapped to him. “You know she’s lying?”

He scoffed. “Please, don’t insult my intelligence like that. Of course I know she’s lying.”

Marinette was silent. He could almost see the burden on her shoulders getting lighter with the realization she wasn’t alone in knowing Rossi was a liar and was about to comment further on it when Marinette smiled. It was a mischievous smile that promised trouble, which immediately intrigued Felix. He hadn’t seen much of her troublemaker side except for the few glimpses from her last interactions with the class, but he had a feeling there was one hell of a wicked streak somewhere underneath that cotton candy. 

“You wanna help?”

He considered for a moment. Was it worth getting involved in? On one hand, it was enjoyable to just be merely a spectator. On the other hand, he wanted to know more about this side of Marinette and it was always enjoyable to see idiots put in their place. 

“I’m in.”

- - - - - -

After school, Felix and Marinette were at their desk, waiting for the confrontation. 

And like a bad penny, the class came back to try again. It seemed that they were shuffling who was leading the ‘Marinette how dare you’ brigade, and this time they had chosen Adrien. Felix knew about her crush on him, so he supposed that it was a rather strategic move on their part, if he wasn’t able to see the barely hidden disdain for the boy on her face. 

“Marinette, you know that it wasn’t kind of you to throw Lila’s backpack down the stairs while she was in the cafeteria. That’s not the everyday Ladybug we all know and love.” 

Ah, the guilt trip method. Usually foolproof on someone as empathetic as Marinette, rendered useless by Marinette’s developing apathy towards the class.

“It must’ve been someone else. I spent the lunch break teaching Mr. Ramier’s pigeons how to moonwalk. I wouldn’t have gotten back in time if Felix hadn’t realized the time and dragged me back.”

“Now, Marinette, don’t lie about it.”

“I’m not. Felix?”

Felix nodded, pulling up a video on his phone and showing it to the class. In it, Marinette stood next to some pigeons, clearly demonstrating how to moonwalk. The pigeons looked on curiously, occasionally pecking at her shoes and awkwardly waddling backwards. Mr. Ramier sat in the background, alternately cheering or throwing birdseed to the pigeons. The video clearly had the timestamp of about ten minutes before their break ended, so they would’ve had to rush to get back to class. There was no way they could’ve done anything.

Marinette looked back at Adrien and folded her arms. “Well? I’ll take my apology now.”

Felix snorted at the flabbergasted expression on Adrien’s face, casually putting his arm over Marinette’s shoulders. He didn’t really know why he did it, only that it felt right. Apparently she didn’t mind, since she just readjusted to be a bit more comfortable. “Give him a minute, he’s rebooting.”

“Wait, are the two of you dating?” He blurted out, then immediately looked like he regretted it. 

This time, Marinette snorted. “Because the only reason he’d support me was if he was my boyfriend? No, that’s what friends are meant to do, Adrien.” The last sentence was laden with poison that Felix didn’t know the context for, but Adrien did, because he flinched. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, turning away. 

As soon as the class turned away, her head fell on his shoulder, her face crumpling in pain. He didn’t know what to do but hug her shoulders tighter. He’d seen that her love language was physical touch, so maybe it would help? After a while, her face smoothed and she lifted her head, seemingly doing better. 

“Hey, thanks for backing me up.”

Felix shrugged. “It was fun.”

She turned to look at him. “No, I’m serious. It’s been a long time since anyone’s had my back, even if it’s just to mess with someone. Thank you.”

Why did he suddenly feel all warm inside? “So what’s the next plan?”

Marinette looked surprised. “You want to be involved in the next one?”

“Sure, why not?”

She looked away, her cheeks turning a light pink. “Maybe we could, well, I don’t know, I don’t want you thinking that I’m just saying this because Adrien said it because I promise I’m really not, but maybe we could, um, discuss it on a date?”

“But we hardly know each other.” What did she see in him that she liked? Sure, he’d helped her once, but that was hardly grounds for someone liking someone, was it?

“That’s the point of the date. To get to know someone. Besides, I want to see if you’re as nice as I suspect you are under that prickly exterior.” She was looking at him again, cheeks now a bright red, but with determination in her eyes. 

Well, hadn’t he wanted to get to know her better too? “Sure.”

[jojo-schmo]

hi jojo! im just wondering but ive been wanting to make a comic for a little while but im not too sure where to start 😅. i really love your style of art and your forgotten land roleswap, and i was wondering if you had any tips for beginners?

Hello, hello! Thank you for enjoying my Forgotten Land Roleswap comic, it means a lot! <3

I'm very honored that people have been asking me for tips and advice. All of this is coming from a hobbyist who draws these comics purely for fun outside of my regular day job. Some of my methods would probably deal psychic damage to a professional, LOL. But I'm more than happy to share some things I've personally learned! :)

First of all, the book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud ROCKS. It literally gave me a new dimension to understand the medium of comics and how it presents ideas and emotions to readers! And I haven't even had the chance to finish it all the way! I'm very happy I own a copy and I recommend having one of your own if you can, but it's archived here if you want to read it :D

I also like analyzing other comics and thinking about how they get information across to me as a reader. It's helped me learn more effective ways to visually tell a story, like what to include in a frame, how zooming in or out affects the feeling from the panel, maybe building a scene by focusing on other stuff if someone is talking a lot... etc.

ANYWAYS-! Some other tips I've learned through my personal experience-

I had to overcome a lot of negative self-talk in order to tackle a huge comic project like this and stay committed. I was a pretty severe self-deprecator for most of my life so far, and getting help has allowed me to catch myself when I'm slipping back into those habits, look in the mirror, and go, "NO, JOJO! You pour your heart into what you make and that is a wonderful thing! You are appreciated and loved and you deserve to have fun making something you are passionate about!!" Some examples of the negative self-talk I catch myself in....

"I'm a noob at writing and making a story interesting... What's the point of even trying?"

When it comes to starting a project, whether it's 2 pages or 2000 pages, is to just jump in and start! It's okay to be a little insecure or nervous about your technical art skills, writing skills, etc... But writing a "bad" scene is better than no scene- because you can always edit a "bad" scene down the line, but what can you do with nothing? Nothing!! I also put "bad" in quotation marks because I am trying to use that term less, and instead call them "early drafts." or "works in progress."

The first Roleswap scene I fleshed-out was the first Bandee boss fight, in May 2022. I made this drawing on an impulse, getting my ideas down on the page without thinking about the technical stuff like comic panel borders. I consider it like a "pilot episode" almost, haha. The final project is going to be very different from how things play out here. But it got me interested in the concept and excited to see where I could take it, and I made the decision to commit to an entire game plot's worth of AU comics!!

Also, what's the point in trying you ask? The point is to have fun! Making a fan comic in my free time means I don't have restrictions like deadlines, nobody's telling me what I can and can't write, and I can make the story as long or as short as I want! I have full control, which means the world I'm writing is all mine to create! Yes, with a fan comic there is a pre-established world with existing characters. But a universe like Kirby has enough open-ended concepts for people to take basic concepts in the world and take them to whole new levels! I think that's why there are so many amazing fan interpretations of Kirby characters and OCs. The rules are so vague, you can just make up your own a lot of the time!! And it's a wonderful exercise to learn skills for someday building an original world with all original characters from scratch! Magical!!!

"I'm not good enough to make a comic. I don't understand perspective or color and other stuff. Anything I make will look bad.

I once read a two panel comic on here. I can't find it anymore but I remember most of it. First panel showed the artist looking at what they're drawing on their tablet, looking defeated and sad. "Man, I don't even know how to draw this....."The next panel was like them smiling and shrugging, I think rainbows and sparkles were coming out of their tablet, ".....I GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO DRAW IT SHITTY!! :D "

IF ANYONE KNOWS THIS COMIC I'M REFERENCING, PLEASE TELL ME AND I'LL LINK IT!!! Because it permanently and positively changed my brain chemistry.

No kidding, making the decision to just do my best even if it's not perfect, helped me a LOT. I was always waiting to "reach a certain level" to tackle a huge project because I felt like I'd never do it justice at my current state. Except I had been telling myself that kind of stuff for years and I still didn't start any projects!!

So the day I said, "Oh well! If I draw backgrounds shitty, then it is what it is! I'll learn from it and draw the next background a little better," Was the day I could commit fully to the project. I'll keep studying how to draw them better for my own benefit, but I won't let my skill issues stop me from even trying!

And for my limited confidence in full-color art, I solved that by making the comic in black and white with no-to-minimal shading lolol. Because I can only address one skill issue at a time before it takes me 25 years to finish this HAHAHA.

It saves a BUNCH of time to work with skill issues rather than against them! Because at least experience is gained in other ways, and who knows, maybe that new knowledge will help address the skill issues someday! So identifying your personal skill issues and deciding which one to try to grow stronger, and which one to work around, could help with big projects!

"Nobody will read this. I'm going to put months or years of my life into a dumb little thing nobody will even care about."

Learning how to draw for my own enjoyment instead of somebody else's was one of the biggest breakthroughs I ever made. Enjoying the feeling of being challenged artistically and just doing my best, even if it's not technically perfect, is the reason why I was even able to start this!

And just because someone doesn't directly like, comment or whatever on a post doesn't mean nobody saw it! I used to get really down on myself for the lack of engagement on my art on other websites.

I was a lurker for pretty much my entire teenage years and never posted my own stuff or commented much. But that didn't take away the fact that I really enjoyed the things I saw online. Those positive feelings were real to me, even when I didn't know how to articulate it in words. Granted, I grew up into a Words of Affirmation main, and I use words to tell people the positive things I think about them as much as I can! But I know not everyone prefers words to express themselves. So I think about the people that I don't know enjoy my work- that just because I don't see it doesn't mean I didn't make a positive impact on someone by sharing my stories.

THIS IS GETTING LONG-- UHHH, STORY TIPS!!

If you work best on technology, start building the story in a Notes app, or a Google Doc! If you work best with pen and paper, start a notebook and rearrange stuff as you need to!

Or if you're chaotic like me, a mix of tech and paper!! I bought a notebook with ring binding so I can remove and rearrange pages of drafts as much as I wanted to! Like here's two very rough concept pages of one Chapter 1 scene made months apart.

I'd say planning out the biggest basic plot points and then filling in between as I went was most helpful! I also have separate notes for character motivations, important story-changing events, etc... So I can have my own reference when I'm writing new scenes!

Okay this was a lot, sorry about the yapping! Hopefully it helps even a tiny bit. If you have any specific questions I'm happy to talk about my experience in the creation process! Or elaborate on anything I said above.

And finally, because I'm not a professional there are probably plenty of other tactics that could work better for some people. My ADHD probably doesn't help with the chaos of my process either, HAHA. But thank you for reading this far and enjoying the peek into the rainbow glitter and soap bubbles that inhabit the right side of my brain, heehee.

[shakingparadigm]

Hiiii!!! I’m relatively new to ALNST (as in I watched it all in one go in one night and cried) and I was wondering if you have any opinions or information about this,

What do you think about Till and Sua’s relationship? Do you think they’d share anything in common? Do you think they’d like each other? I’d like to think there’s at least one thing they share in common that’s led to be on good terms.

Sorry this is a bit long, thank you!

First of all, thank you anon. I've had thoughts on this for a while! Thanks for giving me a chance to talk about it!

Till and Sua don't often interact in canon, so it's pretty easy to assume that Sua would hate Till's guts because of his crush on Mizi (especially since that art of Mizi playing with Till includes Sua looking jealous on the side, sulking in the next page).

But something to note about the characters in ALNST is that they're actually quite respectful of each other despite the crush conflict (further seen by Ivan and Mizi being very friendly despite Ivan knowing Till loves Mizi). Everyone in the garden knew Till had a crush on Mizi, the goodbye notes state that it was very obvious.

Yet despite that one instance of Sua pouting at Mizi and Till together, Sua is never shown to dislike Till. In fact, she seems to be more conflicted with Ivan instead. In the few official arts we have of them together, they seem pretty neutral.

(Sua's collar is green, showing she's comfortable/doesn't mind Till. Till's collar is orange most likely because he's a little nervous/awkward.)

In the official Anakt Kit goodbye letters, Till and Sua write messages to each other. They're short and seem more of a polite gesture than an actual goodbye between friends, but nothenless it shows that they're pretty amicable. Till writes that Sua has a nice voice and that he hopes she gets a high score in Alien Stage, while Sua tells him to take care and that she'll see him there.

I think that Sua and Till actually have the potential to be pretty good friends, strangely enough.

As for similarities, there are quite a few!

The most significant similarity I see between Till and Sua is that they're both deeply sensitive. Due to this, they've developed different defense mechanisms in order to protect their feelings.

Till is actually known to be timid, rather closed off and "cold" to others. In an early stream, he's even stated to be the most timid character of the cast. He only reveals his energetic and fiery side when he's putting his full passion into something like performing his music, when he's provoked, or whenever Mizi is involved (she makes him "strong", the creators say). Of course this standoffish and aggressive behavior is a front for his softer, more vulnerable feelings. He was heavily mistreated as a child, which led him to become distrustful of most people. This plus other factors regarding his rebellious nature and more eccentric personality result in him being a "friendless idiot". Of course, once people get to know him they'll find that Till is actually quite the sweetheart, albeit a bit awkward.

Sua is quite similar in this way. The creators describe her as soft-hearted, which is why she tears up so quickly in the IvanSua comic and the aforementioned art of Till and Mizi playing together.

Sua, just like Till, seems to be mistreated by her alien guardian. Although to a less violent extent than Guardian Urak, Sua's parent is seen to aggressively handle her without care, grabbing her by the head and shoving her forward. She's also placed in uncomfortable clothing and neglected without consideration for her own feelings. It may be due to this cold and lonely upbringing that Sua learned to hide her emotions as a coping mechanism.

It's been said that getting to know more about Sua is very difficult, as she's closed off and only ever opens up to Mizi. She seems cold on the surface, but the truth is she is hiding her sensitivity so that she won't get hurt. Sua is also very timid in nature, seen in how she only writes in the corners of people's yearbook pages with small font, putting in extra effort to not take up too much space.

But just like Till, Sua has her bolder side. Occasionally she's known to say very blunt and suprising things that other people would not expect of her, and she feels very deeply for the people she cares about. Sua may be the more cool and collected half of MiziSua, but we must not forget that she was tender-hearted to the point where she could not imagine living a life without Mizi in it, thus her sacrifice.

Both Sua and Till's original colors are white, and both are the only characters in the main cast who have ear piercings/earrings. They're both prone to tears and play the role of "god" in their respective relationships.

Something I really like about the ALNST offrec/actor AU is that among all the characters, Till and Sua were chosen to be the seniors!! I found it really cute! Sua, who is the most petite and smallest of the cast + Till, who in canon is the youngest in age. These two are actually the experienced seniors of the actor AU! It's so fun to me lol

Anyways, sorry for all of this, maybe it was a bit much, haha. Till and Sua are my two favorites, and I've always seen similarities between the two of them. I think there's similarities across several of the characters in ALNST, actually, which I hope to talk about in the future!

Thank you for the ask!!

[choochooboss]

Submas sketchdump! Vol. 1

April-June 2022

Literally dumping all the presentable works as promised, whether I'm proud of them or not! This is where I started, even before the first thing I posted online (That subway station one). Many of these are not on Twitter yet so there's lots to see!

The top piece above the header is my very first digital Submas artwork!! I never finished it bc I didn't know how to pull my vision of as I wanted & started modeling the train and didn't finish that either, whoops! I really want to remake this later and make it super cool!

^^^ My reaction to breaking 500 likes & 100 followers in a single day with my first tweet (the battle subway one) all the way back in May!! I was completely floored by all the attention, oh how it skyrocketed my excitement and anxiety! Crazy times, I was so super nervous to be there with so many amazing artists and doubted if I could ever survive there ahahah!! Many had joined the community much much earlier than me, so I had arrived with a late train to PLA/neo Submas hype!

Next up is a bunch of stuff I haven't posted before:

One of my fav sketches! Been saving this for so long bc I really really want to finish this one day!

One of the first submas sketches with an actual story behind it! The subway bosses are running late for their flight because they didn't pass the safety check! The irony!! This would never happen as bosses are always on schedule. But Emmet hadn't noticed a wild Joltik hiding under his coat, so he set up the alarm and they got examined and interrogated of smuggling! How embarrassing for them! The bosses resolved the situation by catching the Joltik, but will they be able to catch their flight anymore?? Maybe if Elesa can distract the stuerts performing the safety protocol for a minute!

More sketchbook stuff...

In case you can't make any sense of it, Emmet's dreaming of different combinations of pokémon. Meanwhile Ingo snores louder than the train! HONK SHOO!

Top 7 every submas fan draws at some point!

Submas trademark posing

submas sleeping in a train

sad Emmet

Emmet with Joltik

Ingo with a cool solo pose

Emmet being chaotic & Ingo reacting to it

a bunch of mirrored submas poses

I sure have a full bingo card lmao, most of them you can see here XD

Next up is a sad man...

Stay strong our friends!

My typical sketchbook pages, crammed and messy as usual. x)

Post-PLA exploration:

A few examples of how my pencil sketches evolve.

I've done so much art experimenting with submas. I really like this black & white painting but I don't think I'll finish it anytime soon.

Where did you go?

The way I draw the twins' faces has changed a lot. They started with softer features and somewhat neutral emotions, because I wasn't as familiar with them or comfortable drawing them yet. Now there's hundreds of submas sketches, and they still keep evolving! My style is also kinda hard to pull off well, so their features differ from picture to picture.

This one was inspired by some submas music videos, can't recall their names anymore. The glowing eerie eyes and yellow&orange + black&white color schemes were neat!

I keep telling myself I need to draw more butlers, these twinks look so lean and neat and have more color and are posh with their monocles and have fun tailcoats!

(...why eyeglasses are not called binocles??)

I was there for the vinegar chaos. Good times!

That's all for now, I hope you got something fun out of this! Still got loads more art to share but I'll save them for another time. Next round I'll bring in my first submas comic!

[stevelieber]

Thoughts on giving critiques to comics artists.

Seeing lots of discussion from students about sour experiences with an unhelpful art teacher, so here's a long, long post about giving critiques.

NB: I have no formal training as a teacher, but I was a student, and I've spent decades giving artists feedback on their work.

When someone brings me a portfolio, I like to establish my limitations & clarify my perspective. My work is firmly rooted in traditional US comics storytelling (i.e., not manga or art-comics.) I can give feedback on other approaches but they should know where I’m coming from.

“We've only got a little time for this, so I'm going to spend that time focusing on things to correct. That doesn't mean you're doing everything wrong, or that there’s nothing good here, but it’ll be more helpful if I identify some problems and show you how to fix them.”

Why? Because for many young artists their entire sense of self worth is wrapped up in being good at what they do. (It was for me!) In school they were probably the best artist in their peer group. But now if they're hoping to turn pro, they’re at the bottom.

Sometimes you know what’s up when you see page 1, but try to keep an open mind. Some build their portfolios by sticking new pages at the back & don’t weed out the old stuff up front, so the work gets better as you go. When it’s like that I ask: “Show me your best 8 pages.”

I ask questions: "What's the goal? Do you want to be hired to work on someone else's project, or to get the story you're showing me here published?"

If 1, I steer towards a portfolio that'll showcase hirable skills. If 2, I look for what tweaks will make that particular story more effective.

"Do you have teachers giving you regular feedback? What are they telling you?" Sometimes a student is getting bad advice. In cases like that, I'll do my best to be extra clear WHY I'm giving them advice that's 180 degrees from what they've been hearing.

“What artists are you looking at? Is there someone you admire or try to emulate?” This often helps me understand choices they're making, and I can sometimes incorporate things those artists do into my suggestions.

I ask myself questions about what I’m seeing. First: Is there a narrative? If not, I make it 100% clear I'm not speaking as any sort of expert. I'm good at critiquing storytelling, but don't have anywhere near as much to offer illustrators or designers.

Can I follow the story? Or am I confused about what's going on? Are the characters and settings drawn consistently? If not, is the artist at least making use of tags (distinctive clothing, hair etc.) to keep the characters recognizable?

Does the artist demonstrate a good command of basic academic drawing? If not, Do I think they need it? Do I focus on "how to draw" or on "what to do when you can't draw?" Is the artist putting the viewer’s eye where it needs to be to tell the story effectively?

(At this point I’m usually doing little doodles to go with my instructions. I scribble out ugly little 5 second diagrams that I hope will clarify what I’m talking about. Or they might make me seem demented. Hard to say!)

Is the artist making choices that are creating more work than necessary? Is there a particular weakness? I once spoke to an artist with a portfolio full of great work when he was drawing animals and monsters, but his humans were amateurish in comparison. I spent that critique talking about drawing people.

A crit can be a grab bag. In addition to big-picture advice, I'll point out tangencies, violations of the 180-degree rule, wonky anatomy, weird perspective, places where the artist neglected to do important research, odd choices in how they spotted black, whatever catches my eye.

I also try to make a point of defining the terms, so that jargon like “tangency,” “180-degree rule,” and “spotting black” don't go over their heads. Find simple, concrete ways to talk about these things, & clarify why it's a problem when they aren't done correctly. Draw diagrams!

Recognize that even a perfectly phrased explanation might not sink in. Some lessons can only be learned when a student is ready, and it might take a year or two of work before they can understand what you were saying. It's good to plant seeds.

Are there other artists who are particularly good at solving the problems the student is trying to solve? I steer them towards that artist's work. And I always recommend life drawing & the use of reference to give work specificity, variety, and authority.

Despite what I said earlier about focusing on what's wrong, I try at the end to find something encouraging to say. And if I’ve really piled on the criticism, I emphasize that I only spent the time and energy to do so because I take their efforts seriously.

If I've done my job right, they'll leave my table with tools to make their work better. And maybe in a few years they'll be looking at some younger artist's work, surprised to discover just how much you can learn when you're asked to teach.

[chalkscene]

lovebrush chronicles ⇢ THEY FIND THE DRAWING YOU DID OF THEM

ft. ayn alwyn, alkaid mcgrath, lars rorschach & clarence clayden

when you asked AYN if you could drop by the piano room and watch him practice, he didn’t expect you to take a seat on the far corner of the room, nose deep in your sketchbook. you’ve barely had a full conversation with him since you got here and he can’t understand why—you’re usually very chatty. he can’t help but scowl as he glances at you. he’s about to call for your attention when your phone rings and you immediately excuse yourself out of the room, “i’ll be right back.” as soon as the door clicks shut, he eyes your sketchbook which is now unsupervised. he knows he shouldn’t look but curiosity killed the cat. he gets up from his seat and strides across the room to peek at your work then his breath hitches. right before his eyes is a rough sketch of a raven-haired boy slightly hunched over a piano, his back on the artist—you. you’re drawing him. in a state of fluster, ayn quickly sets the sketchbook down in the same position he found it—hell, he can’t remember it. he’s too preoccupied by the fact that you’re sketching him that he registers a second too late that you’ve already returned, catching him fiddling with the sketchpad. before you can say a word, ayn walks back to the piano without sparing you a glance, “i didn’t see anything.” you feel the mortification in your system vanish as quickly as it came, now stiffling a giggle that threatens to escape your lips. ayn being more flustered when it was you who got caught drawing him is actually comical. you don’t even resist the urge to tease him, “really?” “really,” he answers curtly. “then why are you being weird?” “why are you drawing me?” ayn retorts with a tinge of accusation as he turns to glare at you but you’re not even slightly intimidated. you prod, “so you did see it?” ayn looks away from your smug expression upon his lack of rebuttal, doing his best to conceal the color in his cheeks with his hair. “i wasn’t going to,” you explain truthfully, “but you were so in your element i couldn’t help but… ‘capture’ the moment,” you say with air quotes, “i like drawing you.” ayn feels his heart skip a beat but as emotionally constipated as he is unable to handle your admission, he grumbles despite blushing furiously, “just ask me to come to the art studio next time.”

ever since ALKAID invited you to picnics or simple strolls around nature, you’ve developed a habit of making quick sketches of the scenery around you. but today’s an exception. with the cool breeze and the soothing warmth of the sun while you and alkaid sit side by side under a tree, it’s all just too relaxing. alkaid is busying himself with his camera when he suddenly feels a soft impact on his shoulder. when he glances at you, he can’t help but smile, endeared by the sight of you asleep. your sketchbook is left open and your grip on the pencil has loosened enough that a sudden gust of wind flips the pages and alkaid gets a glimpse of the drawing you had done of him. saying he’s surprised is an understatement. he finds it unbelievable that you’d ever choose him as your muse. alkaid isn’t one to pry but he can’t resist turning the pages over to get a good look at your drawing, taking in its rough details and pencil strokes. it looks beautiful, he notes, barely fighting a smile upon the realization that this is how you see him. before you stir awake, alkaid reaches over and with careful fingers, he takes your pencil and inserts it between the binding of your sketchbook like a bookmark before flipping it shut. he decides against mentioning it to you until the next day. alkaid goes out of his way to find you on campus, “hey, i was looking for you.” “why?” “it’s just, um…” he trails off, turning hesitant as if he’s choosing his words carefully, “do you want to make a trade?” “trade?” before you can ask more questions, alkaid takes out what you think is a piece of paper from his pocket until you get a clear view of it and realize it’s a candid picture of you. sounding hopeful, he offers it to you, “this for your drawing of me.”

“there you are!” LARS says, beaming when he finds you working on an art piece in one of the academy’s studios. “hi,” you smile at him, “why were you looking for me?” lars shrugs, “just wanted to see you.” amused, you roll your eyes at his subtle flirting before getting back to work. you don’t mind lars’ company alongside his occasional praises, varying from that looks nice to i’d buy that. you actually like having him around. lars is going through your artworks when he suddenly speaks, “how much for this?” you tear your eyes away from your canvas to find him having one of your sketchbooks in hand. “which one?” you ask and you can’t even begin to describe your shock when lars turns it over. there it is facing you, the page where you did a drawing of him. you dart towards lars but he quickly gets on his feet, taking advantage of his tall stature to hold the sketchbook out of your reach. “give it back!” you snap but lars only snickers. “how much for this?” he repeats the question, more smugly this time. after a few failed attempts to snatch the sketchbook from his grip, lars eventually decides to hand it over. “you weren’t supposed to see that,” you grumble, tearing off that page and crumpling it into a ball out of embarrassment. you’re about to toss it in the bin when lars takes it from you, flattening the paper to look at the drawing once more. “can i keep it?” he asks sincerely. “it’s just a warmup sketch…” you mumble, your tone a clear contrast to lars’ boldness. for a few seconds, lars doesn’t speak as if he’s forming the words in his head, “did you draw me from memory?” when you give him a sheepish nod, the smirk on his face reappears, “you think about me that much?” you simply groan at his teasing which makes him cackle but he soon backtracks before you can grab the paper from his hand and dispose it. “thank you,” he says, “i really like it.”

you’re rushing to your next class when you run into CLARENCE, causing you both to drop your belongings. “sorry!” you squeak, crouching down to hastily grab your things and with a sigh, clarence follows suit. “running late again?” he teases. you throw him a lighthearted glare at the accusation before grumbling, “our professor dismissed us late.” you hear him chuckle at your retort but the sound comes to an abrupt halt. at his sudden silence, you slide your gaze over to him and you immediately realize why—he’s holding a notebook which is now opened to a page with a rough sketch of him on it. before clarence can say anything, you immediately yank your sketchbook out of his hands and rise to your feet. “um…” you begin to stammer while clarence remains quiet save for the sound he makes when he clears his throat. he’s unable to look you in the eye as he stands upright, now fiddling with his necktie with unadulterated focus. “i swear i’m not a creep or anything,” you explain weakly, a surge of humiliation washing over you, “i was just… practicing.” you wince upon hearing your words and you can’t help but apologize—whether it’s for the sketch or your lame excuse, you’re not sure. maybe both. “i’m sorry,” you tell clarence, “i’ll throw it away.” “don’t,” clarence answers a bit too earnestly that he himself is taken aback. “it’s…” he trails off, looking sheepish, “it’s a really good drawing.” you gape at clarence. that was not reaction you expected from him. saving himself from further fluster, clarence drops the subject and points at the time, “you’re already late for next period.” “shit!” “language,” he scolds you in his student council president tone. “sorry!” you don’t wait for a response before you’re running off to your next class. as clarence watches you disappear from view, he wonders if you’d let him keep the drawing if he asked.

[ambriel-angstwitch]

My Commentary on Tim Drake: Robin

Because it’s my blog and I can do what I want

Starting off strong with the panel that made TimKon shippers go crazy

Ahhh! I love them calling eachother the Batfam it makes me happy

Then look at how small Bart looks

Small boy

A couple commentaries not connected to any particular panel but I adore the art style and I’m so happy Tim and Stephanie worked things out.

But I think Tim might have a type

TimKon shippers, TimBern Shippers and Platonic Tim and Steph fans somehow all got fed with this Pride Comic

People say Jason is the book nerd when Tim Spends this whole story recognizing and remembering the plots of detective novel not to mention he recognizes that he lost four books and figured which ones they are not to mention just the collection of book he treats like his most precious items. Like I acknowledge Jason and Jane Austen and love it but he should not be the only one joked about being a book nerd.

These clone escue thingys show up and Tim’s thoughts about them are so interesting.

I adore that even as he’s fighting them he’s saying praise for all of them, though he’s got the most for Dick. And the first read through I thought he didn’t compliment Jason and that made me sad.

Close up on Damian’s because you can’t really see it in the full page pic and the my baby brother just really got to me. I am very susceptible to Batfam moments

But Gosh even knowing they’re not his actual family it’s got to hurt to hear them confirm all his worst fears of never measuring up.

Well like father like son I guess. It’s not like Batman hasn’t figured out how to take down almost any hero he meets.

Little does Bernard know.

I love the TimBern in this. Their relationship is still developing, it’s clear that Bernard is comfortable in it from the start of the volume but Tim has his doubts of where they stand, of whether this is a good idea because he’s just dragging Bernard into his mess. But Bernard has his own messes and struggles and they can just be with eachother through all that

Tim. Timmy boy. That’s not a good thing. You should learn how to have some more self preservation, just because your family are all self sacrificing doesn’t mean it’s the healthy way to be.

Why is Superboy’s biggest fan what Tim finally responds to? Also why does Bernard call him that? Is Tim talking about him all the time? Also I love that Bernard calls him his boy wonder once again little does he know. (This is another scene I’ve seen TimKon fans go crazy for)

That’s the last picture on this post as I’ve hit the limit but the book was very good! I loved the villian, loved how they explored Tim. Love the Tim Bern. Tim coming to the realization that it’s ok not to know who he is yet is amazing. He’s figuring things out and that’s ok.

[devilart2199-aibi]

IDW collection reading update! :^) 📖

Just finished Phase 2 volume 3! This volume included: The MTMTE 2012 Annual + issues 9-13, The RID 2012 Annual + issues 10-11, Signal to Noise and Spotlights: Thundercracker, Bumblebee and Megatron!

My thoughts will be below! ⤵️

MTMTE 2012 Annual:

Started off super wacky with Magnus 😂 Then got really interesting with Crystal City disappearing, The Metrotitan being underneath and the Galactic Council making their appearance! I liked how they tried to recruit Magnus and he said nah and smiled :)

RID 2012 Annual:

Absolutely LOVED the vintage/retro comic pages they did for the story/flashbacks of Nova's group!! Why so evil, but so cool looking?? I'm curious to see what all that with the Metrotitan and Starscream meant! 🤔

MTMTE 9-11:

Absolute banger. Probably one of my favorite stories so far!! I'm sorry but a murder mystery?? on Cybertron? in the past?? with stellar art!?! Sign me up any day.

Also it was great to finally learn more about Senator Shockwave and the rest of the Characters! Like Drift, Chromedome and Whirly! The back and forth with all the banter and the layers of fronts and corruption ahhh *chefs kisses*

Also I thought this ⬆️ was so cute bc it's a fact right out of Prowls characters bio/info sheet/page.

MTMTE 12:

This is the Surprise! Give you a mini heart attack issue lol Bc of my own silliness I was stressed the whole time reading it 😂 but it was really good!! We got to learn a bunch about Rewind. And that him and Chromedome are Conjunx' !! 🥺💞

MTMTE 13:

This was a super fun issue! I'm absolutely loving all this Magnus character time!!

The Holomatter Avatars were pretty funny 😂 Whirl was too adorable and I thought it was really sweet that Magnus chose to look like Verity 🥺 Uncle Magnus misses his kid.

I felt bad for Swerve ;_; also I'm excited to see more from Cyclonus and Tailgate!! This ship is full of liars lol 😂

RID 10-11:

10 was an issue where Orion (previously Optimus) is currently hunting down Jihaxus to get answers for stuff and things. There is quite a bit of time jumping back and forth which always gets me confused 😂 it was interesting tho!

Issues 11 Starscream takes action against his Deceptibros (Just Shockwave, Soundwave and their posse really) and I really look forward to his team up with Prowl, if it goes anywhere from here! Also Arcee killing more people rip Ravage, Frenzy and those other guys 🫡 and a wild Megatron makes a reappearance?!?!

Signal to Noise:

It was a little Lost Light interlude! It was from Rung's perspective. I feel like I haven't seen much from him specifically so it was pretty cool and interesting :> Like everything, I'm curious to see where it goes!

Spotlights:

Thundercrackers was enjoyable! It just reinforced that he was good leaning, or at least not one for senseless violence. I really like him and hope he makes a reappearance! I'm curious what he's up to on earth

Bumblebee's was fine. Him struggling to be the leader and feeling like he has to prove himself, but getting the job done!

Megatron's was a banger. I absolutely love his monologs. What he thinks of his Decepticons and the 'Pep talk' he gave Starscream to get him back to his usual self.

----

Final random thoughts:

Of all the storylines, MTMTE is still my favorite to read rn. I must admit, Rodimus tho is stressing me out as the leader 😂 I was gonna say my fav characters rn but, there are just too many haha

I've already hopped into volume 4 so I'll be seeing you soon with more ramblings! 👋

[alex31624]

Duck Comic Reading Club Week 7: Paperinik New Adventures: Earthquake

Ok, let's get to the point, this issue is the best one yet. An amazing story and a gorgeous art combined.

Oh God, the art. The Francesco Guerrini work here is astonishing. The use of the colors is masterful. Brilliant in every aspect.

This week story start with an earthquake on Duckburg. No major disaster occurred, except for good old uncle Scrooge.

Why do you insurance your oil rig with your own insurance company?

I mean, I got that he didn't have to pay himself the quota for the service, but now you have to pay for the damages. So, stop complaining you crazy old bird.

But One found out something fishy about the earthquakes, and is up to Donald to investigate this. Is so funny that Duckburg is Paperopoli in italian. Is better than Patolandia tho.

PK took one of the many vehicles at the Tower, and went for a ride, super hero style.

This page is a piece of beauty.

We got a new character, Mary Ann Flagstarr, a PBI agent. Tough lady.

PK had had encounters with the police, but now, he faced federal agents. My boy is not making any friends.

But, you know? A vigilante, a superhero, can't work with the authority. So, yeah, go get them PK.

Another new character, Professor Morgan Fairfax. What a nice fella, I'm sure he has never done anything wrong in his life.

One knows something is not right, they need to keep investigating. But now, is time to go back to the world of cyber space.

Another beautiful page, this issue can't miss.

But is hard to step into a federal database without anyone noticing, so they got caught. Thankfully, One was one step ahead and got himself a great scapegoat.

Oh, now you don't like spread misinformation, right jerk?

He didn't face any charge, and, to be fair, he was innocent. But, if being ugly was a crime, he would get the chair.

Back to the Professor, and he's making some really evil looking smirks. Could it be that he's not the nice guy that we though?

Also, another banger page.

PK infiltrates in the building, using some advance tech. One is a cheat code, and here's being used at his fullness.

PK had a weird Donald moment, when he stuck in the vent, fall to the ground, and got face to face with the worst security guard ever.

Hey, masked vigilante sneaked in this government facility that I supposed to be looking after. I'm gonna make some lame jokes, and then I'm gonna miss the shots less than a meter away.

Don't come in the morning pal.

You know? I'm starting to think that this guy Fairfax is not that nice.

Yeah, yeah, he's the bad guy. Trying to burn PK alive is in my Being Bad Bingo.

And yet another absolutely gorgeous page. Is amazing.

Thankfully, One and his infinite tech come to the rescue. PK also save the guard, because he's a hero.

Now, this one part was kinda weird. Agent Flagstarr has been shown trough the issue as tough, focus agent, that wants to get the job done. But, a few words of Fairfax and a gift are enough to make her dismiss orders.

Also, that face… you can't trust someone with that face…

Now we found about Fairfax plan. He wants to create a earthquake strong enough that the whole planet would change, and new land would appear.

At the cost of the entire west coast being destroyed.

The worst part? One agrees with him. What the hell man? Not cool One, not cool.

PK got in the plane and try to stop Fairfax, but Flagstarr was in his way. The agent was conflicted on what to do. Madam, help the guy who doesn't want to destroy the whole west coast. Is not that hard.

Man, the art on this issue is out of control.

PK is so cool.

Finally, One got a change of heart, if you can said that, and helped PK to stop this madness. I knew One wasn't a psychopath.

But that last image of the device at the bottom of the sea is quite unsettling.

What can I said? This was awesome. I love all the detective PK stuff, the danger was palpable, One almost got Duckburg destroy. The art was magnificent, the colors were vibrant, it looked beautiful in general.

Hands down, the best one yet.

[genericpuff]

On today's episode of "Rachel exaggerates things to make herself sound cooler-"

Soooo this is a lie.

No seriously, this has to be a lie. I don't make these kinds of accusations willy-nilly. This has to be a lie.

First of all, if her file sizes are truly 11GB for each episode, that would mean her file resolutions would have to be stupid high, and I just ain't buying that when so much of her art comes out looking like fried chicken.

But again, look at the backgrounds. Crystal clear. Which supports my theory that Rachel has her assistants draw the characters flat and exports them as PNG's so that she (or another one of her assistants) can slap the backgrounds in afterwards which is why when they pinch and zoom, the backgrounds look fine (as they're added in afterwards) and the characters look like they've been drawn with chalk. The shading itself isn't deep fried though, which is, again, because Rachel adds in the shading in post after her assistants have sent her all the flats.

Anyways, moving on from that, if her file sizes are actually 11GB per episode, that would mean her resolution would have to be STUPID high and that would mean there's no excuse for panels to look like this. This is not a Webtoons compression problem, Webtoons does compress images for you if you don't do it yourself but they don't result in specifically deep fried textures like this, that's ALL happening on Rachel's side. If it were a Webtoons' problem, the entire comic would look like that, not just select panels.

This is also what the panels tend to look like in book form. The book art is clearly very compressed and blurred from being too low of a resolution for print, which means either the editor is not being provided the root files, or the root files weren't ever that crisp to begin with. Either one is plausible and either one isn't good.

But of course, I'm not going to make these claims without my own proof. So here's the file sizes for Episode 12 of Rekindled, the longest episode in the series so far by panel count and page length, clocking in at 42 panels and an average of 25 layers per page (and that's including the text layers which adds a good chunk on its own, the actual art layers are like, half of that).

Also, here's what a pinch and zoom panel in Rekindled comes out looking like:

You can still pick up on some fuzziness, but the lineart doesn't look straight up chunky like it does in LO.

Meanwhile, one of my longest episodes of TIME GATE: [AFTERBIRTH] has a file size that honestly shocked me with how small it was.

Guess how many panels that episode had?

Go on, guess. Take a second. Compare it to the file size of Episode 12 of Rekindled, take your best educated guess. Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH] is also a full color webtoon with full shading and rendering that I used to upload once a week. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Ninety-seven.

Ninety. Seven.

Not only is that more panels than what LO dishes out on a weekly basis, but its overall file size doesn't even come out to be 10% of what Rachel is claiming LO's file sizes to be.

This is what Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH] looks like, by the way:

(don't mind the blurriness that's working against my point, that's Tumblr, not me LMAO)

But, let's face it, I didn't want to just use my own examples as a comparison, because that seems unfair. I'm not an Originals creator, I just put myself under similar pressures as one because I'm an idiot who tries too hard.

So I asked one of my Originals pals. I will not disclose their name, but they are someone who works for Webtoons Originals and has similar panel requirements and deadlines. They also work with a similar flatting + shade workflow as LO, they have cel-shaded colors and bold flat coloring.

When I asked them how big their file sizes were, they said that at 2500px width - similar to what I draw at, 2400px width - and 200-300k pixel length (again, they're drawing an entire episode on one canvas) their episode file sizes come out to roughly one gigabyte, very rarely much bigger than that.

Rachel is full of shit. This is some Tommy Tallarico level shit, exaggerating stupid things that don't matter to try and make herself seem impressive. It isn't impressive. It makes her look like an unorganized dunderhead at best, and at worst, makes her look like a flat out liar who needs to prop herself up on the dumbest shit to make herself look good. File gigabyte size isn't impressive or indicative of anything, you can achieve high quality art without your file size amounting to 11 GB, and let's face it, Lore Olympus is not high quality art. You're telling me art like this:

amounts to 11 GB?

Now the only way I can see this happening is if maybe, maybe she had like, a bajillion layers full of garbage-

Oh. Oh no. Lore Olympus. Is a sprite comic.*

(*edit for clarification: I've had people confused over what I mean by sprite comic because LO clearly isn't made with 16/8 bit sprites. Sprite comic was a term universally used back in the day for comics that reused the same body parts, heads, expressions, etc. much like how sprites are designed, often keeping an entire file full of different layers made up of these assets to make for easier development. This technique was utilized in comics like CTRL + ALT + DEL. LO is definitely not literally a sprite comic but the way its layers are designed feel very much like something that's being cobbled together like 'sprite' comics were. I'm old.)

Even with these pics for proof, with 600+ layers on one canvas, if there's barely anything on those layers, then it still wouldn't make up that 11GB file size because the amount of layers doesn't necessarily add to file size on its own, at least not by that much, unless they're actually filled with stuff. And again, Rachel's art in LO doesn't scream "highly detailed with many layers". It only had many layers because for some reason she insists on working that way even to its own detriment.

From the looks of it, Rachel's importing all of her assistants' PNG's as separate layers and adding all the shading and the extra details on their own separate layers and basically dividing everything up into tiny bite sized pieces. That's the only clear explanation I can come up with. But if so, that means she's being INCREDIBLY inefficient with her workflow that it's amounting to SIX HUNDRED+ LAYERS AT 11 GB PER EPISODE. THAT IS ABSURD. THIS COMIC IS WAY TOO LOW QUALITY TO JUSTIFY THESE FILE SIZES AND LAYER COUNTS. RACHEL DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK SHE'S DOING-

She's also very clearly using the cloud as a way to backup her work and work with her assistants. God knows how much she's spending on cloud space because of her own incompetency.

Honestly, at this point, as I sit here playing the Photoshop equivalent of Cookie Clicker, clicking the 'new layer' button over and over and over again with my mouse to truly understand what it would feel like to operate at 600+ layers per episode of a webtoon, I'm more inclined to believe she's just lying. Capping. Pulling shit out of her ass. Straight up making shit up. It wouldn't be the first time she's done that. But also because the alternative is a lot more grim - the #1 best selling webtoon on the platform is being operated like the world's worst group project and still coming out on the other side looking like deep fried garbage despite its stupid high file size.