Hello I'm Mike Manley, welcome to my studio Blog. I am veteran comic and animation artist and I created and edit Draw! Magazine. This blog is a chronicle of what's happening in my studio. Follow my process and path as an painter, cartoonist and teacher and find out how they inform and enrich each other!
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Something old, something evil
Been busy this week training a new assistant while finishing up the work on the Ninja Turtles. And while traning my new assisatnt I came across this sketch I did last year of Harley and Mr. J.
There are a few ways to go about doing your perspective.
1) you can work it out small enough to fit on an regular sheet of paper then enlarge it and put it on the light table and trace it off or draw with it underneath as a guide. If it's a scene where it's a 2 or 3 point perspective and the Vanishing Points (VP) are far apart then this always works best.
2) fake it in a sort of wide angel way.
Kirby was king at doing this. He'd give a one point perspective really 2 VP's each slightly set off from one another and this gave him a wide angle feel. Effectively blowing out the sides if you will. Take some of his comics and trace them off and find the VP's, the are many... Eisner too, Kubert..most 'expressive or cartoonie' artists bent the rules to fit the mood/angle/drama/storypoint they wanted.
I think it depends again on what effect you are going for. Artists like Gene Colan toyed with perspective, warped and bent it to his will, Salmons too. Other artists like Heath or Bolland are wedded to it. thier accurate sperspective drawing made their war/sci-fi comics so believable.
My rules for this are simple, learn the rule, then break it when needed and with style. You'll know when and how to make it bend the way you want.
Good points! Kirby's work is ment to be read fast, as it's an action comic.
I break cartoonists down into two catagories, cartoonist vs cartoonist/illustrator. Detail does slow down the eye. Raymond =Illustrator. Adams=Illustrator cartoonist
bustedacres & Mike, i agree with what you said on Kirby.
Back then a lot of comic artists did that "quick impression" style. Instead of filling everything with detail, like Jim Lee or even a George Perez, Kirby just drew enough so that the eye would quickly understand what was on the page and what important to look at. ie:, when he drew a leg, he just drew a few strokes to define the outline of the line and maybe the line be such to show a bit of muscle definition (but wouldn't show every single muscle fiber like Jim Lee would draw).
And often he didn't really draw any background whatsoever so the figure would be the eye's focus.
Thats actually a great way to speed up or slow down the pace of a comic: less detail in panels you want read fast (like action), and more detail for the more subtle, splash, or establishing panels.
There are a few ways to go about doing your perspective.
ReplyDelete1) you can work it out small enough to fit on an regular sheet of paper then enlarge it and put it on the light table and trace it off or draw with it underneath as a guide. If it's a scene where it's a 2 or 3 point perspective and the Vanishing Points (VP) are far apart then this always works best.
2) fake it in a sort of wide angel way.
Kirby was king at doing this. He'd give a one point perspective really 2 VP's each slightly set off from one another and this gave him a wide angle feel. Effectively blowing out the sides if you will. Take some of his comics and trace them off and find the VP's, the are many... Eisner too, Kubert..most 'expressive or cartoonie' artists bent the rules to fit the mood/angle/drama/storypoint they wanted.
I think it depends again on what effect you are going for. Artists like Gene Colan toyed with perspective, warped and bent it to his will, Salmons too. Other artists like Heath or Bolland are wedded to it. thier accurate sperspective drawing made their war/sci-fi comics so believable.
My rules for this are simple, learn the rule, then break it when needed and with style. You'll know when and how to make it bend the way you want.
Good points! Kirby's work is ment to be read fast, as it's an action comic.
ReplyDeleteI break cartoonists down into two catagories, cartoonist vs cartoonist/illustrator. Detail does slow down the eye. Raymond =Illustrator.
Adams=Illustrator cartoonist
Kirby cartoonist.
bustedacres & Mike, i agree with what you said on Kirby.
ReplyDeleteBack then a lot of comic artists did that "quick impression" style. Instead of filling everything with detail, like Jim Lee or even a George Perez, Kirby just drew enough so that the eye would quickly understand what was on the page and what important to look at. ie:, when he drew a leg, he just drew a few strokes to define the outline of the line and maybe the line be such to show a bit of muscle definition (but wouldn't show every single muscle fiber like Jim Lee would draw).
And often he didn't really draw any background whatsoever so the figure would be the eye's focus.
Thats actually a great way to speed up or slow down the pace of a comic: less detail in panels you want read fast (like action), and more detail for the more subtle, splash, or establishing panels.
Come to think of it, Kirby did draw like 5 comics a month back in the day so that probably had something to do with the detail also :)
ReplyDelete