Tue, 25 February 2025
Today we're going into another aspect of creating artwork for webcomics! This time it's painting skin, a topic that Tantz suggested. How do you render skin? It's a super common thing in comics and there are many, many ways to do it! We're not experts on all the methods so we just cover what WE do. We all have different approaches and you'll have to listen to the cast to see what Tantz and Banes say. I'll chat quickly about how I do it here. I have 3 main methods but first up it's important to know some things: There are NO such things as different skin colours, that's a dumb socially constructed myth, skin is all shades of brown from very dark to very light, this is because ALL skin is made up of just four main pigments mixed in different amounts, which you can use to mix any skin tone. There are black, Yellow, red, and white. Melanin is the black tone but can be yellowy and reddish, yellow carotenoids from diet, red from blood, and white from the colour of the skin alone. Mix those colours in varying proportions and you'll get exactly the right brown pigment you need for any skin tone. My first main way of painting skin is the simplest. I just do cell-shading in two colours. I pick a colour for the person which will be the main tone, then I select a slightly darker version of that same colour, dark enough that you can see the difference but not that it's too different. Then I do their whole bod in the main tone and use the second tone for shadows with a hard edge between them, no fading. It works super well! The next type is the fake painterly approach. I pick three tones. There's a light tone, a darker tone that is reddish or orangish in colour, and a third tone that is muted purple or blue- this is because it's a generic contrasting colour to the yellow and orange tones in skin. The lighter parts of the skin are all painted in the light colour, the reddish tone fills the shadow and the purple tone is just used as a line between the two tones; a penumbra, which is the separation between light and dark, that can often help shadows look darker and more striking than they are. Fade them a bit at the edges so the separation isn't so harsh. This method can work just as well for much darker skin tones too. My last method is the real painterly approach where colours on the skin are influenced by environmental colours and coloured light sources. You can use a 3 colour approach like the last method but take the colours from the environment. It could be blue, greens, reds etc. This is great for making your figures a part of the image instead of sanding out unnaturally from it. Some special notes: How do you do skin? One single tone, shadows, gradients or something more complex? Gunwallace was kind enough to give us a theme inspired The Inheritors - An interesting mix! It starts off with a slow, stepped drumbeat, that sounds a bit like the intro to “slave” by the Rolling Stones, then crashes to a dubstep and rayguns and scifi blasters, before moving into a classical music inspired race of synth violins, flutes, cellos and other sneaky instruments, ten arrives at its destination: an electrified barrier where yellow and black diagonal lines bar the way!
Links
Featured music: Special thanks to: VIDEO exclusive! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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Tue, 18 February 2025
We haven't done anything about actual art-making for a while so we thought we'd start a series on technical stuff. Starting out we tackle painting sea and sky! These are key general background elements, they're the two biggest simple background features you can get, you don't always need them but it's good to understand these big features for outdoor scenes and how they work. Sky and sea can be super simple features in art, in the most basic version all you need is a horizon line and pretty much nothing else, but they can also be super complicated and advanced if you want to go the other way. Skies can vary massively based on the time of day and what's in them, like clouds or pollution, and it's the same with the ocean. There are also basic physical principals that drive how they look: The sky is blue because it scatters and deflects blue light, it's darker towards the top of the sky (as long as the sun isn't there), because the top of the dome of atmosphere is thinner and less light is reflected, while towards the horizon the sky usually gets lighter because the atmosphere is thicker, the angle is different and so it's more reflective of sunlight. The sea is made up of water which is transparent, filled with stuff, and also somewhat reflective- so it looks various shades of blue in the deeper parts because it's a dark reflection of the sky. In the shallower parts the colour gets lighter because the sea bottom is more visible and helps reflect more light, the sea can also have a lot of green weed or algae in it which also affects the colour, as does the colour of the sea floor. So in the middle of the day the sky will be dark blue at the top and fade to light blue at the horizon while the sea does the opposite, starting with dark blue at the horizon and fading to lighter blue and then even green when it gets close to the viewer. Colours change at dawn and dusk when the angle of the sunlight is very low and being scattered and reflected in different ways: You get reds, yellows, oranges, and pinks usually. The low angle of the light on the water means that much more is reflected and so the colour is very different! Clouds, night, sun, and moonlight change that again! It gets very tricky and interesting and we cover all that in the cast! How are you with sea and sky rendering? Do you go simple or complex?
Links
Featured music: Special thanks to:
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Direct download: Quackcast_727_-_Painting_Series_Sky_and_Sea.mp3
Category:Webcomics -- posted at: 12:00am PDT
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Tue, 11 February 2025
Do you have a big ego? Do you know someone who has? This Quackcast is about utilising egos for comic characters for comedic purposes, to humanise character, or to make villains more unlikeable and or funny. Big egos are a sign of poor self esteem, people inflate their egos to cope with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. For examples of that we have a certain prominent politician and also a tech billionaire as perfect representations of every facet of that concept. :) Personally I LOVE a protagonist with a big, inflated ego, especially if it's also illustrated that it's undeserved, and often shown punctured. It's pretty uncommon for protagonists to have big egos though unfortunately because people see that as weakness in their character and status rather than making them more interesting. Big egos are far more common in villains, mostly because it's seen as a negative trait, but also because it's an easy way to show how weak and pathetic they are, they're also a goldmine for easy laughs. The latter is the reason that the characters with the biggest egos in fiction are often not the main villain but the villain's lieutenant. My favourite protagonists with big egos are Tank Girl, George Costanza from Seinfeld, Duckman (played by the same actor as George. Jason Alexander), Flashman from the books by George MacDonald Fraser, Space Dandy, Basil Faulty from Faulty Towers, Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping up Appearances, and Meg from the series Drifters. I'd love to name more but it's not a common trait, though you can point out a million villains with massive egos. In the Quackcast I examine Conan the Barbarian as a story about ego: Conan acquires a massive ego as a reaction to being kidnapped as a child and living as a slave, then being trained as a gladiator and lauded with praise and women. That only increases when he gets his freedom, joins his friends and becomes a successful thief. He's then tasked with rescuing a princess from a cult and returning her to her father. His ego is so big he eschews the help of his friends and tries to do it alone. He's captured by the villain, Thulsa Doom, the same man who killed his mother and enslaved him. Thulsa lectures him on the strength of ego and manipulation before crucifying Conan on a tree. As he dies, Conan's ego dies with him. His friends find his body and take him back, reviving him without ego. In then end Conan defeats Thulsa Doom, Thulsa expects his ego to dominate Conan and save himself but Conan kills him the same way Thulsa killed his mother, and does it totally without ego. As a last gesture he burns down Thulsa's temple and his cult disbands: the last two symbols of Thulsa Doom's over inflated ego. Do you agree with my take on Conan the Barbarian? Do you like characters to have a big ego? If so, what are your fave examples? Gunwallace was kind enough to give us a theme inspired Therion Inside of Me - Rocky, raw, groove with a godly chorus of cool backup singers. Let this one burn into your consciousness and enjoy!
Links
Featured music: Special thanks to: VIDEO exclusive! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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Tue, 4 February 2025
We're chatting about the comics you liked as a little kiddo this week! The topic was inspired by a thread in the DD forums. This is always a fun topic and I always have to mention Asterix because it was so amazing. This week Tantz had to bow out but we have Gunwallace to replace her, and Banes is back! Gunwallace is a fellow Antipodean, that means he and I share many of the same cultural touch stones, particularity the comic Footrot Flats. (Tantz is still on the Patreon only video) Footrot Flats is a newspaper comic by the New Zealand creator Murry Ball. It's about a working sheepdog called “Dog” who lives on a farm owned by Wal, a single guy who works hard, drinks beer, and loves rugby. It's a comic that Australians saw as very “Australian” because it played into the mythological rural, working class image that we invented for ourselves, New Zealanders who have a similar history and felt the same, hence the shared popularity of this amazing very classically Kiwi comic from New Zealand. Footroot flats comics be seen in many great collected works as well as an awesome animated film from the 1980s called “Footrot flats: The Dog's tale”. I fondly remember it for the hit theme song sung by New Zealand singer Dave Dobbin, “Slice of Heaven” which is one of my favourite ever songs. Gunwallace has even designed a cocktail inspired by it. I will list the recipe here and I urge to try it while listening to that song! Cocktail recipe!
Which comics did YOU like as a kid, which can you say STILL influence you now?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Snake in the Office - Chaotic, sexy, rocking, snake charming to layers of groovy electric guitar and a piano tiptoeing around with a charming little tune tying it all together like a fine Persian rug! A sinuous synth clarinet impersonates a snake charming flute while giving us a lovely 1920s feel.
Links
Featured music: Special thanks to:
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Direct download: Quackcast_725_-_Your_fave_comics_as_a_kid.mp3
Category:Webcomics -- posted at: 12:00am PDT
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The QuackCast features Ozoneocean, Banes, Tantz Aerine, and Pitface, talking about writing, movies, webcomics, art, politics, philosophy, sexuality, and everything else! We're the hosts of the oldest webcomic host on the net, Drunkduck.com, aka theduckwebcomics. 20 years this year!
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