Jun21
Hey guys!
There’s not going to be a comic this Friday for a variety of reasons, and I’m too drained to even whip up some filler that’s worthy of posting, so instead I thought I would post this blog and encourage you to ask me anything you want about the artistic process, my inspirations, etc. You guys know you can ask me whatever you want in the comments any time, but if there’s anything you ever wanted to know and it seemed too random to just ask out of the blue, here’s your chance.
I look forward to speaking with you!
-Courtney
Thats OK.
“I dont blame you”
-Turret
How long does it take to draw an averaye strip, and what programs/tabletthingys/methods?
OMIGOSH. Captcha say idoBlay myew.
This is the freakiest moment of my life except for when I slept with a shark.
(Its ok. It was a stuffed shark from Bass Pro shop. Right now ot is watching me with a knowing twinkle in its eye wich matches my tophat a friend placed upon its…. brow? earlier.)
SOBASICALLY:
-I dont hate you
-Tell me all your secrets
-Captcha knws all things. Like santa.
SEE?! I knew Captcha was trying to communicate with us… and we’ve just made it harder for the poor thing. To be fair, it was being a jerk.
Well, I’d say an average strip takes me about six hours… so from the time I get home from work, if I start working on it immediately, only stopping for dinner, I’ll probably get it done by midnight. Usually I at least get a head start the night before, though, so I can have a little more time to relax, and by “relax” I mean “wash dishes.” Last night, I just was not in the mood for working all evening. I do enjoy making the comic, I listen to music and I love to draw and it puts me in a happy place, but last night I was exhausted and just couldn’t do it.
I have a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. It’s the small size, but that’s quite enough for me. I also use a recent version of Photoshop… man, I really should know what it is, but I don’t offhand. I’ll tell you later. I used to use a quite outdated version, but honestly not that much technical wizardry goes into the comic, so it’s not like I need the latest version or anything. As long as it has the brushes that I use for Slice.
I bet Aliens are mesing with capcha.
6hrs. DAAAAANG.
(Totally worth it)
And ive noticed something- The site s set to your time. I live in Las Vegas and Im two hours ahead from… Ohio, I think? I just saw that..And.had.to tel someone.
We’re in Houston.
It is most definitely worth it, but sometimes I just break down!
My grandparents used to live in Houston, I think. Maybe it was Armadillo.
Do you draw the comics right before you release them, or do you draw a bunch and then have nothing to do for a while?
Captcha is “not nterying” And I got it wrong. Twice.
Hey, no problem! Honestly, I think the Fourth needs a lot more attention. The characters are really iconic. They’ve got interesting quirks that add to their character rather than being central. How far do you think you’re going to go with the Fourth? Are you intending on it becoming an overarching epic, or more comedy driven? I’d be happy with either.
Awww, why thank you so much!
There’s definitely an overarching story that we’ve had planned since the very beginning, and is the driving force and “point” of the whole comic… and when that story is told, the comic will come to an end, rather than us stretching it out and wearing it thin. But that won’t be for years yet… we’re going to take our sweet time.
Even though the story will eventually go darker places, we still want it to be funny and lighthearted and silly. It seems to me that it’s a common complaint that webcomics start out fun then start taking themselvse too seriously. We’re going to try the best we can to balance the suspense and adventure with humor, to make our story both weighty and still a happy escape that makes people smile. Might I say Victor is particularly good at that.
By the way, your username… do you realize that’s what Skärva means? It’s Swedish. Did you do that on purpose?
That’s a pretty funny coincidence. Nah, I use the username Shard everywhere.
Alright, this one’s been at me ever since the Third turned up: they’re shark people. So…why bat ears?
Well why didn’t you ask before?
Yeah I know right, why didn’t I give him shark ears?!
Honestly, first it was a stylistic choice. I like drawing pointy ears, and when I was designing Skärva, they just seemed to fit with his character more than normal human ones, and add to the idea of him being monstrous and cursed. They are also slightly reminiscent of shark fins.
But then I started to rationalize it, and I came up with the idea that pointy ears are actually a subtle sign of disfavor from the gods. Humans, with their rounded ears, are favored by the gods and generally viewed as a “good” race, although they can choose to be evil. Lurkins and demons are in general viewed as “enemy” races, even though in truth Lurkins at least are quite neutral these days, they still know dark magic by birth. I thought it was an interesting twist on fantasy stories, like Tolkien and Zelda, where pointy ears are a cool thing and a sign of some awesome lineage. I also meant to explain that officially at some point… well, I guess there you have it.
I’m going to take a shot in the dark (library X3) and guess that one of the reasons you like the Second so much is because of his eyebrows. (I hope I’m not the only person who’s read the ABOUT page…)
Is there anything else you’ve found you like to draw since you started the comic?
Well, I have things I love to draw too. I really like furry things. I’ve more recently discovered I like thick collars (like the one I put on young Skarva). And eyes. I just have this thing for eyes. When I can’t think of what do draw, I always end up doodling dozens of them.
Hehehe, I hope not either. Well, that’s not WHY I like him, but I do like his eyebrows. Very much. THEY ARE FLUFFY.
Well, when I started out I already had quite a few things I really enjoyed drawing. I put most of those things together and made Skärva. Sharp teeth, wild hair, pointy faces, capes. Thick eyebrows. …More eyebrows. (To this day I cannot believe Victor let me get away with giving our main character FOUR EYEBROWS.)
As for things I’ve realized I like drawing since starting the comic…. hmm. HAIRY GUYS. Man, it’s weird but I just really love covering Derk with hair, and his little stubble. I had a lot of fun with Cyril for the same reason. I do like hairy guys in real life, but I also like clean-shaven ones. And I like super skinny guys, and chubby guys. Pretty much everyone.
Do you think The Fourth will get popular enough to warrant merchandise? (There have been mentions of people wanting Davis plushies and Skärva action figures in the comments. XD)
Also, how do you manage to get such clean lines on your characters?
That would be awesome, but it’s not for me to say!
Hmm, practice I guess. I use the square brushes for my lineart. They make for a look that reminds me more of something drawn in pen, and less “this was obviously drawn in Photoshop” like the more anti-aliased default brushes. (Of course, it still was obviously drawn in Photoshop.) I also always draw things bigger than they’re going to be in the panel, using a different document I call a “worksheet”, and then copy and paste them into the panels, resizing as appropriate. I think more than anything, that helps me feel like I have space, and helps me keep the lineart thinner than when I used to draw it smaller and my lines were thicker, in the earlier comics. Somehow that feeling of space just helps with the overall quality and detail of the drawings too.
Has Blank always been the hero, or is he reincarnated or something zelda-style?
Also, just a tip, I’ve found a lot of places that suggest establishing a comic buffer, which could help with random exhaustion spells. So if you get a break when you have nothing to do, drawing out a few pages could make your update schedule more consistent.
There have been, and still are, other heroes. Blank is the greatest and purest one to have come about in recent memory, the only current one recognized as being directly chosen and assisted by the gods. It’s for that reason Skärva singles him out. He could almost certainly triumph over lesser heroes, but no one else is worthy of his time.
Yeah, I know. When we first started the comic last summer, I was a good ten pages ahead most of the time, but once school started, the buffer drained away and I have never been able to get it back. I keep hoping for the chance this summer, but last summer I was (involuntarily) unemployed and this summer I’m not…
so why a shark man at all? is it just that you like pointy faces? also, how far ahead did you plan the plot and character development? was it mostly determined from the start all the way to end or did things change and evolve over time?
Well, to be honest I designed him before we really thought much about who he was. At that time I just gave him a pointy face – it was actually a lot less pronounced at first – and sharp teeth, and I thought he looked rather sharklike. We came up with the curse from there. It ended up making a lot of sense, because sharks are an animal that hold a great fascination for humans… some love them, but many fear them irrationally, considering they rarely actually hurt people… and even though they devour other cuter animals, they’re just doing what nature forced upon them. It makes sense that the gods would choose a shark for the essence of this particular curse – considering why it was cast.
Well, from the beginning we’ve had a few character archetypes planned: The villain, his henchman, the little healer, the princess, the hero. And a few more I can’t talk about yet. Sometime not too long after we got the site up, we decided we should introduce a team of minions to show the goings-on from a different angle. At about the same time, we decided we wanted to bring Davis back, since I was missing drawing those demons. We actually thought three was enough for a team though, and we didn’t want Davis to be a part of the minions… we thought maybe he could eventually join up with some other characters, or just kind of remain in the background, or only be with the other three temporarily, but as soon as he encountered them at the door we just knew he was a part of them. As he is and always will be.
Anyway, each of the characters started out with a basic personality, but really it’s through drawing them and through the little things that happen in each comic that they have really come alive. We don’t try to plan things out too solidly, be it character personalities/relationships or plot arcs, because we’ve come up with a lot of great things at the last moment, and it’s good to be able to be flexible.
is lord skarva at all based on vatti
If so, only subconsciously. There is definitely a resemblance, but I didn’t plan it. I’ve never even played The Minish Cap. He’s not supposed to parody anyone in particular, but little bits of various villains I like made their way into him. I’ve always liked Vaati’s design, so it’s entirely possibly my subconscious factored him in somewhere.
I’ve always wondered where he got that black eye from and if it was permanent.
It is, but I can’t tell you how he got it! Not yet, anyway!
This isn’t exactly about art, but do you–or how do you–imagine Skarva’s voice? I imagine a rather dignified, but perhaps somewhat stressed out, normal(as opposed to talking through shark gills) man’s voice.
Yeah, he definitely doesn’t have gills (although I toyed with that idea in the beginning, I ditched it). But really, when I try to imagine any of our characters’ voices, it’s always so hard for me. He sounds however each person imagines him to sound, I guess! ^_^
I always imagine he would sound like invader zim
Do you hand draw each strip first? and if so, how do you transform it into the finished masterpiece?
Hand… draw it? As opposed to drawing it with my feet?
But really, from start to finish everything is done on my tablet, in Photoshop. I start out with some really rough sketches which help me plan the poses in each panel; I’ve gotten so used to drawing the characters that most of the time I can go straight from those really crappy sketches to inking on a new layer, although sometimes I need to go back and add more detail to help me figure out a more complicated pose. Then either Victor colors it for me if he has time, or I color it, and I copy and paste them into my comic template. I draw all the characters on a separate file and paste them in, but I usually do backgrounds on the comic file.
Here’s an example of how a panel starts out. This is from the most recent comic: http://thefourthcomic.com/?attachment_id=886
I meant hand draw as in with pencil and paper and then scanning it, but seems like you’ve got a different complicated method for making them! “Sharp agratude,” says captcha
Yeah, I thought that’s what you probably meant. And it’s not complicated, really. I think drawing them on paper and having to scan them would be more so
Oh, and is there like a photoshop app? Captcha just said Beerhouses. eemsnly! XD what does that even mean?
I use Photoshop CS5, it came with my tablet.
I can’t find that on the app store, but what kind of tablet do you use?
Oh, ha, not THAT kind of tablet. A graphics tablet, it’s a piece of hardware that attaches to your computer through USB, and has a pen that comes with it. You draw with the pen on the tablet, although you look at the screen. I have a Wacom Intuos4, the small one (which is quite big enough for me). So I use my laptop, with Photoshop on it. I’m not sure an iPad or the like could handle current versions of Photoshop (then again, when it comes to technology I don’t know much…)
Whew, finally caught up. Sorry I didn’t comment on any of the recent posts. My new semester started a few weeks ago and it’s just been hell with my stupid algebra homework. 0.o But things are settling down, so expect regular comments from me once more.
Also, check out themirrorofsouls.thecomicseries.com
It’s my new webcomic, because I had to put my old(ish) one on hiatus to work out all the plot kinks and inconsistencies.
BTW, I love that ghost couple, they’re so cute. :3
Hey, no problem! I wondered where you got off to, but I figured you had a perfectly valid excuse
The comic looks really good so far! I’d love to do you some fanart, once the story progresses and I can get to know the characters a bit more :3
Indeed, it’s sweet. Love after death…
So I love Skarva…….and Blank the most!!!! -Gasp in horror- What can I say? I like bad guys with big hearts and Beastly Mr.Nice Guys.