Fan comic: TF War Within: Forgotten Heroes

[Sam]

Hi everyone, I've been working on a short comic and had wanted to share it with you around Christmas. However, due to various family and social commitments, I did not get much time to do any drawing during that time.

So I ended up spending most of my annual leave completing the drawings. Although my pages have no colour, and there are mistakes (e.g. errors in drawing perspective in some panels, etc.), I am happy with what I've done, and hope that you'll enjoy looking through the pages.

I have not added the dialogue yet - this will come in the near future.

Update: dialogue has been added.

It's set during the early days of the Civil War and I have called it "Forgotten Heroes", because I wanted to kinda explore the idea that there were Autobots that were really lesser known or not famous in any way, that also make contributions to the war effort.

I am happy to receive any feedback - especially if you have some art that you could share with, and help me to improve my skills. Thanks!

Shortcut to pages:

Page 1: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-1-279307863

Page 2: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-2-279307919

Page 3: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-3-279307966

Page 4: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-4-279308006

Page 5: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-5-279308041

Page 6: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-6-279308077

Page 7: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-7-279308133

Page 8: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-8-279308170

Page 9: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...ge-9-279308208

And for those who are curious...

Comic creation process side notes:
1. Primary difficulty was one of skill (i.e. I could not draw things I wanted to draw or at the angle I wanted to draw due to insufficient skills).

2. Drawing on A4 is much harder to draw on A3, because you kinda have to try and squash the details into a much smaller space (e.g. trying to draw a robot hand with fingers in 3mm worth of space is a bit hard).

But then, I don't have an A3 scanner - those things cost a fair bit.

3. I discovered that because I do not know how to shade properly, it was hard to make the drawings look as three dimensional as I would have liked.

4. I came to realise that my character designs are rather bland compared with designs seen in official TF comics.

5. However, if I waited until I improved to a "sufficient" level I'd never really get any comic done, so I just decided to go for it and enjoy the process. It was hard work for a while because after work I'd rather relax and do something else like play video games, but I am glad I kept going with drawing the pages because I felt it was a worthwhile task.

[Cat]

Yeah, your artwork is clearly that of an amateur.

However, it's the artwork of a SKILLED amateur who has POTENTIAL.

Seriously, I like it. I particularly like your renditions of Prowl and the other guys featured via headshot on the communicators. Crystal clear who they are, and they have a good amount of appropriate detail.

Keep going, as I think you're off to a great start, and you're only going to improve by practicing more!

[Sam]

Thanks Cat. Actually, because I'm trying to base the events within the War Within continuity, when drawing characters that were depicted in that series, I used my comics as a reference (because I wanted to depict them as "accurately" as possible). Hence I had some help.

I have thought about taking formal art classes, but working full time and studying part time is a bit tiring (I know from previous experience), and not too keen to go down that path again...

Might try to look up some shading tutorials online though, cheers.

[SkyWarp91]

Looks well done Sam, does your library have A3 scanners? maybe those could help?

[lcz128]

Hey Sam, one amateur to another, great start.
my biggest problem when doing sequentials of my own design is that I never really plot it all out and 'script' it before putting pencil to paper. As a result, I may fit too much or too little on a page.

Curious to hear what YOU'VE done in this case (and didn't you only have one page up yesterday? you suddenly have a whole bunch more! )

secondly something that I think will help give your characters more depth and form is line-width variation. Varying between thick and thin lines according to what you're working on (eg thicker for main characters, or things closer to the viewer, thinner for things in the background, little details etc) will give the page a whole lot more variety and keep it fresh -
When you have a whole page with just the same line width throughout and no variation it can unintentionally (even if there's a lot of detail) end up looking flat. Observe how pro's do it - they use varying line widths and it gives things a lot of depth- Hope what I am saying makes sense!!!

Finally, as an aside you can always scan your A3 artwork as two separate pieces then join them together with different software (even the eval version of Paint shop pro should be able to do that?)
*edit* quick search of google gives this sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=21g0MrJlv0A **

Questions etc about anything i've said- please ask?

[Sam]

Looks well done Sam, does your library have A3 scanners? maybe those could help?

Thanks for your feedback and the suggestion, I never thought of that. I'll check my local library.

Hey Sam, one amateur to another, great start.
my biggest problem when doing sequentials of my own design is that I never really plot it all out and 'script' it before putting pencil to paper. As a result, I may fit too much or too little on a page.

Curious to hear what YOU'VE done in this case (and didn't you only have one page up yesterday? you suddenly have a whole bunch more! )

Thanks! I'm similar to you in this case - I don't really script it out. I do a rough outline of how the story should flow and then estimate how many pages I need and what each panel should show. Maybe for my next one I'll do a script though, just to try it.

Regarding the pages, I did have the nine pages done yesterday, but I only linked it to the first, so I've decided to do shortcut links in the post as well.

secondly something that I think will help give your characters more depth and form is line-width variation. Varying between thick and thin lines according to what you're working on (eg thicker for main characters, or things closer to the viewer, thinner for things in the background, little details etc) will give the page a whole lot more variety and keep it fresh -
When you have a whole page with just the same line width throughout and no variation it can unintentionally (even if there's a lot of detail) end up looking flat. Observe how pro's do it - they use varying line widths and it gives things a lot of depth- Hope what I am saying makes sense!!!

Finally, as an aside you can always scan your A3 artwork as two separate pieces then join them together with different software (even the eval version of Paint shop pro should be able to do that?)
*edit* quick search of google gives this sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=21g0MrJlv0A **

Questions etc about anything i've said- please ask?

Thanks for the suggestions, I think I understand (in some comics, I see that the outlines of characters use thicker lines) and will take them on board. Also checked out the video - my scanner program does have a "stitch" function, but I find there seems to be no "precise" way of joining the two pieces (i.e. you have to pick a spot in each piece and hope for the best).

Appreciate your tips!

[UltraMarginal]

If you're stitching images together, try Microsoft ICE, it's free and produced by microsoft. It'll probably end up being a part of Windows in the future.

BTW, I love your work. if you keep it up you'll soon find it comes a lot more easier and over time you won't notice it but when you compare you newer work to what you have now you'll see a huge difference.

there's a web comic I read called Questionable content, check it out for a perfect example of art improving over time. Try also Penny Arcade. The approach you have taken to just doing it and enjoying it is awesome.

[jazzy_josh]

wow, and with out words as well you can clearly understand it as well. Will there be a second issue?

[Sam]

If you're stitching images together, try Microsoft ICE, it's free and produced by microsoft. It'll probably end up being a part of Windows in the future.

BTW, I love your work. if you keep it up you'll soon find it comes a lot more easier and over time you won't notice it but when you compare you newer work to what you have now you'll see a huge difference.

there's a web comic I read called Questionable content, check it out for a perfect example of art improving over time. Try also Penny Arcade. The approach you have taken to just doing it and enjoying it is awesome.

Thanks for the encouragement. I checked MS ICE and it looks worth getting. I also checked 'questionable content', appreciate the info!

wow, and with out words as well you can clearly understand it as well. Will there be a second issue?

Thanks, I am currently adding dialogue one page at a time, got most of page one done but haven't had time to add the speech bubbles (it's a two part process).

I haven't thought of the plot for issue two, as I wanted to leave it ending on the fact that the Autobots lost this one.

The other goal I have is to learn how to digital colour properly before doing anymore, as I feel a picture would look much better if there were colours. So it might be a while before I do another issue again.

But standalone drawings are not out of the question....