Post Good/Bad Comic Book Art - Stop Posting Liefeld

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Post Good/Bad Comic Book Art - Stop Posting Liefeld

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ThingOne: Jul 30, 2011; Would you like some tofu?

A Bride's Story

That's a good goat

# ? Mar 12, 2022 08:50

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# ? May 17, 2024 07:30

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Darthemed posted:

Spider-Man Unlimited #13 (1996)
Pencils: Joe Bennett
Inks: Randy Emberlin; Al Milgrom; Steve Montano
Mainly stood out to me because it seems like the penciler was interpreting Luke's tiara as a visor

I'm mostly offended by that garish coloring work.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 13:45

Antigravitas: Dec 8, 2019; Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:

Dungeon � Monstres, Vol. 3: The Depths
Art: Patrice Killoffer

# ? Mar 12, 2022 15:40

Flesh Forge: Jan 31, 2011; LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DOG

good god you'd have to have some kind of wildly different brain to be able to draw that book for a living

# ? Mar 12, 2022 18:48

Kramjacks: Jul 5, 2007

Flesh Forge posted:

good god you'd have to have some kind of wildly different brain to be able to draw that book for a living

What do you mean? Drawing monsters is fun, so why not draw a book full of monsters.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 18:52

Edge & Christian: May 20, 2001; Earth-1145 is truly the best!
A world of singing, magic frogs,
high adventure, no shitposters

BiggerBoat posted:

I'm mostly offended by that garish coloring work.

No value judgments on anyone's reading habits here, but both of the recent shittily-colored Spider-Man Unlimited pages aren't being helped by what seems like a bad scan of a print copy. Here's a side-by-side of the pages posted here vs. the ones on Marvel Unlimited/Comixology

Not to say either page is not without multiple issues, but either the initial print job or someone cranking the contrast way up on their scan are doing it zero favors.

Also that Luke Cage page comes from a comic that came out shortly after the Ostrander/Ferry Heroes for Hire relaunch, which put Luke back in the tiara/open shirt after the early 1990s CAGE series took him out of it. Ferry's redesign had it look more like a visor than a headband as well.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 18:56

Antigravitas: Dec 8, 2019; Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:

Flesh Forge posted:

good god you'd have to have some kind of wildly different brain to be able to draw that book for a living

Dungeon frequently changes art style. It's not all that� extravagant. Here's a page from Parade Volume 1: A Dungeon Too Many (Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Manu Larcenet):

And another:

You can tell they are having fun with those monsters, though.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 19:53

Flesh Forge: Jan 31, 2011; LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DOG

Kramjacks posted:

What do you mean? Drawing monsters is fun, so why not draw a book full of monsters.

I mean that in a highly praiseful way, that single page has more great ideas well-rendered than a lot of artists come up with in their whole careers

Antigravitas posted:

Dungeon frequently changes art style. It's not all that� extravagant. Here's a page from Parade Volume 1: A Dungeon Too Many (Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Manu Larcenet):

And another:

You can tell they are having fun with those monsters, though.

yes style is different but this is no less great!

# ? Mar 12, 2022 20:08

scary ghost dog: Aug 5, 2007

Edge & Christian posted:

No value judgments on anyone's reading habits here, but both of the recent shittily-colored Spider-Man Unlimited pages aren't being helped by what seems like a bad scan of a print copy. Here's a side-by-side of the pages posted here vs. the ones on Marvel Unlimited/Comixology

Not to say either page is not without multiple issues, but either the initial print job or someone cranking the contrast way up on their scan are doing it zero favors.

Also that Luke Cage page comes from a comic that came out shortly after the Ostrander/Ferry Heroes for Hire relaunch, which put Luke back in the tiara/open shirt after the early 1990s CAGE series took him out of it. Ferry's redesign had it look more like a visor than a headband as well.

ive always maintained that the adobe gradient mesh tool is the worst thing to ever happen to comic book art

# ? Mar 12, 2022 20:19

How Wonderful!: Jul 18, 2006; I only have excellent ideas

There's a Spider-Man issue from right around when they switched to the glossy paper where the entire ground is a flat gravel texture pasted in and even as a little kid I thought it looked super horrible. The early days of everybody learning digital coloring all at once is gruesome.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 20:47

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Edge & Christian posted:

No value judgments on anyone's reading habits here, but both of the recent shittily-colored Spider-Man Unlimited pages aren't being helped by what seems like a bad scan of a print copy. Here's a side-by-side of the pages posted here vs. the ones on Marvel Unlimited/Comixology

Not to say either page is not without multiple issues, but either the initial print job or someone cranking the contrast way up on their scan are doing it zero favors.

Also that Luke Cage page comes from a comic that came out shortly after the Ostrander/Ferry Heroes for Hire relaunch, which put Luke back in the tiara/open shirt after the early 1990s CAGE series took him out of it. Ferry's redesign had it look more like a visor than a headband as well.

IMO the pages on the right look better but not by much. My biggest problem is not so much the over saturation but the lazy round airbrush work happening. The colorist is just scanning in the inked pages and then dragging a soft brush round those lines, if that makes sense. Like, selecting "green" and then basically tracing the dark lines the inker put down. I don't know how well I'm explaining it but look at the back of Peter's jacket in frame 1 for a good example.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 21:06

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

How Wonderful! posted:

There's a Spider-Man issue from right around when they switched to the glossy paper where the entire ground is a flat gravel texture pasted in and even as a little kid I thought it looked super horrible. The early days of everybody learning digital coloring all at once is gruesome.

I still have fond memories of back when books started getting printed on white Baxter paper while still using coloring techniques designed for gray newsprint, so you ended up with every color being blindingly bright.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 08:25

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

scary ghost dog posted:

ive always maintained that the adobe gradient mesh tool is the worst thing to ever happen to comic book art

The worst thing that ever happened to comic book art, excluding Rob Liefeld and Greg Land, is whatever the hell Alan Craddock used to digitally colour America: Fading of the Light. I can't find a good image to share, but then again there really couldn't be one. It was appalling and it only looks worse in collected editions where it sits between Colin McNeil's amazing painted original story and Cadet, which came out ten years later when software had moved on.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 16:59

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Most of them barely even use the mesh filter. It's mostly just the standard round brushes that I see.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 17:36

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

Jedit posted:

The worst thing that ever happened to comic book art, excluding Rob Liefeld and Greg Land, is whatever the hell Alan Craddock used to digitally colour America: Fading of the Light. I can't find a good image to share, but then again there really couldn't be one. It was appalling and it only looks worse in collected editions where it sits between Colin McNeil's amazing painted original story and Cadet, which came out ten years later when software had moved on.

Ezquerra's "ooh, this Kai's Power Tools can do some funky effects!" digital texturing on Wilderlands came close though.

# ? Mar 14, 2022 00:46

Zoben: Oct 3, 2001

Edge & Christian posted:

No value judgments on anyone's reading habits here, but both of the recent shittily-colored Spider-Man Unlimited pages aren't being helped by what seems like a bad scan of a print copy. Here's a side-by-side of the pages posted here vs. the ones on Marvel Unlimited/Comixology

Not to say either page is not without multiple issues, but either the initial print job or someone cranking the contrast way up on their scan are doing it zero favors.

This reminds me a lot of the coloring on Team Youngblood (yes, I bought all of the Image Comics back when I was 12 or so). I have those back issues somewhere and I remember that the print copies had SUPER dark colors. Quite often the pen line work would get almost totally obscured (which could be a good thing in the case of lots of that artwork). I have to imagine that the first image here is a crazily dark scan, but even all these years later I do remember how dark the printed copies were. These were all on glossy paper so I'm sure they had problems adjusting, but it seems like they wouldn't even print a proof to check it out first. Actually, is that common practice in comics or is it just off to the press and boom?

For the second pic here I just took the image into Photoshop and raised the mids considerably, so you can see how the colorist would basically use the cross-hatching ink gradient into shadow as a a guide to seemingly transition to the darkest color values. One of many reasons why the art team has to complement each other's work, not overpower the other elements.

Zoben fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Mar 14, 2022

# ? Mar 14, 2022 00:59

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Payndz posted:

Ezquerra's "ooh, this Kai's Power Tools can do some funky effects!" digital texturing on Wilderlands came close though.

You won't find me arguing. Early digital colouring was dubious to say the least.

# ? Mar 14, 2022 01:25

Goldskull: Feb 20, 2011

When I was talking to an ex-200AD colourist a couple of years back, he said they tended to hit the black really hard. Those Image ones look a lot like the colourist is mixing black into the flats/shading too, instead of keeping it CMY and letting the linework do all the lifting.
Or they were just crap at colouring.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 10:35

roffels: Jul 27, 2004; Yo Taxi!

Amazing Spider-Man 400.

I don't think that's how backs work.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ? Mar 15, 2022 17:48

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

Goldskull posted:

When I was talking to an ex-200AD colourist a couple of years back, he said they tended to hit the black really hard. Those Image ones look a lot like the colourist is mixing black into the flats/shading too, instead of keeping it CMY and letting the linework do all the lifting.
Or they were just crap at colouring.

The printers can be blamed sometimes as well. I used to be a magazine designer back in the 90s, and we'd sometimes get issues back where the pages had been so over-inked on the press that even plain black text would be smeared. (So we'd get orders to lighten the next issue's images to compensate, and invariably they'd come back washed out because the printer had put the ink load back to normal.)

# ? Mar 15, 2022 20:17

Chinston Wurchill: Jun 27, 2010; It's not that kind of test.

roffels posted:

Amazing Spider-Man 400.

I don't think that's how backs work.

And what's with Spidey's extremely flat rear end? We all know he's got junk in the trunk.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 21:59

Push El Burrito: May 9, 2006; Soiled Meat

Chinston Wurchill posted:

And what's with Spidey's extremely flat rear end? We all know he's got junk in the trunk.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 22:06

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Peter, your aunt... She's in her final moments. You'll want to see her before it's too late.
For the last time, MJ, I know! But my shirt needs to be fully vacuum-sealed to me before I go in there. Just a little bit more.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 22:08

TwoPair: Mar 28, 2010; Pandamn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta; Grimey Drawer

roffels posted:

Amazing Spider-Man 400.

I don't think that's how backs work.

Idk, that doesn't look that unnatural. I mean it looks weird and uncomfortable and I don't think I'd ever really do it personally (thankfully I haven't had a bedridden dying aunt/mother figure to spur me to test) but I hardly think it's incredibly flawed anatomy or anything.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 22:33

Ygolonac

Nov 26, 2007

pre:

*************
CLUTCH  NIXON
*************

The Hero We Need

Chinston Wurchill posted:

And what's with Spidey's extremely flat rear end? We all know he's got junk in the trunk.

Web-fluid is stored in the glutes.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 22:38

Libra: Jan 5, 2011

A spider is basically a head and legs attached to a huge rear end and Spider-Man's physique should reflect this.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 23:17

Peyote Panda: Mar 10, 2019

Chinston Wurchill posted:

And what's with Spidey's extremely flat rear end? We all know he's got junk in the trunk.

Amazing Spider-Man #267

# ? Mar 16, 2022 03:10

Red Bones: Aug 9, 2012; "I think he's a bad enough person to stay ghost through his sheer love of child-killing."

Chinston Wurchill posted:

And what's with Spidey's extremely flat rear end? We all know he's got junk in the trunk.

It was censored for being too juicy for the comics code association.

# ? Mar 16, 2022 06:22

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Youâre telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

TwoPair posted:

Idk, that doesn't look that unnatural. I mean it looks weird and uncomfortable and I don't think I'd ever really do it personally (thankfully I haven't had a bedridden dying aunt/mother figure to spur me to test) but I hardly think it's incredibly flawed anatomy or anything.

What about an actress pretending to be your aunt?

# ? Mar 16, 2022 17:13

Splint Chesthair: Dec 27, 2004

roffels posted:

Amazing Spider-Man 400.

I don't think that's how backs work.

It looks like Bagely started by drawing Peter�s torso, then realized halfway through that Pete would have to be lying on top of May for that positioning to work.

# ? Mar 16, 2022 19:44

The Modern Leper: Dec 25, 2008; You must be a masochist

Splint Chesthair posted:

It looks like Bagely started by drawing Peter’s torso, then realized halfway through that Pete would have to be lying on top of May for that positioning to work.

Yeah, the relative size and detail of his legs has a real "HAP_py BIRT_hday!" vibe

# ? Mar 17, 2022 06:37

Seventh Arrow: Jan 26, 2005

I saw this the other day when looking at a page for the new Batman movie:

That is just a really fantastic cover (although I know it's a reference to a much earlier work). Would this have been Neal Adams?

# ? Mar 18, 2022 17:04

Kantesu: Apr 21, 2010

Google suggests yes

# ? Mar 18, 2022 17:41

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Seventh Arrow posted:

I saw this the other day when looking at a page for the new Batman movie:

That is just a really fantastic cover (although I know it's a reference to a much earlier work). Would this have been Neal Adams?

Pretty sure, yeah. Adams is kind of a god for being the first comic artist to solidly bring a realistic style to the medium, a little like Alex Ross in his day. He was a bit like the anti Kirby where everything on the page looked like it used photo reference and was done by a guy who teaches an anatomy class rather than the overly stylized approach of The King. For a long while there in 70's and 80's, "how real you could make it look" was the benchmark of quality work.

This is basically true for American's overall taste in art.

# ? Mar 18, 2022 17:45

thetoughestbean: Apr 27, 2013; Keep On Shroomin

BiggerBoat posted:

Pretty sure, yeah. Adams is kind of a god for being the first comic artist to solidly bring a realistic style to the medium, a little like Alex Ross in his day. He was a bit like the anti Kirby where everything on the page looked like it used photo reference and was done by a guy who teaches an anatomy class rather than the overly stylized approach of The King. For a long while there in 70's and 80's, "how real you could make it look" was the benchmark of quality work.

This is basically true for American's overall taste in art.

Yeah and I kind of hate it! This is obviously kind of a dumb opinion but I feel like at a certain point realism in art is just abdicating having an art style

# ? Mar 18, 2022 21:24

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

thetoughestbean posted:

Yeah and I kind of hate it! This is obviously kind of a dumb opinion but I feel like at a certain point realism in art is just abdicating having an art style

I kind of agree.

At the end of the day, photo realism is kind of self defeating but it's real hard for me to hate on Neil Adams. When I first got to art school, me and a lot of other cats were all about making all our poo poo look like a photograph but once I found out how relatively "simple" that was, I kind of lost interest. One of my teachers once asked me "if you want your paintings to look like a photograph, why not just take a picture?" and it kind of resonated. My freshman room mate and "rival" in some ways was just fantastic in this regard and we went down different paths, graduating 2 and 3 in our class, but he never deviated from that realism style.

Still, while I say it's "simple" I don't mean to imply it's EASY, if that makes sense, and Adams still managed to add a lot of action, movement, fantastic line work and dynamic framing and did it all before you could just google faces, poses and had reference at the click of a button to pull it off. Alex Ross is similar and is seriously some next level poo poo. He's practically the definition and template for what a commercial "illustrator" is and built on Adams' "making these guys look REAL" template. If you're not skilled and you trace a photograph, it's going to look like poo poo.

This kind of work that I maybe seem to be ridiculing has a tremendous amount of merit, tons of skill backing it up and is iconic for a reason. Like how Norman Rockwell is probably America's most famous painter. But I like artists that break the rules and really show me something I can't already see in a photo. Sienkewicz comes to mind (again) since he started off as a student and carbon copy of Adams but then learned to build this crazy form of visual communication that you can actually watch evolve.

yak yak yak sorry. I have opinions about illustration.

# ? Mar 18, 2022 23:19

sliami: Apr 28, 2018

i appreciate it :3:

# ? Mar 19, 2022 16:47

sliami: Apr 28, 2018

rockwell for his part actually exaggerates a lot of his stuff, exaggerated proportions and what not. so even he knew there's more to powerful illustration than being a human xerox

# ? Mar 19, 2022 16:50

Push El Burrito: May 9, 2006; Soiled Meat

Ok but you get an extra Robin in that issue.

# ? Mar 19, 2022 16:56

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# ? May 17, 2024 07:30

Begemot: Oct 14, 2012; The One True Oden

I usually don't care for excessive realism, but I think Neal Adams hits a good medium. His stuff definitely feels more dynamic than Alex Ross, or like the art in Ex Machina where it's all traced over models doing poses. Some people get too caught up in trying to perfectly replicate the human form and forget that the pictures are supposed to be conveying action and telling a story too.

# ? Mar 19, 2022 16:57

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