Figure and Gesture Drawing Tool

Want to practice your figure drawing without having to trudge to a studio session or pay for a class?
At this site you can find a handy tool where they will cycle images in intervals of your choosing.

They also have animal drawing tool too!

Check it out.

Yoshikazu Hamada Comic Digital Drawing Videos

A video of a 2 comic pages drawn digitally by manga artist Yoshikazu Hamada.
I'm not sure which program he using for these pages, quite possibly Manga Studio.  By my estimation it took him about 15-16 hours to finish these two pages. The pages are from his series つぐもも "Tsugumomo" published in the comic magazine Comic High!

In this other video he shows how he digitally draws an entire room, quite impressive. It was meant to be used for his comic series but was rejected by the editor.


Apparently he does not use any assistants and does all the backgrounds himself.

He has a whole bunch of other videos with both digital and traditional illustrations which I recommend you check out. If there is anything you want translated. Let me know.

Zygote Body

Some of you know I'm currently studying écorché, the study of human anatomy without skin.  While searching for some reference I came across this interesting site, Zygotebody.

It has a nifty tool where by using sliders you can adjust the transparency of various parts of the body.  For example if you want to see the circulatory system and the bone structure just slide the away the skin,  muscles etc to reveal the structure underneath.

For studying anatomy, it's great. You can see the the various underlying layers of muscle using the slider. There's both male and female figures too.  The only downside is that while it's possible to see the figure 360 degrees, you have move your cursor way off the screen just to be able to see certain angles of the body, and this chops the image off in awkward places.  Also you can't really adjust the figure's pose either.  It's not great for pose reference but it's a handy tool for learning anatomy and it's just fun to play around with too.

The Science of Productivity

I don't know about the rest of you but winter time is usually a big productivity slump for me.  Here's an interesting video about the science of productivity.  I'm gonna try applying some of it's tips, here's hoping it works. Here's more detailed article about productivity from Sparring Mind.

What's On My Writer's Reference Shelf

Hi, there. I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Michael, Sequential Salon's resident writer-with-no-artistic-talent-whatsoever.

Anyway, Lynne asked at the last meeting for more posting, so I thought I would help out by sharing some about the books on my writer's reference shelf. I have two reference shelves, really; one is general reference for stuff I might want to put into stories someday, and the other is books on writing. Of course, there's no substitute for actually writing, but this stuff is helpful nonetheless. Some of it's comics-specific, some of it isn't, but it's all about story, so that's all right.

Under the cut, because goodness there's a lot of this stuff.

What It Feels Like To Be A Freelancer

BWAHAHAHAHA! It's so funny because it's true. Ok, now I'm sad.

A video created by dontgetscrewedover.com. They have a video introducing Docracy.com, where they provide free, open-source legal documents. It's not just limited to artists.

Character Design and Sihouettes

A cool article using silhouettes to create strong character designs. The rest of the blog is pretty interesting too and worth taking a look.

Thanks to Alex for the heads up.

Figure Drawing with Light Sabers!

For three nights at the Art Students League of New York will have figure drawing sessions with the New York Jedi: Light Saber Enthusiasts Collective.

They are trained martial arts performers who will pose with their custom light sabers and bust a few moves.
Finally figure drawing sessions for the geeky comic artist! Any body interested?

Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery
January 26, February 23 and March 8
7–10 pm
$5 to sketch
$10 to be a saberist-in-training

More information here.

Do You have Color Vision Deficiency?

According to this site, 1 out of 255 women and 1 out of 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency. Based on the Farnsworth Munsell Hue test, it's not quite the same as a color blindness test. It tests your acuity to detect subtle hue changes. I scored a perfect. Woo!

Hue Test.

The Mary Sue Litmus Test

Is your fictional character a Mary Sue? Well, here's a online test to find out.

I don't know if it's entirely accurate but it was interesting and raised questions I never even considered about my characters. The test looks long but it goes pretty quickly.

The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

Try it out.

Athletic Body Types

Comic artist Nina Matsumoto put up a series of photos by Howard Schartz and Beverly Ornstein titled “The Athlete” on her blog. It's great reference and very interesting to see the large variations of body types between the different athletes. Very handy and I highly recommend taking a look.

Photo Reference for Comics

Photo-reference-for-comic-artists.com. As the name states this is a photo reference site aimed for comic artists. The website seems to be growing steadily and has a good range of different poses, body types and props. Although this is a paid site, the thumbnails provided are adequate enough for quick reference. They also give out some free sample images like the one above.

Thanks Alex for pointing out this site.

Free Blambot Word Balloons and Sound Effects

You can download a bunch of free balloons and sound effects in eps format from the Blambot site. How generous!

2008 Best Graphic Novels List

Lines and colors has compiled a list of lists of the best graphics novels (or comic related publications) of 2008.

It's not just indie stuff, there's a good mix of mainstream and some manga on the lists. There are even some art book suggestions.

Maybe you would like to share your Best of 2008?

One of the books I recommend that is on the list is Tekkonkinkreet by Matsumoto Taiyo. I read the Japanese version years ago. I don't know if the translated version is as good, but it's a weird and brilliant piece worth checking out.

Parka Blogs: Art Book Lists

I love art books but one can't go buying them willy nilly or else you end up with a bookshelf overflowing with them. I usually like to spend a day at the bookstore carefully flipping through them before I make the decision to add it to my permanent collection. Unfortunately, time is scarce and it's been weeks? No, months since I've been in a bookstore. Booo.

Enter Parka Blogs. Parka, real name Teoh Yi Chie, reviews art books. Not only does he review the content of the book and the quality of the printing he accompanies the review with clear, well shot photos and sometimes even a quick video flip through which really shows how much bang you'll be getting for your buck. Above is a video flip through of the Will Eisner's Expressive Anatomy for Comics.

If you like his reviews and are thinking of buying one of the books he covered, try to buy it through his site (it links to Amazon.com) where he gets a commision.

Let's talk Comics Culture & Criticism (Linkgasm)

It seems some folk in our little group aren't too aware of what's going on in the comics industry (glares at Lynne). So here are a few links to various review sites, blogs, and podcasts to help pop the bubble we sometimes get stuck in.

Comics Worth Reading

Comics Should Be Good

The Beat

Journalista

The Comics Reporter

Indie Spinner Rack

Comics Critics!

Comic Foundry

Feminist SF

Occasional Superheroine

The Savage Critic

Estoreal

Comics Oughtta Be Fun!

Comics 212

Dick Hyacinth Hates Your Blog

Every Day is like Wednesday

Eye on Comics

Girl Wonder

Living Between Wednesdays

Precocious Curmudgeon

Same Hat! Same Hat!

Barnacle Press

Your Webcomic is Bad and You should Feel Bad

Your Webcomic Can Still Be Saved (defunct)

And of course:

Tales to Mildly Astonish

Free Peanuts

Universal Syndicate's Comics.com has recently revamped their website. Along with a new look and navigation system, they now offer 50 years worth of free Peanuts cartoons!

Great news for people who don't want to schlep $29 (or $19 if you're buying it from Amazon.com) for those fancy Fantagraphic books.

The new Comics.com site also offers years of archives of other great comics such as Get Fuzzy, Liberty Meadows, Alley Oop and my personal favorite Pearls Before Swine. Another new feature is the ability to customize your own personal RSS feed or homepage to get only the comics you want see.

Snoopy.com, the official Peanuts site is also in the process of being revamped. Another thing to look forward to!

John Romita Jr.'s Cover Sketches

Coverbrowser.com has posted several of John Romita Junior's rough cover sketches along with the final product.

If you want to browse comic covers, this site is a great resource. They have art from Action Comics #1 to the most recent comic publications.

CGtextures.com: Free High Quality Textures

CGtextures.com offers a wealth of well organized stock images for FREE. They not only have a wide selection of textures such as metal, stone, grunge, etc. but also great images of animals, landscapes, buildings and various objects.

My favorite finds so far are the watercolor grunge textures and the metal textures.

Bartleby.com

Want to read some H.G. Wells? Check up some Greek mythology? Need to brush up on Sophocles? Look no further than Bartleby.com.

From encyclopedias to fairy tales, Bartleby.com has a staggering amount of literature you can access in full, for FREE!

Since there is so much, it will take a while to navigate through the site thoroughly, but I guarantee that there is little something for everyone here.

Here's a few links to get you started:

Ghost Stories

Bulfinch's Mythology

Leo Tolstoy Collection

Gray's Anatomy