By (one person's) request, here it is (I'm assuming a lot of familiarity with tools that may be unfamiliar, if I don't adequately explain everything, it's because I've been pressed for time lately, and apologize; I will make any necessary clarifications when I can):
There's still a lot to do, by very early on I and the co-artist took a good long look at what we were doing, our subject matter, and what it would likely entail, and asked, "Shouldn't we really be doing an animation?"
Because we valued our sanity, we agreed not.
First, I looked long and hard at anything produced by 3D tools, especially for comics, and found that there was more there than I expected, and that nobody was doing what we intended to do, even though it seems almost obvious.
But as I started gathering the tools themselves, the answer to the latter became obvious: what we wanted to be doing was only possible with expensive, high-end tools, out of the reach of most budgets.
And, quite frankly, some of those tools do not even exist.
But both I and Brian were very much excited and inspired by reading McCloud's books, and I daresay he owes a mortgage or car payment at least to the number of copies of his work I've picked up and redistributed to friends, teachers, and co-workers.
So the Project had some very important contraints:
Vegetation had to be realistic (based on fact).
The characters had to be based on fact, with as little speculation as possible. (Concerns like coloration are trivial and unimportant when it comes to reconstructing dinosaurs, and don't really count.)
Backgrounds could be painted in any style.
The principal characters could not be rendered in the exaggeration of expression typical to comics (and from which comics derives much of it's effectiveness), so different means of presenting emotion or mood had to be found. Modern comics have almost always been cinematic, so we could borrow from cinema and choose camera angles and compose scenes to express what needed to be expressed cinematically.
Right away, there were problems (that I'm still now working out). First, much of the vegetation is extinct, and finding examples is still difficult to work with. However, there's a software package which can be used to produce models of vegetation (or of any self-similar structure) with very little effort, and it wasn't too expensive (xfrog: http://www.greenworks.de).
Lovely as that was, it presented other problems as well. But I should talk about the process of producing the images for the work, and then the renderer itself.
The bulk of it is done in 3D (in Maya), but early on we were working with PC-based tools that were a great deal cheaper, but presented massive technical problems that we found frustrating and tedious to deal with. Namely, the scene-dressing bogged PCs down too much, because several hundred thousand polygons were involved in setting up the simplest scene (without any characters in it; characters are rendered by themselves and composited later) and several million in most cases.
So it had to be Maya (or it could have been Softimage, but we went with Maya more from familiarity). And the character animation features made the task of posing characters utterly trivial, once they were modeled. The process in PC-based tools was a little bit more convoluted and tedious.
Anyway, the only reason doing it in 3D at all was because of cel-shader renderers, which have been used in many feature films and animations. Photorealism has never been my goal, but to tell a story, and convey a little information along with it.
Incidentally, calling this an all-digital process may be somewhat disingenious; I still do dozens of drawings a month for storyboarding or reconstruction work, which is very involved.
But once the thought entered our heads that we could use 3D models and cel-shaders to render a cartoonlike image without any need for consitency, we couldn't get rid of it.
It would be easier to do it all by hand. Anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves. It was not to make it _easy_ that we started it this way, but to see what could be done by doing it this way, which, as it turns out, had never to seldom ever been done in comics.
Lightwave (LW) did come with a cel-shader, and when I get some time, I may post the test-renders from that, since they're of no real consequence, as an example of what may be done with a cel-shader. It was with LW that we found that overly complex models became a mass of tangled lines with cel-shaders, so I'm working on more simple models for vegetation, so that the lines don't compete for attention in the image.
Also, the cel-shader with LW was difficult to work with, buggy, and unstable. As a practical tool for production it was worthless.
So we looked at the high-end, and found that since Maya didn't have a readily-usable cel-shader, we would have to make one of our own. I'm currently trying to refine the sample cel-shader in the Advanced Renderman to be usable for our purposes, with some (incomplete) success. Learning Renderman is new for me, but there is (at least) a free renderer available for us to work with (Blue Moon Rendering Tools http://www.exluna.com; recommended for anyone technically inclined).
So I have a really big headache right now, and more debt than I would like, but this is undeniably fun, because it seems to be ground not often traveled, which is always exciting to me.
But I may only be saying that because we have the luxury of disallowing deadlines; everything has been so new to us, that it would be impossible to say, "well, we'll put the first installment online first of February." It has to look right, and by right, it ought not look rushed.
But when it starts, the process should go much faster, because the shader should be finished, the models should be finished, and the problems ironed out.
Anyway. More later.
All-digital comic production: a case-in-progress
Moderator: Moderators
--Scott
www.archosaur.org
www.archosaur.org
Hi,
Very interesting project, and I'll be interested to see more of it once it gets online. I'm curious about one thing though, how do you go about financing such a project? Tools like Maya and RenderMan are not exactly inexpensive, not to mention the time it takes to produce such a project.
Secondly, using a cel shader will give you aproximately the same look as if though you had drawn it by hand, while taking more time to produce (except if you plan on doing animation or a 150-200 page comic). The looks possible in 3d are not either photo real or cel, there is a million options inbetween not yet explored.
You say you couldn't do expressive facial expressions. Was this by choise or because of the way the characters were designed. I find that generally the weakest point of 3d (animation, stills or comics) is the lack of facial expressions (see Finaly Fantasy for a bad example). Real people have some wild expressions from time to time, grab any film on VHS and go through it in slow motion or stepping individual frames on your VCR...people go into all kinds of wild mutations you would never see when looking at them in real time (it's great fun).
I'm working on a 3d comics myself at the moment (and it's taking ages). I opted for using Animation Master (which is good for doing characters and inexpensive). Some early WIP of one of the characters is <A HREF="http://www.ragtag.net/xternal/kid">here</A>. Though now I'm getting serious second thoughts about the somewhat realistic design (the current version of him is even more realistic), and am considering going towards a completely different, less realistic, look. Next time I better plan better before I start
Anyways, good luck with your project, and I'll be looking forward to seeing it online.
Cheers,
Ragnar
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ragtag on 2002-01-12 13:39 ]</font>
Very interesting project, and I'll be interested to see more of it once it gets online. I'm curious about one thing though, how do you go about financing such a project? Tools like Maya and RenderMan are not exactly inexpensive, not to mention the time it takes to produce such a project.
Secondly, using a cel shader will give you aproximately the same look as if though you had drawn it by hand, while taking more time to produce (except if you plan on doing animation or a 150-200 page comic). The looks possible in 3d are not either photo real or cel, there is a million options inbetween not yet explored.
You say you couldn't do expressive facial expressions. Was this by choise or because of the way the characters were designed. I find that generally the weakest point of 3d (animation, stills or comics) is the lack of facial expressions (see Finaly Fantasy for a bad example). Real people have some wild expressions from time to time, grab any film on VHS and go through it in slow motion or stepping individual frames on your VCR...people go into all kinds of wild mutations you would never see when looking at them in real time (it's great fun).
I'm working on a 3d comics myself at the moment (and it's taking ages). I opted for using Animation Master (which is good for doing characters and inexpensive). Some early WIP of one of the characters is <A HREF="http://www.ragtag.net/xternal/kid">here</A>. Though now I'm getting serious second thoughts about the somewhat realistic design (the current version of him is even more realistic), and am considering going towards a completely different, less realistic, look. Next time I better plan better before I start
Anyways, good luck with your project, and I'll be looking forward to seeing it online.
Cheers,
Ragnar
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ragtag on 2002-01-12 13:39 ]</font>
Heighdy,
Re: Financing: was difficult, but let's just say I've maxed my credit cards to get started. As far as Renderman goes, we're not using PIXAR's product, but a smaller package that actual does global illumination (not that we'll be using it much) and raytracing. (More info at: <http://www.exluna.com/products/bmrt/bmr ... node2.html>)
Re: cel shaders; the decision to use is not so much that it offers an appoximation of doing work by hand (there are plenty of other sorts of shaders which _do_ emulate hand-work like woodcut illustrations, pencil, sketchy pencil, and pen, but these don't particularly interest me), but the power a procedural shading environment actually offers us (another reason to abandon the cel-shader that came with LW; it's way more difficult to program LW's renderer than it is to work with RenderMan).
For example, line weight can be dictated by the color of an object, or the spline angle, or by an arbitrary entry in the object's database which is then exported to the RIB file.
Then there's lighting, too.
Certain characters can be consistently lit in a certain way, (e.g. ominously or eerily) to convey attitude, or evoke emotion with very little effort in the long term. (And it is a long-term project. I've a couple hundred pages' worth of material scripted, about a quarter storyboarded, and there are literally hundreds of characters in some scenes.
Doing everything by hand would have been quicker and easier to proceed, but by no means effortless, and over the course of what was looking to be a long project, we decided to try it this way. So far, so good, but I still have a ways to go.
Re: facial expressions; this has always bugged me, and I decided (reluctantly) to _not_ do facial expressions on dinosaurs. Dinosaurs (including birds) do not have complex facial musculature like mammals do, and the photorealstic attempts to impose "lips" on dinosaurs take (to my mind) too many unnecessary liberties with the science.
So we decided to try something else to convey great emotion, instead of adding anatomy that was never there. On the one hand, it is desirable, and does work towards involving the reader. On the other, I'm fighting the influence of Disney and Spielberg films which do not portray dinosaurs in a realistic fashion (i.e. as monsters instead of animals).
There is one exception. I'm writing dialogue instead of narration. This is acceptable to me because obviously nobody is actually going to accept the animals could actually talk, but putting lips on an Iguanodon is different, because there's no way to distinguish what's real and merely realistic in that case.
But dialogue can assist (I'm hoping) reader involvement, and potentially better than any amount of tampering with anatomy. I guess my aim (realistic or not) is to do for dinosaurs what _Watership Down_ did for rabbits.
Re realism in 3D work: I'm of two minds of it: one, it carries with it a huge perception that realism is desirable. But there are very few cases (in still imagery) where it works well, and the effort is tremendous (the best example of this is the game Riven, the development for which was four years' hard labor; by comparison, we started in November, and have made conisderably greater progress than would be the case if we decided on ultra-realism).
In animation, pure realism isn't always necessary, or even desirable (like A Bug's Life, for example), because the camera (and the subject) is usually moving too much for detailed realism to register. The emphasis in animation is to make it move realistically, or at least believably, rather than offer an intense amount of detail.
So if you do stick to a realistically-proportioned character, consider compensating with the camera; offset the realistic proportions by using flatly detailed clothing or features, and use lighting to bring out the details.
Second. 3D use in imagery has greater potential for irrealism than realism. So why not use it then? What we're doing is sort of straddling the two possibilities; on the one hand, all the characters and setting details will be realistically proportioned. On the other, the surfacing details (and I wish I could say more than the T. rex shall finally have feathers), backgrounds, lighting, and camera are being used in unrealistic ways.
Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. Good luck on your own project! The test renders look interesting. Let me know when (if) you have something ready to read.
Well, back to the day job.
Re: Financing: was difficult, but let's just say I've maxed my credit cards to get started. As far as Renderman goes, we're not using PIXAR's product, but a smaller package that actual does global illumination (not that we'll be using it much) and raytracing. (More info at: <http://www.exluna.com/products/bmrt/bmr ... node2.html>)
Re: cel shaders; the decision to use is not so much that it offers an appoximation of doing work by hand (there are plenty of other sorts of shaders which _do_ emulate hand-work like woodcut illustrations, pencil, sketchy pencil, and pen, but these don't particularly interest me), but the power a procedural shading environment actually offers us (another reason to abandon the cel-shader that came with LW; it's way more difficult to program LW's renderer than it is to work with RenderMan).
For example, line weight can be dictated by the color of an object, or the spline angle, or by an arbitrary entry in the object's database which is then exported to the RIB file.
Then there's lighting, too.
Certain characters can be consistently lit in a certain way, (e.g. ominously or eerily) to convey attitude, or evoke emotion with very little effort in the long term. (And it is a long-term project. I've a couple hundred pages' worth of material scripted, about a quarter storyboarded, and there are literally hundreds of characters in some scenes.
Doing everything by hand would have been quicker and easier to proceed, but by no means effortless, and over the course of what was looking to be a long project, we decided to try it this way. So far, so good, but I still have a ways to go.
Re: facial expressions; this has always bugged me, and I decided (reluctantly) to _not_ do facial expressions on dinosaurs. Dinosaurs (including birds) do not have complex facial musculature like mammals do, and the photorealstic attempts to impose "lips" on dinosaurs take (to my mind) too many unnecessary liberties with the science.
So we decided to try something else to convey great emotion, instead of adding anatomy that was never there. On the one hand, it is desirable, and does work towards involving the reader. On the other, I'm fighting the influence of Disney and Spielberg films which do not portray dinosaurs in a realistic fashion (i.e. as monsters instead of animals).
There is one exception. I'm writing dialogue instead of narration. This is acceptable to me because obviously nobody is actually going to accept the animals could actually talk, but putting lips on an Iguanodon is different, because there's no way to distinguish what's real and merely realistic in that case.
But dialogue can assist (I'm hoping) reader involvement, and potentially better than any amount of tampering with anatomy. I guess my aim (realistic or not) is to do for dinosaurs what _Watership Down_ did for rabbits.
Re realism in 3D work: I'm of two minds of it: one, it carries with it a huge perception that realism is desirable. But there are very few cases (in still imagery) where it works well, and the effort is tremendous (the best example of this is the game Riven, the development for which was four years' hard labor; by comparison, we started in November, and have made conisderably greater progress than would be the case if we decided on ultra-realism).
In animation, pure realism isn't always necessary, or even desirable (like A Bug's Life, for example), because the camera (and the subject) is usually moving too much for detailed realism to register. The emphasis in animation is to make it move realistically, or at least believably, rather than offer an intense amount of detail.
So if you do stick to a realistically-proportioned character, consider compensating with the camera; offset the realistic proportions by using flatly detailed clothing or features, and use lighting to bring out the details.
Second. 3D use in imagery has greater potential for irrealism than realism. So why not use it then? What we're doing is sort of straddling the two possibilities; on the one hand, all the characters and setting details will be realistically proportioned. On the other, the surfacing details (and I wish I could say more than the T. rex shall finally have feathers), backgrounds, lighting, and camera are being used in unrealistic ways.
Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. Good luck on your own project! The test renders look interesting. Let me know when (if) you have something ready to read.
Well, back to the day job.
--Scott
www.archosaur.org
www.archosaur.org
Whoops. Does not like plaintext url captioning. Here's the link:
http://www.exluna.com/products/bmrt/bmr ... node2.html
http://www.exluna.com/products/bmrt/bmr ... node2.html
--Scott
www.archosaur.org
www.archosaur.org
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Tailsteak
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Mi amigo Tim Dawson (of Dragon Tails: http://dragon-tails.com) deals with 3D reptilloid faces all the time; and the expression of emotion, for him, is not usually as challenging as simply assembling the scene. You can use dialogue and lighting to get a relatively immobile visage to convey shock, happiness, or anger. What's tough is angling the camera and positioning the characters so that the viewer can see all he or she is supposed to see. Very often a face that looks great from some perspectives simply looks like crap from other perspectives.
Interesting; we're expecting to do lots and lots of compositing (mostly because of the sizes of the scenes make shoving everything in together in the same scene makes everything really slow, even with 1 GB of RAM, a crossbar switch, and dual processors).
Does Tim Dawson do everything in a single render?
Some interesting work there. Very simple and clean, and just plain good to look at. I hadn't run across it before. I'll take a closer look when I get a chance.
Does Tim Dawson do everything in a single render?
Some interesting work there. Very simple and clean, and just plain good to look at. I hadn't run across it before. I'll take a closer look when I get a chance.
I'm curious about what you're discussing here in terms of all-digital production of comics. I see a lot of high-end software being mentioned and I'm a bit confused about the overall goal. It sounds to me like you're trying to find a way to avoid actually drawing the art, to get really expensive software to set everything up for you. Why? As a cartoonist who works digitally with just a Graphire pen and Photoshop, I read about the problems you're trying to solve and I have to ask, "why don't you just draw it yourself?" Comic illustration is an artform, and if you're trying to get it done without really doing it, why don't you just get an artist who can draw it all for real? Maybe I'm misinterpreting your goals here, I'm really not trying to ruffle any feathers. My perspective comes from spending years learning how to illustrate and doing it digitally is the exact same drawing process, just using different tools. As someone who loves the process of illustration, I would be horrified of the concept of getting software to do it by itself. If at all interested, stop by http://www.coffeespill.com and check out my digitally rendered cartoons. I apologize if I'm completely in left field about what you're trying to do here. If so, could you expplain it more clearly?
I'm curious about what you're discussing here in terms of all-digital production of comics. I see a lot of high-end software being mentioned and I'm a bit confused about the overall goal. It sounds to me like you're trying to find a way to avoid actually drawing the art, to get really expensive software to set everything up for you. Why? As a cartoonist who works digitally with just a Graphire pen and Photoshop, I read about the problems you're trying to solve and I have to ask, "why don't you just draw it yourself?" Comic illustration is an artform, and if you're trying to get it done without really doing it, why don't you just get an artist who can draw it all for real? Maybe I'm misinterpreting your goals here, I'm really not trying to ruffle any feathers. My perspective comes from spending years learning how to illustrate and doing it digitally is the exact same drawing process, just using different tools. As someone who loves the process of illustration, I would be horrified of the concept of getting software to do it by itself. If at all interested, stop by http://www.coffeespill.com and check out my digitally rendered cartoons. I apologize if I'm completely in left field about what you're trying to do here. If so, could you expplain it more clearly?
Heighdy Kevin,
Hmmm. I guess I should start by explaining that this isn't a commercial production, has no deadlines, and really doesn't have much purpose beyond the "Can we do this? Apparently, we can" sort of motivation. If you want an actual goal, the journey itself will have to serve, since we don't really have a destination in mind.
I and my partner in crime settled down one day and asked ourselves (or each other) a fairly prosaic question: what would doing it that way be like? Then it became a challenge, and since it's currently more entertaining to us than our day jobs, we were underway.
True, we could have done it all by hand. But we didn't want to do it that way. Not a very good explanation, I suppose, but it has nothing really to do with avoiding the actual work of doing it, since the path chosen actually requires me to develop software that doesn't exist (or invent a new brush, if you will).
My vocation is actually vertebrate paleontology, I'm passionate about zoology and the Dinosauria in particular, and eventually, I'd like to do a nonfiction work about paleo, phylogenetic taxonomy, and the scientific process in general, but I'd like to get some grad school under my belt before I takle it.
I guess I'd also like to state that there is no such thing as a tool which "replaces" the artist--any more than the medium of clay replaces the sculptor.
I'm not certain why this perception exists. You (after all) admit to using a tablet and Photoshop...do these tools in any way replace you? Or "do" the artwork for you? Or, for that matter, does the pen or brush replace the artist which favors a burnt stick and a stone wall? All art is ultimately driven by technology. Without technology, art outside the mind is impossible. Software without an artist produces nothing. No exceptions. Even a gallery of fractals has to be developed and assigned colors by a human eye and a human hand -- the computer can only present the image--it did not create it.
Working in 3D may have more in comon with sculpture, but if I can arrange a marriage, I think the offspring of 2D and 3D could be intriguing imagery, if not outright successful imagery. And it's really only a matter of time before it becomes accessible. (E.g. tools like http://www.groboto.com/ didn't exist 5 years ago, but nonetheless were possible in principle.)
I love using brushes and dip-pens and Rapidographs on paper (and in fact, still do so, on a very irregular comic called Oscar Quill and Coyle--another project which is done more for personal reasons than anything goal-related. It's at http://www.archosaur.org/oscar/ ; not great maybe, but it used to save several hours for each one. Now I spend less than forty minutes on each, when I do at all.) But I'm interested in other things these days, and want to try something else.
And the final product--I think it will be done "for real" by real artists, by our own hands.
Hmmm. I guess I should start by explaining that this isn't a commercial production, has no deadlines, and really doesn't have much purpose beyond the "Can we do this? Apparently, we can" sort of motivation. If you want an actual goal, the journey itself will have to serve, since we don't really have a destination in mind.
I and my partner in crime settled down one day and asked ourselves (or each other) a fairly prosaic question: what would doing it that way be like? Then it became a challenge, and since it's currently more entertaining to us than our day jobs, we were underway.
True, we could have done it all by hand. But we didn't want to do it that way. Not a very good explanation, I suppose, but it has nothing really to do with avoiding the actual work of doing it, since the path chosen actually requires me to develop software that doesn't exist (or invent a new brush, if you will).
My vocation is actually vertebrate paleontology, I'm passionate about zoology and the Dinosauria in particular, and eventually, I'd like to do a nonfiction work about paleo, phylogenetic taxonomy, and the scientific process in general, but I'd like to get some grad school under my belt before I takle it.
I guess I'd also like to state that there is no such thing as a tool which "replaces" the artist--any more than the medium of clay replaces the sculptor.
I'm not certain why this perception exists. You (after all) admit to using a tablet and Photoshop...do these tools in any way replace you? Or "do" the artwork for you? Or, for that matter, does the pen or brush replace the artist which favors a burnt stick and a stone wall? All art is ultimately driven by technology. Without technology, art outside the mind is impossible. Software without an artist produces nothing. No exceptions. Even a gallery of fractals has to be developed and assigned colors by a human eye and a human hand -- the computer can only present the image--it did not create it.
Working in 3D may have more in comon with sculpture, but if I can arrange a marriage, I think the offspring of 2D and 3D could be intriguing imagery, if not outright successful imagery. And it's really only a matter of time before it becomes accessible. (E.g. tools like http://www.groboto.com/ didn't exist 5 years ago, but nonetheless were possible in principle.)
I love using brushes and dip-pens and Rapidographs on paper (and in fact, still do so, on a very irregular comic called Oscar Quill and Coyle--another project which is done more for personal reasons than anything goal-related. It's at http://www.archosaur.org/oscar/ ; not great maybe, but it used to save several hours for each one. Now I spend less than forty minutes on each, when I do at all.) But I'm interested in other things these days, and want to try something else.
And the final product--I think it will be done "for real" by real artists, by our own hands.
--Scott
www.archosaur.org
www.archosaur.org
Scott, I really like "Oscar Quill & Coyle". Very unique characters! I'm interested in seeing the eventual results of your experimenting with the software you're using and that which you develop to get it done. You pretty much repeated what I said about tools, whether it being a pencil or a computer, being nothing more than instruments that let the artist bring their vision to life. That's why I pointed out that, while using a Graphire pen and Photoshop, I'm really just drawing and coloring my cartoons with the exact skills I developed years before with pen and brush and paper.
I certainly agree that no software can work on its own. No matter what, the artist must determine what the final result is. But what I may not have made clear enough is that the results that come out of using particular software may, in some cases, replace real creativity and the process of really learning how to design and render images. 3-D rendering programs are used all the time by people who, 5 minutes earlier, had never created an artistic image in their life. And it really shows. The results may be pretty, because the software makes it possible, but it looks just like every other image created by the same program. This is not real creative ability.
But once again, this may have absolutely nothing to do with your experiement. I know you can create cool comics after seeing "Oscar Quill & Coyle", and I wish you the best of luck with all of your cartooning endeavors!
I certainly agree that no software can work on its own. No matter what, the artist must determine what the final result is. But what I may not have made clear enough is that the results that come out of using particular software may, in some cases, replace real creativity and the process of really learning how to design and render images. 3-D rendering programs are used all the time by people who, 5 minutes earlier, had never created an artistic image in their life. And it really shows. The results may be pretty, because the software makes it possible, but it looks just like every other image created by the same program. This is not real creative ability.
But once again, this may have absolutely nothing to do with your experiement. I know you can create cool comics after seeing "Oscar Quill & Coyle", and I wish you the best of luck with all of your cartooning endeavors!
Every new technology (or idea) brings sceptics with it. I once saw part of this great documentary (I think from the 50s), about how comics made kids violent...it was hilarious. It's the same with 3d graphics...people are still getting used to it. Of course, like pencil drawings or airbrush illustrations, 3d has it's own distinct look, but it doesn't mean everything done with 3d software looks the same (e.g. see Shrek, Toy Story, Final Fantasy and the Iron Giant in the Iron Giant).
The problem with 3d has been that it has been (still is to some degree) very complex to create and requiered technically inclined people to do. So many people without a zit of artistic talent got into 3d, doing some terrible work. This is slowly changing as more and more young people feel at home working with computers (having grown up with them), and more artistic people are seeing 3d as an option for their creativity.
So why make a comics in 3d rather than just draw it? In my case I'm aiming for a look that could only be achieved with paints and airbrush (digital or traditional). Which method would be faster I'm not quite sure of. So why? I guess it's because I like the look and because it's been over two years since I used my airbrush. But seriously, why not? Once I finish this one, I'm working on an idea for a comics that I plan to do in ink and paint, and after that I'm considering doing my next one all in white clay. The technique is not important, as long as it achieves the end result.
Anyways, enough of ranting....
Cheers,
Ragnar
p.s. Some of the 3d imagery you see on the web is made using a software called Poser. This software does make a lot of peoples work look the same, as it's based on a library of readymade characters you can modify (like a cut-art library or a pile of barbie dolls). But even so a talented artist using Poser could still create great and unique work (and some do).
The problem with 3d has been that it has been (still is to some degree) very complex to create and requiered technically inclined people to do. So many people without a zit of artistic talent got into 3d, doing some terrible work. This is slowly changing as more and more young people feel at home working with computers (having grown up with them), and more artistic people are seeing 3d as an option for their creativity.
So why make a comics in 3d rather than just draw it? In my case I'm aiming for a look that could only be achieved with paints and airbrush (digital or traditional). Which method would be faster I'm not quite sure of. So why? I guess it's because I like the look and because it's been over two years since I used my airbrush.
But seriously, why not? Once I finish this one, I'm working on an idea for a comics that I plan to do in ink and paint, and after that I'm considering doing my next one all in white clay. The technique is not important, as long as it achieves the end result.Anyways, enough of ranting....
Cheers,
Ragnar
p.s. Some of the 3d imagery you see on the web is made using a software called Poser. This software does make a lot of peoples work look the same, as it's based on a library of readymade characters you can modify (like a cut-art library or a pile of barbie dolls). But even so a talented artist using Poser could still create great and unique work (and some do).