When you look at a developed artist you can recognise their work straight away. Maybe it is in the way that they do their lineart, or it could be the facial expressions that characters have, (think the Dreamworks Smirk), or maybe it is the tropes that they use in their ...

(I drew this in my comic ten years ago.)

I am going to broach a subject that we do not openly discuss in the forums, or at least is lacking an open channel for discussion: Dating.

The first time I ever saw an effort to blend nerd culture with dating ...

Emotional Charges and Diminishing Returns

Many writing methodologies suggest mapping out the emotional change of each scene. The scene either starts positive, and goes to either negative or “extra positive”, or starts negative and goes to positive or “extra negative” by the end of the scene.

So if a lovelorn ...

I'm a bit obsessed with “before” versions of characters. Where they start. The damaged dude or dudette who shows up at the beginning of a story REALLY needing a change in their lives, and usually not knowing it.

Even when the plot kicks off, these folks often don't ...

LISTEN!

Let's get physical! let me hear your body technique!
As a follow up to my newspost on Friday about figure drawing, we all got together to do a Quackcast about it, along with contributions in the form of comments from DDers on my newspost. Figure drawing is hard ...

Let's talk figure drawing again.
We've discussed this in the past but it's ALWAYS worth talking about. In fact one of the lost Quackcasts was on this very subject.

Figure drawing isn't easy, you need constant practise to maintain the skill. If you neglect it degrades ...

Thursdays with Banes - The Murky Middle

A good way to put together a story is to figure out some essentials, first - Elements of Character, Plot and Theme, and Building some World and all that. We've talked about these things around here a lot, and we'll prolly continue to ...

ACT 2 - The Premise

It's about a guy who…

When we try to decide with our friends about seeing a movie, or surf Netflix for something to watch, or try to sell people on a movie/book/story we want them to experience, that's what we have to ...

Emotional Charges and Diminishing Returns

Many writing methodologies suggest mapping out the emotional change of each scene. The scene either starts positive, and goes to either negative or “extra positive”, or starts negative and goes to positive or “extra negative” by the end of the scene.

So if a lovelorn ...

There are quite a few interesting little projects going on right now! I thought it would be nice to showcase some of them in case people are interested in getting involved. Community projects are a great way to play around with your characters, get creative with writing and drawing, and ...