Episode 646 - FIGHT! Drawing and references
Jul 31, 2023
Drawing fight scenes is damn hard! One of the best ways to deal with this is to use references, but that's hard too because it's a pain to find the ones you need! So today we're talking about making your own reference pics for fighting because that's what I just finished for Tantz- I stripped shirtless and wielded some of my many antique swords in fight poses for Tantz to use in her new fantasy webcomic.
Topics and Show Notes
You can also look at movie versions of stage fighting but those are pretty unrealistic usually and don't have a follow through of action. You can use fight manuals but actual realistic fighting isn't very exciting or interesting to look at. There's footage of training and sparring with people doing fencing, kendo, battle of nations or HEMA but those are all unrealistic in certain ways too because they're forms of stylised fighting designed to earn points- real fights would never have gone down that way. Even with HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), which is supposed to be the most realistic, it really isn't because people rely on their protection too much and always rush in fast for killing hits because they wear advanced protection, when in a real historical fight people would be more careful to avoid injury, which would slow the fight a LOT.
My solution was to pose in semi realistic ways that still look theatrical and heroic enough, so it's a balance between reality and theatricality.
How do you do fight scenes?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Echoes - A mystery is about to be uncovered, by how deep does it really go? This highly cinematic tune delves deeper and deeper into the shadow and windy, dusty dark spaces to find out things we never suspected or even dreamed of! When oh when will Peter Jackson hire Gunwallace to write the scores for his films? That’s what I want to know.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Oi Tales of Bardic Fury - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jul/25/featured-comic-oi-tales-of-bardic-fury/
Featured music:
Echoes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Echoes/ - by Usedbooks, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Future-cast: Comic read through
-We will ask Kawaii to pick a comic for us to read through on the cast
Episode 588 - Revisiting Old Ideas
Jun 20, 2022
Sometimes it's worth revisiting old ideas because you can do them better or explore them deeper. This could be in the form of a full reboot, or it could be as simple as reusing a pose in a panel or using the same theme again like Pixar does with 90% of their output i.e. “coming of age”. Like them you don't need to feel obligated to always do something totally original, revisiting old ideas is a great way to refine them, create better work, or explore different aspects of them you hadn't considered before and put new and interesting spins on things. Consider that Pixar's Turning Red, Encanto, Moana, Coco, The Incredibles 2, Ratatouille, Inside Out, Brave, Onward, and Luca all share the same “coming of age/childhood independence” theme and yet all do it in unique and original ways, exploring different aspects of the idea from all sorts of angles.
Episode 586 - Working with disability
Jun 6, 2022
How do you keep on with your creative output when something happens to you? When you lose function or are impaired in some way, how do you adapt or relearn so you can keep on as you were before? Maybe you can't and have to change to another medium that's a better fit for your abilities? Comic creator Bravo1102 once talked about how he moved from drawing to using action figures to make his comics partially because of his eyesight. My own eyesight has suddenly started to go bad and I'm having to adapt to that, and Tantz tells us how her deteriorating eyesight forced her to work digitally.
Episode 584 - Drawing gender
May 23, 2022
We start off with the idea of talking about art techniques, tips and tricks we've mastered and could help people with but the cast turned into a discussion about drawing male and female characters- also trans, androgynous, etc. There's an art to representing gender in imagery! It's super important to remember that the way we see gender in art is mainly culture based rather than an innate biological reaction and the perception of gender in art is different according to your cultural background. It's basically a visual language that everyone learns, but as an artist you have to learn to actually “speak” it, and that's not as straight forward as you think.
Episode 581 - David's always right
May 2, 2022
David's always right - Introducing Hpkomic! Hpkomic has been with DD since the earliest days, he's a comic artist, writer, English teacher, and podcaster. He even participated in the second comicbook challenge that Platinum held way back in the day when they controlled DD, and came second! He was part of many community events, like the Drunk Duck Civil War (the DD answer to the comic book Marvel Civil War) and DD VS Comic Genesis, which was the DC Vs Marvel of Webcomics! In fact he has the oldest post on this version of the DD forums! After the site was fully deleted at the end of 2005, he was the first person back who commented with an offer of help to get things back online again. Bonus points if you can find it.
Episode 577 - The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Apr 4, 2022
Creation is a process with a lot of ups and downs: Agony and ecstasy! The easiest way to think of it is a simple inverted parabola- you start of feeling good about your idea and its potential. As you work though you feel worse and worse about it till you get to the nadir of the curve, then things turn around and you start feeling better and better about it as it finally comes together and you finally manage to finish it!
Episode 557 - Fetishes in comics
Nov 15, 2021
Fallopiancrusader joined us as a very special guest to chat about fetishes in comics! It's really interesting and he brings his expertise with adult comics and his wide ranging knowledge of comics in general to bear on the subject. So what are fetishes? Well they're often things that people have sort of a sexual interest in but aren't always associated with sex themselves, they're peripheral to sex. Because of that they're often enjoyed and appreciated in their own right for their own sake! Think of things like body piercings, tight laced corsets, wearing fursuits, spanking, wearing S&M leather and PVC gear, shoe appreciation etc. all things associated with sex that people can also enjoy and appreciate outside of sex.
Episode 555 - Group shots!
Nov 1, 2021
This week we're talking about group shots and how cool they can be! I love drawing them, having all your characters together in the frame is so cool and fun- you can hint at character relationships, have them doing some sort of fantasy activity or just being awesome and posing together. We also chat about some of our fave group shots in film like the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, and the most prolific source of group images ever: album art!
