Episode 325 - walk the line
May 29, 2017
In this Quackcast we cover the Importance of good linework in comics and different line techniques such as Herge's Ligne claire, the traditional thick line for characters and thin for everything else as exemplified in the work of Mucha, variable line widths as in Manga, solid blacks like in American comics, and complex lines like Durer or Hyena Hell. I really seriously thought I could get an entire Quackcast out of the concept and techniques of linework, but honestly I was struggling… Okay, so linework constitutes the skeleton that most comics are built on, with the notable exception of painted comics, photo comics, 3D and vector comic among others… But for most comics line is a pretty essential element. There are a lot of different techniques involved in the use of lines. Herge popularised “ligne claire”, which means that all lines have the same thickness and that there's no line shading. A popular style that I was taut was to have thick lines around characters and overlapping elements, with thin lines for internals and backgrounds. This is popular in a lot of manga, US comics and famously the work of Alphonse Mucha. Part of my technique on Pinky TA involves making my lines grey, so that when I set the line layer to “multiply”, the lines take on some of the background colours beneath them and don't show up as darkly as traditional black lines. The work of Hyena Hell on the Hub is interesting for her use of very complex internal shading line to build up texture and shapes, this can also be seen in the works of Albrecht Durer. Manga is notable for its extensive use of very stylised shading, crisp lines and the use of variable line widths for outlines, while American comics make heavy use of solid blacks for areas of shadow, basically extending the width of the line as far and as solidly as it can go. How do YOU approach your linework? The music for this week by Gunwallace is for The Wallachian Library. It's a dark, black future sounds, neon glows, pulses of energy and ideas, vectors and virtual circuits.Sorry, no link to this comic, the user deleted it from the site.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Monster Corp - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/24/featured-comic-monster-corp/
See the art here - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/20/quackcast-325-walk-the-line/
Ligne claire by Herge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire
LINKS:
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Featured music:
The Wallachian Library WAS a comic by TheHereitcLocomotive, who has since deleted it… For what it's worth you can look at their profile here: - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/TheHereitcLocomotive.
Episode 308 - Hyena Hell
Jan 30, 2017
Today on the Quackcast we interview Hyena Hell! You might remember the bombastic, punkrocker HyenaHell for her comic The Hub She used to be very active on all of DD (forums, comics, everything), before life issues took her away from DD. But she was still a prolific poster on social media after that when she wasn't creating comics, posting interesting and thought provoking blog posts about art, life as an artist, and living in a changing New Orleans… She has a unique art style- highly detailed, carefully inked drawings, which are quite similar to her work as a printmaker. You can see a great example of that in The Hub. We have sad news and hap[y news… The wonderful Hippievan has retired from doing Friday newsposts on DD. The happy news is that HyenaHell is going to dive into the driving seat of this out of control juggernaut! HyenaHell has a long history with DD and an amazing personal perspective on art and life that I think would be good for the site. It's always good to listen to a new and interesting voice! In the mean time, listen to Banes, Pitface, TantzAriene and I interview HyenaHell, who tells lascivious stories and her and I going into, Lipstixxx a stripclub in New Orleans… Gunwallace's featured music for today was: Mechaniko - it's the sound of nodes on a neural network firing, connecting, and cascading with shared knowledge: Multilayered, technological robo-future rock!
Episode 190 - The Halloweencast!
Oct 26, 2014
For the Halloweencast Banes and I will be journeyed beyond the veil, down into the depths of webcomic HELL… There, we encountered the LOST and the DAMMED: the tormented souls of abandoned webcomics that were ended before their time. Deep underneath the black, soaring Gothic spires of DD HQ lie the labyrinthine catacombs, dry, dusty crypts, and ossuaries where the bones of old abandoned webcomics go to rest and moulder away, their lonely souls pining for the time when they could see the day and frolic in the sun, with viewers to keep them company. Watched over by the great demon Death Porn and harried by mischievous spriter sprites, the poor souls languish in their solitary torments, hoping to one day be reborn anew! For the Halloweencast, Banes and I asked for contributors to name some of their old lost faves so we could pay our respects to these tragic cases, give them a voice once more, and hopefully return them for a few brief moments to the sun again by sending some more viewers their way.
Episode 154 - Abandoned Webcomics Nostalgia
Feb 18, 2014
It's one of the great tragedies of webcomics the way ‘real life’ so often gets in the way of our comic work. This Quackcast was inspired by HippieVan's newspost about webcomics that disappeared into the atmosphere or deadended into nowhere... Hippie joins Ozone and Banes to discuss the topic of comics ending before their time, comics we miss, comics we need closure from! Why do they end like that? Have you got abandoned work under your belt? Will you ever come back and finish it? What are some of your forgotten faves? Bellow are a list of ours
Episode 86 - Ghosts of Features Past
Jul 16, 2012
Our idea was to revisit some of the interesting featured comics from the past years... We picked features that appeal to us and that are still on the site, commenting about what we like and don't like about the art, writing, design, style of humour, type of story, and the genre.We hope this will be an interesting topic to revisit in future Quackcasts too. The feature spotlight is fleeting and only happens once to a comic, then they sink away again, so it's worth having another look at the great and wonderful glories of the past to see just how great and wonderful they were! I'm joined again on the Quackcast by my personable and friendly voiced co-host Banes!
