Shiroi is being adopted

[ShiroiFAN]

[Kris@WLP]

[ShiroiFAN]

[ShiroiFAN]

[Kris@WLP]

[ShiroiFAN]

Yeah, blank paper's no problem, I just used graph paper while I was experimenting with the panel layouts on this first and probably last "page" for a while. As for the G-nibs...





...yeah, not in the budget for next quarter. Not only the cost of materials, but I'd have to travel a good distance to find an art supply store. If it was "charcoal drawing," I'm right out in the sticks where folk still light campfires, but ink doesn't grow on these trees...

Once I find the right materials, I can work on mastering them, but results aren't going to be immediate. And with our scanner down until who knows when, it makes more sense to work on digital technique until some of the pieces start to come together.

Thank you again for all your advice.

[ShiroiFAN]

[YujinStudio]

Man, I've been gone a long time. I was just catching up on the Chichi-chan comic and came to the page talking about making a Shiroi comic. First thing that came in my head was, "Holy crap I need to see if Kris is serious!"

I've been wanting to do more WLP fanart, but nothing was coming to me. The fact that I haven't read anything in over a year doesn't help. Shiroi is one of the characters I wanted to do. Ever since the I wanted to do more. I always thought it was a shame that she wasn't used in anything. Doing a comic sounds like fun. I just have to dust off the sketch pad. I'm not much of a writer so I'd need someone to do that part of it.

ShiroiFAN:
I kinda feel bad about throwing my hat into this. This seems more like your project and I'd hate to take it from you. I can see that you're trying real hard to improve your skills. I was there once. I can give you some tips if you're interested. [/url]

[Kris@WLP]

[YujinStudio]

[Kris@WLP]

[Dorlynn]

Wow, Kris doesn't have tons of scripts already done. I'm used to hearing the writer is six stories ahead of the artist, and is saying that he would like to see them in pictures.

ShiroiFAN was asking for anime/manga references a while back. List some of your favorite artists, tutorials, or good reference materials. That's always apprieciated by people looking to improve on their works - myself included.

[YujinStudio]

I suppose for the moment I can start with a few things that I did and used when I got started. I should point out that I've been drawing all my life. When I refer to, "starting" or "learning" to draw" I'm talking about the period when I decided to learn to do anime style art. This was around 2001. I've never had any training so that really was the time I actually started to learn. of a piece prior to this time. Even though I could already draw, there was still a lot for me learn.

There's a lot to consider when you're trying to learn. ShiroiFAN, one thing you may want to consider is building a better foundation. Using Shiroi as a test subject isn't bad, but you shouldn't limit yourself. It may actually be better for you to practice with pictures of real people. Once you have a better sense of the human body you can tailor that to the style of drawing you want to do.

Learning to do anime style art is a little harder that it seems. I think when people think of an anime character they think of a character with wild, spikey har and ginormous eyes. The truth is that there are countless variations of the style. You need to think of how you want your art to look. Using multiple artists isn't bad, but you need to be sure that your style is unified. Characters should look different, but not stylistically different. Mixing and matching isn't bad. If you like one person's hair style with another's body style, that's fine. Also, don't be afraid to do something original. Don't limit yourself to what other people do.

When I got started I just drew source images until I could picture the subject in any pose. When you do this don't just copy what you see. Think of why it looks that way. Instead of seeing it as a 2d image picture it in 3d. This is important when you draw something that's going to need foreshortening.

Looking for learning materials is important. One good site I used to get started is a site called There's free drawing, digital illustration, and 3d tutorials. I went there yesterday, but when I went back today the site was down. The drawing tutorials are pretty good for getting started. The digital inking tutorial is what I still use today. I didn't use the digital coloring because I already had a method for that. The author mentioned that her coloring tutorials are out of date. After reading that and knowing people here are looking for help I'm thinking of creating some of my own coloring tutorials. I use a combo of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Although more often now I try to use only Illustrator. I know that these programs aren't easy to get. So I need to know what others are using.

[ShiroiFAN]

Dude, when I'm sporadic as all get out, someone else updating the thread is not only welcome, its encouraged.

Now let me just say that pictures like this:



are just me trying to get a better grasp on Shiroi's original proportions. Here, let me blow up a front view:



Its all copied as I saw it. Now this is what it looks like when I use a human photograph:



And an artbook reference:



Thinking in 3-D is still something I'm working on, especially when it comes to inventing a pose. I'm not quite settled in to the new place yet and I'm still trying to get a scanner, so results probably won't be up by next week. Heck, the main reason I posted the last dump was just so I wouldn't go the entire month of September without posting. I'll hopefully be back at the end of the month with a Halloween piece. Until then, the floor is most definitely yours.

Welcome, good luck, looking forward to seeing you around, and thanks for the link to Baka Neko.

[YujinStudio]

I'm glad to see you drop in. Been wondering what you thought about all this. I'll do what I can to steer you in the right direction. When you post something I'll give it a critique. Just so you know I can be fairly blunt. Just know that I'm not picking on you, but letting you know what needs a little work.

Before I discuss your drawings I want to go over style first. If you take a look at the guest art you'll notice that not everyone does the characters like the original artist. There's nothing wrong with this. I would suggest finding a style first before working on Shiroi. Once you have a feel for your drawing style you can then tailor Shiroi's look to that. If you take a look at , you'll see that I tailor them to the way I draw. One thing that may help is to try creating your own characters. This should keep you from being too caught up in trying to match your drawing to someone else's and focus on developing your own method. The other thing to work on is consistency. It may sound boring, but try drawing the same thing over and over again. This will help you develop your ability to draw characters the same way each time. Try not to erase or just use a pen. Look at your mistakes and learn from them. I should note that it should be something of your own. Also when you do this work on individual components.

I'm going to start with your front view sketch. Overall it's pretty good. I like the way you're drawing her. The main problem is her shoulders and arms. Unless she's shrugging (which she is in two of the drawings), her shoulders shouldn't be up like that. Shoulders aren't perfectly straight. There's a gentle downward slope. The best advice I heard about going from neck to arm is to think of it like a hangar. As for the arms, watch the amount of detail. When drawing women, try not to put in much muscular detail (unless the character is unusually strong). You can put a small indent where the shoulder muscle and bicep meet. However the size of the shoulder is more fitting for a male body builder.

The next is a great example of why I say you should reference pictures. Honestly it looks great. There's only two minor issues with it. The first concerns the problem of consistency that I talked about earlier. While her face looks good, it looks like what she'll be in about 10 years. She looks a little like Elliot from Scrubs. The other problem, one I also have, is her hands. Baka Neko has a good article on the basics of hands. Take a look at that for some good advice. Keep in mind that the knuckles are aligned in an arch and that the fingers aren't naturally parallel. The thumb is the hard part. It naturally sits "under" the hand. To get an idea of this look at your hand from the side. Stretch it out like you're giving a high-five, then relax it. Notice how the thumb settles below the plane the fingers align. Now look at your hand from the top and bottom. See how the web appears in each position.

The last one isn't too bad either. Again, just a little issue of consistency. Other than that I'd say watch the length of her neck. Take into account where the base of the neck is. If it's going to be covered you may want to draw it bare and then put the object over it.

You're drawing is getting better. A little more practice and you'll be ready. Once you are then we can move on to digital art. That's more of my specialty than drawing.

[YujinStudio]

I've been doing a little searching to find some decent references for Shiroi's hair. The problem I have is that it seems like an Escher piece. Since I shade everything I have to find a way to make the line art and shading flow in a way that looks right. The way I interpret it, is that it's coiled. The problem I have is making the transition to the first coil. I found a few good references to use. Many of the links go to a site called Pixiv. You should be able to see the links I post, but to use the site you'll need to make an account. Since it's in Japanese I'm making a tutorial. It'll be in the pr0n channel since you can find hentai on it.

The best reference is Mitsuki Hayase (速瀬水月) from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. The first link is to a picture of a figure of her. By far the best one to use.




Another decent one I found. Unfortunately this is the only frame of the character like this as it isn't her normal hair style.



A few other decent images.







Since I also have problems with pleated skirts I did a search on that. Here's a couple sources.




After finding the Japanese word for "Art Reference" I poked around Pixiv to see what I could find. I found a wide variety of stuff. Here's some stuff that I thought would help you. All the instructions are in Japanese, but it shouldn't matter. The images are what you mainly need.

Hands:







Misc:






<-Highly recommended


I hope this helps. Can't wait to see your progress.

[ShiroiFAN]

[ShiroiFAN]

42! Answer of the Universe, Life, and Everything GET!!



This is the best costume sketch of the batch. Celestial maiden, taken from an art reference book.

Speaking of art reference, I found some line art of the girl you mentioned. Let me know if you're still interested, but this is the only example that's approapriate for the all ages board:



Meanwhile, here are a few of the runner up costumes.



Might come back to this theme in the spring. How do you guys feel about a WLP softball team?



I was going to put in more color and more characters, but I don't want to take the focus away from Shiroi too much...
...can you still tell that's Chichi?



Sorry I had to at least try a skeleton one while it was still close to Halloween. If anyone wants to try to do a comparative size chart of WLP characters, skeletal or just boobs, I welcome you to that nightmare. My towel's already thrown in.

I don't want to jinx things, but I think I might have home interenet and a scanner. The next absolute deadline is the Thankgiving Day Belly Expansion update. But does anyone have a request for the next week or two?

[YujinStudio]

I'm glad to hear you may be around a little more often. The more you post the more I can help.

You bring up one good point, needing a better grasp of Shiroi's character. There's not much for us to go off of. So Kris, a little help please. Anyway because of the lack of background we're a little free to do what we want. Since the description in the wiki is fairly vague there's a lot that can be done. The only real limitation is doing anything adult. Although seeing as her outfit is rather skimpy it might not be too out of place to do some tasteful pinup art. (Just thought of that, getting ideas). Being an anime and video game fan I often try to think of what she could do within those interests. Most often it's cosplay. I'd imagine she'd have the time for it.

As far as knowing how much muscular detail to put in is something that you need to learn. There are some basic rules of anatomy that you need to know. There's more differences between men and women that just size and hour glass figures. Women generally don't gain muscle mass the same way men do. Women genearlly just get very tone. I'll try to do a sample of what I mean. It's also for this reason I advise to practice with generic bodies or original characters. When you're trying to learn it's more important to figure out general body shapes as opposed to focusing on just one character. I can develop different characters because I know what the basics of body shapes are and just adjust for differences in height and weight. Interestingly enough I was watching "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" when I was writing this. A WWE diva was on. Despite being a pro wrestler she had very little muscle definition.

Gotta say I like the Scooby-Doo and softball ideas. Could be something for you to expand on. I was trying to think of which characters could fit in the rest of the roles. The only one to come to mind is Sweater Puppy as Scooby.

As a final note, I want to talk about detail. This is one thing I'm still working on. I've seen artists that put less detail in their work than I do and it looks much better. This might be something to work on later when you're more developed. One of the keys to art is to only put in what is necessary. Sometimes less is more. Just look at the Kimi Nozo art you found. Even though it's rough, there's little detail and it looks amazing. Keeping things simple also helps when coloring. I've had times where I don't use all the lines I drew when I color. This is most often occurs when I color hair. Speaking of coloring what program do you use? I can give you some help with that as well.

[ShiroiFAN]

Kris has enough on his plate with running the studio, so let's try working out what we can on our own. The nice thing about having two artists (three if we can get Catherine to join in) is that we can get a strong consesus on aspects of Shiroi's character.

See, I associated Shiroi's ponytail and t-shirt with sporty/gym uniform girls from anime, so she ended up meatier(left side of ninja) than she would if I focused on it as princess hair(right side). You ever see those really 80's pretty princess toons? I think they still bring them back as spoof characters, but Shiroi basically has the unwashed otaku version of magical unicorn hair. If you don't comb it straight after getting it wet, long hair picks up a slight curl, kind of like how wet wool shrinks if you don't dry it properly. Short hair, meanwhile, will just fluff up if it was cut from something much longer, spiking if it's greasy or has product in it.

As for your Sweater Puppy idea, its just what I needed. You see, I pictured Fujikun as Fred, and dogboy Peter as Scooby, but I didn't really have a Shaggy character. If I style the hair just right, think Sweater Puppy and Peter combined can pull off most of the Shaggy and Scooby gags. Picture, if you will, the hall of doors gag, the "your table is ready" gag, the lean against the switch gag, the unusual food gag, and "Zoinks!", to say nothing of getting caught in the trap but still getting the monster. Actually it possible for Sweater Puppy to be Scooby as well, but if you remember Peter's "shoulder wolf," doesn't it remind you of Scooby hiding under the furniture until someone breaks out the Scooby Snacks?

Well, its a backburner project, for now.

[Kris@WLP]

OK, guys, here's a chance to show what you can do. Here's a four-panel strip script, based on a certain current web ad- hopefully you've seen it. I'd like both of you to draw this one, so I can see what the best and fastest you can do is.

* * * * *

Panel One

(Shiroi is sitting at a computer, looking at the screen- which is turned away from our view, so we can see her face.)

VOICE FROM SCREEN: Would you rather fight BROCCOLI...

Panel Two

(Shiroi, in some generic MMORPG garb, stands between the cute sixteen-bit-graphic smiley broccoli monster and the horrible beholder monster.)

BEHOLDER: ... or fight ME?

Panel Three

(Shiroi thinks it over as broccoli and beholder wait...)

Panel Four

(... and Shiroi walks away with the broccoli, leaving the sad Beholder behind, wearing a sign: Not Cute, Not Silly = FAIL)

BROCCOLI: ... and if you defeat me, there's this really evil eggplant...

[ShiroiFAN]

If you haven't seen it, and Kris and I are on the same page, you can view it at the following link



Here's the pencils, but I've got a history class to get to so ink/color will have to wait.



Forgive me for saying, but we all know my biggest problem is consistency, so in order to be fair and accurate, we really need more of a series rather than a single comic to see who can do quality over time rather than how fast a single comic can come from someone who is fully rested, etc. If an artist is going to drop in quality/quit after a few updates, really, what's the point in promising a full webcomic? Anyway, see you sometime after class, and let me know if the outfit needs to be redisigned.

[Kris@WLP]

[YujinStudio]

Man you picked a great day to start this. Monday is my busiest day of the week. I was able squeeze in the rough though. I have more time tomorrow so I should have the coloring done by then. Normally I like to have the rough approved, but seeing as you're looking for speed you're probably relying on us to make that call. In any case here's what I came up with. I didn't watch the video before doing this hence the Doom version beholder. Easy fix if that's a problem.



I suppose this is a good time to ShiroiFAN about a few advantages of digital art. You'll notice I didn't use any frames for the sketches. This is probably a bad habit, but my method generally abuses the digital half of the work. Depending on the scene, I may draw everything individually then just paste it all together in Photoshop. Sketching is just a guide for me to follow when doing digital art. I only use a keyboard and mouse so freehand drawing is really hard to do on a computer. It's rare for a final piece to be 100% exactly the way I drew it. If you look at the colored version of Chichi, I made a few changes. While I was coloring I realized that her neck was too far back from her face. I made the adjustments, but still held true to the sketch.

Another point to make deals with the base sketch. You don't need to work in the exact scale as what the published work will be. 1:1 scale is good for story boarding so you have an idea of what the actual size of the image will be. However it's actually better if you work at least 50% bigger. This will give you more room to work with and allow you to put in a bit more detail. Each of my sketches are done on a half sheet of paper. They're also scanned at 300dpi. This helps keep the lines sharp, especially in areas of high detail. This also applies when doing digital art. I usually don't work below 300 dpi. My source files are generally 50%-75% larger than anything I post on the web.

[ShiroiFAN]

Well then I have to say this is a no-contest, since its not fair for one artist to have this much head start. Wednesday is a holiday where I'm from; assuming its the same for you, we can have a fair go if there's a script tomorrow. Otherwise it might be best to work out some type of schedule. My course load's heavier on tuesdays and thurdays, so if you're clear on those days, we might be able to cover for each other.



As you can see, there's not a whole lot of difference from the original pencils. I came to check if the studio had a preferred font, since it wasn't mentioned in the submission guidelines.

Also on the color of the beholder, armor, wall in the first panel or ground in the behold side of the third. Mostly I'm planning leaving it alone, but with bole for the beholder and russet for the ground in #3.

(I'll be using the on wikipedia as a standard for the moment.)

Anyway, this can be considered the final copy for the sake of critique, though the typeset copy will be scaled up to improve readablity. To get the ball rolling, Shiroi's under arm has no shadow in panel #1, her hair color is flat, and the whole perspective is wonky. Panel #4's coloring doesn't have nearly enough red in it.