[3deroticer]

Carson, after going over your new color pages, i see a lot of model (and forum favorite big boob sweetie) beshine.  both have about same boob size, blond hair and similar (to me) facial features.

I can see that! is this true, or just happenstance?

[fireworks]

I think it's mostly happenstance -- since the early (and unfortunate) duck-face Beryl, I've been trying to draw her more realistically and with a kind of ideal blonde Scandinavian look, since she is Swedish. Beshine I think is German, and comes closer to that same wonderful (prohibited V) look than most other models out there.

The GIF below shows how much she's changed since I started. The realistic version is a Photoshop of the first, and since the entire body had to become larger in proportion to the big cartoon head, the boobs got bigger, too -- so I think this qualifies as BE!

By the way, I haven't produced nearly as much this month as I had hoped. I had a terrible bout of carpal tunnel syndrome, and I finally determined that it was because of the brushes and calligraphy pens I was using for some pages. Along with trying to go more realistic, I also moved to comic book pages and thought I should get very tight and precise. Big mistake. Not only did it wreck my hand and wrist, but it also wound up being some of the ugliest looking comics -- very stiff, no fun.

So for the last couple of comics, I'm drawing them directly in my sketchbook. This is the absolute fastest way to do them, and it also gives me better results. I think I'll even be able to produce most of them in color, while returning to a daily or at least semi-daily schedule.

[Nimrod]

In a short while the Beryl character has become more defined. Her look also continues to adjust. Attached here is a progression of images showing this shift early in the strip. (Made when there were only 30 strips)

Trying to answer an earlier question regarding some readers disliking her look my be a subjective exercise however there are two aspects that are common to the artist's work that the Beryl Thunderstrom character shows.

1. The Beryl mouth tends to be wide and low on the face. This creates a more simian look with a more pronounced outer edge to the upper lip, even in full face views. When the mouth is placed even slightly higher, with more distance to the bottom of the chin it strengthens the jaw line and reduces the prominence of the maxilla bone. That is why Beryl of strip 22 looks a bit more natural than say 19 or 26. The mouth typically does not extend across the face more than the distance between the center of the eyes. When it does there starts to get a fish mouth effect. Women do tend to have thinner upper lips, but when reduced to just a line it can also weaken the overall mouth and add to the look of an oversize maxilla.

2. The Beryl eyes tend to be set wide on the face. The typical rule is that there is a full eye width between the eyes. This is not a law but it does produce a more proportionate look. When the distance goes beyond about 1 1/2 eyes there starts to develop a sunken effect as the eyes start to appear more on the "sides" of the face and not on the "front". Call this a frog effect. The nose, brow, and upper lip are made to look further forward. Some artists compensate by making the eyes smaller as they move further apart. This moves it from "frog" to "lizard". When the eyes are enlarged as they separate the effect is one of more infantile looks with a large nasal bridge, large eyes, and smaller mouth.

Oddly the combination of wide set but large eyes and low but large mouth on Beryl in strip no. 2 looks a bit "duck" to me as well. When compared to strip no. 14 where she is much more "human" while still cartoon-like works better mostly due to the changes in the eyes.

So if I was pressed to critique the look I would only have 3 recommendations:
a) Raise the mouth slightly (like strip 22) as it will reduce the maxilla prominence.
b) Keep the eyes in line with the outer edges of the mouth which will help to control both.
c) Watch the length of the neck as it tends to sometimes not match the body.

OK, art class is done.

[Eyeguy]

Brovo, Nimrod!  the best critique is one that suggests improvements! 

[fireworks]

Neato, thanks!  

I got off on the wrong foot altogether by emulating Betty Boop, which has a lot to do with the wide set eyes and low mouth. Starting with a new batch of comics today, this probably counts as another evolutionary step, where I'm trying to dispel all that strangeness from her face altogether, not necessarily to make her more realistic, but to make her cuter, more lovely.

Unfortunately, now that you mention it, I'm probably still doing the neck thing.

But where I am trying to find inspiration now is Al Capp's Li'l Abner, which is probably closer to the type of "realism" I should be shooting for. That's also the linework I'm working towards, using a pen nib which is easier on my hand and wrist (I had a pretty painful bout of carpal tunnel's syndrome a little while back).

Sorry I was gone all of last month. After that bout of carpal tunnel's syndrome, I thought I had a chance at a local job, but nothing came of it. I was also trying to do some digital paintings, which I thought might lead to some revenue -- the first one turned out pretty good, and I thought I would follow that up with one of Beryl -- but it came out awful. I've got a lot more work to do. :/

Then the heat at the end of the month -- I've been trying to figure out what I was doing with the current comics, a sequence that should have been over real fast, and realized I skipped some important stuff. Where it leads would make no sense now.

Although I needed the reader input, I started the series too fast. It seems like the farther along I go, the more clear it becomes what it SHOULD have been, if that makes any sense.  Also, being hot and tired and broke has made my recent writing less funny. I need to write more jokes.

I need to take a little more time now, I think, to plan and SCRIPT AHEAD. So for now, I'm going to let the characters act out a classic play, my version of Twelfth Night, which you can see in progress here (the intro has already been posted as a comic):

http://www.antelucan.com/text/twelfthnight.html

It's early yet in the script's progress, and I'm going to update it virtually live from my text editor as I go along (the text editor formats the HTML and I send it to my site by typing "ftp"). The main series is also going to be scripted that way.

The additional value of doing the play within the comic is that I can bring more animal and human characters on stage and try them out, and prepare them for the feature comic, and doing the classic story helps me focus at a time when it's really hard to do so.

[fireworks]

A little bit better still, I think, thanks to the critique here.

I've also been struggling to draw better hands.

[AgentDee]

I LOVE it, excellent work!

[H_man]

Wow!

[gonZo]

Outstanding work! One more suggestion, though... you tend to place the nose rather high on the face, which increases the distance between the nose and upper lip, making her look a little simian. The common rule of thumb is that in a level view of the face, the bottom of the nose should be about twice as far from the eyes as it is from the upper lip.

[fireworks]

Thanks, everybody!

Yeah, with this last drawing, I'm making a particular effort not to set the nose quite so high.

In the future, I should try to model these characters after real faces. For instance, I read that Al Capp modelled Daisy Mae's face on Jean Harlow.

I've made this harder than it should be.

And I think that goes for the writing, as well. Beryl's character is going to loosen up a bit -- I think I overplayed that "sad" aspect of her character, and it seemed to turn people off. For a while I had an intro comic where Beryl talked about her unique condition, and a reviewer said that Beryl "wants us to feel sorry for her". That wasn't exactly what I was shooting for, so I ditched the intro.

To move things along a little faster, I may take up the main comic again with a quick explanation of the whole dog-chasing-Beryl thing (last month while walking home from a very long-distance errand, I nearly got chased by a loose dog -- maybe I'm having a psychological block?) just to get it out of the way, show Beryl fully in charge of the farm, and renting out some rooms in the house in order to get some additional human characters, fast! I should have opened the comic strip with Beryl *already in her situation*, and dealt with this other stuff as flasbacks/history.

It might be easier for me right now to show Beryl spending more time running a bed-and-breakfast and spending time in town than running the farm itself.  

By the way, while writing this post, I just happened to find a picture of a Swedish girl with a nose very much like the one I've been trying to draw for Beryl. It appears very high on the face here, though, because of the angle. In an accompanying picture, her face is more level with the camera, and the nose appears much longer, and you don't see the "wing" shape of the nostrils quite so much. In either case, though, you don't get that bigger "simian" area Beryl keeps getting.

(I hope posting this picture doesn't violate any forum rules)

Mod reply: nothing wrong with that pic (the rules aren't nearly as onerous as they might appear at first glance). Your work is wonderful and your presence here much appreciated!

[onion_writer]

Outstanding work! One more suggestion, though... you tend to place the nose rather high on the face, which increases the distance between the nose and upper lip, making her look a little simian. The common rule of thumb is that in a level view of the face, the bottom of the nose should be about twice as far from the eyes as it is from the upper lip.

I think this is fantastic work. As for facial proportions, it usually goes like this:
Cut the egg-shape of the head in half. Eyes go at that level.
Cut the lower half in half again. The base of the nose goes at level.
Take what remains and cut that in half, again. The mouth goes there.

You end up with a massive forehead, but that's without hair.


Hope this is useful Great work!

[Eyeguy]

I kinda assumed that Pal the dog was actually some kinda pervert, and the whole discussion about the horse was a ploy to get Beryl naked.   shows what I know, huh?  
   As for plotting- yeah, it's easy to make it harder than it should be... <does that make sense?>  I usually wind up chewing on any piece plotting I do (mostly for Play-by-email games) for several work shifts before I commit to anything, just because I'll usually find an easier way to accomplish what I'm after.

   And the portrait of Beryl in her sundress is very good.

[Nimrod]

Outstanding work! One more suggestion, though... you tend to place the nose rather high on the face, which increases the distance between the nose and upper lip, making her look a little simian. The common rule of thumb is that in a level view of the face, the bottom of the nose should be about twice as far from the eyes as it is from the upper lip.

I said the same thing back on June 29th. After looking at the move toward a more realistic face and the use of photos to mimic a look, i.e. Swedish photo, it might help to study the relationship between the elements of the face.
It is one thing to "build a face" toward that of average proportions and another to move it toward a particular ethnicity or people. The second is a process of refinement.

The Beryl sundress image is cute and pretty. The very next question for the artist is to ask "Why does she look that way... how do the elements come together to make it so?"
Other exercises would be to change the some aspect just a bit in the face to generate slightly different moods.

Being more familiar with how the character is "constructed" will help in controlling the overall look and help with consistency. Remember, that the more stylized and cartoon-like the drawing the more latitude one has but the smaller the vocabulary one can work with. The more realistic the face becomes the more the artist can use subtle cues to convey expression. It is a balance between all the elements that works.

Remember, in art hands are just squares with the fingers attached.

[fireworks]

Heh... another danger is *overanalyzing* the art. I always work to improve, but I'm not going to become Frank Cho overnight. And sometimes our artistic heroes aren't always as good as they are in our minds. Studying Al Capp's work, I constantly find him "violating" rules that others have defined *based on his own work*.

Sometimes you just gotta draw.

Probably more important than the art right now is getting the writing under control. I went through a bad patch, and finally came back and finished a dreadful sequence last week, and I'm moving forward with a better thought out comic strip altogether, now.

When I made Beryl a real person, the farm and its talking animals became awkward because she was in a vacuum. I didn't really have any way of making things happen in a credible way, in a realistic or fantasy vein. By making Beryl a newcomer at the farm, the focus was in the wrong place -- it makes Beryl an audience to a "funny animal farm", which by itself would be dullsville. By bringing her friend Moneesha onstage as the new audience, the spotlight shifts to Beryl, as she reveals to Moneesha what she's learned about the talking animals (a curse that involves her family), her newfound powers (and the chance to lift that curse), and most importantly, the real identity of Hector the horse.

[fireworks]

Hope it's OK to mention this here -- I'm taking commissions right now (details at my website), because I need to raise money to pay bills, buy more paper, etc. I have literally one sheet left for doing comics and $1.28 in my account.  

Mod edit: you're MORE than welcome to solicit work here FW... and also feel free to put up a new thread to that effect in the Classifieds forum as well. From what I gather, commissions are usually few and far between (I know my fair share of starving artists in RL too)... hope things work out. Good luck! -Pal