in search of style ~

[lookingland]

below is a quick sketch that i drew and inked in the traditional way and then digitially colored. not much effort was made here ~ mainly looking for reactions to the full color vs. semi-duotone. i've been trying to decide which direction to go and i can't make up my mind.

color is nice, but time-consuming and i am just plain bad with color. i tend to lean toward the duotones because it tends to take a little bit of the cartoony edge off of it, but i'm curious how other people feel.

if you have any thoughts, lemme know ~ it would be hugely helpful.

: D



i'm also seeing that backgrounds are going to be a problem for me (quelle surprise!) ~ so i need to do some practice in that area. i'm finding that i really need to sit down and think about what the environments look like in more particular detail. i get so lazy when i draw. so like this scene takes place in a church which in my head, i know exactly what it looks like. but then i couldn't seem to render it. i'm thinking what would be helpful would be to draw whole backgrounds (not to actually use per se) but to make decisions about what is in a given room and where at any given time. so i'm not just filling space with random things. i need to be more precise.

maybe that will be my one new year's resolution: precision.

: D

Comments

[lastremnant.livejournal.com]

I think I like the middle one the best although the first one is nice too. :) Full color would be nice for a cover image or for endflap pages (or a title page sort of thing). What's the tone of the story? Which one are these images for?

[dsch.livejournal.com]

If this is still Civil War era stuff we're talking about, definitely go with the duotone. It seems much closer to the old daguerrotypes and therefore enhances the feel of the period.

However, if you feel you are not good with color, it's a good idea to do SOME things in full color, so you can end up making decisions like this more based on how it looks as opposed to which one you're better at.

[(Anonymous)]

I like the semi duotone best but I like the color a lot too. Seems you *could* stick a color illos in if it seemed to be particularly apt (is "apt" the word I'm looking for? who knows? ha).

I never think your color work is bad --but I guess it matters more that you think it is --even if it isn't hahhahaha

I think a notebook full of settings is a good idea --not that different than writing backstory that doesn't appear in the book. Seems helpful and worth doing to me.

Boy, this felt almost like "a burning question" I miss those, sigh.

mugsy