The idea for the comics workout is to draw more regularly in the same way that a physical exercise workout gets you to run/lift/etc. more regularly--by making it a social activity. That said, here are the goals of Comics Workout: 1. No guilt.
(The best workout groups have an eye on the long-term prize. If you miss a day here or there, no big deal. You're doing it because you enjoy it, it makes you feel healthier, ...and perhaps a little out of competition with your workout buddies. You make time for it because it's something that's important to you, not something that you'll feel guilty if you don't do.) 2. Draw more often. 3. Workouts are brief!
(Keep to about an hour, because, let's face it, we're all busy.) 3. Become stronger and faster at the craft.
(Practice makes perfect.) 4. Get work done on your personal comics projects. 5. Meet your personal goals and help others meet theirs.
(We should probably strive for 3-month goals.)
I'd like to also suggest integrating brief critiques in here, when healthy, and invited.
Also, like having a spotter in a physical workout, probably want to buddy up in groups of 2-3. Since the current vision of the workout is conducted either in person, or remotely over AIM voice-chat, having groups that are much larger would be a real hassle to coordinate, particularly if this goes across time zones. But having workout partner(s) will help with the comradery and make this more enjoyable, I'd think.
Also, on the brevity of the workout, aside from the days where we actually spend a long time on personal projects, the "exercises" should be short--about twenty minutes--so we can have three of them in an hour workout. See the other thread for ideas, and post your own.
...that's what I was thinkin'. Anything to change or add?
Take a cue from Brain Age and pick 5 simple everyday things to draw in 15 minutes, and then draw these same things every week or month and see if we get faster/better. Items wouldn't even have to be the same per person. Items could also have different material criteria, e.g., one fabric, one rock, one shiny plastic, one...etc.
Take 15 mins to draw a character from one's project comic performing some action, or displaying some emotion, or delivering some line. Everyone could draw their character respective character saying the assigned line.
Take a short passage from a famous book (or mainstream comic, or even one of your own creations) and redraw it each month, trying to refine it. It could turn out very exercises in style...or it could turn out more like Michael Chabon's purported method of writing [need to find a link, but he writes one sentence, then rewrites that sentence and writes the next sentence, then rewrites the second sentence and writes the third...]
Quanto comic Stolen from McCloud, who stole it from one of the Dewans:
Take 20 minutes to draw a 3+ panel comic based on a title or subject given to you by the other person.
Let's get it started (yeah) let's get it started (in here)
Draw a photo. This is one of Paul's Google Image Searches for "old guy". I spent a little too much time on tinkering with proportions, and not enough fleshing in more important details. The whole image turned out way too sparse for my liking. But I enjoyed working on the cheekbones.
Title swap. Paul gave me "dramatic irony". Get it?!?
Draw some emotions. I drew three of them! From left to right: revulsion (hard to not make it look like generic sadness, as it turns out), laughter (I chose this for the full-body pose because I think this emotion can be carried to a much greater degree when the entire body is tilted), betrayal (this was the hardest for me. I tried to pick a state of being after the initial shock of betrayal has sunk in).
A two-car pileup. It doesn't show in the scan, but the shading makes the cars look really crappy in real life. Guess I have to work on line/shading quality when drawing mechanical things.
This next one is called: "Now Flavored With Meat!", as assigned by Jason. I got it done within the time limits, and had fun drawing the animals, but I thought of several ways to write the comic that were funnier about fifteen minutes into the assignment. Note that drawing cars in the first excercise did not at all help me to draw a car in the second.
Dude! These were hard emotions! Couldn't we have started with ones like "Sad"? There's two failed attempts at revulsion, and one face-contorting snicker.
I envy Paul and Mario and their precioussssss Wacoms.
Old-school pen and paper represent!
#1 - photo ref:
#2 - quanto comic:
I just really didn't feel like drawing a greenhouse in three panels, winning caucuses, on the road to the presidency.
#3 - sketches of emotions
I erased the full body one, then looked at the clock to see I had 20 seconds remaining. D'oh!
(Should have used references on those faces. Seriously.)
"heardeth" still cracks me up. It sounds like a deaf metal band.
Check it! I started with this creepy photo Stef sent me of some guy wearing a dickey, and I drew him!
I could have spent more time on the clothing, but otherwise I like how he turned out. Much better than my previous photo-drawing effort. The perspective on his eyes could have gone a little better though. And I didn't do nearly enough with his weird partial eyebrows. Alas.
For part 2 of 2, we drew three emotions! I labeled mine because they kinda sucked!
I liked the expression on Relief's face, even if he looks more like he's wiping sweat off his brow. I finished early, so I employed some chiaroscuro shading and... well, you know the rest.
Stink? What is stink? Stink is making your photo look like Abe Lincoln, Jr., Amish Man-About-Town.
All on one page, too.
Original photo, which is le swank (the cat totally makes it, Mario):
Oh so sleeeeepy. Bed!
I wanted to do something with Jack Bauer Sunglasses not making you as invulnerable as Jack Bauer (just think! Eddie Bauer's little brother, TORTUREMAN HIMSELF!), but I didn't have time. So I did something about the funny pages!
I have a crazy idea to try to draw and post something every single day for the month of May, spending 10 minutes to 1 hour on drawing each day. (This could be an hour that I might spend watching LOST or DRIVE or HEROES or just reading blaaahgs. Or ten minutes where I'd normally start going through the archives of some random webcomic.) I'm thinking of it as a short-term, solipsist Iron Man Challenge. Variations I'm thinking:
Posts can be sketches or comics, but at least one post a week must be in comics form.
One day a week can be an old unpublished sketch or comic from the archives.
A sketch can be a diagram related to something non-comicky, like a home-improvement project or a craft or somesuch (to encourage other artistic endeavors).
At least one day a week should be in a medium that you don't usually draw in (e.g., if you draw in pen, try pencil; if you draw on wacom, try paper; if you draw on looseleaf with marker, try card stock with watercolor) to encourage experimentation.
Likewise, one comics workout a week, which can coincide with experiment-with-other-media day. (Is this too ambitious?)
Another hourly comics day. (Thinking toward the end of the month, much like you run to train for a marathon, although the May 19 International Sketchcrawl might work, too.)
Is this too craaaaazy? Anyone with me for solidarity?
It'd probably help to make goals with this, like "I'd like to thumbnail a full 24 page comic by the end of the month," or "I'd like to be able to draw a human foot from any angle by the end of the month," or "I'd like to be able to draw my bowl of breakfast cereal in less than five minutes so that I can eat it before it gets soggy."
My whole idea behind this, though, is that I just need to MAKE time to draw more, even if it's a few minutes each day, so that I can get into a regular schedule, so that I'll miss it if I don't do it.
I am fully behind this idea. I don't know if our schedules will allow for a comics workout per week, but I'm certainly willing to give it a try.
My goal is to finally sit down and plan out enough of devo revo to maybe get started on the comic in another month or so. I really want to get back to that project, and a month of drawing might just do the trick.
I am lame and still wracked by whatever I came down with Sunday (two days of fever, starting to feel better), so I'm sleeping 12 hours and not drawing tonight. I'll have to backdate my first art post. BUMMER.
Kick-off! Normally Brew panels are kept in the utmost secrecy until publishing, but neither of you are participating in this particular Brew, so it should be all right.
Mostly this panel is reusing the colors from the panel I got from Matt, though I tweaked them into something a little more pleasing on the eye (Matt's a nice guy, but his use of harsh MS Paint default colors leaves something to be desired). I liked drawing common Brew characters (Walter and Rip, in case you can't tell) from a non-standard angle, since the comic panels too often come off as talking head-type situations. But yeah, this is mostly a half-assed drawing, made slightly better by the fact that I finally found my damn Wacom tablet! After tearing the house apart.
Comments
1. No guilt.
(The best workout groups have an eye on the long-term prize. If you miss a day here or there, no big deal. You're doing it because you enjoy it, it makes you feel healthier, ...and perhaps a little out of competition with your workout buddies. You make time for it because it's something that's important to you, not something that you'll feel guilty if you don't do.)
2. Draw more often.
3. Workouts are brief!
(Keep to about an hour, because, let's face it, we're all busy.)
3. Become stronger and faster at the craft.
(Practice makes perfect.)
4. Get work done on your personal comics projects.
5. Meet your personal goals and help others meet theirs.
(We should probably strive for 3-month goals.)
I'd like to also suggest integrating brief critiques in here, when healthy, and invited.
Also, like having a spotter in a physical workout, probably want to buddy up in groups of 2-3. Since the current vision of the workout is conducted either in person, or remotely over AIM voice-chat, having groups that are much larger would be a real hassle to coordinate, particularly if this goes across time zones. But having workout partner(s) will help with the comradery and make this more enjoyable, I'd think.
Also, on the brevity of the workout, aside from the days where we actually spend a long time on personal projects, the "exercises" should be short--about twenty minutes--so we can have three of them in an hour workout. See the other thread for ideas, and post your own.
...that's what I was thinkin'. Anything to change or add?
Take 20 minutes to draw, as best you can, a photo sent to you by the other person.
Stolen from McCloud, who stole it from one of the Dewans:
Take 20 minutes to draw a 3+ panel comic based on a title or subject given to you by the other person.
Pick 2-3 emotions from a list (will post later) and draw one in body language and two in facial expression, using your character.
Draw a photo. This is one of Paul's Google Image Searches for "old guy". I spent a little too much time on tinkering with proportions, and not enough fleshing in more important details. The whole image turned out way too sparse for my liking. But I enjoyed working on the cheekbones.
Title swap. Paul gave me "dramatic irony". Get it?!?
Draw some emotions. I drew three of them! From left to right: revulsion (hard to not make it look like generic sadness, as it turns out), laughter (I chose this for the full-body pose because I think this emotion can be carried to a much greater degree when the entire body is tilted), betrayal (this was the hardest for me. I tried to pick a state of being after the initial shock of betrayal has sunk in).
This next one is called: "Now Flavored With Meat!", as assigned by Jason. I got it done within the time limits, and had fun drawing the animals, but I thought of several ways to write the comic that were funnier about fifteen minutes into the assignment. Note that drawing cars in the first excercise did not at all help me to draw a car in the second.
Dude! These were hard emotions! Couldn't we have started with ones like "Sad"? There's two failed attempts at revulsion, and one face-contorting snicker.
Old-school pen and paper represent!
#1 - photo ref:
#2 - quanto comic:
I just really didn't feel like drawing a greenhouse in three panels, winning caucuses, on the road to the presidency.
#3 - sketches of emotions
I erased the full body one, then looked at the clock to see I had 20 seconds remaining. D'oh!
(Should have used references on those faces. Seriously.)
"heardeth" still cracks me up. It sounds like a deaf metal band.
1. Photo reference, some kind of muddy looking thing.
2. Comic, entitled "Math Dog"
3. Emotions...
I could have spent more time on the clothing, but otherwise I like how he turned out. Much better than my previous photo-drawing effort. The perspective on his eyes could have gone a little better though. And I didn't do nearly enough with his weird partial eyebrows. Alas.
For part 2 of 2, we drew three emotions! I labeled mine because they kinda sucked!
I liked the expression on Relief's face, even if he looks more like he's wiping sweat off his brow. I finished early, so I employed some chiaroscuro shading and... well, you know the rest.
In conclusion, stink is not an emotion.
which came from this:
And finally, the character drawing:
All on one page, too.
Original photo, which is le swank (the cat totally makes it, Mario):
Oh so sleeeeepy. Bed!
I wanted to do something with Jack Bauer Sunglasses not making you as invulnerable as Jack Bauer (just think! Eddie Bauer's little brother, TORTUREMAN HIMSELF!), but I didn't have time. So I did something about the funny pages!
...can you guess what the small print says?
Is this too craaaaazy? Anyone with me for solidarity?
It'd probably help to make goals with this, like "I'd like to thumbnail a full 24 page comic by the end of the month," or "I'd like to be able to draw a human foot from any angle by the end of the month," or "I'd like to be able to draw my bowl of breakfast cereal in less than five minutes so that I can eat it before it gets soggy."
My whole idea behind this, though, is that I just need to MAKE time to draw more, even if it's a few minutes each day, so that I can get into a regular schedule, so that I'll miss it if I don't do it.
What say ye?
My goal is to finally sit down and plan out enough of devo revo to maybe get started on the comic in another month or so. I really want to get back to that project, and a month of drawing might just do the trick.
Mostly this panel is reusing the colors from the panel I got from Matt, though I tweaked them into something a little more pleasing on the eye (Matt's a nice guy, but his use of harsh MS Paint default colors leaves something to be desired). I liked drawing common Brew characters (Walter and Rip, in case you can't tell) from a non-standard angle, since the comic panels too often come off as talking head-type situations. But yeah, this is mostly a half-assed drawing, made slightly better by the fact that I finally found my damn Wacom tablet! After tearing the house apart.