Suuper's manga (+digital and 3D)

[legomaestro]

I'm blaming stress from returning to work as the main culprit for my current slump. I've basically drawn nothing in terms of volume, although I've drawn a fair bit of sketches and stuff. Also so far this has been the worst month on record this year, as well as having several days of not drawing at all, which is also incredibly rare for the last 12 months. Maybe half my days this month I haven't drawn.

- You hit a roadblock for sure when you took on a new responsibility but in general dude this year (and I say this knowing you are as regular as heck in general) you've not only been a regular poster, drawer and artist you've actually up'ed your game. Serious props, but also be patient with adjustments especially when they concern knew developments and stuff.

Probably the only thing I have done since my last update is to almost perfect some entry level traditional and "non-digital" methods that I think will be handy to use.

- Perfecting methods frees up space for the difficult stuff. Seriously, even in 2070 mangaka will still be as good as they themselves are + the assistants they manage to have. So every little hangup or challenge you manage to learn yourself is a boon to your future progress as an artist for a major project, wether individually or in a group (this sentence definitely made no sense lol)

Mostly 3 things:
-Use of traditional in a similar way to my digital WIPs, separating my concepts and "final" pieces

: I saw a collaboration between Chainsaw Mans' Tatsuki Fujimoto and Yuji Kaku's Hells' paradise and the video that Fujimoto-san posted really showed me that no matter how digital the final image is, pencil and paper is super important to the WIP progress, yes.

-Using minimal guidelines when drawing, especially in pen

NanFe, a person I follow from DeviantArt, Facebook and Twitter has almost super simple guidelines for the stuff she makes. The comparision is encouraging. Yes she makes awesome stuff after the fact but it's just so damn cool haha.

-Working with my own prompts/coming up with varied ideas

: This is your Butter and Bread basically. I unfortunately don't have much luck using your prompts as I'd like, but you're super good at using your prompts to suit the style of drawings and ideas that you execute. Seriously if you sit down and program and plan a manga project you're going to be able to make something 100%

And I mean that in terms of the reliability that you've developed. Suuper, I think seriously you will soon be reliable enough to make a fun comic every month or so. And if you want to really sit on it and do something epic? I swear if you plan something for a year you'll have a complete, fully coloured illustrated one-shot comic at the end of 2022, 2023 that will not only sell like hotcakes, it will be something fun and informational for people like me that do manga like a hobby hehe.

No pressure dude but methinks you are one of the Raiders that'll really preak out there

----

Re: Traditional Art WIP Processing Method

Noice. Commutes have always been a boon to my live drawing hobby haha. Props that you do it.

Re: Final Piece

Also handy to know something else that I was worried about low key- that if I draw less my skill will drop. At least short term, it seems that I've managed to keep on top of that and my core ability isn't affected by my slump

- Yesssssssssssss. I'll encourage myself with that also haha

when my book is full I will take all the other concepts and put them in my digital queue for processing, so nothing gets wasted :P

- I'm looking forward to processing my past regimens into finished works but I'm so disorganized I don't think I'll do it haha

Re: "Guidelines are only to help you if you are stuck".

- This almost summarizes an almost 1:1 thought process that I've had to the process between devloping an idea and having it finally there BAM. I just wish it was a three step process instead of the overthinking 50-Step consideration that I usually go for haha.

- The quality-quantity control thing is seriously inspired though.

Re: Prompts

Lately I have found that with prompts I can vastly improve the range of ideas that I produce. In fact, it's super annoying how I didn't notice it sooner, but there you go.
- I'm still struggling with prompts unfortunately. I think I need scenarios more than prompts to be effective, but yeah it's sad how we think we always need to start from zero to do art without some sort of impulse. Your prompt program was defo helpful with my stories at the start

However, I dont want to be tied to a random prompt generator for 2 reasons, well 3:

-The random prompts are only as random as I make them, if a list is not complete (i.e. expressions/location), then it will never appear as a hint, and so I will never think to draw it.

-If I am drawing traditionally/ away from my computer/ in a casual setting, I wont have my prompt generator with me. I don't want my concepts to suffer from not having access to a good prompt

-Using a prompt generator, even one of my own creation, feels like I am limiting my ability to come up with prompts on my own. It's an unnecessary dependency in my opinion, and I would simply rather not need it.

- EXACTLY

Coming up with random prompts is quite difficult, as certain words tend to come to mind first, every time (quite possibly one of the reasons behind a comfort zone?).

- I think there are literal sciences that study the actual possibility of randomness? Like if it's possible to be truly random. Music streaming apps definitely need or leave the concept (Either they want to give you songs that are so random you learn something new, or you have a random song that you hate forever)

Re: The license plate game

- I will use this

Re: Shiritori

- Seen it in countless manga, definitely want to learn Japanese well enough to play it haha
- Also you know it so well, I've definitely got to ask: How good EXACTLY is your Japanese haha

I'm hoping that I'm emotionally recovering now that I'm back at work. Really I'm just worrying about my parents catching Corona off me, who might catch it at school/commuting, so my parents were basically like stop worrying you can't change anything and I think that helped me to see things a bit more balanced. The second half of the month will be the telling factor.

- Wishing you the best of luck in that cheese. It is really, super frustrating dude. But  I suspect you'll be OK

Re: 2 weeky evaluations

- I am 100% stealing this idea for my life because you seriously bring a lot of useful well-thought-out content and in the age of instant messaging where 'K' is a proper answer to serious questions it's so nice to see long-form thought out messages and stuff.

Just my two cents




PS: What is your next regimen!?

[Suuper-san]

@MK thanks!

@Lego

but also be patient with adjustments

Yeah I can be quite impatient sometimes but I think that keeps me from becoming complacent or accepting of changes and I keep trying to resume the level of activity I am used to.

Perfecting methods frees up space for the difficult stuff.

100%
In fact this is one of the fundamental cornerstones of my masterplan, pushing as many skills as possible into habit to increase efficiency, speed, and reduce effort etc.

no matter how digital the final image is, pencil and paper is super important to the WIP progress, yes.

Although I do mix my traditional and digital, I think my ideal end result would be to be able to work on either side, from a blank page to a final illustration without switching mediums. It does require doubling up on digital and traditional versions of the same skill but I think it's worth it.

NanFe, a person I follow from DeviantArt, Facebook and Twitter has almost super simple guidelines for the stuff she makes.

That's a cool image, and yes definitely shows how you can progress an idea from very simple beginnings.
However I was referring not to an initial sketch, which is just the raw idea, but the guidelines that I use for the final sketch. There's a slight difference, in that an initial sketch can have errors in proportions and conveys the concept, the guidelines are the construction lines for your final sketch, and need to be much more accurate.

I unfortunately don't have much luck using your prompts as I'd like

Sorry :'(
Well that's because my programs are perfectly aligned to my mentality, so they are created for me specific needs.

methinks you are one of the Raiders that'll really preak out there

AWWWWWWW

I'm looking forward to processing my past regimens into finished works but I'm so disorganized I don't think I'll do it haha

Yeah it does require quite a bit of organisation. I've mentioned my organisation before, but basically I have one main folder setup that is an archive of ALL my work, dated. Second to that, I have extra sorting folders, for different projects and WIPs.
When I finish a page, I copy it to each folder in turn. And then I delete it if it isnt relevant to that folder. So each folder often has a queue of files to be sorted further, which I can do at any time.
So when I have an idea for a new project, I can copy my entire archive into that folder to sort through and find sketches that are suited to it. I usually dont use too old sketches though.

I just wish it was a three step process instead of the overthinking 50-Step consideration that I usually go for haha

Haha funny you should mention that, but because of my iteration workflow I probably actually have that many steps before a piece gets finished, from an intial idea. Actually I wonder how many it is.

Rambling

[Blank Page Begins]
-Fragment
[Finalise Concept Begins]
-Initial Sketch
[Finalise Sketch Begins]
-Finalise
-Figure Thumbnail
-Main Sketch
-Details
[Resolve Sketch Begins]
-Finalise
-Figure Thumbnail
-Figure Sketch
-Sketch Guidelines
-Main Sketch
-Details
[Ink Sketch Begins]
-Finalise
-Main Sketch
-Details
[Colour Lineart Begins]
-Flat Base
-Flat Colour
-Patterns
-Shade 1
-Shade 2
-Eyes
-Highlights
[Finished Illustration!]

So 22 steps haha
A lot of those steps are quality control, so it ensures, at the cost of time, a more even quality sketch. And that's just my standard quality WIPs, my Masterpiece WIPs have double the iterations for quality control and concept enhancement.

In my opinion, having a lot of steps is not an issue as long as they work. Yes, having less would be fantastic, but compared to not having any method, I'll take 50 steps any day :P

I think I need scenarios more than prompts to be effective

I've been trying to add that sort of thing as well, but they are often a lot more specific and one-use, like "riding a bus" or something. So I dont have a good method yet for coming up with a large range. The best I can do when given a prompt like "running", is to think "why are they running?", "what are they running from?", "are they running from their responsibilities?" So I try and look at prompts in an abstract way to get more ideas.

I think there are literal sciences that study the actual possibility of randomness? Like if it's possible to be truly random.

Oh it's definitely impossible for a human to be anything at all near random haha, that's why it's so hard to come up with ideas, we just keep recycling the same default thoughts each time.

RE:Shiritori
You can play the game in English of course, just say a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word. That's what I meant, I dont do it in Japanese lol.
My Japanese is alright, I can converse on most subjects probably, and given a long enough warm up I can sometimes sound fluent XD

I suspect you'll be OK

Thanks, I have indeed probably recovered now. I'll probably talk about it in my report.

What is your next regimen!?

I have started another face regime, but proper coloured headshots. I hoped to have finished a set to post but I was caught up with other WIPs. The idea is to fix my slant with faces as well as figuring out how to draw really nice hair and eyes.


End of month report

Well I have finally managed to claw my way back into productivity. My sleep has finally stablised and I've been waking up great at 5am the last 3 days, which is better than the last month or so. I think it was definitely my brain trying to deal with all the new stuff going on at work and stuff.

In fact my productivity graph shows a magnificently linear slump over the last 2 months. I'm hoping that tiny blue spike on the last day is my big comeback.

Spoiler

So while I feel I am rocketing upwards, I have nothing much to show for it because it's only the last few days that it's happened.

But all the same have a sketch. Took maybe 20 minutes. My new quality for resolved sketches doubles the time to make them but adds so much details and quality so it's definitely worth it. I'm still struggling with massive skew on some of my pieces, but I think that's partly related to recent bad posture and how I'm facing my screen. We'll see.


All the while I wasn't drawing though, I did do a lot of thinking and processing of my workflows and trying to find gaps in the system that could be optimised. Also trying to analyse my thoughts and internal processes to see what could be improved there. I ended up with 3 A3 pages of rambling.

I ended up creating quite a bit of personal terminology to solidify my issues and methods.







To summarise some of the main discoveries:

• It can be hard to improve a sketch if you try and keep too much of the original "bad" idea. So you have to change decisions you have previously made, such as pose, clothing etc. It can feel like a step backwards to go back on decisions you have made, which is a possible wall you may hit when trying to improve an idea.
• Fundamentally there are an infinite number of possible ideas and improvements that you can make to a piece, and that can lead to decision paralysis not knowing which is the best way to go. The solution to this is not to evaluate ideas against each other, but to evaluate each idea against a threshold criteria. If the idea is above the threshold, then go with that one. You could spend forever finding better ideas to do, but wasting time not doing any of them. To quote Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt, "Give them the third-best to go on with; the second-best comes too late, [and] the best never comes"
• The Catch 22 of improving an idea - You want to avoid adding details (i.e. wasting your time) until you are sure of your idea, but often only by adding details do you think of what idea you want and then have to change it. In that regard, expressing ideas in the simplest form possible is the best way around this, so you explore an idea without committing much time to actual details.
• Quality control and evaluation are important all the way along the drawing, from evaluating the concept to checking the line quality is the level you are aiming at. But for effective evaluation you need to have specific criteria that you are aiming at, such as an artist's style you are copying etc.

I had a few more points, but they are personal to my own style and probably utterly confusing if I try to explain them anyway :P

Something that affected me a few years ago, and I had completely forgotten, was that I find it very hard to have programming as a side at the same time as art. Maybe because programming is very problem solving heavy, it takes up brain space even when I'm not doing it, and so it makes it hard to focus on my art. I think that is a secondary reason for my recent slump as I have been doing a few coding projects. I also found myself distracted with finding more artist references, something that probably plagues all us artists. I haven't done that for ages so if it only happens once a year then that's fine. I'm trying to use more photo reference as well for practice, so I can create my own style based on my observations rather than copy other artists without understanding the fundamentals.

I went through my favourite artists work to create a folder of 1000 of the absolute best pieces that will guide me towards the epic level that I am aiming at. I'm hoping to work through Inktober trying for my new quality to see what happens.

Don't forget Inktober starts tomorrow! We could always use some more company!
http://forums.mangaraiders.com/index.php/topic,19863.0/topicseen.html

Well due to my lack of activity that's all I have to talk about this time, I'll be more active during Inktober so I'll see you all real soon.

[Notívago]

Wow! such commitment and organization for progress, i wish i was more like that 

[Suuper-san]

@Notivago haha well it's not always smooth running for me there's always something which throws me off my tracks XD
tbh commitment and organisation are not things that I have natrually, they are skills that I have gained over time just like my art skill, so don't worry if you're not like that, just looks for small areas at a time that you can improve in.

End of month report

yes it's a day early but I feel like talking now

Overall this entire month was dedicated to Inktober. I had big plans but they fell flat for a couple of reasons.
1) My targets were indeed too high, with a very large amount of time needed for each piece, which was basically unattainable at my current level of focus and activity. I had plenty of good days, but plenty of bad ones too.
2) I was a week+ out of comission with a wrist injury. You can't help when injuries happen and even when being careful you can't avoid them sometimes but this is still a factor which affects productivity
3) I was off-site for another week on holiday. This was not in my original schedule and so that threw off my plans by quite a bit.

I'm committed to finishing my first 4 illustrations at maximum level, but I won't go any further. As always with my ambitious projects I've learnt a lot that I can use going forward. I'll try and summarize my thoughts so far

• Concept/Idea generation - thanks to the last couple of months spent loosening up and using prompts I found it much easier to come up with a range of ideas for each prompt of the days I was working on. I really can put this down to not worrying about proportions when sketching an idea and just throwing it down on the canvas. So letting myself worry about fixing it up later gives me freedom of thought.
• Concept development - taking time to take each concept I created and take it a stage further really gave the pieces more life and allowed me to adjust and improve the ideas that were weaker and take the better ones and make them even better, but still working at a low quality. Especially because I was trying to keep the prompt word as a focus, I was thinking really hard "how can I show XYZ more?" "what does XYZ really mean?" "what abstract ways can XYZ apply?", and so this led to leaning outside my comfort zone a lot more
• Resolving and Guidelines - I found this stage harder than normal because of working with full backgrounds for the first time, and basically I shot myself in the foot for the lineart. Half I was on track and did it right but in other areas I fell short, so a lack of experience I think was the issue.
• Inking and Details - I found that my inking style was quite stable but I struggled knowing where to add details and what details to add in the different scenes. I also found that doe to a lack of proper guidelines in the resolving stage I found it hard to know exactly what lines I should be drawing and made a lot more mistakes and had to erase and undo wayyy more than I do normally. So that's more of a resolving issue. I sometimes just stared at the picture for minutes at a time just looking for the next line to draw because I wasn't sure which objects were in front of others, so my inking time went through the roof.
• Quality - These pieces have probably been the highest quality pieces I have produced, but in that respect it's also made me very aware of how much I don't know in terms of my visual library. Plants/Buildlings/Clothes/Props, I've entered a new level of detail recognition and it feels like I'm back at square 1 again and I have to relearn it all again.
• Focus - partly the issue with my scheduling was assuming that I could spend my entire art time on the project. Doe to days of just not feeling like it, I had a lot of project down time where I just did studies and random sketching instead. But more often than not, after an hour or so of sketching unproductively, I got into a productive mood and could get on with my project again. So the mantra "anything is better than nothing" is certainly applicable here. Better to do something art related even if it's not what you wanted to do, it'll al help in the end
• Mindset - related to the above, it's been interesting how "quickly" my attitude can switch from "I dont want to do my project" to "I should really be doing my project" to "let's do some work on the project!", while I am doing other art related stuff. This is related to my big analysis of "the zone" and how to get into it more consistently. Basically it's hard to focus on what you want if your mind is preoccupied with other things, but by being engaged in activity (even something non project related), gradually all the background thoughts get quieter as you become more and more focused until you have the brain space available to commit to the project you want to do. The annoying thing is that sometimes it can take minutes, sometimes hours to reach that state
• Stamina - something interesting I noticed is that even when working on my project, after about an hour I felt like I needed a rest from it, and would return to other sketching for a while, and then back to my project. Mental stamina is a funny sort of thing and I don't know if it can be trained just by doing more of it, but it's meant that I'm about 50% or less active in the projects I want because of not feeling up to it.

So far I'm happy with the Inkober projects, minus the fact that I wont finish it like I planned. It's certainly been a growth period and I've got a lot of stuff to take away from it.

But I've noticed that I really need to go back again and work on the basics - figures, faces, hands and so on. So there might be some 1000 regimes to be had there to pick myself up again.

I haven't properly solidly worked on my WIPs for quite a few months now and that's getting annoying, but also I have projects and studies that I want to be doing as well, so it's just a huge time bottle neck at the moment. I'm trying to be more time efficient but I just find myself being really lazy lately. If I could even just spend the time I have available on my art it would be amazing.

Also not to be ignored is the fact that I'm a jack-of-all-trades and programming and craft projects keep creeping up on me.
I've played around with paper pulp and making paper (not quite there but I've nearly got all the stuff for it), I've been coding AI and neural nets which is just so fun but HUGELY time wasting as I don't have a use for the AI, I just want to make it as a challenge.
I've also got a craft project that's a secret at the moment (actually, two), so they are using up time as they both have a sort of deadline.
So that's been the extra issue that I've been facing.
So a lack of specialisation basically.

Coming up to the end of the year it's been another year of drawing and I'm still hopelessly far from my goals. But I think I'm definitely moving in the right direction now and filling up holes in my knowledge and also doing larger projects.

Overal the month went OK for a recovery month, if I didn't have the injury or holiday I probably would have done fairly alright I think.
Here's my activity graph.

Spoiler

[legomaestro]

So many points to look at here and all fascinating stuff. The report before this one by the way - this analysis of your personal work style and thought processes is something I've been doing to an extent when keeping notes, but it's not analytical or problem solving - It's mostly me bashing myself on what I should be doing better. I'm definitely taking one out of your page in terms of being more productive with thinking out my thought processes haha. And yesss now I understand the need of flow charts.


Your detail only keeps on getting better and better, I know Inktober didn't go according to plan but even your basic WIP initial stages are at a base level that quite frankly with my laziness I'd already be satisfied with and start making comics with haha. Good stuff dude!

Mental Stamina is indeed a hilarious thing. When you're low energy and do nothing it depletes even more before coming back. When you're sort of on the fence doing projects, regardless of whether its related to what you want or not can help motivate you to do more stuff. The common adage applies: Keep on doing stuff and eventually it'll pay off. So weird.

I've definitely been out of it in terms of drawing, music and everything across the board, so I'm taking up regimens again and just getting back to mspaint and doing other stuff until I'm in the zone again. I'm actually, for once in a long time, pretty excited about the next couple of days (and hope I have much to show for it.)


But yes that's me rambling again (and lol 22 steps till a complete piece jeeeez suuper. Legendary)

Looking forward to whatever DIY stuff you make and programming projects hehe

[Suuper-san]

Some of my note taking is reserved for self bashing haha I'm not 100% productive :P
Stuff like "actually focus when drawing guidelines!" is all over my notes :P

22 steps is just for my full pieces mind you, a normal sketch will be like 3 steps or something a lot more manageable :P

Yeah I hit a new peak with my higher level of detail with the Inktober sketches, which in turn made me realise how I don't have a clue what anything looks like all over again. I've sort of got a new plan here and there but a lot of my methods or "tricks" only work at certain levels of quality, and I basically don't have enough time to work through all my different methods so there is so much back burner note taking as to ideas for methods and workflows it's outrageous.

a sketchy manga definitely keeps surfacing in my mind, and probably my first long-term manga project will be a sketchy style to keep the productivity high and get practice in stuff like panelling and action etc.
I'm always trying to find the perfect balance of sketchiness to sharpness in my work so I don't spend hours on it XD

Ah sorry it's not been great for you but looks lie you're turning a corner.
Something I realised on my slump the last month is that it's good to consider worst and best case scenarios, to motivate yourself. The one that stands out to me currently is, "If you have a project you want to do but you don't feel like it, do another project. If you dont feel like doing original sketches, do studies or copies. If you don't feel like that then do line exercises". So instead of doing nothing because I'm not at my best, I do the next best thing that I can manage. And more often than not, I sort of pick up momentum and I start to feel like doing the project that I originally didn't. And you are still training your routine-muscles to know that "this is something that I do regardless of how I feel".
This was the original thought behind my super-unlimited-surge in July or something, but I forgot it and so lost my momentum.

[Suuper-san]

2 weekly report.

Well going back to work in the middle of Covid was a bit stressful to say the least, which definitely contributed to my drop off last month. I've definitely picked up and restabilised at near top level, but I've just been so busy with other family stuff and so on that I've underperformed in the art area.

I have a new work ethic, which is actually the same as the one I had when I peaked a few months ago, but it wasn't defined well enough and so I forgot it.
Basically I put a priority on anything getting done over nothing. So if I dont feel like working on certain things, that's fine, I work on somethings else. And if I dont feel like anything, then I sleep.
Working on a low level project like exercises or random studies and copies helps to build up momentum and often after even just a few minutes I have the drive to tackle larger projects. But if I don't, then I just carry on with my studies.

I have had a couple of nice breakthroughs in the last few weeks though, both very useful in general and specific projects.

Firstly, my coloured sketch style has been upgraded (downgraded?) to be faster and sketchier but still have some sort of quality to it. And it's a straight through project from start to finish, there's no WIPs involved, so it's very fast for generating content.
I use one extra layer for sketching a concept/guidelines, and then I sketch the final drawing.
One layer for colour and one more for shade/highlights.
It's VERY fast at generating sketches already, and I'm now working in bulk ,iterating each stage, still on the first set so I'm not sure if it makes it any faster, but it probably does help somewhere.



Second breakthrough was the development of a "neat sketchy" style. The problem with such a style is that by definition a sketch shouldn't be neat, otherwise it's a lineart, but then it looks too neat, you know? So I was aiming at one level lesss than a lineart, and it was proving a bit difficult to control the quality and speed.
But after a few attempts here and there I figured out the right balance.
Basically I draw the undersketch as detailled as I can at a much lower zoom than my screen, say 50%. I pay attention to the major guidelines and then just sketch as I would with ballpoint. I then ink at a massive zoom, like 200% or more, and move really quickly with a "tracing" movement. This is totally hand/eye coordination at it's finest and probably I wouldnt have been able to do this previously. It's a very fast inking style but because of the massive zoom, the errors are quite small when viewed normally.
Once again I have yet to test this in a proper set of illustrations but I'm hoping that I can maintain the high output.



I also tested the inking style on some random arrtworks that were in my favourites, I think the quality came out good.These are TRACED, so no credit to me, I just wanted to see if my inking quality could handle a complex piece and still look nice.
I'm also somewhat impressed with the time to produce each one, it's comparable to my normal less complex linearts so there is a potential it can be a super fast style, making it a candidate for use in a proper comic.
It required quite a bit of focus to work at a high speed and accuracy at the same time, but it definifely wasn't impossible. With a bit of practice I could get better still. (I hope!)



These days I'm starting to shift from having lots of stages of WIPs, and either doing it all in one go, or having a concept stage and an everything else stage. I will keep up the old method for now because each stage has a very specific purpose, and is good for training my art muscles, but it's not really part of my output as an artist, it's just practice.

I need to have a cleanup and go through my WIPs and basically finish them all off now, as I move forward to my new methods.

I'm also working on upgrading my art program massively to function as a mini-GIMP, but one that I can add exact features to support my methods rather than trying to work with what I can do with GIMP.
I've done a couple of pages planning for it, and I've already upgraded my program to work with brushes of different sizes and colour now. But that's taking a back seat because it's benefits are somewhat low compared to actually getting on with drawing.

I'm not sure if I will colour my Inktober pieces, they've sort of gone into an unknown state now that the event has passed.

Also I am almost definitely sure that I want to be focusing on the concept and sketch levels of my work rather than the polished end, because so far my top level keeps improving when I put no work into it, and so I'd rather work with lots of sketches and ideas to try out all sort of concepts to break the ice with new genres and so on, and then every now and then do a high quality srt of pieces to check I'm going in the right direction.

I'm hoping to have a lot more momentum now moving towards the end of the year, and I'm working on my manga team project as we speak as a semi-main project.

See you all at the end of the month

[Suuper-san]

Just a quick end of month report this time.

The main reason being, that I've been so busy with other stuff I've barely drawn at all, which is super rare for me but there you go. Family stuff and other commitments all coincided in November and reduced my available time and energy.
I was also working an extra day a week during November at work because a colleague was self isolating so my time and energy took a massive hit there, and compounded into the next few days as my entire schedule had to be redone.

I did do something new though. I added a new regime to my unlimited regimes (no specific target number), that of improving figure pose sketches.

I already have a pose concept regime that has generated a couple hundred poses but they are super gritty quality like so:



But really I need to have a solid shot at fixing them up to keep the top end quality in mind, so after a single layer of iteration, here is the result. I would still class these as a pose concept, partly because without context they are rather abstract.



Also I really only work with one generic body type for pose sketches because I'm just thinking of the pose itself, not the body making it.
So I'm hoping to add another project over the top that adds a random body type and more solidly draw the lines, so sort of borderline nude figures I guess haha. I generally avoid it but really I need to practice exact figure drawing otherwise muscles and the more complex body shapes, lines and curves will always elude me.

The other thing I have been doing is trying more tracing, mostly to practice a higher inking skill without having to produce sketches to practice with. Since the main reason I'm after a new inking style is that I need it for the manga I'm working on, I traced some manga pages for the first time ever.

48 minutes:


30 minutes:


At the main core of this inking style is a fine balance of speed and accuracy, as I don't want to spend a massive amount of time producing pages, for this or any project really. But I also can't afford the quality to drop below a certain threshold.

I had a few issues and observations:
-The lineart often contains hatching as a form of texture and/or shading. This is quite difficult to trace. But it made me aware that not all shade is added in the form of screentone/colouring, you can add texture with the lines as well.
-The resolution I was drawing at was higher than the original pages I could get a hold of, so I was working with a somewhat blurry image when zoomed in. I've noticed the same issue with my own WIPs that get upscaled before inking. The moral of the story is, as long as your PC can handle it, work at a higher resolution than a lower one. You can always downsize afterwards and the artwork will become crisper but you can't upscale as it will become blurry. And second to that, work at a resolution that is relevant to how your illustration will be used. If it's a poster, work at a massive resolution, if it's an icon, it can be pretty small. Take dpi (dots per inch) into account.
-Backgrounds and buildings take ages to draw. It's only a sample size of 2, but in the above pages it took an extra 50% time to draw the additional details, mostly in the BG. I always knew this was an issue, and really, I dont intend to drop the level of detail to speed up my work. So I'll just have to learn to work faster and more efficiently.
-Focus level. I found my focus dropping in and out for this and my quality was basically all over the place. Not sure exactly where the problem lies but I'm guessing I was getting distracted with maybe more quality control and thinking instead of just drawing the lines.
-Posture. Bizarrely for all the times I have drawn for hours on end I have never had a real ache, but after each of these my body was totally aching. I'm blaming a couple of things. My posture may have been different to normal as I was using my arm to draw a lot more than my wrist, and my arm was more away from my body to be able to draw longer strokes. Also I think that I might have been leaning in and been more tense than normal because I'm trying for a good line quality, so I need to relax more if I'm going to have a higher output and not ache all the time.
-Panel composition. Although its' just tracing I found myself thinking and analysing the panel composition as I was drawing. I think because you are tracing it's harder to skim over details because you are literally processing each line one at a time. So I noticed a lore more details.
-Content/concept. Sort of same as above. Because it's someone else's work, it's out of my comfort zone so I am getting practice "drawing" things that I wouldn't normally. It also makes me aware of certain elements (such as BG) and how I could draw them closeup and far away, with varying levels of detail. So it's close to an artist study I guess.
-Pen settings. Again because I'm not focusing on creating an idea, I'm more free to think about the brush style and settings and how that affects the final piece. I'm definitely going to play around a lot more to see if I can improve the quality by playing with the brush itself.

I don't think I'll make a 1000 regime out of tracing manga pages, but there is a lot to be learned by doing it, and I'll definitely do it again. Interestingly an apprentice for a proper mangaka will do a lot of inking (i.e. tracing) before actually doing anything of their own, so it's definitely a method that works for gaining skill.
As with everything I'm trying out, I wish I had done it sooner, but there's only so many hours in the day :P
I'd definitely like to do at least 10 of each of my favourite artists, pick out some nice pages to copy etc.

And it's always good for learning quality control and stamina for my own projects.

Hopefully I can have some sort of half decent quality for my own mangas that I produce. I must say I'm getting excited about the potential I could have if I keep working at it.

otherwise that's all for now.
Once the school holiday starts I figure I'll be flooring it with the output again. For being unproductive I feel basically OK so I should be able to kick start as soon as my schedule opens up again.

See you all around later :P

[MK]

Very interesting, did I somehow inspire you with all my figure drawings XD

[Suuper-san]

@MK ahaha quite possibly :P
that's why it's so good being on a forum you can inspire each other!!!

2 week report

Well it has been a crazy turnaround. I am now in the highest drawing state I have ever been in, at least in my digital records. I'll save the statistics for the end of the month for more impact, hopefully. I am keeping a massive track of factors affecting my productivity which I didn't do last peak, so I'm hoping it can be sustained, well, indefinitely.

In fact bizzarely I hardly feel like talking like I normally do. I think because there are no pending problems to solve, it's literally nose-to-the-grindwheel time.

I have however made some nice progress on my manga pages.
These are the random pages I'm doing for practice, not the collab manga I'm doing, which is also going smoothly thanks for asking.

I have finally finished the resolved stage level, so just inking and colouring remaining now for me to work out methods for. Partly I sped up this project because I need to have a standard that I'm aiming at in my collab manga.

Here are all the pages in larger form (random order thanks to imgur). These are 100% random pages from the top of my head, the dialogue is absolutely awful and utterly embarrassing if I'm honest, but feedback is welcome on anything nonetheless.

I think it's quite clear from the dialogue/script that my writing is heavily underskilled compared to my art. After my collab manga (which I am only the artist, not the writer), I will probably crunch my own style crash course writing projects to get myself to some sort of passable standard in writing. Fortunately I don't have to get up to novel quality, I can get by with dry descriptions of places and characters because they will be drawn, not written as a final product.

btw I am aware of the typos, I spammed the speech out to save time because these pages are just practice. In the real version, I would have typed up the script first before even starting on the manga pages, so for now it's a bit out of order.

They took on average exactly 1 hour each to draw, interestingly.

Spoiler

This is a major step towards my current main goal of a weekly manga.
The quality is a way lower threshold than my top ability, but the method up to this level is now standardised and I could churn these out continuously as long as I have the time.

I've probably drawn more male faces in my manga pages in the last week than I have ever drawn in my entire life :P

So I will see you all at the end of the year, hopefully with some good results :P

[BlueJay22]

Wow, these are very impressive. I like how you organized the panels as most of them are easy to follow and flow well. I would probably edit the dialogue, but you are already aware of that aspect of it. I'm glad that you're in your highest drawing state. Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[Suuper-san]

@bluejay22 thanks!
yeah when making a manga there's a lot of aspects that go into the design and script, so there's a lot of different skills to learn :P

End of month report (Possibly to be followed by an end of year report?)

Well, well well. How the turntables.
I don't know what to say.
Although I am somewhat suspicious, I think I can say with confidence that I have cleared one of my massive hurdles, and really one big step towards working as a pro.
I have completely solved the energy and focus issue that I had previously. Like, 100% solved. It's very strange, like a dream.

Here's my productivity graph to give an idea of how bizarre it is.

Spoiler

Like, what?
Not only is it my best month, ever, by an entire hour a day average, but I set so many records it's unbelievable. Top weekly average, set a new record twice in this month. First at 6.5 2 weeks ago, and then again just today, finally passing the 7 hour average bar. Top individual day, previously 9.5 a while back, set a new record at 10 and then another one at 12 entire hours of drawing in one day. I took care to take regular breaks so I'm not even pushing myself madly.

I'm just, completely fine. I'm emotionally fine, my energy is fine, everything's, fine.
In fact I've been so productive in other areas of my life as well, like I am more organised and more productive everywhere.
I was very suspicious about 1 week in because I have previously had good weeks but then it just fizzles out, but this time it's just going on and on. And it's becoming more and more stable.

I am basically permanently in the "zone" now.

I suppose it's the result of many things, but probably majorly my continuous efforts to actually increase my productivity and efficiency, and break down what the zone is to enter it deliberately.

I have written a large amount of personal notes about what factors influence my overall productivity but it boils down to similar to what I said previously:
-Sleep (Gotta catch all those z's)
-Avoiding Negative thoughts (distracting and demotivating)
-Creating positive thoughts (motivating and energising)
-Good schedule (reduces wasted time and good for planning larger projects)
-Having good focus (reducing thinking about other things)
I have managed to put into place a positive cascade system so when I am having a bad day (and yes it still happens) I have an absolute course of action that can pull me out of it very quickly and I can regain my stability again.

But enough about abstract concepts.
I've been hacking away at my art.

A lot of my productivity has been on regimes, check out my Other Art topic for how they are going.

A lot of it lately has been focused on getting my manga in gear for my project.
After more discussion and planning, we are going to work to a 2 weekly release schedule for each chapter. It's going to be hellishly difficult but I'm up for it. Really if I can't do this then I'm mistaken about doing anything bigger on my own. The quality won't be fantastic, because my skills just aren't that great, but it'll get done.
21 chapters in all, so it should be completed near the end of 2021 all things going well.

I've been inking some of my practice pages to get a standard level of lineart going, so far it's alright but could be better. part of the problem is that not only is the concept pretty stale, the dialog not engaging, but the proportions are also pretty poor, because these are the first pages through my system they don't have a fully functional quality control in place (there is now for newer pages)

So here's 2 of my random inked pages so far.
I finished inking the first set of 8 pages, including adding the text. So at this point, the pages are arguably complete, but lack shading and colour (even just black and white)
I found that I was able to force the dialogue to be a bit more palatable even after deciding the speech bubble size and layout. So I'm feeling a bit happier than I did regarding the speech, but still needs work to write at a consistent level.
Overall I'm happy but sooooo much to improve on.

Spoiler

My "finished sketch" level has taken the beating once again and I've adjusted the quality.

I tried to pick two similar sketches to show the difference:

Previous Quality:	New Quality:

Basically I have reduced the line complexity from a pressure sensitive line to a pretty much solid line. This helps me to sketch faster and also to focus on the "core" of the sketch, the absolute main proportions and expressing the idea with as few lines as possible. By using fewer lines the sketch time is reduced, as well as making it actually clearer to see the concept for future development.
However, the sketch time on average has increased by a couple of minutes. The reason being that I have been working with much more fuller ideas with backgrounds and multiple characters interacting, so it has taken longer to draw (but still faster than the older style)

Here are some of my favourites in the last couple of weeks:

Spoiler

I really like the sketches with interaction between characters and I'm hoping to use some of these more interesting sketches to inspire manga pages, or even possibly a one-shot or more.

I have also been able to adjust the original sketch WIPs that I was working with much more than I have in the past. I was previously glued to the original sketch idea, partly because they were very old sketches and I felt the need to keep them the same as the idea originally was, but also partly out of lack of skill. Now when working with sketches I can really play around between iterations and change up the idea massively without any issue. I also feel that I can express a higher range of concepts more freely and also more accurately. I feel a massive amount of freedom.

Here's a before and after animation to show how much I change up the original idea these days.

Spoiler

I've started another regime, another repeat regime, 1000 faces. I'm changing the rules to keep it a challenge as always, I'm doing mixed expressions and adding random clothes as well to the bust. I'm working to an inked quality so these should turn out pretty good.
So far I've done 50/1000.
On average its 8 minutes a face so this regime will take a while too.
I'm hoping this will help to stabilise my manga style for faces and expressions and give me a boost in working out proportions and guideline issues.

Spoiler

Incidentally have a progression GIF of the faces because I really liked how the quality improved with each stage.
As I worked through the rows, I found I was able to speed up quite a bit to about twice the original speed without loss of quality so it really helps to try and work with high quantities to find ways to improve efficiency.

Spoiler

My WIP count has shot through the roof really with all the different concept generating pages that I have done recently. I've got 1000s all over the place :P
One major change I have made in the last 2 weeks is removing my masterpiece WIP projects. These were originally normal sketches that I set aside to process at a higher level than my normal WIP sketches. The issue was that I never "felt like doing it" and so they just sat around for like years doing nothing. So I'm allowing them to filter back into my normal WIPs, for a couple of main reasons:
-To reduce the number of projects I have by combining Standard WIPs and Masterpiece WIPs, making it easier for me to work with all my masses of sketches.
-There is no need to keep them separate as my normal sketching ability has improved enough that I can confidently sketch at a consistent quality, so there is no need to separate ones that I want to do well, because they are all coming out good now.
-I am creating a new Masterpiece project that will take concepts and finish them to a coloured illustration level at my maximum quality. This replaces the "Super Cute" project which resulted in my best 4 pieces ever that I don't stop talking about.

I'm putting around 20-30% of my time into my collaboration manga project, but I also want to keep my own creative spark going, so I'll be attempting to do some one-shots on the side through the year, sooner rather than later. So I'm pushing forward all my writing related projects, and I'll need to create some new writing projects to fill my skill gaps. A couple of writing regimes and some actual "throwaway" projects to get my teeth into.
I'll be working with how to best draft my idea and keep the story manageable as it grows and develops.
And to convert a script into a manga draft.

I don't know if I'll have a separate end of year post looking back, but looking forward into the new year I'm hitting the ground running, for a change. I'm not pulling on the brakes any time soon and I'm really going to just spam productivity.
I'm thinking what with taking on larger projects that 2021 might be the year to finally start doing commissions, or at least gathering a following on social media. I'll start with DeviantArt because I'm already there and see what happens.

But basically I'm massively busy and I'm massively productive. I couldn't be happier about how the year has ended.

Onwards and upwards!!!

I might be only posting once a month now as my projects get larger there's just not much to report on, and as long as my productivity is high then I don't need to reflect as much. This will give me more time to actually work on the project as well. All the same 2 weeks is a massively long amount of time and a lot can happen so we'll see :P

[Suuper-san]

Half monthly report

It's been a bit of a slow start for me despite my massive momentum, juggling other life stuff and sorting thing out.
I'm averaging 5 hours a day so still high but not epic level high.
Also I had an ill patch where I didn't draw for a couple of days at all, laid up in bed. Was dreadful for the artist in me :/

I finished off my first set of random manga pages. I'm probably not aiming for 1000 of these, more 1000 rough layouts, but ideally I still need to get a high number out otherwise it's not realistic to think that I could manage a weekly manga.
There is no shading on this set, that's partly because I wanted to produce an example quality that was easy enough to repeat for the manga project that I'm working on at the moment. But the next sets will have shading because that's good practice. I'll probably try out different types of shading and copy other artist's styles to get a hang of what I'm doing.
So without shading, the total time taken to make a manga page at this consistent quality is 3 hours 9 minutes average. I'm hoping that I will pick up speed as I get used to drawing stuff and also as my style stabilises further, because really I want it to be lower than that. I know it's difficult but I've always liked a good challenge :P
I'm thinking upgrading my workflow will give the best performance improvement, but without my art skill being higher it wont be able to handle it :P

Spoiler

I'm working a lot on resolved sketches at the moment, and this is forcing me to finalise details and proportions, something which I am not too used to. It's very good practice and it's giving me a lot of things to work on, in some ways it's helping to shape my own style. It's also very good practice for my manga pages as this is a necessary step to increase the detail and accuracy level in preparation for inking.
One major difference is that there are backgrounds in quite a few (less than half still but getting there) of the sketches now. This is good practice and it's getting me used to doing proper work outside my comfort zone.
Overall this stage has improved quality and proportions, as well as a lot more detail which I am trying to add, like props and items, as well as BG.
And partly because of the added detail, and also because I putting more effort into this stage rather than just winging it, the time per sketch has gone up massively to 30 minutes. Slightly annoying but since I am putting more time into my art lately it's not really an issue, but I'm hoping it will speed up again soon.

Spoiler

Another skill that has improved is my ability to fix up the concept even at the resolve stage. Part of my masterplan involves cutting out unnecessary steps and so it's good to see that I can adjust sketches at this late stage. Really the issue is that sketches, even at the same level, have a variance of quality, and some are good enough to be resolved straight away and others need improvement first. I dont think this can be helped, some days you just have a good flow or a good idea and that will make the sketch stand on it's own. other times you're tired or whatever and your sketches are more standard and uninteresting.

Here's a before and after GIF to show how a sketch gets improved. Some stay the same, which is just my inability at this point in time to improve it, but others manage to get spruced up which is nice.

Spoiler

I think that's all for now, I've got a bunch of stuff to catch up on and I intend to have this month, and this year, to be a really good and productive one. Still unsure about what direction I want my art to go, like how I will make money off it, but that's something to worry about later.

[legomaestro]

RE: 2 weekly report 15-11-2020

Basically I put a priority on anything getting done over nothing. So if I dont feel like working on certain things, that's fine, I work on somethings else. And if I dont feel like anything, then I sleep.

-I discovered this in a small simple way today - the jump to another project trick. I had that dull almost-headache you have when you're really demotivated to do a regimen you want to do so I jumped to my duolingo app and I did much better and even got a small push of motivation in general.

-I think it's basically a mechanical artificial way of 'flowing' Truly being in the flow means you're zoned out on exactly the same drawing and aren't really thinking but are still focused, but this sort of 'flow' is letting the obstacles be and moving on to something else unrelated but similar so that you still have forward momentum.
And yeah... I'm starting to think embarrasingly enough sleep is a legit way to get back in the game. I go for coffee or wine but that's not sustainable, so I've decided switching tasks and sleep are the way to go.


-Your colour art style is definitely an upgrade dude. It's that deceptive simplification that screws a lot of aspiring manga artists over: It looks simple and appeals to the eyes, but actually behind that is a buttload of work that was done to be able to execute that simplicity. Even a straight line requires a lot of practice (I would know haha). Love number 2's shyness, and going bold there with water effects dude, nice!

Re: second breakthrough

-The second breakthrough is freaking amazing! That IS basically lineart haha but even better that you can churn that out so fast. I'll try to play with zoom and resolution too. Also, gotta love her outfit.


RE: Tracing in general

-Tracing has always been something I defend and will absolutely add to my regimens again. It's really calming and after tracing Bleach pages I got such a fundamental boost in confidence and ego and at the very least understood the distance between my skills and goals. Funny enough, I feel these are not quite the art styles for you. The folds and details of the second image definitely and the expressive kawaii of the first, but not... Quite...

These days I'm starting to shift from having lots of stages of WIPs, and either doing it all in one go, or having a concept stage and an everything else stage. I will keep up the old method for now because each stage has a very specific purpose, and is good for training my art muscles, but it's not really part of my output as an artist, it's just practice.

- I honestly wish I stopped practicing and just went at my projects, but in my current slump and crisis I want to at least have an idea of my workflow in some sense to be able to commit to something. It annoys me but I am a bit too chaotic in my choices.

Also I am almost definitely sure that I want to be focusing on the concept and sketch levels of my work rather than the polished end, because so far my top level keeps improving when I put no work into it, and so I'd rather work with lots of sketches and ideas to try out all sort of concepts to break the ice with new genres and so on, and then every now and then do a high quality srt of pieces to check I'm going in the right direction.

- Sounds like a plaaan
RE: End of month report 01-12-2020

Re: Pose regime and traced manga pages

- Oh I want IN on that pose regime but gaaah I'm on my mannequins. By the way, have you noticed how freeer one is with making poses when you DON'T have a 3d mannequin? I'm trying to improve my 3 dimensional understanding so I'm using a wooden doll at the moment, but it felt so free and fun doing the 1,000 Stick Figures regimen... you can squish and squash them as you like, and even have time to add props like stuff in their hands or background objects.

- And on that note I'm appreciating how filled your drawings are.  Not only has your fashion become super cool, you're having your characters hold more stuff and/or really stand in space and environments. You're levelling dude.

RE: Trace post pics

- HOLY YES. I always did love the backgrounds for Hiro Mashima-senseis' works (Have you read Rave Master by the way? Still my favourite work of his. And I think he's the perfect role model for high output artist with good art)

I had a few issues and observations:

The lineart often contains hatching as a form of texture and/or shading. This is quite difficult to trace. But it made me aware that not all shade is added in the form of screentone/colouring, you can add texture with the lines as well.

-*Ding* *Ding* *Ding* Learnt this quite a bit from Naruto. Although I'm not quite a fan of full black and white fills, his work is detailed and yet so technically easy to work with. Even Kubos' deceptively simple art is harder to emulate because it's like it works with brush-strokes, and even at the highest levels of manga, cross-hatching done right looks so much better than the most 3d looking textures in my opinion.

-The resolution I was drawing at was higher than the original pages I could get a hold of, so I was working with a somewhat blurry image when zoomed in. I've noticed the same issue with my own WIPs that get upscaled before inking. The moral of the story is, as long as your PC can handle it, work at a higher resolution than a lower one. You can always downsize afterwards and the artwork will become crisper but you can't upscale as it will become blurry. And second to that, work at a resolution that is relevant to how your illustration will be used. If it's a poster, work at a massive resolution, if it's an icon, it can be pretty small. Take dpi (dots per inch) into account.

-Word

Backgrounds and buildings take ages to draw. It's only a sample size of 2, but in the above pages it took an extra 50% time to draw the additional details, mostly in the BG. I always knew this was an issue, and really, I dont intend to drop the level of detail to speed up my work. So I'll just have to learn to work faster and more efficiently.

-It's ridiculous how long it takes to draw, but also very informative. This is where tracing helped me out a lot. You not only learn to respect the amount of effort required in making a background but have a realistic estimate of any future illustrations or comics you want to make.

Focus level. I found my focus dropping in and out for this and my quality was basically all over the place. Not sure exactly where the problem lies but I'm guessing I was getting distracted with maybe more quality control and thinking instead of just drawing the lines.

-The bane of every artist

Posture. Bizarrely for all the times I have drawn for hours on end I have never had a real ache, but after each of these my body was totally aching. I'm blaming a couple of things. My posture may have been different to normal as I was using my arm to draw a lot more than my wrist, and my arm was more away from my body to be able to draw longer strokes. Also I think that I might have been leaning in and been more tense than normal because I'm trying for a good line quality, so I need to relax more if I'm going to have a higher output and not ache all the time.

I'm learning guitar a lot more these days and my idols warn me a lot about how bad back pain can get you when you practice too long. I also have a few other bad habits, so in general in every discipline it's real important to get the annoying important mechanical posture tips out of the way before you really start (and as a benefit, things are much more effecient)

Panel composition. Although its' just tracing I found myself thinking and analysing the panel composition as I was drawing. I think because you are tracing it's harder to skim over details because you are literally processing each line one at a time. So I noticed a lore more details.

-I'm out of pratice but I have a healthy understanding that 6 panels is the optimal 'medium' pace. 3 is action packed. '7' is also, funny enough, action packed. It's just my thinking of panels but yeah I have a sort of feel for the rythm of panels from tracing pro mangas.

Content/concept. Sort of same as above. Because it's someone else's work, it's out of my comfort zone so I am getting practice "drawing" things that I wouldn't normally. It also makes me aware of certain elements (such as BG) and how I could draw them closeup and far away, with varying levels of detail. So it's close to an artist study I guess.

-Exactamondo. The simple fact that you can figure out which brush and pressure sensitivity works best to make you follow the original lines as much as possible without having to switch them is already a big lesson.


RE: 2 Week Report 16-12-2020

Well it has been a crazy turnaround. I am now in the highest drawing state I have ever been in, at least in my digital records. I'll save the statistics for the end of the month for more impact, hopefully. I am keeping a massive track of factors affecting my productivity which I didn't do last peak, so I'm hoping it can be sustained, well, indefinitely.

- Wooooot

RE: EPIC COLLECTION OF MANGA SHORTS

Dude, suuper! You say this is a way lower threshold than your top ability? Even more mindblowing! Holy freaking wowwwwwwwwww I wish I could draw like this. Like literally this would be an achieved life goal of mine to have this level of comicking (Is that a word?)

You understand the manga tics from the panelling, the camera angles to the gags (time travelling students, cleaning gal, mangaka and the romantic bump are my favourites btw) to the expressions to the clothing. Honestly, if you just put a contrast filter and turned it to full black I'd already post it as a full comic and claim it's my 'sketchy style' haha.

Man I definitely haven't paid attention to your progress in a while haha. I'm super jealous and want to reach these heights. Keep at whatever you've learnt the past couple of months dude because they've definitely helped hehe.


RE: End of month report 31-12-2021

Well, well well. How the turntables.
I don't know what to say.
Although I am somewhat suspicious, I think I can say with confidence that I have cleared one of my massive hurdles, and really one big step towards working as a pro.
I have completely solved the energy and focus issue that I had previously. Like, 100% solved. It's very strange, like a dream.

- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. Okay I definitely need to graph my life in general.  I shalt use this as an excuse to celebrate. Serious, objective, tanglible proof that your hard work has paid off: Awesome. Proud of you, suuper.

I'm just, completely fine. I'm emotionally fine, my energy is fine, everything's, fine.
In fact I've been so productive in other areas of my life as well, like I am more organised and more productive everywhere.
I was very suspicious about 1 week in because I have previously had good weeks but then it just fizzles out, but this time it's just going on and on. And it's becoming more and more stable.

I am basically permanently in the "zone" now.

- Hell yes man

Sleep (Gotta catch all those z's)

-As mentioned above in my new discoveries: True, too true

Avoiding Negative thoughts (distracting and demotivating)

-This is at the moment impossibru - But with artificial flow and/or sleeping I can perhaps circumnavigate that

Creating positive thoughts (motivating and energising)

-Total amateur at this but truth.

Good schedule (reduces wasted time and good for planning larger projects)

-THIS is one of my golden grails. If I could seriously have at least the semblance of a statistical system for my art habits I'd at least know how much I've drawn between one day and the next. It's soooo useful to see the hard numbers of your efforts: As your brilliant graph has so clearly shown.

Having good focus (reducing thinking about other things)
My focus died the moment my friend introduced me to the concept of 'tabs'. But yes, truth.

I have managed to put into place a positive cascade system so when I am having a bad day (and yes it still happens) I have an absolute course of action that can pull me out of it very quickly and I can regain my stability again.

-Teach meeeeeeeeeeee. (Except I suspect it's something that only really works for you personally. And I want to find my own in the end.)



RE: YOU FINALLY INKING THE PAGES I WAS ALREADY BLOWN AWAY BY

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE

-Yes. Just yes.

-Oh wait, the time travelling story had nothing to do with the student selection hahaha. Botched that one up.
The line art is sooo good dude. Awesome work ethic.

My "finished sketch" level has taken the beating once again and I've adjusted the quality.

-I sort of feel the gesture has been lost? I appreciate the simplicity but the cross-leg and slight look up into the viewers' eye feel is a bit lost methinks? But if it's faster it makes sense for sure and in the end seeing your previous work you already definitely have a sense for how a finished work can look even better even pose-wise, so niice.

RE: Last couple of weeks

-You've added not only backgrounds, held- objects but also other characters and them interacting with eachother. And judging from the numbers in record time too. Dude. Hooowwwww hahaha.

My favs are

-Twin-bed twins in Twin-bed gals

-Elf gal

-slumber party gals

-Gal tripping on teddybear-gal

- Reading book gal

- (Nuuuu whyyyy is she crying on the phooone)

- Triumphant long hair gal

- Terrified waiter and big appetite gal

- Mirror girl seriously deserves some recommendation. This alone deserves as much props as the level up in your sequential art. You've mixed all aspects from dimensionality, expression, storytelling and kawaii in one image. NICE.

- Accepting sleeping-classmate-gal

- Water gal

-  Shibari gal. She is my favourite. No I feel sorry for her. Ahem too smexy. But noo. But yeessss. But nooooo. But yessssssssssssssss. ((This comment will delete itself in 24 hours))


Very nice. Very nice.

Here's a before and after animation to show how much I change up the original idea these days.

- Dude yesssss. This means you can definitely go hard core on simplification of sketches, because your sense for a final product has improved that much. Means less time spent on WIP stage, means same result with awesome finish. Gaaaaah The first batch alone, the top three are sooo cool in their level ups. Duuuuude how much have you been drawing haha.

I've started another regime, another repeat regime, 1000 faces. I'm changing the rules to keep it a challenge as always, I'm doing mixed expressions and adding random clothes as well to the bust. I'm working to an inked quality so these should turn out pretty good.

- Yesss, join the dark side. Nice that you're working at different expressions too. Like the punky one bottom-rightish especially. She looks so haughty

RE: GIF Improvement for Faces Regimen

Holy cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese.

I love the twin-tails and Top buns and the expressions sell all of their hairstyles for some reason haha. These progression GIFs are so cool to see I swear I'll never tire of them.

One major change I have made in the last 2 weeks is removing my masterpiece WIP projects. These were originally normal sketches that I set aside to process at a higher level than my normal WIP sketches. The issue was that I never "felt like doing it" and so they just sat around for like years doing nothing. So I'm allowing them to filter back into my normal WIPs, for a couple of main reasons:

To reduce the number of projects I have by combining Standard WIPs and Masterpiece WIPs, making it easier for me to work with all my masses of sketches.

There is no need to keep them separate as my normal sketching ability has improved enough that I can confidently sketch at a consistent quality, so there is no need to separate ones that I want to do well, because they are all coming out good now.

I am creating a new Masterpiece project that will take concepts and finish them to a coloured illustration level at my maximum quality. This replaces the "Super Cute" project which resulted in my best 4 pieces ever that I don't stop talking about.

I'm putting around 20-30% of my time into my collaboration manga project, but I also want to keep my own creative spark going, so I'll be attempting to do some one-shots on the side through the year, sooner rather than later. So I'm pushing forward all my writing related projects, and I'll need to create some new writing projects to fill my skill gaps. A couple of writing regimes and some actual "throwaway" projects to get my teeth into.
I'll be working with how to best draft my idea and keep the story manageable as it grows and develops.
And to convert a script into a manga draft.

I don't know if I'll have a separate end of year post looking back, but looking forward into the new year I'm hitting the ground running, for a change. I'm not pulling on the brakes any time soon and I'm really going to just spam productivity.[/quote]

I like the sound of that. Overall it sounds like ther'll alwas be a complicated shifting of priorities to achieve your main projects, but I feel you've significantly reduced the amount of micro-decisions that you have to make for certain things. You've sort of 'risen above' certain considerations and now you have even more brainspace to tackle your time-consuming projects. The need for patience and quality is still there, but you've shed some scales for sure (IMO A LOT of scales) I need to reach this state.

I'm thinking what with taking on larger projects that 2021 might be the year to finally start doing commissions, or at least gathering a following on social media. I'll start with DeviantArt because I'm already there and see what happens.

But basically I'm massively busy and I'm massively productive. I couldn't be happier about how the year has ended.

Onwards and upwards!!!

- Yes. Definitely do this. Without even drawing a new illustration, posting your progress GIFs and explaining how you've personally levelled up as an artist in a long form text with images will at least gaurantee you a buncha likes, an opportunity for collaboration and a couple of subscribers. You've made a portfolio with your work-ethic suuper. Of course you'd need to package it to sell your audience but you cold from zero, stone cold without any new content gain at least a buffer following by saying 'Hey, I'm suuper and this is my journey as an artist.'

-Look up SrGrafo by the way. Awesome diligent artist dude (RPed in his universe) and you totally remind me of him in terms of presence at least on reddit.

-Basically whenever you're comforteable with it totally bite the bullet and go for making a social media prescence and stuff (I mean, your YT is already promising enough dude hehe)

I might be only posting once a month now as my projects get larger there's just not much to report on, and as long as my productivity is high then I don't need to reflect as much. This will give me more time to actually work on the project as well. All the same 2 weeks is a massively long amount of time and a lot can happen so we'll see :P

- Sounds like a plan.


Re: Half-monthly report 15-01-2021

Wow...


Wow....


Wow...

YOU IMPROVED THE IMPROVED hahahahahaha. This has been an interesting chain of events. Daaaamn it's amazing how much tones add to a work. Iteration for the win. Sorry for the slump but I am absolutely blown away by the progress you've maded due.

I'm working a lot on resolved sketches at the moment, and this is forcing me to finalise details and proportions, something which I am not too used to. It's very good practice and it's giving me a lot of things to work on, in some ways it's helping to shape my own style. It's also very good practice for my manga pages as this is a necessary step to increase the detail and accuracy level in preparation for inking.

- Nice, nice. And damn that's a large amount of time addition, but knowing how you'll go these images will turn out quite awesome (They're already by my standards awesome but yeah you do you hehe. Can't wait to see the other iterations)

And GIFs make the world go round. Please keep on posting them. They're humbling as heck, but super encouraging because between beginning and final product I see a lot of liberal changes that I'm too scared to make normally and the fact that you even show how long it takes you makes it a realizeable effort that I totally want to emulate.

-I think I've said enough in between the comments so in general: HOLY YESSSSS SUUPER-SAN TEACH ME HOW TO DRAW LIKE YOU

-ahem

-Props dude. Keep at it.

[KatDeMilo]

Good read here xD nothing to add just attentive haha!