Day 5: “Through Heaven’s Eyes” from Prince of Egypt.
There’s going to be a bonfire at the end of Dragonrider’s Dance, so I tried to find the scene from Prince of Egypt. Another spectacular work of art. The screenshot is different from the one I actually ended up using because I was using the higher resolution Amazon movie, but they don’t let you take screenshots, so, here it is.
Dangit… forgot to draw the rocks in the fire pit. Oh well.
Thanks everyone for joining me today! If you would like to take part in this challenge, please put a link in the comments so I can see your progress! Please read my comic, Dragonrider’s Dance on dragonridersdance.com or Webtoon Canvas! It’s an exciting fantasy/fairytale/action comic about a world where dragons are all female and disguise themselves as princesses!
Welp! Today’s my first day at my new day job, so I don’t have a lot of time. BUT! It’s Swan Princess Again!
Here’s the Reference:
Here’s my version:
If you want to see yesterday’s artwork, click here! See you tomorrow!
Thanks everyone for joining me today! If you would like to take part in this challenge, please put a link in the comments so I can see your progress! Please read my comic, Dragonrider’s Dance on dragonridersdance.com or Webtoon Canvas! It’s an exciting fantasy/fairytale/action comic about a world where dragons are all female and disguise themselves as princesses!
For this challenge, I decided to do a scene from the movie, Swan Princess. I found that starting with a house was probably not the best way to go. It was better to start with more simple, organic landscapes before moving on to things like houses and castles. That being said, I like this image because it has a stone bridge.
Another added challenge is there’s a birds-eye perspective view being used here.
Eh… more green than blue, but I’m okay with it!
Turns out, using brown as the underpainting worked. The painting I did here feels much more organic than yesterday’s. That being said, the bridge does look more silver than “stone”… this might be a limitation of the medium, but I’ll look into seeing how to create more organic stone features.
I think I might start using the eyedropper on the references more. I’ve noticed that I’ll “think” I have the right color, but seeing them side by side like that,
Actually, just for the heck of it, I put a saturated royal blue multiply filter on the image and now it looks closer.
I generally don’t like to go too dark. I learned that oftentimes, printers aren’t able to see really dark colors and will just print black or an ugly muddy color where you don’t want it. The goal here is to make as close of a copy as possible, not take it to the printers.
Another thing I noticed is the proportions are all wrong. Back in art class, we would need to use a canvas that is basically the same proportions as the reference. I’ll probably end up doing that.
Thoughts for tomorrow’s challenge:
Use the same dimensions as the reference. Feels like a no-brainer, but I was really reminded by how important it is to do that. I wasn’t able to draw EVERYTHING I wanted. The proportions ended up being kind of weird too. I was worried my version felt more claustrophobic than the reference.
Draw some breakdown lines over the reference. The bridge in my version is much bigger compaired to the reference, so I’ll draw some constructive lines over the reference to help get a better feel before drawing on the actual image
Ruins, stone bridges, and buildings that have an organic look are a great place to start.
Use the eye dropper tool on the reference to make sure you’re getting the right colors. That being said, only use it to “check your work”, don’t just take the eyedropper tool and use it in your art. You won’t be able to understand why the colors are like that when you move on to doing your own work, which is the whole point of this excercise.
Don’t be afraid to seek out critique. With these, I finally did the unthinkable: ask the internet for criticism. I posted this art and the reference on a private Digital Art Facebook group. They’re known for not holding back, but their critiques are always helpful with the exception of the occasional troll. I’ll let you know how that goes if I get any hits. I might do a post later down the road on how to deal with trolls… thankfully, I never deal with them, so I don’t know if I’m qualified…
Thanks everyone for joining me today! If you would like to take part in this challenge, please put a link in the comments so I can see your progress! Please read my comic, Dragonrider’s Dance on dragonridersdance.com or Webtoon Canvas! It’s an exciting fantasy/fairytale/action comic about a world where dragons are all female and disguise themselves as princesses!
30 Fantasy Backgrounds for 30 minutes for 30 days!
I’m using classic Disney movies as a point of reference because I really think Disney captures that fairy tale/fantasy world that I want to translate over to Dragonrider’s Dance.
In a classical art education, they have you try to copy “Old Master” paintings so that you can see exactly what they did to achieve that result.
From there, you can build on it from there instead of always floundering, having the picture perfect in your mind, only to get frustrated when the artwork doesn’t look at all how it does in your mind.
Now that I’ve written that, I think the next step after observing backgrounds from movies that inspired me, the next step would be to find who THEY might have studied and copy a few of those paintings…
Day 2: The Forest Scene from Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty”
Reference: Disney’s Sleeping Beauty
Nailed it! No really, I’m much happier with this than yesterday’s
What Have We Learned?
Use more earth-toned washes/underpainting. I tried painting it in mostly black and white first, then moving on to purples, greens, and more greys when necessary (because those are the colors I “saw”). Looking at the reference and my work more closely though, I see mine is much more saturated and the “grey” is more prominant whereas in the reference it’s more subtle.
When using “stamp” brushes, use at least 3 different kinds. I decided to take a digital shortcut and for the leaves in the foreground, I used the Decoration tool in Clip Studio Paint rather than handpainting them myself. I’ve always had mixed results because I feel like they’re so front and center against the painted look of everything else. I tried using 2 and varying the sizes and I feel like this looks much more natural. It makes sense too, because in nature, we don’t see one type of leaf everywhere, there’s many different sizes and shapes.
In the background, don’t start by painting individual trees, have something that looks like this:
This is what the first layer in the background kind of looks like, basically, I just took the round brush with a lower opacity and just layered brush strokes on top of eachother, it looks more like a real forest, not to mention takes much less than time, than trying to paint each indiviudal tree.
4. When painting individual plants, start with the leaves, then do a much more low-opacity stem.
Just a handy little trick. Actually, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to draw a couple little grasses then save them as brushes for future projects, but yeah, my first instinct was to draw a thick stem and draw the leaves on it, but it looked really weird. Doing it the opposite way though- I was much happier with the result.
5. The Mask Tool is Your Friend
On this guy, I painted a black tree in the foreground, then using the mask tool and eyedropper, I took a lighter color from the image and painted the bark. Because it’s a mask, it wasn’t going to move off the tree layer.
What I’m going to try doing tomorrow
First off, definitely doing a dark brown underpainting instead of black and white. See if that has a more natural results
Look at Clip Studio Paint’s library and see if I can find more leaf brushes
Thanks everyone for joining me today! If you would like to take part in this challenge, please put a link in the comments so I can see your progress! Please read my comic, Dragonrider’s Dance on dragonridersdance.com or Webtoon Canvas! It’s an exciting fantasy/fairytale/action comic about a world where dragons are all female and disguise themselves as princesses!
I never liked painting landscapes or buildings. It just was never interesting to me. I prefer to go out in nature and STAND in it, maybe draw some cool little details in the land like leaves, rocks, and whatnot, but no, I never really liked painting landscapes and the few times I was inspired to make one, I was never happy with how it turned out.
That all changed when I started seriously working on Dragonrider’s Dance.
30 Backgrounds in 30 days for 30 minutes!
Why It’s Important To Be Good At Backgrounds
I wanted my characters to have beautiful places to stand in, so I spent some time working on landscapes, even having some panels that are just looking at different parts of the environment, no dialogue, nothing, just giving readers the chance to take a breath and enjoy the scenery.
There’s also the obvious, like if you want a career in the arts, it’s good to have some impressive backgrounds in your portfolio, but really, I think it’s part of the experience of giving your audience the escapism they so desperately need. A beautiful place with gorgeous waterfalls, ancient ruins, even sentient trees are an important part of the experience. I’m providing a link to a YouTube video that talks about Miyazaki’s films and how he captures that feeling perfectly.
Why 30 Minutes?
Obviously, the backgrounds I’ll be using for reference took the artists longer than 30 minutes, but just for our purposes, forcing yourself to paint the most important details in a limited amount of time does several things. The goal isn’t to make 30 portfolio masterpieces, it’s only to improve at a specific skill. In this case, Fantasy Landscapes and Environments.
Helps you learn how to make deadlines better
It’s a good way of taking note where you might be struggling, then moving on and applying those lessons to the next day.
It’s a good warmup excercise in the morning, if you’re spending 30 minutes making essentially practice art that you don’t care if it looks like a masterpiece just as long as it looks better than yesterday, then it’s a good way to before moving on with other art things you’re working on.
If you’re doing this for a comic or animation, fortunately, people are only looking at the scene for just a few seconds anyway, by learning how to draw the most important, obvious things first, you can better achieve that experience without wasting so much time getting hung up on things that people aren’t going to notice anyway.
It will help you better not compare yourself to others, but to who you were yesterday.
Day 1: The Landscape/Cottage From Beauty and the Beast
Reference:
ArtNailed it!
What I Learned:
Well first off, I learned that I forgot how to do basic art. But that’s okay, this is Day 1 and I was just experimenting and painting what I saw.
Don’t paint background details first. I got too hung up on the house first. I started with making a white shape, then trying to block in the roof, the door, basically the details, but none of the rest of the landscape was getting done. Basically, I was trying to frost the cake before it was even baked.
Paint the buildings last. When painting mostly nature scenes with a cottage or some kind of man-made building, spend 5 minutes painting the nature first, the big blocky bits of color, the leaves before the trunks, etc. Essentially, start big and get smaller.
Have a very simple color pallet. 5 Colors or less. I did notice the trunks of the trees were very similar in color to the roof.
Just paint with normal brushes. There are so many tools when painting digital art. My mistake was using the lasso tool to get that more inorganic, building look, but it looks really weird.
Paint the whole thing in black and white first. Or brown and white… I mind end up trying that tomorrow. Notice how the volume in my example is very weird. It’s best to get the shadow and lighting and shadow down first before moving on to color.
For Day 2, Click here!
Thanks everyone for joining me today! If you would like to take part in this challenge, please put a link in the comments so I can see your progress! Please read my comic, Dragonrider’s Dance on dragonridersdance.com or Webtoon Canvas! It’s an exciting fantasy/fairytale/action comic about a world where dragons are all female and disguise themselves as princesses!
I just realized I haven’t made a post about the hiatus!
When I made Dragonrider’s Dance- I all but promised myself I would never take a hiatus. Basically, this story is just too important to me to take breaks willy nilly and I didn’t see it as being fair to readers either. You’re going along, enjoying this comic, then suddenly, you come to find out the story you’ve been enjoying is now stopped.
We’re all human, so if the writer/artist needs to take a break for whatever reason, that’s perfectly fine. It’s just in my case, I’m a very deadline-oriented person, and if I don’t meet said deadlines, it’s very hard for me to get back on track again. I just knew that if I gave myself a break without a clear plan on coming back, I’d either never get back into it, or make a habit of doing it.
But, as Briallen ranted, I ended up getting a very huge commission! Literally struck gold, somebody found me on my Instagram and wanted to commission me to make what’s about a 20-page comic book. I can’t really talk about it all that much, but that’s basically what happened. I want to put my best work into this commission, so that’s why I’m putting DRD on hiatus. BUT I do have a deadline, and we will be back the second that deadline comes.
For the record, I do have the next two pages done! (I was still working on it, just a bit more slowly), so you’ll definitely have something to read when we get back!
No, I’m not getting it printed just yet. (I wish!), but I made this digital painting of Ari and Matthias yesterday and I wanted to share it with you!
There’s lots of things I like about this piece. I love the way their faces look, I love the SFX, the ink work. I want to draw this again in a year or two and see if there’s a huge improvement.
I’ve Been Brainstorming the Webcomic for Well Over a Decade
Dragonrider’s Dance started long before I started posting it as a webcomic. When I was 13 or 14, I started getting intro to Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, and Eragon all at once. I enjoyed reading my dad’s Dragon magazines- especially for the art. I went through a bit of a dragon phase where I wanted to draw dragons all the time. When reading through the lore on dragons I was excited to learn that dragons- especially the silver ones- turned into humans, elves, etc.
That was where I got the idea for Ari- she originally was just me as a dragon (that was also how I learned what a Mary Sue was).
I made the dragon rider, Matthias, almost immediately after. He was like my perfect guy- which was a tall, chill, blonde introvert who liked to read and had some competency with weapons.
The first-ever comic I remember was Ari asking Matthias if their dragon/rider bond was basically the same as getting married- to which Matthias looked it up in a book and thought, somewhat panicking “How long do I wait to tell her she’s right?” I showed it to my parents, and they thought it was very funny, which encouraged me to make more.
They were these cute slice-of-life comics about these two characters living in a dragon lair behind a waterfall- which I based off Silver Falls- a place where my family hiked very frequently that summer. If anything, that hiking spot really inspired me.
The comic (not then a webcomic) consisted frequently of Matthias coming up with inventive ways of getting Ari out of bed (she was a heavy sleeper and not a morning person). Ari would always ask him questions regarding dragons, which he would try to look up and find out. They also would occasionally get visited by Dragonslayers of the North- who at the time were just bumbling morons that fell into traps.
At the time, I felt I was being called to married life when I grew up, so I think a lot of the comic was was me imagining what that would be like with fantastical elements. Weirdly enough, even back then, the romance genre was of no interest to me (which I partly thank my mom for her comical way of pointing out how they build up unrealistic expectations), and I was too much of a prude to draw any scenes that were even remotely romantic. So, their relationship dynamic was more like a roommate situation.
I Never “Outgrew” Ari and Matthias
I’ve made lots of characters, written lots of stories, but there was something about those two that really stuck. I never outgrew Ari and Matthias like I’ve outgrown most of my other OCs.
I tried writing the story again in 2017… AND HATED IT!
Four years ago, I felt inspired to bring Ari and Matthias back to life and have an actual comic! But I kept running in problems. Finally, I decided to shelve the whole thing. Mostly because at the time, I was really close to graduating school, working mostly full time at my retail job, doing art conservation internships, and getting ready to move to Florence for a year. I had no time to run a webcomic, but I was in the process of making thumbnails. They’re on Patreon still.
However, I ended up with a story I wasn’t really excited about. I tried to make Ari and Matthias “gritty and edgy” I guess. Matthias was pretty much the same. I also tried to make Ari more cold and aloof, having been centuries older and more of a mentor character than a partner.
I was also trying to avoid fantasy tropes and cliches at all costs.
I would come up with an idea, realize it wasn’t original, and I was bombarded by messages that many fantasy tropes were “toxic” or “harmful”, even though I didn’t agree with it.
Your brain has a funny way of being ruined by something you hear over and over.
I think it was being corrupted by the politics which was ruining everything creatively during that year.
Why would a a female dragon fall in love with a human?
I was also having trouble justifying why a dragon would fall in love with a human. Especially in a world where dragonslayers existed and actively hunted them- one justification I had was maybe male dragons were just too aggressive and cruel, but I really didn’t like that at all, and it made me not like Matthias either. Was it that Ari liked him because she could easily control him and he was non-threatening?
I just wasn’t buying it. I could never commit to a story I couldn’t believe.
Maybe someone else could have written that story in a compelling way. Just not me.
So, for the time being anyway, I shelved the project. Moved to Florence, came back, got married to my then-boyfriend of 3 years, and started working as an administrator of my old university, then as a project coordinator at an art gallery (both jobs I hated).
Only, the story wasn’t shelved. It was simmering.
Came Back With a Vengeance and is Now a Fantasy Webcomic
I thought of the perfect villain- a man who in his youth was the Chosen One. Only as he grew older, he wasn’t willing to become a mentor like Gandalf or Obi Wan, but instead sabotage the younger up and coming dragonslayers. He demanded everyone knows HE was the Chosen Hero.
A man who his whole life was told he was special and he was going to rid the world of evil once and for all, only to faced with the terror of being forgotten- jealous of anyone who may take his place (like the Evil Queen and Fallen Hero tropes put together).
And I thought, “He would be the perfect villain for Ari and Matthias!”
I had to get the comic going, even if I didn’t have the perfect story yet, I was going to create it even if it was bad.
The origin story was running a bit long. I’m planning on writing a second blog post about the technical parts of drawing a webcomic. How I stayed motivated, how I improved my art, etc. So, please join me next time! Until then, please read Dragonrider’s Dance for free! $5 Patrons get early access!
I don’t think we need to look further than the high sales of Fifty Shades of Grey and it’s many many MANY clones to know that readers just like bad boys (and if internet crybabies are to be believed, the girls they like always go after jerks, I guess). I like to think we’re smart enough to know that these are just fantasies, and of course you wouldn’t really want a partner like that in the books, but I think simply shouting “Don’t write books that glorify abuse!” isn’t going to stop writers from writing these stories and readers from reading them.
Now, I’m not condoning this, and my goal for this story is to feature a healthy, happy relationship, but I think it’s important to understand WHY readers might be attracted to books with very bad implications rather than lecture about why these are bad lessons. People are not dumb. They know it’s just a fantasy. It’s a guilty pleasure. The end.
Caveman Logic
Sometimes when people confuse me, I like to think of the stuff they do through a “caveman” perspective. Why would a cavegirl want a caveboy like this? Well, it’s because there’s big scary beasts and bad cavemen out there that want to eat you and your babies. Cavegirl wants someone who will fight off these monsters, and have babies that will grow up strong enough to survive said scary beasts. Nothing wrong with that.
I guess you could argue that bad cavemen just club cavewomen in the head and haul them away, but we have more evidence of art created by cavemen than clubs and skull fractures. Plus, my eyes tend to roll back into my brain whenever I hear someone try to say that women have always been weak and pathetic victims throughout history.
Bad Boys vs. Heroes
But then, I have to wonder: Wait… do we REALLY want bad boys? Or do we want heroes?
Heroes historically have been painted and sculpted as masculine, tough, competent fighters and warriors- but also have a sense of tenderness and kindness when they’re not out punching bad guys. When I was living in Italy, I remember seeing this statue (Silenus holding Dionysos), and this is, without a doubt, a very masculine, ideal man lovingly and gently holding a little baby.
Even so, there’s a feeling that if you were a real bastard looking for a fight, you would probably give this guy a pass because he will punch you into the ground- and give you bonus punches simply out of the principle of as a father figure protecting his child.
Chad Dad, if you will
Or a more modern example:
This made me smile
I think this is why you guys really seem to like my orc character, Allan, he’s prone to fits of rage, but a loving husband and a doting father- and a good mentor to the protagonist.
And I think, when it comes right down to it, that’s what we really want. I think lots of young women are growing up with daddy issues and romanticize about “fixing” a terrible man into a good one, but what we really want is a strong, confident, capable man AND someone who treats us well- it shouldn’t have to be one or the other.
Ha! I did it! I wrote my half baked opinion on masculine men without saying the word, “toxic masculinity!”… dammit.
DISCLAIMER: I am not recommending Hate Marketing as a means to advertise your creative works! In fact, please don’t! If enough people read your story, there will be at least ONE psychopath who will spread lies and interpret the worst possible message. They don’t need help from you! Just, if anything, I hope you will read this, get some mild dark humor, and then not be afraid of posting your creative works on the internet because of said psychopaths.
I have a new policy for myself: if I truly believe something is problematic/immoral/harmful/etc – I’m not gonna talk about it!
I’m not gonna go on social media about it!
If I MUST, I hope I will have the wisdom to get my facts right, to ask people with different opinions than I do, and try to be as nonbiased as possible.
Because the best way to advertise something….
is to talk about how evil and terrible it is!
Or… as I’m calling it, Hate Marketing.
What is Hate Marketing?
The people who agree with you will flock to the site, boosting its traffic, and leaving hateful comments, which will tell Google “Huh! Lots of people are talking about this site, which means it must be of high authority! Let’s put it in front of MORE people!”
Then of course, people who think you’re an alarmist moron, will gladly dump their money on whatever medium you’re trying to keep people away from (seriously, I think we’ve been so afraid of political correctness for so long, that the “Fuck You Factor” is INCREDIBLY strong right now!).
So, this is my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory: I remember when every news outlet panned The Joker with Joachim Pheonix before it even hit theaters… the same news outlets owned by Time Warner (Did you know Time Warner is trying to cell CNN right now? Crazy, right?)… which also owns DC… which made this movie…what?
So… the conspiracy theorist in me couldn’t help but wonder if Time Warner did this on purpose… that they know their news outlets are a joke. They knew people would share it out of fear of the film. and hate for the alarmist news outlets.
…or maybe I’m giving these guys too much credit and the news outlets were really all just pearl-clutching Karens and their managers just didn’t give a crap anymore.
Either way, the news outlets get lots of clicks! Joker made, literally $1.074 billion in the box office! Most of us got to see a great work of art!
Yeah, everybody wins! Not ethically, not morally, but who cares?
There’s other examples that I’ve noticed recently (a certain author who wrote a beloved children’s classic about a boy who attended a wizard school for example).
What Can We Learn from Hate Marketing?
I think there’s a dark humor to all of this. It shows we’re easily manipulated. How much the side of us that commands fear and hatred is more powerful than “Hey this is great!”
Then of course (shameless plug incoming), this made me think of my own story. What if people don’t like it? WORSE! They hate it so much that they send an army of bullies and psychos after me? As it’s easy to do with Twitter?
Well, that’s the thing about putting your art on the internet, it’s up there for everyone to see… and for everyone to criticize, and you can’t manage peoples’ expectations.
Well… I’m sad to say… this doesn’t bother me anymore. Like the old saying goes, “All press is good press.”
That being said, don’t worry, Dragonrider’s Dance isn’t going to have a story element with the latest controversy that second, people are good at coming up with their controversies as it is.
We had clickbait…. we had “You won’t believe…”, now we have “Hate Marketing.”
