[Astrid]

I started an account here back in the day...jesus, now five years ago??? Anyway, it was a blast, but I hadn't the motivation or discipline to pursue competitive comic book drawing. Today, I have a boring 9-5 job and I never draw anymore because I have absolutely no creative goals, apparently. I've hit a wall, or I've been consumed by the monotonous, typical American lifestyle. I'd like to not be like that. So in my pursuit of inspiration, I've arrived here again, and with one of my newest brain babies, Astrid B. Parker.



Essentially, she's a kind of android- except that she was originally human. Without going into too much detail, inside she's nothing but a metal skeleton and some necessary, ticking organs which pump a kind of specialized chemical which keeps her-- well, whatever you call "alive" in this case. She rather enjoys being this way, with nothing more than the markings of her synthetic skin and robot hands to reveal otherwise, and given her case, she's able to change most of her image (hairdos are regularly being swapped out with new scalps and piercings tend to appear and disappear). Her attitude is a relatable to oh, say, Deadpool, with a touch of raging bisexuality. Though the likelihood the woman has any mental stability worth befriending let alone attempting a monogamous relationship is laughable.

Though not entirely necessary given her metal-bodied strength, she carries a pair of long knives sheathed against her arms; this is most likely for affect- if you couldn't tell already, Astrid is rather fond of appearances. Other than that, she mostly relies upon agility and an almost indestructible body, though she hasn't tried being blown up or magnetized, and considering the chip which keeps her body functioning, she'd probably not like to try it. That aside, the very fuel which provides her life is in itself very unstable, and combustible in just the right combination of variables...

With that sort of preview, I'd love to hear some feedback! I hope I didn't make her sound without weakness, and I plan to go into much more detail when I go about submitting the finished profile and introduction. And for anyone who's curious, my old account was Nethouroboros, with the character pair Frank and Emmelia (still two very beloved characters of mine whom I may move over here if that's possible, if of course that ever seems like a good idea in the future).

[Astrid]

For a larger preview: http://i.imgur.com/JWPtyVK.png
[Details, man. I'm all about them details.]

[Mister Kent]

I like her! You seem to have a good handle on anatomy and infusing some personality into the body language. I'm eager to see the intro pages

[PyrasTerran]

welcome back! I remember your previous run here!

Now let's see some pages!

[Astrid]

Will do! I've got ideas bouncing off the walls inside my brain! I'll try and get some roughs up today. Apologies ahead of time if my hand is rusty, but I'm open to serious critique!

[InkyBrain]

I gotta say, the Staff Team is pretty awesome- thanks for changing my name!

Anyway, I'd like to share my old Introduction for Frank and Emmelia, to which I'd really appreciate some critique on to keep my eye out for while I'm drawing up Astrid's Introduction pages. Some small info to keep in mind: Though I haven't decided on the precise style (color, b&w, etc) I'll utilize for Astrid's comics, I do know that it will not be nearly as gritty as Frank and Emmelia-- though the content will likely still be pretty crude. And while my anatomy and general ability to draw faces 'n such has improved a bit, I feel like I have this bad habit of making things too crowded in an effort to put down every little detail. So I'm aware of a need for simplifying, should that be brought up by anyone, however advice for how to make a detailed artist's eye avoid crowding in panels would be very welcome!

Here are the pages:


Have at me, bro's!

[Hiemie]

Cyborg.

[Red]

Ahh! I always hoped you'd come back!

[InkyBrain]

Hey, thanks! Glad to be back, I've already roughly (and I mean ROUGHLY) sketched out the first Introduction page.

Also, Cybrog? More like, cyburger...eh? EH? Ehhhh...kids these days.

[InkyBrain]

So these are probably pointless given the roughness of the sketches at present, but I thought the progress might be interesting? I don't know, I just don't want any potential interests thinking my attention has already diverted elsewhere. That being said, here's the very, VERY rough first two and a half pages for Astrid's potential introduction.

[Animeshen]

ah man I LOVED your comics but you vanished the first time around before I found the site! I'm happy to see you back, these new pages look amazing already!

[stefan]

this is looking really good !
love the first page of your roughs !

good stuff ! keep going !

[Heathen]

Hitlisted.

[stefan]

ooh and BTW ,..maybey its the lineweights that you should keep in mind ,here and there the background tends to be the main ''character'' due to the line weight of certain parts,...all the advace i could think of is to check out some Geoff Darrow's work,he always has extreme crowded panels,but you never get lost in it,..due to the lineweight.

He tends to ink almost everything the same width,and a thicker line around the characters,...really check out some Shaolin Cowboy of him,and you probally see what i mean .

hope that helps some
edit:i looked up a panel for ya ,just so you can see if it needs more of your attention

[InkyBrain]

PERFECT. Thank you so much for the advice! I actually just started inking the first panel of the Introduction, and I've been staring at the box, getting annoyed with the lines and how everything seems to kind of blur together. I'm SO glad you've made a note of this, as my editing eye was on par, and I need to make sure that I'm paying attention to the line weight, and maintaining variations between details in foreground and background.

Thank you so SO much!

[stefan]

you're welcome,just hope it helps.
A other thing that might give your eye(or the viewers ) some natural pacing is to keep the color outside your panels white,cause black is dominant in your pages ,the eye gets lost in it,but that a rather small thing that i noticed as well,but dealing with the lineweights might already take care of that ,anyway ,good luck inking !

[InkyBrain]

Ooh, another good thing to note! I'll see how these changes affect the panels and page backgrounds as well. Thanks again!

[InkyBrain]

So if anyone was wondering where the hell I disappeared off to- I've been having extremely aggravating issues with my internet provider, and I had a busy week outside of that. Also, looking back at these roughs and the progress I'd reached- I decided I don't like this as an introduction for Astrid, and I rushed the process so cleaning up the roughs is super exhausting. Back to the drawing board- literally.

Also, I spent way too long working on this ONE panel and this ONE fancy car, and now I can't bare to look at it. So you guys do that.

[EyeAmPhibian]

Your stuff looks great from my outside perspective.
Naturally you are going to be super critical of your own work and thats a good thing, it'll make you improve, but don't let it stifle you.
Just while doing this comic, try and be less critical of your self, get it done to the best of your ability, then yourself and others can critique it and you can improve from there!
Maybe try and think as the comic as a whole rather than focusing on individual detailed aspects of it such as cars.

[InkyBrain]

Hey, thanks! I can't really pinpoint when I lost almost all confidence in my art, but I have an idea. I get obsessed with particular details that may not look quite right, and just feel like it is so distracting that the entirety is an awful piece of shit. I used to be able to just draw and draw and be satisfied with the thing as a whole, even when some aspects weren't what I deemed to be "perfect." Perfection didn't matter-- not then.

But now? Ugh. It's an awful struggle, and I have phrases and crude criticism that bleed into my head any time I see something remotely unsatisfactory. I found an artist I really like recently, however, who has a style I can not only relate to, but find possible. (You know how you see some art and you just can't even wrap your head around how it was created?) So I'm hoping that will keep me motivated, as well getting the opportunity to draw these comics with these other wonderful artists.

Most of all, here's to hoping I can stay on top of it. The past couple of weeks have not been a good example of what I'm aiming for...bleh.

[EyeAmPhibian]

As to being inspired by another artist, totally jam off that.
I think that will only get you so far though.
As a different solution look at yourself a bit.

You may get this...
Either early in the morning or late at night, you may be drawing, and it just seems to really "flow". You can't make a wrong move, everything that comes from you just feels right.
I read about a study into this, and apparently the reason this happens, is because the part of our brains that makes judgements and is critical, has either not woken up yet, or is beginning to shut down.
Basically, that voice inside your head that usually tells you its not good enough is on mute, and it allows you to just create.

Now other people may shoot me down for this, because a big purpose of Void is to improve, so being critical about your work is a necessity here, but it seems you just need to let this idea take over. That you can, if you decide to, just say 'fuck it' to that voice, now that you know it may be hindering you.

If you do have those moments of flow, I'd say you should try and replicate them. It might do wonders for you.

For me it just takes a bit of forced concentration to set a limit in my head that I'm not going to judge my work as I'm creating. I'll do it once I'm done.

Another thing you might be doing too much of is trying to impress people on this website. I wouldn't worry about that. I think the most valuable thing on here is the criticism and advice you get as opposed to compliments.

I hope this can help in some way.

[InkyBrain]

This....everything you said, thank you!

I used to have those nights (and into the very early mornings), in which I'd be drawing endlessly feeling like every little thing coming through my pen and onto digital canvas was flawless. I suppose what little time I have to draw now, are times that I often feel the most critical of myself- either that be after work when I feel tired and vulnerable and often like I can't do anything right (my job can be quite a challenge at times, although I am surrounded by good, supportive people there; unfortunately, I have yet to meet a single person who relates to me or is at all interested in what I really do). Anywho...According to this study- and I would LOVE if you could find that for me to read- this could be quite accurate in my case.

As for trying to impress people- always, 100% of the time. I'm extremely competitive in general, and often a judgmental person myself, so I fear other people's views of what I manage to accomplish because I like to be the best, and because I know what unpleasant things can be said. I'm either not very good at being people, or too good at it- depending on if you're a more pessimistic or optimistic person. lol

Wow this got really deep. Anyway! I just want to know that I appreciate your advice and kind words, and I'll be keeping this in mind not only in my *cough*ATTEMPT to get this thing done and put myself into an artistic focus, but will utilize this knowledge every time I sit down with pen or pencil in hand. Thank you!

[Kozispoon]

For what its worth, that ONE panel and that ONE fancy car is definitely showing off the time you've spent on it. Really flawless work!

[Rose]

[member=20948]InkyBrain[/member]: OMG you don't know how much I relate to that! I've had the EXACT same struggle recently (although I've never drawn anything as detailed as that car, so that's a bonus for you hahah). My only advice is to focus on accepting your flaws and just drawing more and more instead of trying to perfect any single drawing. And remember that your unique flaws and how you work with them in your art are often what makes your style special! What looks like junk to you might look great to someone else (or it might just look normal) because the flaws that exist in it just feel like your personal way of drawing rather than errors. I don't know if that makes sense, but I hope it helps at least a little.

[Heathen]

So how's the intro coming along?  You're not getting out of this that easily. B)