Matt's Art (p34: Hey, I finished something!)

[Leannah]

Okay I really struggle with chars and I see you do too when it comes to more complicated poses. You should try to always align the eyes and check that the size of the neck and the checks are okay.

[Matt]

So I recorded it and timelapsed it this time.

I need to get back into my "one update per day" thing.

[Celestial-Fox]

Cool, what program did you use to record that? (I haven't recorded myself in foreverrrrr, haha.) I think the image is good, but her left hand seems a little big and the hips (and therefore legs) aren't wide enough compared to the shoulders. I like the movement, though. You're really getting the hang of posing.

And yeah, updating once a day was easy on the old MT, but on this new one it's hard to do i without quadruple-posting. I've been holding off an update because I'm just that stinky about double posting, orz.

[Matt]

Used Hypercam 2. Immediately downloaded Camtasia after uploading the video because Hypercam . . . is bad. And it's stupid. And it's dumb.

Okay, it's not that bad.

Behold: new stuff.

Started this during the summer and put it off till yesterday. Last 2 panels are October 4. And yes, I do advertise Claymaker a lot because Rei was nice and drew a free Sierra for me. So now, every time I've drawn Sierra's room, I've given her a Claymaker poster.


An island in the sky. A friend in school asked me to draw it for him, so I did. And yes, I know every artist and their mom has drawn this.


Some traditional line art:


My scanner cord doesn't reach the USB ports on my new computer, so I uploaded these from the college.

[ram]

your really good at controlling emotions, somehow I still have problems on what emotion I should pick for one specific scene. >_>

[Matt]

If the character is saying multiple things in a scene, I've read that it's best to either draw a generalization of their expressions throughout OR split up the dialogue into manageable parts where only one emotion is needed.

Also, think of your characters as humans--actual people. Not drawings. Emotion is more than the placement and proportion of the mouth, eyes, and eyebrows. The tilt of the head heavily affects the reader's perception, as does the character's posture and composure. It's not all in the face. I know manga isn't the most subtle of all art styles, but a lot of times we'll focus too much on the face and forget about the rest of the character.

I.e. In the strip up there ^^. Sierra (the girl with the mech hand), in the sixth panel, is looking sideways, and the emotion put across is light thinking and uncertainty. However, in the next panel, she's also looking sideways, but looks much less uncertain. Asymmetry usually equals uncertainty, but it can also be a punk-ish form of challenge (unruly rebels in many comics always have their heads like that). Also, her hand in the seventh panel is held out and up in front of her, fingers spread. She examined it in the panel before, so in this panel, the posture has more of a "stop, I've got this" look. This is because of her hand position, her head tilting toward the side of the hand held out, and her cocky expression.

TL;DR - Use the entire character for emotions, not just the face.

[Matt]

Double-post.

From a side-story to Angel Hunters that I'll never post. The girl closest to the camera is Akiria.

[Fenn]

How did you manage to create such a satisfactory background with so few lines? I've attempted it a few times and it looks like scribble.

[Matt]

Luck. It also helps if you get the gist of the background down first without killing yourself over the details.

Also, I did a commission for a friend:

Character belongs to her.

[SuperKasey]

Awesome stuff. Did you come up with the clothing designs?