Lets bloody well do something!

[williamthebloody]

oooooooooooooookay, i can see the image MUCH more clearly now! i mean, i could tell it was a train, but i didnt even NOTICE Tess on there!
and of course, yes, the pinstriping on the overalls is fantastic, as is tess's braid ^^ all around terrific pencil shading, too!

[alphatroll]

Fankee again, Will.... an' i generally hate to brag, but i done got me some NOICE shading on them Osh-Koshes..... if i didn't know better i'd swear there was real bootay in 'em!

Tess'll prolly kick my ass for that now. Or jump my bones. Either seems strangely intriguing.....

compositing the drawing in is turning out harder than i expected, but i shall overcome!

SO is the "fire good" bit on the front noticeable enough? it it clear it's modeled after Tess' car?
an' how 'bout then vamp-stabbin' stakes on the cow-catcher? and the bat! eh?

and the thing on her braid is meant to be a silver hare-shaped crest-thingy, since she's a *real* contessa here, and what with being MAD and moving like a bat out of hell and all..... does anyone know of any traditional heraldic hare-designs that might show more clearly?

(in case no one has guessed, drawing this was *way* fun) ;pleasantly giddy;

Current Layer Count: 12

[williamthebloody]

and the thing on her braid is meant to be a silver hare-shaped crest-thingy, since she's a *real* contessa here, and what with being MAD and moving like a bat out of hell and all..... does anyone know of any traditional heraldic hare-designs that might show more clearly?

it's hard to make out what that is supposed to be in her braid... it is so small and there be many lines
my favourite bit of the train is the pointy wrought iron fence up top

[alphatroll]

my favourite bit of the train is the pointy wrought iron fence up top

well yeah, it's *gothic* steampunk of course!;)

and agreedy indeedy, it's hard for ME to make the hare out..... at's why i wanna fix it

[alphatroll]

Useless facts: There were a total of 147 unique layers in Photoshop that went into the making of this comic, roughly 30 of which do NOT appear in the final form. This is not including all the alternate dialogue I had in the original concept; the "script" was changed several times before settling on what it is now. The most layers that were ever in the file at one time was 99. Consider that the version of Photoshop that I have (5.5) will only handle 100 layers.

wow, i thot *i* was a layer fiend.....

http://azraellewormser.deviantart.com/art/Bristled-On-Your-Toes-44716828

[alphatroll]

progress report on Contessa von Rubikoff's Screaming Fiery Locomotive from Hell



this shows most of the work i've done on it so far, tho withougt the background and of course no blazing headlamps or incandescent exhaust cloud yet....

here's the full-sized version for more detail:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/3242287256_42138192fe_o.jpg

there's no possible way i could tell you how many layers i've used so far; there are maybe 20 or so now, and i'm gradually going through refining each one by splitting it into anywhere from 3 or 4 to a dozen or more layers and modifying and recombining them in different ways. i've probably more-or-less finished doing that to over half of the "main layers", then merged the result back into a single layer each time. it's crazy but it's fun.

and believe it or not i probably haven't even *tried* more than about half of the tools availible on my 10-year-old version of Paint Shop Pro.....

UPDATE FEB 03

one more:

bigger:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3435/3248179181_fe23d3af37_o.jpg

all the extreme-texturey stuff'll get toned down, it's just easier to smooth it than to add "pop". & the whole thing'll get "inked" a bit to improve clarity.

[williamthebloody]

everything you just said BLOWS MY FREAKING MIND.

as a layers n00b, the most i ever worked with was what? four? i cannot even comprehend the stuff you must be fussing around with at this point.

but i CAN tell you that the colour/texture you got going on so far if totally rad. i cant wait to see the end result for sure!

[alphatroll]

see? they're fun! a lot of the time i'll apply an Emboss effect to one layer, then put that over the others with a Hard Light or Burn layer effect (tho the embossed one usually has to be color-inverted first since embossing makes the *dark* parts stand out). this seriously enhances the whole 3-d effect. Colorizing one or more layers makes for interesting effects too, and Blurring some of them softens the over-contrasted look from all those stacked layers.

but like i said, *i'm* a layer noob compared to some (like the deviant i mentioned above.... i mean 147?!?)

[alphatroll]

since it's been a full 3 weeks since *anyone* posted anything in the whole vulgar forum, i don't feel too guilty about lack of progress on the Flamin' Locomotive..... I got a new computer and am busy learning everything that's changed since 1998. Also a newerish (=less old) version of PSP, still a few changes there that have me a bit confused too. Also the ol' miniatures have distracted me.... damn i wish i could shoot macros so i could share some of that stuff!

Updates will appear more or less when they happen

[evilmidget]

holy shit!! i never go in this part of the forum, but that's going to change.

DAY-UMN!! Tess looks like Doctor Teeth from the Muppets.

[Squeek]

thats old school tess right thar.
she's a little less toothy in Mr. A's new style...

[Loki.Metal]

I like older Tess. I like originals, and this effing blows my mind... well.

[alphatroll]

thanks folks...... i must admit, "muppet" was one of the thots in me head when i drew that

[alphatroll]

ok, this is specifically for mr Para-dux-of-Noir, who expressed interest elsewhere in some comics layout advice, but all 'yall can look at it too.

These are scanned from chapter 4 of The Cartoonist's Workshop by Steve Marchant (Collins & Brown 2004, ISBN 1-84340-146-0). If you wanna see more consider buying it, I figure a little is publicity but more would be kinda impolite.

http://www.amazon.com/Cartoonists-Workshop-Steve-Marchant/dp/1843401460/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237495727&sr=1-1

He also has a newer one on webcomics, but I haven't seen it personally.

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Cartoon-Kit-Strips-CD-ROM/dp/0764179403/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237495727&sr=1-5


OK, here's the goods (the small blurryish pics are for ease of loading):


bigger & clearer:http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3622/3367978437_74d7538430_o.jpg

These next two are consecutive pages:


bigger & clearer:http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3614/3368803162_3d34c5061b_o.jpg


bigger & clearer:http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3655/3368803178_628de58f20_o.jpg


Hope that's helpful!

[Squeek]

FINALLY FINISHED!!!!



I cut a lot of it out b/c I'm lazy and didn't want to fix the perspective ;
meh- but I like it cropped like this

I would have posted it earlier this morning...but I messed up and lost about 1-2 hours worth of work...


*I also cheated on the gears and edited them into the image via Photoshop, cause I can't draw gears to save my life.*