Posts Tagged: drawing

[Recast] Graham Annable Book Club! – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast

Though our Season 1 Intermission might have arrived, that doesn’t mean anybody around here gets to rest – and that means you! That’s right, while we scurry about, finishing up the last couple of interviews and other such surprises, we’ve got some homework for you. But don’t worry, it’s nothing too difficult. In order to make sure you’re prepared for our super secret upcoming book club episode, we decided to re-release one of our most popular episodes from the past – the Graham Annable interview – just in case you missed it last time!

For those about to listen in for the first time, here’s a little episode information: Our hero Adam Greenfield is joined today by Graham Annable, the co-director of the Academy Award nominated movie, The Boxtrolls, as well as the amazing animator and artist behind Grickle. One of the more gracious guests we’ve had on the Gutter Talk podcast, the conversations were open windows into Graham’s thought processes as not just the great artist he is but also what it takes to be a director, even if a co-director, on a major stop-motion picture. Give it a listen, Tweet out some of your favorite moments, and let us know what you think!

The Original Episode

91: Graham Annable

Book Club Book

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4: Patrick Yurick (#ComicFuel 7) – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast (S01E04) (115)

How in the world could we do our first season of the MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast without bringing back the #ComicFuel podcast? The #ComicFuel podcast was launched as a question/answer show by our leader Patrick Yurick for the massively popular “How To Make A Comic Book” course on Coursera. Students from around the world submit questions and the seemingly endless fountain of facts bubbling inside of the brain of Patrick does its best to link them with the answers needed. On this seventh installment of #ComicFuel we cover questions like “Am I too old to make a living off of comics?”, “How do you manage a long-form comic project?”, “How do you learn to draw?”, and more. So pop on your headphones, get out a paper and pen, and draw while listening to Patrick traverse the world answering comic-making quandaries.

Jump-To Sections

  • [00:00:00] Support MakingComics.com Ad
  • [00:00:25] Show Theme
  • [00:01:10] Introduction
  • [00:04:10] Graham Annable Book Club Announcement
  • [00:06:10] Season Intermission Announcement
  • [00:08:00] Season Patreon Campaign Announcement
  • [00:12:50] What happened to the ComicFuel podcast?
  • [00:20:15] Question #1: Am I too old to make a living off of comic books?
  • [00:25:15] Question #2: How do you start outlining a big comic idea that you have?
  • [00:29:27] Question #3: How do you manage a long-form comic project?
  • [00:31:34] Ad Break
  • [00:33:35] Question #4: How do you learn how to draw?
  • [00:43:20] Question #5: Who makes comics? Only aspiring comic creators?
  • [00:47:35] Question #6: How do you collaborate with a team making comics together?
  • [01:01:00] Closing Statements
  • [01:03:00] Show Outro

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71: Dawn & Clint Wolf (3 Questions) – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast

It’s the second Friday of the month, which can only mean one thing: another great Gutter Talk Three Questions episode with great information and even better music. In this episode, Patrick Yurick meets up with Dawn and Clint Wolf, the creators of the webcomic Zombie Ranch, and poses three questions smack dab in the middle of the halls at WonderCon 2015 this year.

These are Dawn and Clint’s three questions:

Question 1: (Clint) You’ve been lucky enough to write for various things, whether that’s games or even possibly doing some technical writing when you once worked in tech support. What are some of the things you took away from those writing jobs that you’ve been able to apply to current work in comics?

Question 2: (Dawn) In one of the Inktober challenge drawings, you did it on a skirt but is there a medium you prefer and why?

Question 3: (Both) What are some of the pros and cons of working together not just as collaborators but also as a married couple?

Also be sure to head over to iTunes, if you’re not there already, and give us a rating and review. This really does help boost our presence in the comics and podcast communities, which in turn helps build the amount of knowledge and love we can provide and spread out to all the comic creators around the world.
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Elements of Gesture

In my opinion, there are three phases to drawing the figure: gesture, construction, and rendering. None of these phases is independent from the others. Gesture captures the essence of the figure’s pose — it records the kinetic energy of a moment in time. If anything can be said to breathe life into a drawing, it’s gesture. Construction is the phase where knowledge of shape and anatomy are employed to methodically build a three-dimensional figure within the page. This is the part of figure drawing where many of the visual “problems” of the figure — problems that involve not just anatomy but perspective — are solved. Rendering draws focus to issues of appearance, primarily lighting. Proper lighting grounds the figure and accentuates depth.

Often, these phases overlap. Gesture and construction can happen at the same time, with rough lighting and shadows added before either phase is fully resolved. Some people skip construction entirely and rely on rendering to establish the form. However you choose to approach things, know this: gesture is the most important. More than a rough sketch or plan to be finalized later, it is the soul of your drawing. Everything else builds off of it and threatens to diminish its impact. (more…)

Drawing Pains

Do you ever draw to the point where your hand feels like it wants to completely fall off? Till your wrist is nearly broken, or your knuckles are about to bleed? I think pretty much everyone who draws daily is destined for this kind privileged pain. For me, I get this strange shooting pain that starts at the tip of my thumb and goes halfway up my arm. It’s like a jolt of lightning.

Lousy nerves.

Even though I’m right handed, I draw more like a lefty. I use four fingers to hold my drawing/inking tool and I sometimes bend my wrist funny. Parents and teachers used to criticize me for this, but they didn’t really make any efforts to encourage me to hold my pencil the correct way. To make things worse, I grip my pencil way too tight. This is what leads to the shooting pain. As soon as that pain starts to set it, I know it’s time to quit drawing for the day or else things will only get worse. When I force myself to continue, I find myself spending more time erasing the countless mistakes I make than anything else. It’s pretty frustrating when the pain sets in when I’m on a deadline or when I’m really immersed in my work.

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