#I just feel drawing the main comic is a higher priority

[minas-linkverse]

I'm curious what the audience perspective on Team B and Team C are. Do you guys like em? Miss em? Or do you feel content about them takes from the main story? 🤔 Do most of you even know what the teams refer to?

[bogkeep]

sorry i'm still SSSS blogging today. i meant to draw but instead i reread adventure 2 and. hm

like, it starts out fun, you have characters interactions and dreamsharing and interesting locations and new outfits and hotakainen backstory!!!! that's the stuff i think fondly of when i think of adventure 2. it sets up for an emotional throughline for the hotakainens that would be so so tasty to follow and explore, especially considering what happened to tuuri in the last adventure!!!

but then... nah. when tuuribird shows up, something that should've had a BIG impact, especially on lalli - there's almost no reaction among any of the characters. it's just "oh okay." and like, i get that the whole deal with the finns is that they aren't very open about feelings but come on. come on!!!!!!

i think that is the point in the comic where things start to feel off for me. it SHOULD be exciting, you have connected all the characters and you're digging into the main plot and not just fighting small fry along the way, but........ ?????????

it's also around that time where minna starts working on the infamous bunny comic, and some of the author comments from that period of time made me wince. the whole ssss reading vibe gets Weird!! it's really hard for me to extract the experience of reading the Comic from the experience of witnessing its creator getting converted and baptized in frozen lakes and following a higher calling to create a comic whose message is frankly rather stupid!!! also i don't read the comment sections but clearly shit went down in some of them, maybe because minna said some awful stuff in her streams??? i don't know!!!!!! i don't really need to know!!!!

and then the comic just gets boring and drags on forever. look, the worldbuilding and the monsters are cool, and the art is always lovely, but the true joy of ssss for me has always been the characters. and then they don't really... do or say very much with each other for the rest of the story. like they're following the plot beats, but so much of the comic us just monster fights, beasts fighting each other, the plot HAPPENS but there's no emotion tied to it. the most egregious example is when lalli and onni have the spirits of tuuri and ensi with them, and they have a conversation - and we don't see ANY of that. it happens off screen. we get NOTHING. there's ZERO emotional reward. the characters are for all intents and purposes unchanged. there has been no arc or change in their dynamics. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE!!!!!

it feels like the beats of the story were all planned out, but not fleshed out at all, and when minna got this far she no longer cared about these characters, or like telling this story served any purpose. the potential is there! it's easy to imagine another timeline where this story is rich in character interacton and growth. instead we get a hollow shallow shell of a comic. welp!

i so badly want to admire minna's decision to end the comic "properly", but i really feel like it might've been better to have just abandoned it when her priorities shifted. it's so sad to see the characters getting neglected like dolls in a dusty toybox. it really breaks my heart that she doesn't believe ssss has any value beyond "empty entertainment" when it meant so much to so many. SIGH

people who couldn't be bothered to finish reading adventure 2 are right actually. there's nothing there.

[scrawnydutchman]

Why ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Animation is So Amazing

So those followers of my blog may know that I posted a full film review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse rather recently. You’re welcome to go check it out if you haven’t yet, but the short version of it is that it’s my favorite movie of 2018 and is, in my opinion, the best comic book film ever made. But I wanted to address something about the film that I keep seeing coming up. I’ve been watching a handful of reviews for the film online and in a great deal of them I hear people bring up how they were skeptical of the animation style when they first saw the trailers because it “looked choppy”. One film critic in particular by the name of Roger Moore actually still held that critique against the film even after seeing it when he posted his review of it. Most people have come around to enjoying the films animation and have put the idea of it being choppy at the backs of their heads. But what did they mean initially?  The problem with a lot of film critics when it comes to judging an animated feature is that sadly they can come from a misinformed place about the medium and create this negative stigma around a film that isn’t justified. Animation is already fighting a number of prejudices (people saying it’s only for kids, saying it’s a genre and not a medium and any other amount of reasons why they may think they are above it) so this added one does not help what is easily the most spectacular animated film of 2018. But I myself am an animator, so I feel I can come from a place of explaining the visuals in a way that may make the still skeptical viewers more appreciative of what the film is trying to accomplish. With that in mind, here’s why the films animation works so well.

Animating on 2s, not on 1s

When it comes to animation, whether it be 2D or 3D, audiences are typically used to a consistent and fluid motion where there is virtually no break in the motion of a character or object. Simply put; it’s as fluid as fluid animation can be. In these cases, this is because the animation was done on “1s”. But what does that mean?

With a few exceptions, it’s a universal rule that animation runs at 24 frames per second. That means every second of footage you see of an animated film can have as many as 24 unique drawings or adjusted poses in them. That’s a lot of work, but animation legends like Richard Williams (director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) are famous for having classical animation of this stature. However, just because you CAN fill each second with that many drawings doesn’t mean everybody does. Alternatively you could have 12 drawings in each frame and just double the amount of time you see them go by. When you do this, it’s called animating on “2s”. It’s half the work for a result that may not be quite as fluid as animating on 1s but still looks convincing enough to deceive the human eye. You could even go as far as animating on 3s and animating on 4s, but the higher you go the more you increase the risk of your animation looking “choppy”. Spider-Verse in particular has most of their frames on 2s, with a few exceptions being when the characters have to keep up with complex camera work and so they go back to 1s. So that would explain why a lot of people initially thought the animation was “choppy” . . . .but are there any advantages to doing animation this way aside from having less frames to fill? Indeed there is. When you increase the exposure of any frame, the layout and composition of said frame as well as any small details has a greater chance of sticking out in the viewers mind. Spider-Verse takes exceptional advantage of this fact because every little action in this film is like a beautiful work of pop art. There can be other ways you can inject great appeal in your animation besides making it “fluid” like making every drawing crisp and full of detail and if you’re a skilled enough animator you can make your animation deceive the eye through a number of other tricks which we will go into in a bit. I can’t think of a finer example of this point than Legendary indie animator Bill Plympton.

Bill Plympton is famous for having his drawing exposures in the 3s and 4s, having every drawing have vivid detail with complex shading and sketchy lines, but he still manages to create believably moving and behaving characters and set pieces in spite of this limitation.

So how is it done? How does an animator make convincing and appealing movement with a decisively limited amount of drawings? Let’s start with good posing.

Posing

I’m of the opinion that Spider-Man lends himself to good animation more than any other superhero. Because of all superheroes, nobody has as many interesting poses, weight shifting and as much natural progression between actions as the web slinger. His main mode of transportation is swinging around, using his weight distribution and kicks and lunges to propel himself in any direction he wants and as he tries to make a turn he has to push himself into another direction, fighting the force that pushed him the other way to begin with. Contrast this with Superman who can just fly right over to where he needs to be without much movement of his arms and legs and without much struggle with incoming obstacles (fun fact, the whole reason Superman can even fly in the first place is because it’s easier to animate than have him leap everywhere). But anyway, back to Spidey. In most animation you develop key poses. Key poses are the main storytelling positions a character may have just to communicate the idea that they’re doing whatever it is they’re doing. So for example if you were to animate a jump, you would start by drawing the position of your character bending their legs to launch themselves up, then you would have them in mid air, then you would have them land again.

Once you create poses that tell the story well enough, you would fill in the rest between. But the key poses are VERY important to get right. To make sure there couldn’t possibly be any confusion as to what the characters are doing or even who they are, animators often ask themselves “would I know what’s happening here even if I put it in silhouette”? To add to the fluidity of the animation in a way that doesn’t compromise the chosen amount of frame exposure, poses also tend to follow a “line of action”. Basically the whole body follows the direction of a drawn line and maintains it’s course in order to really sell the action. It helps for exaggeration and for developing after aspects like arcs.

Now as I said before, Spider-Man is a particularly advantageous character when it comes to this stuff. Because he’s acrobatic. He’s shifts his weight a lot. His most iconic poses as a character lend themselves greatly to silhouette. Also, he happens to be very easy to draw. Even if all you did was draw a red stickman with spider eyes we could instantly tell who it is.

The animators for Spider-Verse knew exactly what kind of beast they were dealing with and MAN OH MAN did they have fun with it. Not only did they perfectly capture the way the classic Spidey moves, but they also gave every different Spider-Person their own take on it. Spider-Gwen moves with the grace and elegance of a ballet dancer, Noir Spidey has a less ambitious and more straight forward way of moving around (kind of “old school) if you will. Then of course you have Peni Parker recreating the anime aesthetic and Spider-Ham with all the elasticity of a cartoon.

*here’s a little Spidey animation I did a while ago.

Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Overlapping Action, Follow Through

If anybody takes an animation class or tries to learn animation on their own, chances are Squash and Stretch will be the first animation principle listed. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Animators will often contort the model of their character to give whatever is happening more elasticity and to fill the gaps of an arc if drawings are a considerable distance away from each other. It helps the human eye track where an object is going and it can also help with principles like anticipation and follow through. Anticipation is the build up to an action. Think bending your knees before you lunge yourself upward for a jump. Because that momentum has to come from somewhere. Then there’s overlapping action, which is when dragging items on a character’s design such as clothes, capes, long ears, tails or what have you, are trailing along and need to catch up to the rest of the body. Spider-Verse does great with both these principles, especially with Spider-Ham and Noir Spidey. Spider-Ham is obviously influenced by Looney Tunes and other cartoony inspirations so he’ll be prone to doing a lot of squishing and stretching, where as Noir Spidey has the long trenchcoat and hat and you can bet that they’ll always be the last part of him to reach his destination (as well as be the most susceptible to wind). And of course, every character in Spider-Verse has great anticipation  . . . as well as what I think of as anticipation’s opposite, follow through. When an action stops, the body needs a moment to adjust itself into the resting position. Think catching yourself with your legs after a jump, crouching down and then standing back up again. Just like how momentum has to come from somewhere, it has to go somewhere when the action is over.

Appeal

So everything I covered thus far is stuff that’s universal across all forms of animation. But What does Spider-Verse do that makes it special? What separates it from other animated films in the theater? The answer is appeal. Appeal is just having a style and aesthetic that’s pleasing to look at . . . and man does Spider-Verse ever cover that. The film goes so far out of it’s way to look like a comic book that every texture has ben-day-dots so it literally looks like a comic print. Every Spider-Person has their own way of moving, their own way of behaving, their own sets of priorities when it comes to the 12 principles of animation. But the film also has a lot of really clever cheats. One of my favorite examples of this is how the film cheats forced perspective. There are many shots in the film where Miles is falling through the city as the buildings rush past him. The animators actually skewed the models of the buildings for these shots to imitate depth, as when they tried it without the skewing it didn’t looks like they were falling fast enough. They also implemented more classical cheats like smears, basically an animators method of imitating motion blur.

I could go on and on with the animation lecture, but honestly, I covered what I wanted to cover. I just wanted to showcase to anybody who may not be aware that animation is more than just “fluidity” and a seamless framerate and that there’s more ways to create appealing visuals than just that. If you haven’t seen it yet, go see Spider-Verse. It is a masterpiece.

[deltapocalypse]

Facts about this comic!

The lighter Kris was holding at the beginning was supposed to be the main light source and later when Kris gets mad it goes out and makes everyone scared to give off a feel, but the comic took me 3 months, I forgot it existed, and I pretended it was never a thing in the first place. 

The last 3 panels I drew all in the same day and look better than the rest of the comic.

Making all of the frames just be redraws of each other was a mistake because of how detailed I wanted the comic to be (colored linework, actually doing a background, this specific kind of coloring, etc.) because it meant each panel looked different even though it was supposed to be the same

there are about 75 more panels to draw

all of them will look better because making this was a learning experience and I was able to figure out from all of the sufferings that making everything look the same is boring to draw

Working on part 2 will not be boring and it’s a much higher priority so it will take less time (also not every single panel looks the same so it’ll be more fun to draw)

I will probably use normal black linework for the rest because this takes too long

It’ll probably help me add more details doing that

idk, guys, I tried to make something

It answers like half of the asks in my inbox

No spoilers but this will be an important bridge for what will happen for the rest of the series. Like figuring out what the main goal is and setting up questions.

-Quo

[killfaeh]

Tipeee and Patreon pages updated

Hi everybody! Today I'm here to announce that I've finally been able to update my Tipeee and Patreon home pages. :D For those who are discovering, these are patronage platforms where one can support the activity of an artist/author by giving a small obole monthly or punctually. On Tipeee you can even help for free by watching promotional videos.

The mini comic presentation of the Patreon page. I'm happy with this cute style like comic Artist for Rent. :D

These two pages have been existed for 2 years now and I thank all the patrons who have helped. It doesn't allow me to live from my creations but it give me a boost of self-confidence knowing that there are people who believe in me and my skills. So, thank you all! :) Like many artists, I got a bit fooled by proposing content that required extra work (illustrations, tutorials, graphic resources...) that glanced at my usual activities (i.e. my comics and software development) to try to make these pages attractive. I couldn't do everything when I was unemployed, so now that I've found a full-time job to fill the fridge, it's going to be even more complicated. Plus, this bonus content didn't seem to really inspire much enthusiasm. So I've concocted something simpler for you. Today I'm here to present you the changes I've made to these pages:

What will remain

What will disappear

What will be new?

Rewards

What will remain

Comics

Obviously, the comics will remain since they are the main content and the reason why I opened these pages. ^^ I'm going to stay on the free web comic formula (because you have to publish content on the Internet regularly to attract new readers) with one month advance access and no watermark for patrons for serial projects. I also add Dragon Cat's Galaxia 1/2. Although this comic book features licenced characters, this one remains in the register of parody and humor. I also have non parodic fan comics ideas. Those will obviously not be financed via these platforms. On the other hand, for one-shot projects I'll do the same as for Tarkhan: the first pages published for free to give a preview, but the rest accessible exclusively to patrons and purchasers of the comicbook (because publishing content regularly on the Internet is useless if it's limited in time).

G-rated illustrations

The HD illustrations will remain as well. I have some in stock and I create new ones regularly, so I shouldn't find myself on a tight stream anytime soon.

What will disappear

NSFW illustrations

Exit the NSFW illustrations. I like to draw nudes of beautiful males from time to time, but unlike the other illustrations, I don't have a stock in advance, so I'm on a tight stream. It annoys me to have to force myself to do this kind of illustrations when I don't feel like it and especially when I don't have an interesting idea in mind instead of working on the main content. Moreover, the audience that supports me on Tipeee and Patreon is not the most interested in this kind of content (as far as I know), so if I ever propose this again, it might be elsewhere, on a different account or on another platform. For the moment I put it aside.

Tutorials

No more tutos. It's long to write and format, it's never read, and since there are lots of free tutos on YouTube, nobody wants to pay for it. I'd rather share and answer questions about my tips and tricks in person during meetings or on my live Twitch.

Graphic resources

Exit the graphic resource pack (brushes, patterns, color catalog...). As for NSFW illustrations, I don't necessarily have one every month to offer. It is important to know that I produce these graphic resources according to my needs when I work on my comics, so I don't get them out on a regular basis. Moreover, the resources in question don't necessarily correspond to your needs every month. People interested in my brush and screentone packs to use in their own comics made it clear to me that they preferred to buy them occasionally according to their needs on my own online store even if it meant paying the price and that going through Tipeee and Patreon for that bothered them. They see these platforms as a patronage system but not as buying platforms. So I'm simply going to remove that and I'll modify my online store to add the possibility to buy dematerialized goods.

What will be new?

Well, I'm going to incorporate into the main content my other activity that I had ignored in the rewards even though it occupies a huge part of my work: software development. Obviously all this is related. This activity includes, in addition to the evolution and maintenance of suiseipark.com, the development of the Péguy project, my games projects, as well as a comic platform project.

TGCM Comics (Website - in dev)

TGCM Comics is a web platform project dedicated to web comics and webtoons where budding or experienced authors will be able to publish their stories and exchange directly with their audience without technical knowledge on the web. Here's a mock-up that gives an idea of what it will look like.

As soon as the main functionalities are ready the site will be made available in beta test for patrons. Why this project? Many other such platforms have emerged in recent years. So I hesitated for a while before launching this project, but seeing that all of them impose trending algorithms that give headaches to many authors of the web, I recently decided to propose a project where this type of algorithm will simply be inexistent. The default display on the home page will be based on the principle of the random playlist guaranteeing an equal rate of visibility for all comics and a real freedom of choice for the readers, allowing authors to create at their own pace without mess up thair health to go up any rankings. This is this fall's priority project. So I will post news regularly and soon to keep you informed of its progress and present you little by little the proposed features. I've opened a development blog (French) for this purpose that I will feed about once a week. It has a suggestion box (French) if you want to ask questions or suggest features.

Péguy (Web application - in dev)

Péguy is a web application that since 2018 allows me to automatically generate certain graphic effects, patterns and scenery elements for my comics. It has brought me a huge gain in productivity.

As it is beginning to take a form that can be used by laymen in programming and mathematics, I will soon put it online. Initially, this will be an early access reserved for patrons. Then, I will propose a small subscription system for non-patrons with a trial period. Naturally, the patrons will keep their access during this second phase. :D

Wizeknight Brotherhood (Online game - in dev)

Wizeknight Brotherhood is an online RPG project with a slightly unusual format. Basically, take World of Warcraft and put a visual novel interface on it, and you'll get an idea of the final result. In this game you will explore the world of Tellura, a Tolkian fantasy world, and conduct quests that will make you conclude 'we are not alone in the universe'. :p In the spring of 2020 I developed a small prototype called A l’Aventure Compagnons which gives a vague idea of the principle.

I am tempted to keep this pencil rendering for Wizeknight Brotherhood.

A l’Aventure Compagnons is playable, just download the client from this page. Don't hesitate to come and pull my ears on Discord if you see that I forgot to switch on the server. :p For the moment the engine of Wizeknight Brotherhood is under development and the first test phases will take place in pure text mode.

This good old scary UNIX console. The MUDs, the ancestors of MMORPGs, looked like this and they still exist with active communities. :D You can find them here.

Rewards

As for the rewards, here again I decided to simplify things so that I could concentrate on the projects I have just listed. The basic reward will give you access to the content I just mentioned. I'm not going to make different levels of access, otherwise I think that some content will have no audience or too little. The higher counterpart levels will give access to HD scans of my artwork. I'm way behind on the old formula's rewards. I'll try to deliver all the promised content in the coming weeks, except for the NSFW illustrations, I might get stuck doing only that. x) That's all for today! Have a nice week and see you soon! :D Suisei

P.S. If you want miss no news and if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the newsletter here : https://www.suiseipark.com/User/SubscribeNewsletter/language/english/

Source : https://www.suiseipark.com/News/Entry/id/294/

[smokedstorybara]

WIP Priority List

August 2019

10. Grey - a comic about an autistic boy who gains superpowers and decides to become a superhero(I plan for there to eventually be spin-off comics about the other heroes he meets) - still higher priority than any wips not on this list, but the complete lack of plot makes working on it difficult so...

9. Eternity and Forever - a three part comic about the goddess of carnage and destruction’s plan to destroy all life on earth and those trying to stop her(she’snot the main character but each part has a different main character and the same villain)- I have no idea how long any of the parts are likely to run so I’m somehow putting it off and working on it at the same time

8. Mythicals - six kids in different parts of the world each find an artifact that gives them a magical transformation and powers, years later they all meet at a performing arts school in New York and team up to protect the world - mostly just at this exact spot cause it’s not a drain like the two above but not as important to me as those below

7. Kings - Bandit King Vakhtang joins a rebellion, headed by a young man prophesied to be the next king of their country, because he’s perpetually unsatisfied with life and because the boy offered to pay, they end up teaching each other valuable life lessons - practically interchangeable with Sisa, actually, just that one takes place earlier chronologically

6. Sisa - secluded and lonely king Tupakusi sneaks out of the palace to finally meet his people and makes some distressing discoveries; at the same time, young thief Viper sneaks into the palace to be the first to steal from it and find something he maybe shouldn’t have - yeah

5. Consequences - a college student from our world is transported to another and finds themself physically changed, they set off on a quest to find a way back to their own world and their original shape and happen to learn some things about themself along the way - my One True fantasy story, only one not set in a dubious parallel to our world, so I’m equal parts looking forward to writing the whole fantastical setting and terrified

4. The Completely Unrelated Adventures of Four People Who Had Nothing to do With Each Other Beforehand - four teenagers in a small town in Texas discover that magic is real and that all four of them have it, over the years they get caught up in a dangerous race between two secret organizations for something known only as The Artifact - this is, like, my most Iconic story in title alone, one of the most exciting to write entirely by virtue of the pov character, and the one I’m actually furthest in writing

3. Vagabond Baron - a collection of stories following the life of Konstantin Panotnik as he gains a Barony, gets married, and becomes a national hero - very important to me because I’m drawing from my own disabilities for the main character and also because of how I’m doing the main romance(of course I’m also a little worried about handling either or both of those things wrong but since I’m, again, drawing from my own experiences, it’s not as much of a concern as some of the other things I’m writing)

2. Angel - Angel Prince, in the middle of an internal struggle between identity and religion, discovers a terrible secret and decides they must take action, even if it might tear their family apart - is this far in the list because it pulls the most from real current events, so it feels a little more urgent if I want it to be the social commentary most my wips secretly(or not-so-secretly, depending) are

1. Shadow Warriors - every year, all the twelve year olds in a small mountain town are sent up into a certain mountain for the dragon who lives there to choose a number of them to stay with him and learn his ways, to help him as he gradually loses strength from curse laid on him while he protected the town from an invading army - this story has existed since I was, like, twelve and is literally my oldest story, so it feels only fair to give it top priority