#wifwulf

[onbearfeet]

Everyone appreciate this awesome little art piece I got hung up.

And if lady werewolves are your jam, you need Dailen's forthcoming graphic novel WIFWULF. (Dailen gave these prints away to followers at a con some time ago, but the book is out in spring 2024.)

[glassamphibians]

hey a werewolf graphic novel called wifwulf came out this week and i think everyone should read it

[apocalypse-polakiewicz]

Chris Shehan

[kaithonks]

So I’ve had some Thoughts about Folklore and Wifwulf

I ended up reading Wifwulf this week, and it got me thinking about how much of a natural fit folklore and comics are. Hell, Wonder Woman, Thor, and Shazam have roots in mythology. And in a lot of ways it makes sense, as Scott McCloud points out in his Understanding Comics, The Codex Zouche-Nuttall and the Bayeux Tapestry is a proto-comic. And while those are more historical records, the point I'm making is art has always been a way to capture the culture of the time. I know people make jokes about historians of the future thinking Spider-man is a deity, but it feels not too far off the mark. Though future historians will likely have more context around Spider-man and more detailed records of his history. But comics are a more traditional medium than they're often given credit for.

Wifwulf is original but in some ways feels very classic. It's very much a werewolf story, but it's not a "man" wolf; it's about a "woman" wolf. And what I like about Wifwulf is its subversion. Typical werewolf stories are about losing control and becoming a monster; Wifwulf is about becoming free. It makes a lot of sense since our society is patriarchal. So the "man" benefits more from fitting in, so losing that and becoming a "wolf" is a loss for them. But the "woman" only gains. In someways it reminds me of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (particularly the first volume) where Karen is always drawn as a werewolf and connects to people through 'monstrosity' which ultimately is just humanity and kindness.

Now there is even a bit of subversion in the art. Mostly the panel structured. All of the panels with Charity in the wood are not really squares; the outside of the panels actually looks like a tree. But when in the city, it takes the more rigid structure, which again fits with the Wifwulf gaining freedom and connecting not only to nature, but her nature through the art. The only place where this diverges a bit is at the end when the panels become more fluid-looking but keep the free feeling.

Ogden's art in general is a highlight of Wifwulf, as it's just really a treat to look at. And while I find the story a little short, it does a lot with that short read. And what is nice with the paperback is all the guest art and extra little treats at the end. I know I don't talk about those much, but I do always enjoy them, and I think they are a little extra special, especially here, especially for the plant guide it gives at the ends because it motivates second reads to look for where the plants are placed.

Sometimes what I enjoy most about comics is when they get me thinking about comics as a whole. Wifwulf is a nice twist on a traditional folktale and uses that format to talk about the current world.

[graphicpolicy]

Around the Tubes

While you wait for the weekend to begin, here's some comic news from around the web to start the day. #comics #comicbooks

The weekend is almost here! While you wait for it to begin, here’s some comic news from around the web to start the day. The Mary Sue – Hugo Awards Administrator Exposes Deliberate Censorship of R. F. Kuang’s ‘Babel’ and More – This is beyond not good and exactly what people were worried about with the convention being held in China. Smash Pages – Rest in peace, Paul Neary – Our thoughts are…

[ferronickel]

Hail, flatter! This one, who is a layperson of the arts and comixcraft, has a query for you:

So like, what is flatting?

I've seen your flats in Wifwulf, and I've read about the flats in Looking Glasses, and generally get that it results in an image with similarly coloured areas sharing the same false-colour.

But like, how is it then used? The final images seem to contain more colours and shading, so why not just go straight to this? Why do false colours get used instead of the real ones? How do you pick the colours and how many get used?

How come this is a thing that a whole other person can do separately? I guess that's because it's time consuming - so it saves time somehow?

Thank you! I come in the spirit of humility wishing to relieve my ignorance of your noble craft!

OHOHOHO!!! You've activated my trap card and now I get to ramble about comics craft! And in my area of professional expertise, too! Be prepared for a long post

I'm going to start with the last part of your question:

How come this is a thing that a whole other person can do separately? I guess that's because it's time consuming - so it saves time somehow?

So the thing about comics is that it is one of the most intensely time consuming mediums to create. One person can make comics on their own fairly easily, but it takes forever to produce. Consider that I've been working on Looking Glasses for 18-19 months and have drawn about 87 pages. Now, the western comics industry expects issues to be produced monthly, generally 24 pages in length. It's very difficult for a single person to work at this rate, so the labor of producing comics has been divided. Generally these jobs become:

Writer (writes the script)

Editor (edits the script)

Artist (draws the lineart)

Colorist (colors and renders the art)

Letterer (adds balloons, dialog, and sfx)

Flatter (sometimes 'color assistant' they take the art and prepare it for coloring)

This isn't comprehensive though, there are a bunch of other jobs, like designers and layout artists. Occasionally the artist job gets broken into Pencilers (who sketch the art) and Inkers (who ink the sketch). Basically, by splitting the work amongst a number of people you can produce comics much faster. Not all of these jobs are required, and creator-owed books might have artists do their own coloring and lettering, while big work-for-hire books might have twice as many people working so they can pump out a spider-man book every other week.

Okay, so why Flatters?

Flatting at it's most basic level is just coloring inside the lines. You take a black and white page of art, and you have to fill in every part of the page that will eventually be colored. It's a pretty time consuming task depending on how involved your lineart is.

Flatting a page of Looking Glasses doesn't take me all that long, usually less than a half hour, which is pretty quick. Looking Glasses pages tend to be... optimized for flatting though. There are only ever a few characters and there aren't a ton of background details.

You mentioned Wifwulf (created by my longtime friend and collaborator Dailen Ogden), here's one of it's pages:

Basically everything that's a different base color, (every tree, plant, bit of moss, character, etc.) needed to be picked out separately. Each page of Wifwulf took me a few hours to flat. If Dailen had been doing that themself, those hours would have really added up, but instead they could spend that time drawing and coloring. Now, that said, these pages have a lot of texture, so it's hard to see exactly what I did.

Here's an example from a comic I worked on early in my career. (Lineart by Patrick Custodio)

The writer for this comic loved to put in these incredibly complex crowd scenes, which is something the artist excelled at drawing. I was coloring and flatting at this point on the book, and before I could even start coloring properly, I would need to flat for like eight hours. (I have a much more efficient method these days) It was frustrating because I just wanted to work on the actually creative part, but the majority of my time was spent on something monotonous. As soon as I got the writer to hire a flatter for me, coloring a page would take me only one or two hours, not nine or ten.

So that's why flatters exist, mainly to ease the workload on colorists.

But like, how is it then used? The final images seem to contain more colours and shading, so why not just go straight to this?

Flatting serves a couple of purposes. It's main function, like I said above, is just coloring in the lines. After finishing your lineart it has to get colored in, so in a layer below the lines, you add colors.

The secondary function is preservation. I like to work in a way that is non-destructive, basically, at any point in the process I can restore an earlier version of the drawing if I make a mistake or don't like something. Flats are integral to this.

In digital art, there's this thing called anti-aliasing, where the edges of a line or shape have a drop off of pixel color or opacity. It makes the edges look smoother or blurrier. The three dots on the left are Anti-Aliased, while the one on the right is Aliased, there's no drop off, just hard pixels.

Anti-aliasing is fine until you need to change the color using the paint bucket, or select using the magic wand...

See how the anti-aliased art doesn't play well with these tools, but the aliased art does? So with something like Wifwulf, the final art is going to be full of texture that makes it impossible to select anything again once it's painted. By having a dedicated aliased flats layer under the rest of the artwork, you can always re-select any part of the image you want.

I always leave my flats layer alone, and do any detail work in layers above. For example when I was painting this, it really helped to be able to select just the titan so I could work on those paints without worrying about brushstrokes overlapping the rest of the characters.

One of the other things you can do with flats is quickly selecting certain elements. On most pages, I flat my panels, figures, and background elements separately. Later, with a single button press, I can select just the characters in the scene, or entire panels at a time, which makes things like shading a whole lot easier.

Why do false colours get used instead of the real ones?

If you're flatting for other people you often don't know what the final colors are going to be, so you just pick random ones. Garish colors can be helpful because it makes it obvious that they're not the final colors. Why don't I use the correct colors on my own pages when I'm flatting? Habit, mostly. It's also faster to grab random colors than to track down the correct ones. Sometimes two different things will have the same final color but I like to flat them with different colors so I can select them individually if I need to.

You can see the process a bit here. In my flats, Lancer's spade (eye? eyes? thing) is a different color from his tongue, even if they end up being the same white in the final image. This would help if I ever needed to select just his eyes for some reason. You can also see how I select his body fur color and then add details on top, like his colored fingers and the grey on his arm. Those elements have blurry anti-aliased edges, and it would be impossible to re-select them without flats.

How do you pick the colours and how many get used?

I use the default "additional color set" palette in clip studio and just work my way through it. I pick row and work my way down (for a change of pace I vary which row I start with). How many is mostly dependent on the artwork. You just keep going until you run out of individual objects to color. I have worked on pages where I've run out of colors on this palette and had to start making up more. Typically a page of Looking Glasses only needs around 20-30, though.

So! That's flatting! It's a little known job, and it's how I got started with my comics career, so I have a lot of thoughts on it. I was trying to be concise (lol), so I hope this all makes sense, but I'd be happy to clarify or answer any other questions about this process. I know I didn't really go into how I flat my work, so I can make that post if anyone is interested.

[25000yearcycle]

Wifwulf

[doronjosama]

New this week (4/24/24), 8 new furry-interest titles! Everything Sucks #1, Furrlough #194, Life is an Open Door #1, Pooh Vs Bambi #1, Scrapper HC, TMNT #150, TMNT/Stranger Things GN & WifWulf GN! (Usually only list #1s, but two big milestones this time.) Check your local comic shop, or order online! #FurryComics #FurryGraphicNovels #comics #graphicnovels #everythingsucks #furrlough #lifeisanopendoor #poohvsbambi #scrapper #tmnt #tmntstrangerthings #wifwulf

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[onbearfeet]

Everyone reblogging this should read Wifwulf.

happy werewolf transgenderism wednesday

[blackacres]

136/366 ✨ look what finally showed up!!! #instagram #wifwulf #picaday2024

[seaslugsketch]

Portrait of a friend

[comiccrusaders]

.@TheVaultComics Partners with WifWulf Creators to Publish and Distribute Comic to Shops Everywhere! #comics http://ow.ly/3kfQ50GArQK

[hollyevolving]

wifwulf

werewolf wife

[graphicpolicy]

Vault teams with Dailen Ogden, Collin Kelly, and Jackson Lanzing for WIFWULF Distribution

Vault teams with Dailen Ogden, Collin Kelly, and Jackson Lanzing for WIFWULF Distribution #Comics #ComicBooks

Vault has announced a partnership with Dailen Ogden, Collin Kelly, and Jackson Lanzing , the co-creators of WIFWULF, to publish and distribute the smash hit comic to comics shops and bookstores everywhere. WIFWULF is a beautiful comic about werewolves, bloody revenge, and deep loneliness that recently reached funding on Kickstarter. Vault has agreed to take on the publication and distribution of…

[dailen-ogden-illustration]

Just as before, this site is not the best for landscape images, haha! I hope you enjoy all the same.

THE WIFWULF | 2021

[ferronickel]

If you missed the kickstarter, y'all should pre-order a copy of Wifwulf. My friend @dailen-ogden-illustration made it and it is so fucking good. Like the art is absolutely incredible, it'll leave you breathless. (And I'm not just saying this because I did the flatting for the book.) It's seriously astounding, and I want everyone to read it.

And while you're at it, go check out Dailen's patreon! They're starting up their webcomic The Liminal again, and it's equally incredible.