Latest spread from my practice :D
4yr
Yiming Wu
So probably you guys have already seen my recent two spreads in this channel and I finally decided to push through the third one. Been tired and my allergy going on is getting me into a low energy state :/
I feel the texture is a bit finer than what I wanted so it appears a bit noisy at some places. However I feel it's my best looking so far in terms of contrast and layout. What do you guys think?
I'm probably gonna do one or two more spreads like this and call it a series, so I could more or less solidify my workflow so to speak.
I can feel the confidence and experience in your line control, value control and composition. I like the clean drawing of the propeller laying out the different scenes. My only comment would be on the level of detail and contrast, since my eyes don’t exactly know where to go so it locks onto the clean simple propeller drawing because it contrasts the entire piece in detail level. If having viewers look close to explore this piece and put together what’s going on, then I think you did a good job doing that. If you want your viewers to clearly see It’s subject quickly, I think the details and textures kinda distract the eyes from important elements like the guy on the stretcher or even the pilot. I still think this is pretty dope dude & would love to see your work continue to evolve from here.
Thank you! You are absolutely right about the detail level contrast thing there. The thing is... I don't really know whether I'd like viewer to check and see the most prominent object or to explore around. With plain line art without shading, I can control that pretty well because it's just matter of object size and level of detail. But with hatching, I'm still not that much controlled in terms of controlling "pseudo details" given off by the hatching texture. Maybe that's why some image areas appears to be a bit noisy.
TBH I never thought of this factor before. That's a good reminder, I shall keep this in mind when practice drawing my next piece. Thank you very much for spotting this issue :D
Bloody hell Yiming, that's cool!
In my opinion, the texture is fine as it is, it reminds me a little of Sergio Toppi's cross-hatching and I find it a wonderful contrast with the technological nature of the subjects you have drawn.
I wouldn't change anything, it's fantastic! *___*
That's great. I love how you work texture into your shadows.
Thank you! I didn't really plan that well and in a lot of cases they just happen randomly so it always gives me panic when I'm doing it.
I absolutely love this panel ! The right part is very readible, very nice, the eye catch details and shapes, you managed very well the opposition between "charged" part and "empty" part. :D
If I may try a little "critique", I'm a tiny less happy with the top left panel and the back of the cockpit : my eyes can't find a place to "rest" and the composition is a bit contradicted by the high contrasts. For example : on the left, I had to search to "catch" it because ot's very low contrast, while the back of the cockpit is super contrasted and detailed while there isn't action to spot here.
I would suggest you try to drown some part of the back into complete dark and only let the surrounding and metal part that "lead" the eye to the door with this amazing detailed texture to help the reader eyes "go" where you want.
Overall its an incredible piece you did there ! Also, rest well, allergies suck :(
Thanks! You are right about the left panel. It's a bit busy without a concrete shape. Maybe It's due to the size of the drawing already pretty close to the width of the pen, also I feel it might be too dark if I fill all the shapes with darker values as they are in shadow. So it's always hard in pen & ink for this kind of thing: You can't have a middle to dark grey as a fill. :/
I'll try make some very dark areas, I don't like a pitch black area though, because they are mostly too stiff to me. But I should try with a "textured edge" like what they do in American super hero comics XD.
I'm glad you liked it!
<<I had to search to "catch" it>>
=> the medical bed, sorry I edited part of my reply and apparently deleted a part that wasn't intended :p
It's very impressive, the layout is quite clear and the textures are really interesting, reminding me of Katsuhiro Otomo. Maybe if you want to present it better you should use other typography fonts, and try to incorporate the text into the image in a more organized way, playing with the space between the letters.
I feel like i can't say anything very insightful about the image itself, but at least i can encourage to keep doing them, you're doing a really good job!
Oh I know some Katsuhiro Otomo's work :D He's got fantastic mechanical stuff and also great lines for the scenery and characters. Funny thing is that I often find Otomo (or other Japanese manga authors) do heavily use half-tone papers so it gives a rather "repetitive pattern" in those areas which I find it weird. Understandably this is also for the speed of production, but I like the line art nonetheless.
Those text are mostly just for placeholder to check if the layout hold up. I used to not leave any space for text so it was a problem for me.
Thank you and I'm glad you liked it!
I think your layouts are amazing. I can't really explain, it is just a very personal impression, but I have never seen this kind of style. So many details, so much energy, and the divisions make it somehow that i feel like being right in the action myself. I think it is right to keep it so noisy and not so easy to read at first glance. That is what makes it interesting and to me it looks like it is done absolutely on purpose.
And this means something because to be honest themewise with all the vehicle stuff, metal, action and such, that is not really something that would grab my attention normally.
Oh thank you Sonja! I take a lot of inspiration form Sergio Toppi's work in terms of ink and composition stuff, he has done some "cut beyond frame" (? I don't know how to describe it in English) things I really like.
Actually, I think the main thing that led to this sort of composition is that my paper simply isn't big enough to show adequate details, so I can't possibly fit many "frames" in one page as you see in a lot of beautiful French comics. And I happened to not very much like the sequential read in many comics, and I kinda want to make some sort of a "moment", so it's just it, letting you read however you wanted. This kind of thought might be derivated from seeing modern photography in a way.
I'm glad you liked it! I'm not a fan of mech stuff as well but it's in my ball park, I mainly consider it a way of express but not necessarily need to be used.
