B&W Guard Test by mmitchell_houston
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Description
Programs: Poser 11, Photoshop 2014 and Manga Studio 5 (standard)
I'm testing some techniques for b&w comic book art based on Poser Renders using the Comic Book Preview. Right now, most of this is coming from the lighting -- I'm using only two lights, set at Infinite lights with a lot of power to wash out the colors. I then did two renders:
1. A standard b&w comic book preview with the geometric edge set at 0.025 and the threshold at about 0.25 (or possibly 0.33).
2. The second render had the same line settings, but I pumped up the threshold to about 0.75. This gave me a wider area on the shadows, which I would use as a mask in Manga Studio. It basically provides the guides I needed to place the line shading that surrounds the dark/black areas.
3. Finally, I created a raytrace render and I used it as a guide for some of the hand shading and inking I completed in Manga Studio. None of this render appears in the final app.
When I had the three renders, I placed them in Manga Studio and then added the tone, background and touched up the line work (especially around the collar and a little around the eyes). I used Photoshop to add my signature and resize it (I worked at a HUGE scale on this: 5000 px wide). That scale really didn't slow things down much (after all, it's black & white) and it gave me a lot of options when doing the touch up. Nevertheless, I probably won't work at this size again unless I'm working on a full-page illustration for print.
BTW: This is an M3 figure using a police uniform purchased at Daz and a free face morph from ShareCG.
Comments (11)
Cyve
Absolutely gorgeous my friend... Fantastically well done !!!
rayag
WoW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
muwawya
Sweet!!
giulband
WOW !! Marvelous draw !!!!!!!!
uncollared
Cool
buffalosoldier
WOW right out of a page of a comic book, great work
UteBigSmile
shadownet
I think you nailed the effect. This looks great!
philebus
This is just outstanding! I'm not much interesting in photo-realism in renders, so I love to see Poser used this way. Your hard work and use of the multiple renders has really paid off.
mmitchell_houston
Thank you very much. I love photo realism... but it's not really needed for every project. I like experimenting with b&w to see what I can do. I think the Comic Book Preview is one of the most innovative things that Poser has added in years, and it seems like many users are ignoring its potential. Ah well... new and shiny will always catch people's attention more, I suppose (and to be fair, I've seen some amazing work with Iray and Superfly). Thanks again for the kind words.
leroysquab
I love this technique of yours. I'm really fascinated by the great B&W comic illustration you are able to achieve. Great job here.
jif3d
I like the shadowing, especially on the right shoulder, where there is a bleed between the half tone angle stripes and the solid black, which could have also added a bit more smoothness to the face, just a suggestion and neat work MM...M&M ? LOL
Well done & ~Cheers~
mmitchell_houston
Thanks for the constructive comments. This was the first test I did with this technique, and it was a pretty good start with the Noir look I'm going for. I'm having a lot of fun with this technique, although the initial set-up is actually quite painstaking, as all of the textures need to be adjusted before it works. Working with older models and designs is actually a little easier, because they tended to have simpler textures and less reliance on bump maps than do the newer items.