Hey gang, Noeland here once again to start some trouble. Now, I'm not a big user of photos. I've done it for certain things, certain lighting, or just because I saw a cool photo I wanted to draw. I for one really enjoy pulling the characters out of my mind, and throwing them on the paper. Nothing in between the mind and paper but the pencils and pens.

I've tried to use photos for stand alone illo's, but still find myself not really enjoying it much. I feel a bit like a xerox machine, not an artist with an imagination.

I know there is a school of thought in the comic biz that photo ref. is a MUST. Some artists will actually play out the entire story with friends and family snapping a picture for every single panel they plan to draw. No thanks.

I know the results can be great, Alex Ross for one used a lot of photos for BATMAN, War On Crime, going so far as to design a form fitting costume for his model (which looked pretty damn cool in the pics I saw).

Is this going overboard, is it sacrificing imagination for perfect anatomy and lighting, or is the artist using his or her imagination by setting up the shot to be begin with (a bit like a director on a film)??

Whatchoo guys think??

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OK, there's a difference between using photo reference and copying a photo. The first is to make sure an arm is in a realistic position, the second is xerox.

I use photo ref for alot of things but none of it ever even vaguely looks like the picture I used. It could be that I only go looking for reference AFTER I hit a problem. So, I'm only looking at it on a structural level. (The only other time I use it is for technical ref, buildings, carriages, etc.)

To tell you the truth most of Alex Ross's stuff bores the hell out of me. Give me a Storrey, Sienkewicz (sp?), or McKean over that plastic crap.

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Justin Savage
President/Editor/Web-bozo
Win free comics at
Sabre's Edge's Grand Re-Opening
www.sabresedge.com

Photo ref has it's place. The problem is when it becomes a crutch. I use it for commercial purposes but I always try to use it only as a guide.

Savage-
You keep bringing up Barron Storey. I'm glad because I admire the hell out of his work.

There aren't enough people out there who know Storrey. He's won numerous awards for Illustration and his comics are experimental and beautiful. That crap TCJ tries to push off as "ART" comics looks like the derivative crap it is next to Storrey's work.


heheheheheh---crap crap crap crap crap....me cranky this evening. [img]http://207.69.158.95/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
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Justin Savage
President/Editor/Web-bozo
Win free comics at
Sabre's Edge's Grand Re-Opening
www.sabresedge.com



[This message has been edited by savage (edited 02-01-2000).]

I postsed a (((Hand Drawn vs: painted comics))) thread at the tcj.
Alex Ross's name came up and all of his stuff looks realistic but the sheer amount of time invested into every pannel in making it look realistic just has the oposite effect on me.

If your going for realism this is just what your going to achive. I do like Ross's paintings as comic book covers and the two overstreet covers he did in 1997 are just awesome but when you put word ballons into fine art painted pannels the work has just the oposite effect.
Otherwise Mr. Ross does makes things cool things happen. Happy little trees [img]http://207.69.158.95/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

A thing i seen done with photos are just using them as backgrounds for comic illustrations. I find this very effective
like in the animation "Dot and the red Kangaroo" done in 1971 by some Japanese studio. one cool kids movie i liked it anyway at the time [img]http://207.69.158.95/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
You can find examples of this stuff all over the net here is a good link of Japanese sites who use this stuff on that all "PAP"
manga CG the public loves so much. http://www.fsinet.or.jp/~fight/kouza/AWASE.HTM

[This message has been edited by Cory Fuka (edited 02-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Cory Fuka (edited 02-01-2000).]

Neal Adams uses a hell of a lot of photo reference in his work. He even advocates tracing. I don't see a thing wrong with that. Again it comes down to do what you must to get your point across. There is a tendency to get to hung up on purity of craft. All that ultimately matters is the end result. Did you communicate what you needed to?
Again, my only problem is when it becomes a crutch. As Al Williamson once said to an artist, a friend of his, who couldn't find the appropriate reference: "Guess you have to fall back on talent." Which the friend, I believe it's Brent Anderson, has.

Savage-
Your point on Storey is well taken.

Corey-
I agree on your point about word ballons on painted panels. It's jarring. I think one of the most successful ways to handle this was the solution used for the graphic novels "Empire" and "The Stars My Destination".

I feel that some amount of photo reference is absolutely essential to draw some things accurately, the problem is when you can look at a drwaing and say "he used reference here because it looks so different from everything else on the page.".

And thruthfully, I hate it when an artist gets lazy and xeroxes a cityscape for the background of a panel. It always jumps out at me and takes me out of the story. But if they were to trace the same image onto the board, that would not bother me at all.

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Phil Clark
The Drawing Board
pclark@acmecity.com