Is tracing cheating in comics?

ROUH GENERATED TRANSCRIPT…

00:00:00] This is a different page, I just started drawing a different page on top of this. Welcome to CloudTown Tuesday. The day where I share a page from my graphic novel, CloudTown, and, um, tell you about the process of making it. It's like a, um, editor's commentary on a DVD. Here it is. Let's go. Let's do it.

So, like, this is like, what am I even doing anymore? What is going on? Yeah, why are you adding on to it now? This is a different page, I just started drawing a different page on top of this. Welcome to CloudTown Tuesday. The coloring's garbage. The, the Is it smart? Well, I mean, if it Well, I guess if it's just a different thing completely and not related to what you were just doing, then It is.

It's the, it's the This is like the last page I drew. It's the one with Cloudtown High smashed. And like, the weird thing is like, when I drew this page, like the last page I drew, Oh yeah, this is pictures of the library, cause I started to Oh, oh. Started to use photos. It's cool that it shares the composition with the first one, and that's uh, ending the book with it.[00:01:00]

But it's not ending, it's in the beginning. I just had finished the book and I realized there was no page for me to sign and sketch it. Wait, are you doing a whole new page now? Yeah, on top of this page. Oh, oh, so you didn't use the other one? So the other, the other illustration's done. The other illustration's done, so I had like 15 hours.

Okay, so you're still using it. So you're not like, throwing everything out and starting over. No, you're like duplicating it. And so this is like the opening page I sketch on because I realized that I had no white space in any of the book to write my name on. Like, I, I just, oh yeah, that does look pretty.

That's dope. Pretty nice. But like also just look at the time distance. This is starting to look like a picture and it's been two hours and the last one it took me like seven hours. The only thing I personally try to like, I think it's better, I mean, I obviously look up reference but I don't go and trace it just because I don't feel like I learned how to do the shape language.

What's shape [00:02:00] language? You know, like, how to build the illustration from, you know, like, uh, What, like a composition? Like the structure of the drawing. Right. Um. Yeah. Oh, right, yeah. So, the idea is to eventually get to the point where I can draw it from my imagination. Yeah. But if you're under a time crunch, which you are.

Yeah, if you're under a time crunch, it's just convenient. Then you, then you just, it's just, it depends what you want, yeah, it depends what you want.

I think it's like, whatever you can do to get an idea out, like, cause most people won't know whether or not you used a reference or trace. Here, watch this. Watch this. Junto Ito's gonna help us out. Yeah, no. We wanna, uh, damage. I, I don't know. I, I was, I became a Patreon of the creator of Spaceboy and his philosophy is [00:03:00] like, after you figure out the, the page breaks, the story and like the rough, the rough style of what's going to happen on the page, the cartooning is over.

And so from then on it's illustration and he's like, for me, I want to be the best cartoonist I can be. I don't really care about being a great illustrator. So it's more about expression. Yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting philosophy anyway. I do think there is something different between being an illustrator.

I mean, obviously, between being a cartoonist and illustrator. What are the differences? I think like, the main difference is Man, get your chair up in here. Come on, get in here. Come on, just sit on here. I'll do it. I'm younger than you. Oh. Um, Yeah, but this is also the time where I kinda realized that this, this unspoken first act was what the whole story [00:04:00] was about.

And like, the prequel I'm drawing now is all like, Realizing that they had to go to this new high school because their old high school was smashed. And so, at least having, like, this candles and stuff, like, set a tone. But, like, if they had their high school smashed while they were there, and, like, maybe Penn and Olive weren't really good friends, but now they're the only two people they know from their old school at their new school.

Damn, did they all die? You'll have to read and find out. It's almost done. I got one more page to draw. Oh, oh shit. Okay. Man. Yeah, you know, one thing I do like about this, even though you did start off with, like, kind of tracing out the shapes, at this point you're creating, you're, you're creating it into your drawing.

Yeah, I only, I only used part of it. I like how you're already adding do trace, I think that's the best way to do it. You know. And you can see I've already learned that, uh, mistake I made through most of the book about, um, yeah, yeah, about having thinner lines in the background. [00:05:00] Right. That's one thing I like about, like, looking at, like, early books and stuff.

Because you can see the artist grow. Especially with early webcomics, like, webcomics through the aughts. Yeah. Um, you, you really see artists, you know, start from their deviant art beginnings. . Yeah. And then evolve into like Tracy, but, well, Tracy Butler started off really good. That's a lack of Daisy Katz.

Hmm. I also feel like the only reason I noticed telephone poles is 'cause I love Tekkonkinkreet you're by artist again. Matsumoto. Matsumoto, yeah. Very good. Yeah, he is really good. He's. Yeah. He actually, so Sonny's about an orphanage and he grew up in an orphanage. Did he? Yeah, and that's why so many of his stories, like he grew up in an all boys orphanage, so he's like, talks about like not knowing how to do female characters, partially because like he basically hardly ever has interacted with anyone other [00:06:00] than little boys and now like manga men.

But like, but also a very unique perspective to share. I love, you know, his style was so unique. refreshing. Actually, I think like just him being able to do that was at the Tekkonkinkreet Black and White. Yeah. That allowed for the styles of, like, what's his name? Isayama from Attack on Titan. I think that opened it up to where you can have newer, more personalized styles within manga.

Even like Dorohedoro or Chainsaw Man. Although Chainsaw Man, I mean Chainsaw Man is closer to our model, but It's kind of like, um, it's like, what's the regular manga there, Shonen? Shonen. Yeah, it's like shown in, but Scratchier, yeah, I, I've noticed that that is a popular style now, like scratchy Shonen. Yeah, you see that Chainsaw Man and Dorohedoro, but it's, I think that's only 'cause well like Dorohedoro and also around and [00:07:00] also an attack on Titans.

Yeah. It's that same type of, but at the same time, like my hero academia is like almost the opposite. Yeah. Super clean. My hero academia is just another Naruto. I don't know, man. If you read Naruto I haven't read any of it, but that doesn't mean I don't I can still have an opinion on it. It's kind of the same shit.

I mean, it is. I mean, it's the same arc, but it's like Just because it's the I mean, stylistically it feels It's the same genre. It's like watching two detective stories. But it doesn't mean they're not different. Just the thing is, like, Naruto, especially in the beginning, is much closer in, like, artistic quality to, like, an Attack on Titan.

Oh, really? They clean up over time. Oh, I didn't know that. Um, but, like, My Hero Academia comes out like it was made with plastic figurines. But like he's obviously read like some Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comics. Oh, really? Because there's some reference y things. Oh, that's rad Yeah, that's awesome. And a bunch of like he's obviously read a lot of X Men and stuff.

Oh, it's like it's the most American style comic [00:08:00] Yeah, the Shonen stuff, but right that's interesting It's still interesting though, because it's still The target audience for My Hero Academia is still like 13 year olds, right? Well, everything in Shonen Jump from Chainsaw Man and My Hero Academia to Dragon Ball is for like 12 to 17 year old boys.

But they aim for the younger and try to keep the older on because they want to have that audience all the level of gore in it American audiences would make it for 17 and up, right? Oh yeah, I mean, at first it's kind of cutesy. And that's what's interesting. Yeah. And I think that's also one of the reasons more, like, 13 to 17 year old kids are just reading manga.

Yeah. We have a huge gap. Not that it's just like, gore hounds. In Japan they're a little bit more loose about it. But it, it, I think. With the fanservice too. Yeah, and that's what kids were reading comics in America. No, the fanservice is very important. I mean, no, but like, in the 90s [00:09:00] in America, like, all the image stuff, like, that's why kids bought it too.

And that's why kids go to the drive in movie theaters and stuff. I know, you could make this argument that it's just exploitation, which I'm fine with, but I also think it's a sign of respect. Like, there's 13 year olds having to deal with a lot of shit. Yeah. And they have the internet. They've seen a lot of stuff.

It's not like, Oh, they said poop. They said poop in the X Men comics. Do you remember that? Speaking of which, like, uh, Captain Underpants got banned in all these schools because there was like a little kid in his underpants. Oh, Jesus Christ. That's dope. You know how, like, Red Room has banned in 26 countries?

They need that on Captain Underpants. Yeah, they should. Banned in 26 states! They did or they should? They should. They should. They should. They should. I think they tried to downplay that. I'm like, what the heck did I put there? I also, like, didn't they make a movie out of it? I mean Captain Underpants? Yeah, [00:10:00] yeah.

Captain Underpants, like, come on. What? You know, he's in his underpants. Come on. It's like I don't know. It's very offensive. That's why he would do dog pants. What is this Captain Underpants? It's the previous comic by, uh, the guy who does dog panties. It's fine. Yeah, yeah. It's the end. It's fine. I haven't read it.

I haven't. It's an illustrated book, so he did some drawings and some text. Kind of like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Right. Did he do that one too? No, no, that's a different person. He's like Humpty Dumpty. They are the people paying for this book to be printed. Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Because that's like, that's the hit that this publisher has.

Oh, oh, okay. Abrams is the second biggest kids publisher released last year in America. Um, and that's um, Just probably because of Diary of the Wimpy. You know, I honestly think it would have been awesome if you could have got that two colors. Because you could have done like this part, like in some pink or something, but then have the background in different shades of blue.

Or just like flats. I'm gonna [00:11:00] zip to the end, and then I want to show you what I'm doing right now. Ooh. Yeah. Okay, so, I'll show you the prequel.