Today we're talking about setting the scene and communication through the art on the panel.
It's a simple yet complex subject- how do you compose the scene to better communicate all the stuff like which character is more important, who's to be feared, if a person is coming or going, fight scenes etc. How do you compose stuff?

Movie directors are a good thing to follow because it's a related art form. We mention the compositions of Spielberg, Sergio Leone, Wes Anderson and more. I came from a fine art background so I used to often try to emulate the compositions of classical art. Banes recommends reading “Framed Ink” by Marcos Mateu-Mestre.

What inspires you with your art direction? Do you think deeply about it or do you just depict the characters in the most efficient way possible to tell the story?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by It’s my turn to save the world - High energy, purposeful, cute and full of stars, twinkles, and lines as straight as glowing laser beams, burning through with fearsome power and heat!

Topics and shownotes

Links

The cover image is from a Banes choreographed panel from our sexy horror comic Key of Dreams that was part of the DD anthology!
Get a copy here for $25 - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck/shop/drunk-duck-anthology-flock-of-dreams-276787?source=storefront

Featured comic:
Pigeons - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/sep/09/featured-comic-pigeons/

Featured music:
It’s my turn to save the world - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Its_My_Turn_to_Save_the_World/ - by Nanji, rated E.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

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- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
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The topic we're talking about today was inspired by my ruminations on Bullshido martial arts promo demonstration videos. These are the videos where a martial arts master shows off their skill in a patently fake demonstration, usually starting with breaking concrete slabs or wood and then progressing to a performance where they show how easily they can defeat all of their students who try and attack them.

The really bad ones will pretend to channel “chi” (a fake energy) and knock down their students without even trying! The thing is that often the teachers actually believe they can really DO this stuff because the reactions of their students make them believe that it's real. And the students believe it too because of motivated reasoning (they WANT to believe), and they are influenced by each other. It's all one self reinforcing bubble echo-chamber of belief.

There are two reasons I'm talking about this in terms of webcomics: 1. Bullshido is the origin of the amazing and silly martial arts and superhero moves and techniques in comics and animation and it's interesting to know where it comes from. and 2. this sort of stuff is why we have preconceived ideas about why a lot of pop-culture is good or bad: We fall for a sort of tribal thinking that's created by our tendency to follow the beliefs of others without examining them for ourselves. It's the sort of thing that results in cults, conspiracy belief, and our opinions on political figures. It's even why we believe that valve amps, Les Paul guitars, Stradivarius violins, and vinyl records sound magically better than the alternatives. It's a fascinating and fun topic and we go deep into it!

This week Gunwallace wasn't able to make a new theme so I re-issued the theme to Kirsha Brackets - A warm rush of frenetic activity! Modern, bright, shiny, new, fun, action, happening, moving, going, bouncing, bubbling, hopping, motivation!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Jalek and the Starbook - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/sep/03/featured-comic-jalek-and-the-starbook/

Featured music:
Kirsha Brackets - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Kirsha_Brackets/ - by DrawingGenius, rated T.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Cross cultural influence is a marvellous thing and very enriching to creativity! It's lovely when you can see multiple cultural influences in things, whether comics, movies, art, fashion, music or anything else. It's inspiring and leads to new and more interesting things. I picked promo images from some recent Pixar movies Turning Red, Encanto, Coco, and Moana, because they're good examples of the process and what it can result in.

The flip-side of that is “cultural appropriation”. That's where you take something that's important, sacred or representative of another culture and you claim ownership of it or use it in an inappropriate way, not giving the true source any respect and not seeking permission. unfortunately this is often used as a false accusation by people who either try and white-knight or are just trying to weaponise the idea in order to gain status or make a point, which has a number of very negative effects: It drives people toward monoculuralisim in their expression, makes people afraid to experiment, it can make people less likely to see ACTUAL examples of cultural appropriation and more likely to discount or ignore real examples of it.

In the Quackcast we mention Big Trouble in Little China, which was a wonderful blend of American action film and Hong Kong kung-fu movie. The Clint Eastwood Western A Fist Full Of Dollars is a version of the Japanese samurai film Yojimbo, made by Italians. And then of course the Samurai films of that era were inspired by America westerns anyway, so there was all sorts of deep cultural mixing.
What are some of your own fave examples of cross cultural influence?

This week another re-release of an older theme by Gunwallace, this one inspired by Thrud Goddess Of Thunder - Big fat beats and an epic sound! This one really brings the thunder! It’d be great as the intro tune to a professional wrestling match. It builds anticipation perfectly and really slams home and delivers on its promises. Epic sounds! This is the theme that became our Quackcast theme!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
The Sloggs Gang Go To Comic Con - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/26/featured-comic-the-sloggs-gang-go-to-comic-con/

Featured music:
Thrud Goddess Of Thunder - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/THRUD_Goddess_Of_Thunder/ - by takoyama, rated T.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Following on from last week with our Quackcast on faces, this week we're chatting about expressions, which is a very natural progression! expressions are a great way to enhance communication in comics. they can be fun to play with but tricky to master. Though when you get them right they really help lift your game.

Exaggerated expressions are seen more in cartoony work rather than realistic styles but drawing good expressive faces still works well regardless, even if they ARE more subtle. One of the funniest things about drawing facial expressions is how your own face tends to mirror what you're drawing at the time, so you can look like a freak!
When it comes to expression I think anime took it to a new level with their range of expressions using eyes, sweat drops, and hovering vein symbols. I've never seen western art that has such a facility when it comes to the variety in Manga, like characters who seem to be smiling and good natured but are broken and dead inside, or secretly evil- all done simply with the eyes and mouth.

One of the big myths about non-verbal communication is that it comprises the vast majority of communication, which is pretty silly and easily debunk-able, but the fact that myth is still so popular shows how important expressions are to us, at least in our perception. Obviously the vast majority of communication is primarily through language alone, but body-language and expression do help.

For our Patreon video we all tried drawing facial expressions real time, that's where the cover image comes from. Banes and Tantz were great! I wasn't.
Are you any good at drawing expressions? Do you make silly faces when you do? What's your fave expression?

This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by The Gimblians - Introspective, considered and thoughtful. A short little compact track that leads us down a silent snowy path through a dark forest in the moonlight… and into a bouncy castle filled with clowns!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Carpe Doodle - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/20/featured-comic-carpe-doodle/

Featured music:
The Gimblians - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Gimblians/ - by Mattgasser, rated E.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

We chatted about Greek Myths last week and found the subject so interesting that we thought we'd do a part two! So even MORE Greek myth stuff for Quackcast 700.

There are just so many great stories like the myth of the Hydra and how it was so hard to kill because when one of its many heads were cut off it would just grow another one. Or the Minotaur that was trapped in a labyrinth under the palace of Minos in Crete in order to imprison him because he was a monster. The labyrinth was of course built by Daedalus.

I love all the stories about Daedalus who was a genius inventor and architect, basically an engineer and a scientist, and I love that he as an inventor is a celebrated character of myth. Not many cultures have myths about such characters. Odysseus is another favourite of mine, he was a genius strategist and just an all round clever man who could always come up with plans and amazing solutions to problems… a bit of a MacGyver if you will. And he's another interesting character to be celebrated in myth.

My favourite gods are the siblings Artemis and Apollo. Apollo only because he's a sun god and he's an arrogant, pretty fellow so he's fun to draw. Artemis is a fave because she's so capable, competent, and driven, plus she has an awesome name. she's seen as a virgin, maiden hunter goddess and another aspect of Athena. The Roman version was Diana and our modern version is Wonder Woman.

Who are your fave gods or humans in Greek myth?

This week Gunwallace wasn't able to do a Quackcast so since this is Quackcast 700 I decided to reissue our theme to Quackcast 500! - This was an awesome rocky anthem for the DD Quackcast. It’s all hard guitars and loud stonkin’ sound! With the super-duper added contribution of us all shouting “500”!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Amell: A Grey Warden is Born - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/06/featured-comic-amell-a-grey-warden-is-born/

Featured music:
Five hundred! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-500-celebration by All of us, rated E

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Hair is a weird thing isn't it? It's just a bunch of thin filaments that stand out and hang from the body, most visibly from the head. Everyone is bald as an egg underneath this coating of head-fur, but the floof on top takes on a life, body, and shape of its own even though the truth is that it's just thin threads all buffed up with a lot of air. Hairstyles can indicate class, status, wealth, occupation, style, coolness, lack of cool, age, date, and any number of other factors about a person and where and when they fit in society. We also have strong reactions to hair: love, hate, revulsion, or disgust. It can indicate whether a person belongs to a community, a society, a religion or a sect.

It's a gigantic subject, so lets limit it down to just a few things…
In the 20th century the biggest events with hair were caused by the 2 world wars. World War one gave us the beginnings of female emancipation: in the 1920s after WW1 we had young “flappers” with their short, boyish haircuts, much to the shock of some people. But it was also the first beginnings of mass military service for millions of young men who were introduced to the mass enforced conformity of the military haircuts.

In the years between wars fashion fought back and other styles prevailed, but World War 2 bought millions more men and women into military service and THIS time those fashions stuck. It wasn't till the late 1950s and early 1960s the the first reactions to post war ultra-conservatism started to show up with what eventually became the counter culture movement exemplified by hippies. Long hair on men was seen as an act of revolution. Their conservative parents somehow forgot that their own parents and grandparents before them had long shaggy hair and beards (if they wanted them), and treated the long haired youth like something new and weird, when in reality it was their own conservative war traumatised generation that were the weird ones.

That aside, what hairstyles do you like? What do you gravitate towards? Do you like particular styles on characters that you draw or read about in comics? I love big hair and long hair on my characters because short hair is really hard to draw. But these days I experiment with my styles, even bald styles which are interesting, though not full bald because that's just easy mode.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The DD Anthology: A Flock of Dreams - A very dream-like cruise on a sea of somnambulance…drifting off into dreamland with piano and soft sounds. Floating on waters of heavy, dully shining mercury.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Tuk and His Dinosaur - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/23/featured-comic-tuk-and-his-dinosaur/

Featured music:
The DD Anthology: A Flock of Dreams - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/20/quackcast-697-the-dd-anthology-comic/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS