Megacon, the largest comics convention in Orlando, Florida, is but a mere two weeks from today, and I’m scrambling to make some new prints. I’ve sketched a few ideas out on my Tumblr page – maybe you can help me decide which ones are worth inking and coloring. There’s a bit of something for everyone, including Dr. Who, Mario, Superman, Batgirl, and more. Take a look and share your feedback. Thanks!

-Krishna

At long last, I’m pleased to announce the first Guest-Star PC Weenies strip in quite some time. Tom Racine, the affable host of the incredibly popular Tall Tale Radio podcast, gets the spotlight today.

I let Tom get a sneak peek of his guest-star appearance earlier today, and he had this to say:

Hot damn, man! I am so honored. I love your style so much, and to be a part of it is just amazing. I love panel 3! :)

Looks great, brother…and pretty much how I react to #*%$@! OS upgrades. VERY wary of them. Put me in a cool nerdy t-shirt and you’re golden! How cool!

Tom

Tom, this one’s for you!

Guest-starring in a PC Weenies comic is super simple – and a terrific gift to give to your friends, coworkers or loved ones. Join the cast of PC Weenies and sign up to be in your very own PC Weenies comic today!

P.S. I’ll be at Megacon in Orlando two weeks from now. It was a last minute addition – I’ll have books for sale, of course, and hopefully some nice prints, handshakes and smiles. Stop by!

-Krishna
Similar Posts:

• Guest-Starring: Kinzie Kramer
• Guest-Starring: Aljiro and Joyce!
• Guest-Starring: Ben Huchley
• Guest-Starring: Pleek!
• Atypical Grail Quest (Guest-Starring: Victor Cajiao!)

This week, we’re going to look at drawing hands. Hands are incredibly expressive and add a great deal to a character’s pose and attitude. Hands can be complicated to draw without an understanding of the underlying forms that make it up. The palm can be thought of as a wedge. The fingers can each be thought of as a set of tapered cylinders.
The knuckles of the fingers, when looking at the hand face up or down, form an arch. In the male hand, the knuckles are usually emphasized. In the female hand, the knuckles are usually de-emphasized to heighten femininity.

The arm itself has three points of articulation: the shoulder, the elbow and the wrist. To make the arms look volumetric, I consider the tapered cylinders to have a curved side and a straight side. Playing curves against straights makes the arm have depth.

Study the visual notes and practice drawing hands by breaking them down into simplified forms. You’ve got two great references right in front of you: your own hands!

The assignment this week is to draw a total of 10 expressive arms. You can represent the torso, but the focus should be on the arms and hands. The arms can be male or female – ideally draw 5 male versions and 5 female versions.

Apprentices: Don’t hesitate if you have any questions! Good luck!

-Krishna
Similar Posts:

• Week 2: Understanding the Torso with the help of a Flour Sack
• Mentor Experiment: Oskar van Velden Critique
• Assignment 2 Critique: Kyndra
• Mentor Experiment: Head Design
• Character Design Tip: The Power of the Symmetry Y Tool

Barry is showing the horizontal axis line in his drawings, which is good – but the eyes and nose need to rest on the horizontal axis line. In the case of a long nose, the stem of the nose should originate from the intersection of the horizontal and vertical axis lines. All of Barry’s characters are confined to a simple circular / elliptical shape. This is a good starting point, but additional tweaks are needed for the characters to exhibit a clearer silhouette. Try moving the horizontal axis line (the eye line) up to the top of the head or towards the bottom. Exaggerate the position of the eyebrows to make the character’s expression more readable.

Noses are just as unique as fingerprints – take a closer look at the nose and break it down into a cylindrical shape – this will give the nose form and anchor it better on the character’s face. Eyes are the windows into our soul – and they should be expressive and unique as the character itself. Barry’s using the same eye shape for all his characters; my suggestion would be to experiment with different eye shapes and their placement on the horizontal axis line. Also, ears in a 3/4 view should be further back on the character’s head.

Chins and cheeks make the character more visually interesting, and the best part is, they can be built right ontop of the round shape Barry is using. Here are three characters from Barry’s submission that I’ve provided additional notes on.

More practice and study in head construction is needed, but I am confident Barry will get there. Keep it up, Barry!!

-Krishna

Today we’ll look at Kyndra’s submission for the week. She did a really nice job with this exercise, starting off with exploring volumetric forms on the top.
Next, she varied the eye-line height, keeping the male character’s features the same. I really like the variety in her head designs – particularly when constrained
to using the same shape.

The one bit of advice I’d suggest is to keep the character’s eyes resting on the eyeline. In a few of her drawings (4th row), we can see the foreshortened eye a little lower than the eye that’s closest to us. All in all, Kyndra did a great job!

How did you do?

-Krishna
Similar Posts:

• Mentor Experiment: Head Design
• Assignment 2 Critique: Kyndra
• Attitude Poses: Kyndra’s Critique
• Mentor Experiment: Week 3: Barry’s Critique

PC Weenies made the news twice this week. First up, MTV Geek plugged the Mentor Experiment on Monday. On Tuesday, Gizmodo included the PC Weenies strip in its round-up of “The Funniest Comics About Crappy Passwords”. Two big plugs in a week makes me think I should start playing the lottery again. Well, maybe not.

Speaking of passwords, February 1st (today) is Change Your Password Day. But don’t forget, IT folks will be celebrating “Forgot My Password” day tomorrow. ;)

Enjoy the toon!

-Krishna
Similar Posts:

• Password Protection
• Something Positive
• Hiring Freeze
• The Art of Conversational Narcissm
• Line of Fire

I’ve championed the usage of solid state drives since I purchased my first Other World Computing SSD over a year ago. Since then, I’ve added another one to my Macbook Pro, and I haven’t looked back. Both machines are now 4 years old, but they’re still running like new machines.

I haven’t fully left platter based drives – they serve to hold the bulk of my data files; they also act functional back-up drives. Have you made the switch to SSDs yet? Do you plan to make the move soon? Drop your feedback in the comments below!

Update:

Here’s a video clip of me inking panel 4.

-Krishna
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• Signal Drop-off
• Cease and Desist
• An Exercise in Frustration
• All Filtered Out
• The Box Model

Next week, we switch gears, but believe me, this story has only just begun!

Thanks for patiently awaiting inks. My schedule being what it is (crazy, as usual), I’d rather give you a strip to read (though unfinished) than no strip at all.

-Krishna
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• Comfort Zone
• Back to Work
• Epilogue: Happy Together
• Ch-Ch-Changes
• The Royal Flush

This week we’ll look at heads. Heads come in all shapes and sizes, it’s up to us to find a method to break the shape down into a basic form. Start with a primitive volumetric form, like a sphere, oval, or even a flour sack. Remember that the head is not flat – it has volume!

Once you have drawn the volumetric form, the next task is to establish the character’s eye line. In the top row below, you’ll see that event though the head shape and features are all the same, by establishing the eye line (horizontal axis) at different levels, we can get characters that look similar, yet different.

Volumetric surfaces have contours (lines) that follow the form. It’s important that you place the eyes on the eye line, but also adhere to making sure the eyes, nose and mouth follow the form of the head.

This week’s task is fairly straight-forward:

1) Draw 5 heads with different volumetric forms. Establish the contour lines for each form.

2) Draw 5 heads using the same volumetric form, but vary the eye line. Keep all the features identical.

3) Take the same volumetric form from #2 and now develop 5 distinct characters (young, old, male, female, anthropomorphic, etc.)

Good luck! And feel free to share your progress by way of a link in the comments below.

-Krishna
Similar Posts:

• The Mentor Experiment: Week 4: Kyndra’s Critique
• Assignment 2 Critique: Barry
• Mentor Experiment: Week 3: Barry’s Critique
• The Mentor Experiment: Week 5: Arms and Hands!
• Mentor Experiment: Body Proportions

(Click the image above to embiggen.)

The Mentor Experiment critique continues – are you keeping up?

Today I’m analyzing Kyndra’s character designs. Overall, she did a terrific job! Let’s dive in, shall we?

1. Her mad scientist character is a blend of sharp and smooth lines – my suggestion – use sharper angles for the arms if you’re playing up his ‘evilness’, or just go with rounded shapes / forms if he’s the nonthreatening, bumbling type. I really like how Kyndra lowered the horizontal eye line to emphasize the character’s braininess.

2. Her slender, evil queen design is solid – very clear silhouette – I really like this one.

3. The clumsy pirate – I like the pose and the overlap of his shoulder against his head. My suggestion to enhance this pose would be to bend the back a bit more – push the foreshortening of the arm closest to us, and to move the other hand back, to make the silhouette read better.

4. The shrewd / cunning but heavyset police officer. Love the pose on this – she nailed it! Minor suggestion – have a gap between the upper arm and the chin to make
the silhouette read even clearer.

5. Love the lazy cowboy figure. Rounded shapes show that he’s really not a threat – the hat over his eyes gives us a sense that he’s not particularly sharp, and his pose suggests laziness.

All in all, great work!!

-Krishna