Photo Reference as a way of life
on June 4th, 2010This post explains why cartooning is sometimes at its best when the artist doesn’t rely on photoreference. (EDIT: I have not read the comic. But the article makes valid points based on the examples.)
I use a lot of period reference for my work, because on projects like Gone to Amerikay, I must present a convincing picture of a particular time and place. But I use little photo reference for the figures. My custom is to reference the figure photo for no more than the initial rough sketch, after which I toss it and draw from memory.
Some years back, I tried heavy photo reference for my figure work, and not only do I don’t think it improved my drawing or storytelling, it made me neurotically concerned about using reference. Eventually, I became so dependent on photos, I convinced myself I could not draw without them. It took me well over a year to wean myself off the crutch.
I know some cartoonists who never draw without tracing. I’ve gone back to my custom of using reference and then drawing something which looks almost nothing like the reference. I am so much happier.
I think that the rise of computer graphics has decreased the impact of realistic images. Almost anyone can scan in some photos and use filters to make a comic book. Almost anyone can learn to use a Poser program.
One of the interesting things about SF fans who dabble in comics reading is that they often love highly rendered, illustrative comic art no matter how bad the storytelling is. I once heard a woman go off on a painter because you could see his brush strokes.
Comics fans are far more likely to appreciate design, line, and storytelling style.
This is a problem publishers need to consider when they try to market comic adaptations of books to people who are not comics readers: they need to take into account how differently non-comics readers process the pictures.
People who have no understanding of comics won’t notice the lousy lettering in the Twilight manga (and will become hostile when you do, you comic book nerd,) or the stiffly rendered figures and forms and very bad storytelling in some of those other novel adaptations.
But a non-comics reader will look at lots of color or hatching and they think they are looking at Great Comic Art.
Word balloon placement, storytelling…it’s like trying to explain pitch to someone who is tone deaf.
Work Bird swoops in. I must flee.
I’ve always throught that you treat photo references the way they should be treated. It’s one of the things I’ve always respected in your work.
But I have to admit to being disturbed by the (current) trend toward what I consider obviously Photoshopped “art”. There’s something petrified in the heart of such pieces, no matter how energetic and colorful the design around them. The “characters” posing in them seem to have nothing to do with the moment at hand, no heart: they’re just in some otherworldly photo session. There’s little storytelling going on.
I could easily fall into a full-blown rant, but I won’t. I appreciate the labor you put into getting accurate references, but never letting the references over-run your own art.
I recall getting into an argument with someone over Alex Ross’s art. They were convinced it wasn’t comics.
Some comics art is primarily illustrative, and some is pure storytelling. I think there is room for both and I enjoy both.
I guess the “illustrative” style is easier to produce these days, what with all those nifty computer tools. But most of it just leaves me cold.
I think, like most fans, I was dazzled by it all at first. But I just don’t have any interest in a lot of it. I agree with the article that much is stiff and characterless.
I have no idea who the artist in the article is, either. Maybe these panels are not typical of their work. I don’t know. The pictures look really pretty.
But a lot of comics these days look like those 1970′s photo comics.
OK, let me see if I can get this to make sense…
I don’t like to use reference exactly because what I want to bring to a book is the sense of an experience lived. I don’t take photos of every moment of that life.
I want the reader to feel as if the artist who drew the book saw what was going on, and then told the story later via the filter of their memory. I want the reader to get the idea that I witnessed an event and then retold it, with embellishments.
That’s one of the reasons why I spend so much time studying before I make a graphic novel. I want to have the world I am making realized in my head. The world should be a place that I have seen and know well so the reader can see it and know it well.
That world is not the real world. That world is my memory and/or interpretation of a world.
I just don’t understand the point of trying to make comics look like stop motion movies.
There are a lot of wonderful things you can do in comics that film can barely touch. I fail many times with my work, but the one thing I won’t fail at is making a comic what it is: a comic.
My comics aren’t photo albums.
Interesting point.
I recall a 90s comic done entirely in Photoshop titled “Taboux: Just Deserts”. It was printed on gloss stock and was a sort of fumetti affair, doctored photos with captions and word balloons. But the texts were translucent, like the ones Vess did in ROSE (but nowhere near as effective). The storyline was violent (for the sake of being so) and incomprehensible, the lighting was bad, the book was filled with lovingly typeset typos in an illegible Gothic font, and the layouts bordered on incomprehensible.
All in all, a painful little outing created by people who were in love with their tools but made the mistake of thinking the tool was an end in itself.
I have my issues with Ross, as we’ve discussed in the past, but I do respect his skill and professionalism. He learned how to tell a story. Some folks don’t bother, more fools they.
I think that the Photo-realisim movement now previlent in comics is a by product of the aging comic buyers. It seems that older fans demand hyper detailed art done on a monthly shedule. Artists have to use extreme photo-reference and photoshop collage just to meet the demand of todays comic reader. The comics of the old had more kids where reading comics. Back then the books just had to look cool.
By way of contrast, I present an example of a picture with action impact. I did not use any reference.
I immodestly suggest that this picture has more force than the Jonah Hex panels.
That ended the debate in more ways than one. *LoL*
I’m sure there are people out there who think my work sucks, but that doesn’t obviate the point of the original commentary or my follow up post.
Much of my early work was very stiff. I did not use any reference for most of it. The more you become accustomed to drawing freehand, the looser your work gets. That kind of confidence only comes with practice, and when I used a lot of reference, I realized it’s a confidence you can lose. It’s like getting flabby after a long period with no exercise.
A well known painter with whom I was briefly acquainted made some rather harsh comments about my work and the work of others, convinced we do not practice photorealism because of technical deficiency. I don’t think it occurred to him that we do NOT do photorealism because we don’t want to.
He could not understand why we did not rely on photo reference as he does. Moreover, I got the impression he assumed we did, and were simply such bad copy artists we could not draw what was right in front of us.
I submit that it is considerably easier to get realistic results when you take photos of every shot and just copy what you see. I’ve done it.
I just don’t like doing it, and I don’t like the way that technique changed my work process. I don’t think it was an improvement.
I recently had a client suggest I speed up my work by using pose files.
I went off my nut.
Frank Miller’s thoughts on the subject:
http://frankmillerink.com/2010/5/time
Some unfortunate comments on the thread from some offended European comics fans who do not know that “fumetti” in English refers to comics made from photos.
Fumetti in Italian simply means “comics”.
You? Using pose files? Arrrgh! I can totally understand you going off on that. So many of your wonderful panels … just wouldn’t happen if so much time was spent dealing with pose files. Plus, you have a gift of changing angles on characters talking together – doing it in wonderful ways that support the characterizations!
It just seems obvious to me that you “get inside” the characters, and their poses and movements are determined by that. Pose files! Heh. Emeris striking a pose (at your hands) would still have very important things different than Seren mimicing Emeris striking that pose (and not just the costume).
There’s two kinds of photo-realistic art in comics: good, and bad. Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Leonard Starr, Stan Drake, Al Williamson… good. Most others, not so good. Comic art is about presenting the illusion of movement within a panel, or across a page. These artists, at their best, present a frozen moment as a panel, and their figures, though drawn in excruciating detail, appear to “move”. The examples shown in the link above don’t show a frozen moment, they look posed. Static. There is a distinct difference between art that’s photo-realistic, and, er… a photo. While a photo can also reveal “a frozen moment” it doesn’t present an illusion of movement.
A photo is purely about the tenth of a second that the shutter was open. That’s all. A comics panel, by contrast, attempts to cover a far more substantial period of time, and the image chosen has to represent the entirety of that period within a single image.
I think there’s often an assumption that artist who draw in this way are somehow “more talented”, but it’s nothing to do with talent: Jack Kirby could draw photo-realistically — he just chose not to.
I think we (and me included) sometimes confuse the term photo-realism when what we really mean is classical realism. So, none of us are really producing photorealism here, and that includes the artists you cite. What they really are is classicists.
Just thought I’d drop that in there.
I love how you describe what a comics artist strives for: a series of moments in one moment. That’s it exactly. Well said.
It’s a pet peeve of mine that people think if you choose not to make your art look like a photo you are broken somehow. Look, I can do a realistic pic as well as the next guy. For some time, I supplemented my income doing classical portraits. Look, here’s a sketch I did of a baby!
Looks just like a baby, doesn’t it?
Trust me, it’s not as hard as drawing 300 figures in a comic off the top of your head.
Now that I have proven I can sketch things so they look like TEH REAL, can I draw the X-Men now?
Well, you are an amazing artist and if you did use photoreferences for D’mer, please refer me to them.
About photorealism, comics are about expression, and it’s difficult to find any significant artist that has a ‘photorealistic’ style, be it Mignola on Hellboy, Kirby on Fantastic Four or Miller on Daredevil. None of which are photorealistic. And IF Kirby used photoreferences for that stuff, someone should tell SETI about it, because it’s not of this world. The best western comic by the way is still ‘Rick O’shay’ and it’s not exactly realistic in style, but very much so in the tone of the story.
I didn’t use a model for D’mer when I created him, but I do clip photos that look like him. Found this one today in the UK Daily Mail.
I love it not just because it looks like D’mer, but I like to wag stuff like this in the face of people who claim the men I draw don’t look like “real men”.
Because they are so used to looking at bizarre, muscle-bound depictions of men in comics, men who could not possibly perform acrobatics.
This is an eighteen year old gymnast:
In many ways, superhero comcis are as unrealistic in depicting men as they are depicting women, it’s part of the genre I guess, but sometimes, it’s tiring. Sometimes, it’s nice to watch beautiful people that still look like people.
I equate artist with: singular work capturing a moment or exploring an idea or process.
I equate illustrator with: mass produced work expressing an event or emotion.
One shows. One tells. Can there be overlap? Certainly.
Can photos illustrate? Hmm… almost all contemporary print ads use photos. Discuss.
MAD Magazine’s television and movie parodies use photo reference (especially the movies, which retell the plot). Do they succeed as comics? Discuss.
Not to discourage you, Ms. Doran, but go take a look at Picasso as a teen artist. He mastered classical realism. Then he went and explored cubism, and then, late in life developed a new style which was 10-20 years before anyone understood it.
Will your work ever appear in Glamourpuss? Unlikely. However, you have a clean realistic style. Your figures are distinct (and sometimes glamourous). I suspect you could do licensed work and succeed. (Can you do charicature?)
I think there will always be artists who take shortcuts, and those who will master the craft. The style may change (study Gaiman’s Sandman), but the skill and techniques of ilustrated storytelling can be discerned in that thin layer between ink and paper.
MAD cartoonists using photos as reference misses the point entirely.
Of course artists use photos for reference. The point is slavish devotion to photos and tracing which deadens the liveliness of the final comic book work.
What have photos in ads got to do with this? Nothing. Of course photos can be lively and illustrative. It is the interpretation of the photo by the cartoonist which can be dead.
I don’t see what Picasso has to do with it, or how his existence is supposed to discourage me (?). Or why I should be admonished to go look at his work (?). Or why you would incorporate the assumption that I don’t know his work (?).
I’ve never seen Glamourpuss, and am not concerned about whether or not I will ever be in it. Relevant?
My caricaturist skills or lack thereof. Relevant?
“I suspect you could do licensed work and succeed.”
Not that it’s against the law or anything, but you really don’t know my work very well. Licensing work pays my bills.
The pic of the baby: that’s supposed to be funny. You know, sketch of baby, OOOOOHhhhh realism.
I did that stuff back when I was a kid. For a living. At an amusement park.
If I had wanted to impress people with my classical realism skills, I’d have popped something else here.
Point being that just because something looks realistic, that does not make it better.
To quote Mark Evanier: “I would hire Colleen and lob large sums of cash at her — in advance! — because the work she would do for me would make me even larger sums of cash.”
That pretty much sums it up, and it seems that the “big two” agrees with that assessment on a regular basis.
This site for free, is a cool perk for us fans, but I’m not going to pass up on any of her other works either.
In regard to that, illustrating the always amazing Neil Gaiman on Sandman, was’nt served best by hyperrealism either, but it suited the story perfectly however, and was a real treat as a comic.
Always loved that part of the saga.
Funny enough, that story had a surreal dreamy quality to it, clashing with scenes taking place in a gritty reality which contrasted nicely.
Wouldn’t have worked if done as hyperrealism, for all the obvious reasons.
The Realism that is being done today is more photo-collage. That collage is then filtered with photoshop and then printed. The artist will then lightbox the collage and trace the image.
Referance is not the problem with lifeless art Even abstract artist like use photos to make sure details are correct.
As for Jack Kirby I don’t he look at the page he did before the one he was working on. His costumes changed so much page to page.
I think I can distill it all down to this:
No one is saying you can’t use reference. No one is saying you shouldn’t use reference.
The point is that slavish devotion to photoreference can be enervating and sometimes comes at the expense of storytelling.
I loved Driggenberg on Sandman. The high point of the series for me. I felt very lowly next to him.
Did you ever see Books of Magic? Charles Vess painting Driggenberg: SO beautiful!
Mark Evanier: we loves him muchly.
@ Brad: I am not sure what you are getting at. I think you typed a little fast.
re: Kirby. Lots of artists make continuity errors from page to page. The curse of deadlines. I don’t really think that’s relevant to this discussion.
You seem to be confusing reference as continuity aid with reference as drawing crutch.
I think Sandman brought together the best combinations of stories and artists on a regular basis, and thus, I read all of it. I remembered taking notice of your art though, and that’s why I started to look more activly for it.
I think the stories were so good, almost everyone brought their “A” game.
It’s far from my best work and came very early in my career. But if I had one thing going for me back then, it was the ability to act through my characters. I think it’s the only thing of mine from back then that holds up.
Driggenberg is, for me, an example of an artist who draws realistically, yet is expressive and interpretive. I love that kind of work in comics.
He co-created some characters, like death, and he’s a nice guy, but I still prefer the stuff you did. It’s a matter of taste, I think.
Oh my goodness, that is very generous of you, but I spent years wishing I could be more like Driggenberg. He had the combination of realism and expressionism that I wanted in my own work, but in the end, I went in a very different direction, obviously.
Even my “darker” works took a left turn off the mark.
It’s OK, the world doesn’t need another Driggenberg.
Isn’t it interesting how two people can head toward the same goal and come out with something completely different? Another thing to love about comics. It’s so exciting to see different artists working on the same book.
It’s one of the things that makes me sad about the photorealism trend. I honestly can’t tell some of these artists apart. That said, I can’t tell some manga artists apart, either. I guess I am just put off by homogeneous-looking work. I like to see the individual hand of the artist on the work. I appreciate artists who have their own look.
I’m sure clients love homogeneous art because they can get a company look branded onto the book. But that’s not why I read comics. I’m one of those people who files my back issues by artist, not by title.
I used to dump books the minute an artist I didn’t like took over.
And to follow up on my thought about homogeneous art, I fully expect major publishers to go for the company brand look as a matter of course.
It would be, I think, cheaper in the long run to hire talent with computer skills who work on salary. Currently, it’s cost effective to use freelancers – especially foreigners – who work cheap.
Many comics don’t earn royalties these days, but popular books can earn big checks for freelancers. A house artist may end up being less of a cost risk, as well as less of a legal risk.
Computer graphics are getting so inexpensive, that once the companies have standard sets and poses developed (and some companies already have digital graphic sets artists use,) freelance artists won’t be needed for licensed works.
With good Pose file figures and animation software, full color 3-D comic pages can be cranked out at the rate of 3 pages a day.
There is no way a freelancer who draws by hand can compete with that.
One salaried artist could crank out 3 books per month, in full color.
This artist could replace 3 pencilers, 3 inkers, 3 colorists and 3 letterers on 3 different books.
Even with benefits and a salary, that artist would be far more cost effective than 3 freelance creative teams. The house artist would have no future legal rights to the work, and would not be entitled to royalties. And the work would be house style perfect all the way.
I was typing fast I had to get my nephew out to the park [he woke up from his nap half way though typing the post:)] I was trying to make two points. 1] Was about how the Photo-collage some artist use is not the same thing as photo-realism. 2] I was trying to say that Kirby was so into drawing comics that he did not even care if the continuity worked out.
It was already established that none of this is photo-realism.
The point of the whole post is that the use of the photos as a drawing tool (in unenthusiastic/unskilled/unconcerned/unaware/deadline-crunched hands?) sometimes enervates the work and creates a stiff final product. I don’t think it really matters whether the medium is collage, pencil, oil paint, comics, or sculpted dung.
Some artists simply aren’t very good at interpreting photos of living beings into pictures that seem to be alive. Lively images are of particular concern in comics because the point of comics is to create an illusion of movement, emotion, the passage of time, and the progress of narrative. A beautifully rendered, highly realistic image can still be stiff and lifeless.
Bodefan and Allan made that point in their comments above.
No one (that I know of) in comics is, technically, doing photorealism. Collage or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorealism
If you are tracing your photos and presenting the tracing as your final work, that is, by definition, not collage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage
Some of David Mack’s work in Kabuki is collage.
This piece contains photocopies, pieces of a sandlewood fan, wrapping paper, and rice paper.
An artist who downloads a bunch of photos from the internet, moves them around on paper, and then traces the final work in ink is not making collage.
If the artists were actually using the photos as the final work, then they would be creating photomontage. But they aren’t. They are using the photos as a tool to achieve the look of classical realism in their drawings, but not as an end of the process. The photos and the context of their usage is not the end itself. It is not collage.
If you pop a bunch of pictures of Hugh Jackman on your Wolverine art boards pages and trace them in ink, and then present them as your final pen and ink work, that’s not collage. That’s lightboxing. And people have been doing it for decades. I’ve done it. Not necessarily with Hugh Jackman.
If you take a bunch of photos of Hugh Jackman and paste them together in Photoshop and present them as your final work, that’s photomontage. But I bet neither your publisher nor your public would appreciate it. Because I don’t know anyone who likes fumetti.
If you take your own photos, plop them on your lightbox, and trace them that’s entirely within your rights. But if they turn out looking stiff, some people will notice. And calling it collage won’t alter the fact that it’s lightboxing. And if you can’t draw very well without the lightbox, it’s going to be painfully obvious to people who appreciate a medium where draughstmanship skills are something of a draw.
No pun intended.
I sincerely doubt that Kirby did not care about continuity. I think he cared about deadlines and continuity. Deadlines sometimes took precedence over continuity.
Ooog. I did miss the point entirely, and I wish the world could swallow me whole so I can be sick in private.
What I meant by “licensed” was “media tie-in”. Titles like “Buffy” or “Star Trek” where the actors must be accurately drawn. I do not recall you doing much of this type of work, so I’ll do more research.
Anyway… apologies. You have my deepest respect. Your art and activism is much admired.
(And I quite liked Masques… it was not your usual style, and it worked.)
LOL!
OK, you had me so confused by that post, I was just sort of stunned by it. I spent the whole day just sort of going…
HAHNsel?
HAHnsel?
And whatever work I did do, “Masques” was not it. Do you mean “Facade” from “Sandman”?
I have worked on licensed products for Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and Indiana Jones. I was also hired to do a Beauty and the Beast TV graphic novel, but the publisher went under before publication. I later did the Disney movie adaptation. Small world.
If there’s one thing I can do without problem, it’s accurate likenesses. I used to be a member of the American Society of Portrait Artists.
Um, not that that means anything, it’s just to point out that I took the matter seriously. For awhile.
I almost spit my coffee re: “Masques” because there’s a comic out there by that name which is dull, flat, lifeless… and completely photoshopped.
XD
…I had the same reaction. I am still giggling.
Torsten totally made my day with that.
Okay… that was posted from my Treo cell phone… so I can only open one web page at a time… and my copies of AbSand are buried deep in my archives… and I’m getting old. But at least I remembered that you drew it, remembered the story, and I bought it three times (comic, trade paperback, Absolute edition). And I wonder if anyone has sent Neil an Element Girl ashtray…
Also, for some strange reason, my Treo doesn’t show your comic or art images, but photos are okay. So I just now saw your baby portrait… and the first thing I thought was… “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious.” (No ill will meant… cute baby… but that’s what I thought.)
All babies look like either Winston Churchill or Gollum.
now there’s a sequel I would want to see!
“…and Winston Churchill as Gollum”