Episode 325 - walk the line

In this Quackcast we cover the Importance of good linework in comics and different line techniques such as Herge's Ligne claire, the traditional thick line for characters and thin for everything else as exemplified in the work of Mucha, variable line widths as in Manga, solid blacks like in American comics, and complex lines like Durer or Hyena Hell. I really seriously thought I could get an entire Quackcast out of the concept and techniques of linework, but honestly I was struggling…

Okay, so linework constitutes the skeleton that most comics are built on, with the notable exception of painted comics, photo comics, 3D and vector comic among others… But for most comics line is a pretty essential element. There are a lot of different techniques involved in the use of lines. Herge popularised “ligne claire”, which means that all lines have the same thickness and that there's no line shading.

A popular style that I was taut was to have thick lines around characters and overlapping elements, with thin lines for internals and backgrounds. This is popular in a lot of manga, US comics and famously the work of Alphonse Mucha. Part of my technique on Pinky TA involves making my lines grey, so that when I set the line layer to “multiply”, the lines take on some of the background colours beneath them and don't show up as darkly as traditional black lines.

The work of Hyena Hell on the Hub is interesting for her use of very complex internal shading line to build up texture and shapes, this can also be seen in the works of Albrecht Durer. Manga is notable for its extensive use of very stylised shading, crisp lines and the use of variable line widths for outlines, while American comics make heavy use of solid blacks for areas of shadow, basically extending the width of the line as far and as solidly as it can go.
How do YOU approach your linework?

The music for this week by Gunwallace is for The Wallachian Library. It's a dark, black future sounds, neon glows, pulses of energy and ideas, vectors and virtual circuits.Sorry, no link to this comic, the user deleted it from the site.

Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Monster Corp - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/24/featured-comic-monster-corp/

See the art here - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/20/quackcast-325-walk-the-line/

Ligne claire by Herge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire
Alphonse Mucha - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mucha
The Hub - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Hub/
Monster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_%28manga%29
junji ito - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito
Albrecht Durer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer
Masamune Shirow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masamune_Shirow

LINKS:

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

Featured music:
The Wallachian Library WAS a comic by TheHereitcLocomotive, who has since deleted it… For what it's worth you can look at their profile here: - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/TheHereitcLocomotive.