I Created a Comic Book with Zero Drawing Skills in Blender

[@neototem4110]

Been drawing all my life, added digital in the 90's, still do traditional. What you've done here actually takes MORE WORK than if someone did pencils and ink by hand. Definitely legit. I love it.

[@kurodahyokazahuchi5344]

I was about to say the same. It has more work and it takes a lot more time. Hell, it even takes more resources from your pc. The final result is good, but the process is definitely not efficient.

[@IZISkull]

@@kurodahyokazahuchi5344 Do you mean the photoshop side of his pipeline adds more to time? Once modelling, texturing and rigging is complete, they don't have to redraw characters, body proportions are always correct or consistent depending on the style you want (Also can always modify characters if need be). They're not animating, so poses are very quick (from my experience) and can be changed on the fly. Framing is easy cause you work in 3D. I am new to the photoshop art side not new on the photomanipulation side that's why I asked. I think is very efficient especially if you can't draw on that level or even if you can draw on that level the 3d assets can be used as a previz.

[@UnbeltedSundew]

@@IZISkull Because the modeling and texturing and rigging is never really complete. There is always new costumes, new sets, new characters. After a certain amount of work has been created there may be a break even point, where it starts paying off, but how long do most comics last? Is it long enough to reach that point? Etc. etc. there's lots of variables.

[@IZISkull]

@@UnbeltedSundew i had typed a response but my phone went into power saved mode and wiped my response. I will get back to you in a good couple of hours.

[@UnbeltedSundew]

@@IZISkull I feel your pain. :)

[@arsonistnpc]

as soon as i saw "stage one: kitbashing" i knew this was gonna be _good_

[@xel_nave]

Bruh you're better than me at shading and lighting and I'm actually practicing drawing. Great job btw rly impressive

[@cheeseburgermayhem9726]

he obviously has some background in drawing, no ordinary person can shade like that or add lines.

[@dt295]

@@cheeseburgermayhem9726 well i mean, the photoshop part are showing his drawing skills, so he's lying.

[@marshallwolff5966]

Stunning! The shader and lighting you used looks fantastic as well, I kind of wish some of the color was in the final product

[@ArmouredAvian]

I like the noir style for its contrast, plus it's easier. I will do more research into color grading though.

[@arachnoman7421]

Thanks dude, you give Hope of making my proyect. I am studying 3D animation and at the same studying drawing,but i always feels that my abilities in drawings is not enough for making that task. But seeing your video, gives me inspiration to try things in this amazing work that you did ! Great work !!

[@ArmouredAvian]

Thank you, I'm glad I inspired you, don't be afraid to cut some corners if it helps keep you motivated, but also don't neglect learning your fundamentals as they do come in handy. The Photoshop Filters I used on my renders are Stamp for contrast and Photocopy for detail. Once applied and overlapped use masks to clear artefacts.

[@DavidBrocekArt]

Not zero, you definitely have a great sense of light and shadow which is basically like 80% of all you need to be a good at drawing. Amazing work, I love the amount of work you put into this.

[@Obliviousness]

This is a process that is super cool to watch, awesome workflow!

[@ArmouredAvian]

Glad you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for more.

[@AaronWeberGA]

You did an amazing job. I have to say that first panel is really incredible though and is my favorite, I feel like it tells the entire story in one image. Drama, fear, threat. Its really great.

[@sealishproductions]

Title correction: "With SOME drawing skills"

[@RLVRT]

What makes this work despite you indicating you have zero drawing skills is that you have a fantastic eye for composition and chiaroscuro. The lighting and the staging is just done so well. Even the final Photoshop edit is neatly done.

[@ArmouredAvian]

It's kind of an inside joke, as I have a degree in Game Art, so I know the fundamentals. But I'm terrible at drawing anatomy in perspective, which why I developed this method to assist with it. Learning Daz Studio is also really useful, if you have a certain pose or complex scene which you need a 3D previs for.

[@AniMesuro]

This actually looks pretty dope for someone not so familiar with drawing. You've managed to use your 3d skills in a way one wouldn't even notice it's all cg. The black and white ink comic really sold the look imo.

[@kallupasvan4357]

Y

[@KaterynaM_UA]

any person who draws, wound in fact notice but it doesn't take away from a great work they did!

[@thelaw3536]

It's pretty obvious 3D. The computer draws in 2d pixels, but does so with such fine gradient and planes that it creates a very real looking 3d Object. The difference is often in how textures are applied and how 3 dimensional the object looks. His is too much like 3D.

[@JulesOtway]

Your posing is spectacular! You really get the emotion and momentum of each frame. Not to mention literally everything else

[@ArmouredAvian]

Thank bro, I got a tutorial on posing in my video pipeline. So stay tuned.

[@JulesOtway]

@@ArmouredAvian I really enjoyed the raw timelapse format of this video too. Just getting to watch pure proecess was super refreshing

[@myfork6342]

wow,! i would love to see yer work in print-- so good!

[@daru25able]

that's crazy! keep up the good work, i am a fan now

[@j.9481]

just from those photoshop edits and touch-ups alone you clearly have SOME skills in drawing/traditional visual art, even if just theoretical. congrats looks fucking incredible

[@joesire2977]

I tried starting a comic years ago and got burnt out because of all the drawing. I thought about creating a 3D model of the main characters and just posing them and then using a 2D filter. similar to what you did here. But I suck at 3D lol. Gotta get back into it. This looks sick.

[@ArmouredAvian]

Don't model anything, just use kit-bash packs and character models.

[@joesire2977]

@@ArmouredAvian My style is a bit more stylized than this. with characters that I've created over the years. so I would need to model them in I think. But I'll look into kit bashing and see if I can use it for other stuff.

[@darkgenix]

There are so many hacks you could use to shortcut and get a desired result. Mash, bash and sprinkle your own salt.

[@royaltyartstudio7727]

​@@joesire2977 use CC3 to easily create stylised 3D characters...

[@joesire2977]

@@royaltyartstudio7727 never heard of CC3, but I just looked it up. That would be great. but thats a lot of money to spend for a beginner lol

[@MaangePeenge]

Very nice. Incredible amount for work, really paid off!!

[@Matt-Guest]

Just pick my jaw off the floor. I've been using Blender for so long and have never thought of doing this, thank you for opening up another world for me to explore.

[@vikingzeppelin]

i need more of this. if you don't make more of these videos, i will.

[@atanthony6669]

Phenomenal.. this takes as much if not more talent and effort than drawing.

[@fujtkrisztian]

You should've made the blood red for dramatic effect. Would've looked really cool. Great work regardless man!

[@thk03]

This is the most innovative thing I've seen on the internet this week

[@manusiajawa715]

feels like more work that traditional drawing, but the shading and lighting accuracy is better tho

[@ArmouredAvian]

The process is longer than traditional, but for people who want to make comics but struggle with drawing anatomy it won't matter.

[@evansojuka1399]

I loved everything about this video and for that I just had to subscribe

[@orpheuscreativeco9236]

The glitchy stop motion effect from your edits is very entertaining 😁 You should consider releasing stories/ videos of this type with the music going the whole time and occasionally injecting a single cel with ink and/or story w/ dialogue bubbles and the like. It makes for a very compelling fever dream 👍 Great work! 🎉

[@ArmouredAvian]

I got something cooking for the end of this month. Next year I definitely want to make some short stories with all manner of effects.

[@1107emma]

I would not say "zero drawing skills" this is amazing ! And you definitely know how to draw !

[@ПавелЖуков-л7к]

Rather, not the "ability to draw", and composition skills and the basics of light and shadow, which necessarily appear with experience in 3d artist

[@Niyachelowick]

Oh bro, this is awesome. I'd like read that comic. It looks amazing

[@pilot-kfp5599]

Very impressive. I bet you put many hours learning about 3D modelling and render. Well, as much as someone put in learning drawing, but at least you can do both things (modelling and rendering good frames for a comic)

[@ArmouredAvian]

It's more about learning how to use Blender, which there are plenty of Tutorials online for, such as Blender Guru's Donut videos. You don't really need to learn how to 3D model because you're using premade character models. It's more important for you to learn posing and lighting which is quite simple to get the hang of.

[@AArmstrongC]

was expecting line art + toon shading inside blender. Nice result anyway! :)

[@dirty47]

Liked and subscribed! (Even though you say "Zero Drawing Skills", which is a crock! ;) ) Really, beautiful work!

[@That_One_NPC_]

Been trying to find the SFM packs your using they're awesome!

[@ArmouredAvian]

They're the Ultranationalists and Krueger. With a bunch of Tarkov stuff.

[@georgesupreeth239]

This is brilliant! Nicely done. Subscribed.

[@ericjeker]

Really cool! And I checked your Artstation, so many good things there too. Big fan! I hope you will upload more process video. Your workflow is really nice!

[@ogarga666]

I loved watching this, awesome process, congrats!

[@thewisebaker4185]

I always wondered how we can possibly use 3D software and apply it to something as a comic book. This is actually the first time I see a utilization like this. Seeing your work process definitely hooked me up and made me appreciating your results.

[@FaisalIqbalvfx]

I love This style of work

[@adrient104]

Zero drawing skills but a whole lot of patience !

[@wereqryan]

This is brilliant. Need comic book companies to adopt this.

[@VCRZone1992]

I'd love to see a more detailed tutorial on the photoshop process I couldn't keep up with it even fully slowed down and i have been looking for something like this for a long time! Subbed. Thanks.

[@ArmouredAvian]

It's quite simple, you have 3 renders, One has a Stamp filter applied to it and the second Photocopy filter. Use Levels to flatten out Photocopy render. Then you remove all the white backgrounds and use your third render as a base to trace over. All you got left to do is remove artefacts.

[@VCRZone1992]

@@ArmouredAvian thanks so much!

[@mohammaddh8655]

wow i was shocked by the result , well done

[@scottjohnnyhelgemoaune2951]

And now I’ve got a new favorite creator

[@LeskiVFX]

this is an awesome display of skill and creativity. BUT I wish you used red for the blood in the panels. since its the main "event" persay that takes place in this sequence, using the vibrant red blood would make a great contrast to the sharp black and white style.

[@deathpwnkillx964]

Looks great. I use 3d models only for frequently reused Backgrounds or quickly posing a simplyfied mannequinn to get difficult poses or weird angles right but i can't argue with the result. I would imagine it taking a lot longer than simply drawing them though. At least for me, but maybe im just not proficient enough at using 3d software.

[@royaltyartstudio7727]

Lovely ngl, but I loved it before the filter cause it looked more intense, scary, and more true to life... Don't get me wrong, the end result is dope too.

[@PromptHorizon12]

My guy this looks AMAZING but when you said in blender i thought you meant JUST in blender, but I still gotta give a thumbs up for how good it looks.

[@LafeSpace]

The end result is dope

[@lotusfilm1]

Dude with Zero drawing skills but still drawing so smooth in photoshop

[@SapLow]

this is such a cool idea!

[@BAGINAZARD]

I saw lots of drawing skills here!

[@jameslovesart3408]

you're an artist there is no denying that

[@sketsakafit3733]

Final results are so dope. Although he did have a drawing skills to finalize the photoshop phase.

[@slamasnack7522]

that's a really clever way to use blender, nice work

[@dario.brando]

amazing work! if you have the skills to draw on top of what you're doing right now, you could take this to a whole new level.

[@pv8685]

i really was stunned while watching this!

[@ArmouredAvian]

The second timelapse video I made shows more of the process and its also about expressions.

[@Morristlm]

This is fantastic work. BTW there are "line art" material shaders for Blender, tons actually. Some even have the halftone or duo tone shading styles. Maybe see about adding some of those, it could speedup your workflow tremendously. Maybe you want to maintain more control in post production.

[@ArmouredAvian]

I've looked at them, The main problem with line art shaders / toon shaders is that they don't account for normal map information which is important for character models, so end up with projections over low poly mesh. Also there are a lot of materials in modern character assets so it takes too much time to replace them.

[@vorrdegard2176]

Your Photoshop workflow is nice I have been looking for a way to make comic like art but too lazy to draw I wanted to use 3D characters for the lineart or possibly the whole result

[@ArmouredAvian]

I've just uploaded a follow-up video to this one with an extended Photoshop Section.

[@GregoryValentineAnimations]

This is an excellent work!! Iced Sub and follwing with that bell thingy

[@Heeroneko]

Really cool work. Could improve further n speed up the photoshop work by using a comic shader in blender.

[@sekenjonathan]

Amazing truly! 🔥💯

[@ChristopherHemsworthCreative]

Seems like a lotta work.

[@spaeseas.viz7]

Great content just subbed 🔥

[@jiggylebo]

Last question,what's the genre of the music that's being played,thank you

[@Kaapstad420]

Good result.

[@skomakarna2684]

Nice work!

[@Abdi-libaax]

You do have drawing skills tho seeing you do the shading and shadows

[@blok1008]

for someone who dosent know how to draw, you did a pretty good job, with the black and whites

[@dkurbis3089]

Ok, now this is epic

[@WAR_1933]

great use tools

[@wvcarleton]

This is amazing.

[@kanag8133]

Well you did the shadow and hatchings so… its not a “zero” drawing skills. Good job on this bro

[@buildfalcon8117]

Very cool idea, well done

[@gregbeaudry]

Wow this is *amazing*

[@PterPmntaM]

Great, but there is a way to download some image as a wallpapers?

[@ArmouredAvian]

I can't drop links in the comment section. But if you go to my Portfolio and use my Email just tell me what panel out of the 8 you want.

[@razlad2523]

i wanna do my own comic in blender, i can draw and all but perspectives and consistency is a big issue. have to finally do something

[@agyab3d]

such a great techniques man👍

[@KKOLL007]

Great job!

[@igeanimation]

This is so cool! I would buy that!

[@MrRoboticeyes]

what the hell? Why is this so good?!

[@shoujocafe6757]

After repeatedly watching the video, I still have some questions. As a beginner, some of these might be quite basic, but regardless, the video was excellent and has instilled in me a sense of hope that I can successfully get this 3D comic project done. 1. Is kit bashing essentially the of merging various 3D model pieces together? If so, could this method also be applied to creating backgrounds such as cities, rooms, houses, forests, and so on? 2. How did you approach creating different scenes for each panel? Did you construct individual scenes within Blender and then render the entire scene at once, or did you render each element separately?

[@ArmouredAvian]

Thanks for such a detailed comment. 1. Yes Kitbashing is basically taking a bunch of models or packs stripping them down and making something new. For cities and rooms and forests there are several asset packs Kitbash3D, Big Medium Small, Quixel Mega Scans (Quixel is free for Epic Games accounts) and Geo Scatter. 2. If you look at the outliner in Blender you will see I've created several collections and named them Scene. This is for each panel in the comics story. I then go through the sequence, revealing one collection, rendering it, then revealing the next one. Until I have several Renders in sequence. If you're interested in learning how to Kitbash a gun I made a tutorial on Rigging an AKS-74U and Kitbashing it into a modern tactical weapon.

[@shoujocafe6757]

​@ArmouredAvian thx for the reply really helpful!

[@TheBadBone23]

So cooool to watch!

[@ItachiUchiha-gf4fz]

I think people misinterpreted the word "with zero drawing skills". It's true It's possible to create a comic style using 3D but this guy is a literal master of photoshop and brush tool. No such people with no knowledge of lineart and brushwork would be able to use photoshop like a 2d pro artist. Amazing work tho!

[@JongsungChoi]

artstyle seems tim bradstreet

[@ArmouredAvian]

That guy's artwork is out of this world.

[@aadiobooks]

Fabulous!

[@tomsonpl123]

wow this is pretty dope, great effect 🍺🍺🍺

[@DannyOnateArt]

genial! but your 3d skills are other level

[@SmokinKipper]

Could you do this all within blender?

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

There's actually an infinite amount of shots here. Also would like to add if you are aware of Grease Pencil? It can add to your creativity here. Amazing work. Thanks

[@ArmouredAvian]

Bro, if you read comments everyone is saying use a Shader or use the Grease Pencil. The only thing the Grease Pencil does is convert polygons into lines. It does not however convert Normal map textures into line. Which is why I'm using a Photoshop filter so all the texture detail can be converted into line art.

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

@@ArmouredAvian Understood. Amazing work, and hat's off to you for this. Hope to see more !

[@MrSkyviewer]

this is fire

[@MrTynanDraper]

At this this rate you'll finish your comic book in 10 to 20 years time!

[@STANNco]

if you get decent with rigging it can speed up your workflow a lot. Though since it's all still images it's not as needed ( : Something simple is rigify

[@abf9148]

very impressed

[@voicehead]

you GOTTA set up some IK man idc if youre fine with FK, IK speeds things up

[@nurb2kea]

Well done! 🙂

[@ArmouredAvian]

Thank you, only 200 views away from 100,000 Pretty crazy.

[@DozerThisIsDog]

This is very cool, please tell us how you made the comic book style in Photoshop? It’s just not very clear in timelapse, I’ve been looking for ways for a long time but I still don’t understand, I’ll be very grateful if you tell me in detail how to achieve this style

[@ArmouredAvian]

I've made a second time-lapse where I've dedicated more time to the line art process. In summary you duplicate your render and use 2 Photoshop filters Stamp and Photocopy. Stamp is for line art and shadows. Photocopy is for detail. You then overlay those filtered edits and use the mask tool to hide or reveal detail.

[@YomiDee]

where can i get the kitbash assets? for educational purpose!

[@ArmouredAvian]

Gmod & SLM with Source downloader addon.

[@nathanlaidler9606]

Super dope.

[@RayfieldA]

Beautiful work!! You may not have the drawing skills but I see that it really helps to have good knowledge of 3D usage, right? I mean, even though the models and environments are premade, doesn't still take a while to move the background and pose the characters? I ask because although I draw, I've never used 3D. And I rarely use Photoshop.

[@ArmouredAvian]

The No Drawing Skill thing is more of a joke, since an Art friend of mine likes to take piss out me, since he's a pen & paper guru and I'm more tech bro. I do know the fundamentals and would have to in order pull this off. The Kit-Bash and Posing section in real-time was about 8 hours long according to my real-time edit. There's lots of free software out there, to assist you, for example DAZ Studio is really useful for mocking up characters.

[@ForceQuitMusic]

Great time lapse!

[@ArmouredAvian]

Thanks Bro, your the best.

[@manshah7]

Question: Why not leave it at the 3D renders stage? I liked it better when it was like that

[@davebiscuits]

I randomly stumbled across this awesome video the same day I downloaded Exodus SDK. Would you mind explaining how you exported models for Blender? I tried as FBX but got errors from Blender saying it wasn't supported.

[@ArmouredAvian]

I'm not using FBX, I'm using downloaded Gmod / SFM content. Imported using an add-on called SourceIO for MDL files.

[@davebiscuits]

@@ArmouredAvian Thank you! I'll have to look into that. Keep adding more content!