hmmm....interesting
hmmm....interesting
A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions -- if only we lived in one.
Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Now We Are Alone"
Sadly, he IS a great artist, but he chooses not to be one. I believe his heyday was the x-men, and his last great work was his silver surfer one-shot. Since, he's slipped into being a hack, more or less. Ipretty much told him so at a show about 10 years ago. Anyhoos, that being said, the sketches here have nice composition- he does have talent- but, then I'm disappointed with the finishes (he discovered zip-a-tone back in the 90's, and he uses it to save time drawing...).
In these instances, the textured fabric of the romulan uniforms. zip-a-tone is a press and peel sheet artists use to save time drawing repetative (sp?) shade lines and textures. notice on the romulan uniforms, no matter what position the characters are in, the pattern never changes. he discovered this time saving technique somewhere between The Man of Steel and his Submariner series, and has abused it ever since. big deal? no, but very disappointing from a comic artist legend.
I know what it is... and I also know that drawing all of that is a. tedious and b. not really something that needs to be done anyway. I think it was Stuart Immonen who said that the comics artist is under a time crunch no other artist is; they have to do thirty-odd pages a month, each of which contains an average of four to six individual drawings. On top of that is understanding what is the key visual information you need to convey; you're not representing something in a picture, you're composing in a language. And in this language 'flat pattern' is reconstructed into 'pattern on clothes' as easily as a hyper-busy fully-contour-mapped uniform would.
Again, not a big deal, I'm just disappointed with him overall, and not just this particular series of work. Compositionally, it's okay. He's done better, he can do better, he just chooses not to. Just my 2 cents, if it's worth 2 cents.
Um, bit of information. Byrne has hardly used zip-a-tone since his runs on She-Hulk and Namor ended. Also the look of the Romulan book was done in Photoshop, no zip-a-tone was used at all.
And personally I believe everyone is so stuck on his "old stuff was better" b.s. that they don't give his new stuff a chance, or realize that the stuff they're praising is the "new stuff" that came out after that phrase came about. And "hack" or not I can count on two fingers the books that Byrne has worked on that has shipped late. He does his work ahead of time and his work ethic would put any of the new batch of artist that Marvel uses to shame. And on top of keeping up with his books he's been able to do fill-ins for Funky Winkerbean and commissions for fans.
Anyone who still uses Frames for a website should be shot.
Does your sig area really need to be bigger then your post?
My apologies- Photoshop, then. IMO, it doesn't really change anything. Pretty much anything he's done after Alpha Flight has degenerated. I might have to concede on Next Men, but I didn't look at it much. If the Romulan sample art is any indication of his current work ethic, then my opinion still stands. And me, personally -- and maybe it's just me-- I'd rather wait for something of quality than get crap on time. Anyways, we could go round and round like this for weeks. I apologize for stirring the pot.
All those posts, while possibly valid opinions is exactly why I posted that in the very first message. If you dislike Byrne so d**n much don't open an obvious thread titled "Byrne & IDW" that talks about him.
AS BrianC can tell you I stopped coming here for years. Thank you all for reminding me exactly why I did.
As far as I care this thread, and this site is dead to me.
Anyone who still uses Frames for a website should be shot.
Does your sig area really need to be bigger then your post?
Shoshuro, I think you're overreacting a little there. The point about a forum is explicitly to DISCUSS, not to simply make statements, and close the thread, or have an agreeing session! I also don't think anyone's criticisms have been harsh or unobjective. To be honest putting up a disclaimer on an open forum stating "agree with me or else" is like a red rag to a bull for some members, and as i said goes against the general principles of fora!
Ta Muchly
Both Romulan series kicked @$$.
HA!
Anyone who still uses Frames for a website should be shot.
Does your sig area really need to be bigger then your post?