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Vidau'Bulles 2023

Published by Suisei at 02/06/2023 à 15h45

Hi everyone!

I don't have given news fro a long time. I'm currently waiting for something special. I should be able to tell you about it in mid-June, and from then on I hope to be able to give you news more often.
I've also started a big code renovation project for SuiseiPark.

That said, I'm here to announce that this weekend I'll be exhibiting at the Vidau'Bulles comics convention in the Var departement (Southeastern France). I'll be one of 40 guest authors, including my great accomplice Marialexie.
As the icing on the cake, I made the illustration for this year's poster! :D

Well, I'm notify you a little late. I'm really busy right now. x)
In any case, don't hesitate to drop in and say hello if you're in the area. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. :D

Have a nice week-end and see you soon !

Suisei

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Dragon Ball Multiverse chapter 84, behind the scenes

Published by Suisei at 21/03/2022 à 20h15

Hi everyone!

As mentioned in the in review 2021, today I'm going to tell you a little bit about the behind-the-scenes of my participation to the collective fan comic Dragon Ball Multiverse.

For those who are new to this, you can read the full comic here.
The chapter I participated in starts here.

This chapter was originally supposed to be drawn by the Korean artist Ume. But health problems didn't allow her to finish it, so I took over to help out.
Since it was drawing a match involving two of my favorite characters (Vegeta and Cell), I did let Salagir (the writer and creator of DBM) know that I was available if they needed a hand. x)

Let's start briefly with the cover.

At first, it was just a fanart referring to the match between Vegeta and Cell.
I did the drawing with the traditional method, with a brush for the inking, and then I did the color on computer with Clip Studio Paint and Affinity Photo. I wanted to try something close to the American comics for the color.
Finally, as no cover had been made for the chapter, I proposed this illustration and Salagir thought it would do the trick.

Now I will detail a little more the working process used on the pages themselves.

First, Salagir provides a script on Google Doc with layout indications.

Then I draw each panel separately on scrap paper instead of trying to pencil the whole page in one block.

After that, I put all the drafts together in Clip Studio Paint.

For the pages where we see the scenery, I modeled the tournament stadium with one of my Python and FreeCAD programs and used it as a base to draw faster.

Here, I visualize the result in Blender to make sure that the result is correct.

The 3D stadium was used for this page for example.

Then, once the drafts are put together and corrected in Clip Studio Paint, I ink digitally, then load the page into my Péguy application to generate the speed or shock effects.

And then I come back to Clip Studio Paint to apply the final touch.

Now you know the secrets of the making of chapter 84 of Dragon Ball Multiverse, at least the part I made. :D

This news marks the end of the early 2022 batch. I'm not sure yet when and what the next one will be about, but I'll try to make an effort to be more regular. :p

On that note, I wish you a nice week and see you soon!

Suisei

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Review of the year 2021

Published by Suisei at 28/02/2022 à 20h15

Hello everyone!

It's been a long time since I've given any news. I have been very busy these last months.
It is therefore time to give some news!

To begin with, it seems that this is the first news of 2022, so, I wish you all a happy new year a little late! :D

Today, we're going to take a look back at a very, very busy year in 2021.
So busy that some of the topics mentioned today will be the subject of separate news in the coming weeks.

Here is a small summary of the topics I will cover.

Péguy

I already told you about this project in a news early last year, an app that allows you to generate a number of patterns and effects in an automated way for comics and mangas.

The application itself has not progressed much since then, but I have done a lot of research on 3D programming and have developed new separate tools to speed up my work processes.
I went beyond web technologies and worked a lot with the Python language.
Now I have to think of a way to put all this together in an intelligent and accessible way for the general public.

New effects in the application

Automated 3D scene generation with the Python language.
We don't need to introduce you to these good old stormtroopers anymore.

An application that generates a program that itself generates a 3D object... Yes, the delirium goes far. x)
The object generated here is a Cardassian weapon (Star Trek).

There is a lot more to say about it, so this topic will be the subject of a more complete news in the coming weeks.

13th Digital Painting School's Challenge

In line with my research for the Peguy project, in the spring of 2021 I participated in a contest organized by Digital Painting School, a French speaking online digital art school.

The proposed theme left quite a bit of creative freedom, so I took the opportunity to submit a drawing not drawn with a pencil or stylus, but drawn with lines of code.

Basically, I wrote a program in Python that generated a robot and a 3D setting. Then I loaded this 3D scene into Clip Studio Paint and applied some filters to get a color result.

The concept has been quite successful. :p

This project allowed me to develop a bunch of new features that will be usable in Peguy in the future.

The next big DP School challenge is announced for March 2022. I'm looking forward to it to try new experiences. :D

Illustrations

Pixel Art

Keeping with the illustration theme, last year I did a whole news about the old software of my childhood, AppleWorks and I did a pixel art illustration with for the Drink'N'Draw.
It made me want to explore this style more, but with Clip Studio Paint this time. :D

Feel free to click on the images to see them larger and appreciate the details.

Two Dukats (Star Trek - Deep Space Nine). What? You didn't notice that I really like this character? 8D
The first is a makeover I came up with for a story that takes place in an alternate reality where he loses an eye in battle and becomes a space pirate.
The second one, with the red eyes, was a pretext to test my new graphic tablet... Or testing my new graphic tablet was a pretext to draw him... Who knows. 8D

Kira Nerys and Dukat (Star Trek - Deep Space Nine). I won't tell you the story behind this drawing right now, otherwise it's not funny. I let you imagine. :p

Last May, there was a Drink'N'Draw session about Cowboy Bebop, an anime I really like with great music.

So, I bought a new graphics tablet.
My nomadic wacom was very helpful, but as nomadism is no longer relevant with the virus that we know, making regular data transfers between the tablet and the main computer was becoming restrictive.
So I bought a model width screen to plug into my computer but still small enough to carry on vacation.

I was a Wacom customer for a very long time, but the market has evolved in the last few years and new quality brands have emerged at half the price.
So I invested in an XP-Pen Innovator 16 last spring.

It is the size and weight of an Ituos Pro Large from Wacom.
It is the price of an Intuos Pro Large from Wacom...
But there's the built-in screen too! :p

It's really great and fits my needs perfectly. I work with it all the time since then.

Draw with the mouse!

Well, working with AppleWorks has made me want to do more experiments in the year 2021.

I made drawings with a mouse!

Yes, it's possible and it's not that difficult. ^^

In fact, I took over a technique I had developed when I was 12 or 13 years old, when my parents did not yet have a scanner.
I had no choice but to do my digital drawings with the mouse.
The trick is not to try to draw the lines freehand with the mouse and the pencil tool, but to use the geometric tools, especially the straight line. At least with the straight line, you only have to worry about 2 things: the starting point of the line and its end point. Thus, the lack of dexterity is no longer an issue. It doesn't matter which way you go.
And with a succession of straight lines, you can simulate a curve.

That's it! Now you know how to draw with a mouse! :D
You can even do it while wearing mittens. I tested it as a joke, and it still works. x)

I made these 2 drawings with the mouse on AppleWorks during Dragon Ball Multiverse lives on Twitch with the main artist Asura.

I will try again one of these days with a video to show you the work process in more detail.

ArtStation

It took me a long time to get interested, but I recently opened a portfolio on ArtStation.
I was expecting a kind of deviantArt bis, but in fact no, it's better, you're more free to organize the content of your portfolio and you can even show your work process (which is what some profesional artists do and it's very instructive).
The quality of the content, at least the one put on the trending page, is also much more professional.
And above all, it's not full of intrusive social networking features! x)

So, if you want to see my latest illustrations from time to time, my ArtStation gallerya> is updated! :D
Just click on the preview below or click on the Illustrations tab of my website to access it.

TGCM Comics

This project progressed more slowly in 2021 than in 2020, but I continued to work on it anyway.
I went back to the blog space, private messaging and comments interface to make it as ergonomic as possible. I also added an image manager for each user, so you can illustrate your words when you express yourself without having to look for a third party image host.

I'm also close to finish the comic pages uploader and I'll soon be able to tackle a big piece, but also one of the most interesting of the platform, namely the online layout and lettering system. Yes, you will be able to draw and fill your dialog bubbles directly online with automatic translation from French to English or from English to French! :D
I hope that this little extra will be one of the strong and innovative points of the platform.

Dragon Ball Multiverse

I didn't release any hard copy comics in 2021, but I didn't walk away from the drawing board.
This summer I participated in the realization of about fifteen pages of the collective amateur comic Dragon Ball Multiverse! :D

For those who don't know yet, DBM, it's a fan comic that tells a sequel to Dragon Ball Z. The story is set 10 years later and does not take into account neither Dragon Ball GT, nor Dragon Ball Super (which did not exist yet when DBM was created).
It was created by Salagir (the writer) and Gogeta Jr in 2008. Today the main artist is Asura and dozens of other artists participate in the creation of special chapters.

To read the entire comic, it's here!
The chapter I participated in was published during the fall of 2021 and begins here.

I had to get used to Akira Toriyama's style again, which I had hardly practiced for about 20 years. I'm doing not too bad. little by little it's coming back. x)

A more complete news is planned on the subject.
I will show you the working process I used to make the pages. You should already know that I have applied all the research I had done until then... Which I have already completed since. :p

The cover of chapter number 84.

Page number 1944.

Blender 3D courses

Speaking of research to improve my work processes, in the early fall of 2021 I started taking an online course about the software Blender.
Blender is a free and open source 3D modeling software. It is increasingly recognized and used by professional 3D artists.

The course I'm taking is provided by Digital Painting School and focuses on the use of 3D for 2D (illustration, comics...), which is very precisely what I need. :D

I had started a course on this same software 14 years ago. The interface and ergonomics at that time were absolutely bad!
Things have changed a lot!
Today Blender has become much more pleasant and easy to use and has been enriched with many powerful features. Now I'm using it all the time. x)

Here are some of the works that I have done or that are still being done as part of the course.

The orange robot is the model that the instructor proposes to make step by step in his videos. The 3 others are original creations.

These first 3 images are finished.

For these last 2 it still lacks the so-called paintover phase which consists of repainting over it in 2D software to break up the 3D look and add the missing details that it would have been too laborious to do directly in 3D. The goal of the work technique is to save time wherever possible.

The Cardassian Bird-of-Prey

Going back to a comic topic, in 2021 I started working with my great accomplice Marialexie on a comic project, more precisely a webtoon, about Star Trek. More exactly on Star Trek - Deep Space Nine.

It's been a long time that we wanted to do something about Star Trek, which is a universe that is really close to our hearts, and it's while watching Deep Space Nine that we finally had an idea.
Without going into details, we didn't like the way the treatment of some of our favorite characters ended to a frustrating degree, and since the concept of alternate realities has always been part of Star Trek, we decided to imagine one where things would have happened differently.
The fork in the road comes at the end of episode 14 of season 4, when Dukat decides to go fight the Klingons alone.

I pulled out a dirty word a few lines back: webtoon.
What is a webtoon?
Basically it is a comic format optimized for reading on touch screen phones. The comic panels are read one after the other in vertical scrolling.
It gives a different narrative rhythm than a classic comic and the authors play more and more with the vertical scrolling effect.
The popularity of this format is soaring. I think that in addition to the convenience of reading on a phone, the addictive effect (which social media well konw) of vertical scrolling associated with the fact of telling a story is a contributing factor.

I've been wanting to try this format for a long time and I thought this project would do just fine. Since it's not humorous or parodic like Dragon Cat's, it's out of the question to exploit it commercially, so I might as well choose this project for a purely web format.
And as this format is becoming more and more popular, I plan to be able to host it on TGCM Comics, so I need to make sure I have a project like this so that there will be content in the webtoon section when the site launches.

To get an idea of what the project is going to look like and what a webtoon is, there is a prototype that mixes finished and pencil panels available online, you can read it here.

The other objective of this project is to apply all that I have learned and developed before and thus to use 3D massively for the scenery and the ships.

In short! A project to propose content on TGCM Comics and use Péguy and 3D... Everything is linked ! x)

The cover illustration for the project. I took a lot of inspiration from the Star Trek movies posters to make it.
3D, traditional drawing, digital painting... There is already everything in this image.

Update of Go on an Adventure Comrades!

And finally, let's talk about games!

At the end of last spring I made a major update to my online mini adventure game.

Now you don't need to download the game to play it. You can play it from your browser. To do so, just go to the game page and click on Play.
The server is no longer hosted by me, but by a real professional host now. So it is always running.

I will detail a bit more in a dedicated news.

A much neater and sexier web interface than with the python language.

In conclusion

Well, I told you that the year 2021 was very busy. x)

To summarize, this year has been marked by the learning and development of new methods and tools to improve my working process.
The year 2022 should continue along the same way.
Its objectives are:

Finishing the exercises of the Blender courses, finishing the development of TGCM Comics, resuming a more regular rhythm of realization of my comics and finally studying some software of video game creation.
Yes, because developing games entirely from scratch while having to take care of all the technical aspects of simulating the physics and the display system was fine 14 years ago, because it was formative and these creation tools were in their infancy and not very accessible to the general public.
Nowadays almost nobody does that anymore and game creators focus on the content, which makes a game unique, and I would like to do the same.

Anyway! I'm going to spend a lot time learning a lot of things.

On that note, I wish you a nice week and see you soon for new adventures!

Suisei

Categories : 3D, Comics, Graphic research, Illustrations, Games, News and chitchat,

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Normandiebulle 2021

Published by Suisei at 21/09/2021 à 20h15

Hello everyone!

After more than a year and a half without convention, we will be able to meet again! :D

Indeed, Normandiebulle reopens its doors in Darnétal on September 25 and 26!

Marialexie and I will be there and we will finally, for the first time, be able to present our comic book Tarkhan Skullkiller together! :D

If you are in Normandy at that time, do not hesitate to come and say hello.
You can find all the practical information to get to the festival here.

Have a nice week and see you this weekend!

Suisei

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TGCM Comics

Published by Suisei at 01/02/2021 à 15h45

Hi everybody!

A few months ago I announced that I was starting to develop an online platform for publishing and reading webcomics and webtoons named TGCM Comics. So I give you here some news about the progress of the project.

The development blog

To start, note that I've opened a development blog that I update as often as possible (in French). It is accessible at this address: https://tgcm-comics.blogspot.com.

My schedule being very busy, I won't be able to put all these news on Tipeee and Patreon with all the translation work involved, so feel free to have a look at this blog from time to time to keep you informed about the progress of the project.
Note that it has a suggestion box, so if you have suggestions to make in terms of features or ergonomics, do not hesitate to share them in the comments of this section, this does not require any registration.

Reminder about the concept

The last time I mentioned it in news I made a very brief presentation of the project.
I'll give you a more complete briefing here.

The idea is to propose a platform that takes the opposite of what currently exists, in particular 2 flaws that make the despair of independent webcomic authors.

Popularity rankings: they are based on the number of cumulative views per page, the number of comments, the number of likes and mathematically favor the authors who arrived first on the platform and/or who post in large quantities and this at the expense of the quality.
In addition, about half of the Internet traffic is due to bots and not real visitors, so these statistics are skewed by default.
Icing on the cake. Such a system is easy to hack from both inside and outside. So, it's unfair in more than one way and it creates an unhealthy competitive atmosphere.
This kind of mechanism will therefore not exist on TGCM Comics and will be replaced by the random playlist principle in order to guarantee an equal rate of visibility for all comics and leave the reader the real choice to read/discover what he or she wants.

Most creators/developers of webcomic platforms try to make a living out of it and create a business project around it.
The problem is that webcomics, especially in the French-speaking world, are not profitable, therefore to try to make ends meet, these platforms sometimes use questionable methods of financing and obviously to the disadvantage of the authors and which cost them more money than their art brings them (paying to appear on the front page of the site, paying to be able to display links to crowdfunding pages and other support systems).
For my part, I'm developing TGCM Comics on a volunteer basis and I'll take care of the financing of the hosting. I have enough means with my dayjob for that. At the very least, I might place a small rectangle of ads to try to amortize the cost just for the principle, but that's all. The income will surely be derisory, let's be realistic.
The objective is not to make the platform financially profitable but to allow authors who are struggling to build an audience elsewhere to do so while publishing their comics at their own pace, without stress. I would like it to be a small garden for them and for them to feel good there. If this goal is achieved then that's where the victory will be. :)

In addition to these 2 main problematic points there are often ergonomic points that are lacking and a general tendency to weigh down the web interface with lots of useless Javascript modules which consumes the bandwidth and electricity of the users and sometimes forces them to change computer just to have the latest browser.
So I want to develop an interface as pleasant and efficient as possible for everyone, take care of accessibility and also make a platform as eco-responsible as possible by choosing a green hoster and optimizing my code so that it consumes as little energy as possible and does not load unnecessary data to your browser.

So, the idea is to offer a platform where both authors and readers will feel at home.

Progress of the project

Now that you know what it's all about, I'll give you some news about the progress of the project.

Blog and author details

I started with the spaces that will allow the authors to express themselves and give their news.
Each author will have a presentation sheet which will contain a short biography, the list of the publications on the platform as well as all the external links.

Each author will also have a blog where he will be able to enter his news either with the good old BB code from the 2000's or by using an WYSIWYG interface. His external links will be recalled in small at the top of the blog.

Private messages and friend system

As I'm going to need it to contact the authors to let them know when their comics will be validated I also developed the private message system that will look like this.

It comes with a system of friends. Far from me wanting to imitate social networks (I hate these platforms) this system will be used mainly to choose who you allow to send you private messages. Only members of the site with whom you will be friends and the administrators will be able to send you private messages. In short, it is an anti-spam and anti-harassment security system.

Submit a comic

I don't expect to be very demanding about the level of quality required to post a comic, but I don't want TGCM Comics to become hyper-saturated either. To submit your comic book, you will have to go through this form which, once sent, will notify me by email. Don't worry, I won't ask you to be the new Alan Moore or the new Jim Lee. If the art is correct, the layout is clear and the text readable (and interpretable by the machine translation system) it will do the job. :)

The list of genres is currently not complete. It will be enriched by the time the first version of the site is online.

The comic settings

Once your comic is approved, you will automatically get the author status and you can edit various settings at your convenience.
One of the setup screens allows you to change some of the information that you have already entered in the submit form.

The following will allow you to indicate if you want the publication to be automatic or not and if yes, to set the days and hours of publication of your pages.

Then you have the translation settings. On this screen, you will be able to translate the title as well as the synopsis of your webcomic and also ask for your pages to be translated automatically or not. The automatic translation will not start at the same time depending on whether you send pages with text or empty pages.

And finally, I also developed the chapter manager for a series. If you chose to publish a one-shot or an extract, a single chapter will be created and instead of the chapter list the pages manager will be displayed directly.

So, everything I have just presented to you is already developed.
Currently I'm working on the pages manager and this is the biggest piece of the whole project at least the most complex one.

That's all for today!
I still have a lot of things to show and tell you, so we'll meet again very soon!
Have a nice week! :D

Suisei

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Tarkhan in bookstores!

Published by Suisei at 09/12/2020 à 16h00

Hi everyone!

Christmas is coming, it's almost holiday time, we will soon be able to exchange our germs. :p

For the occasion, and also for those who missed the Ulule crowdfunding in 2019, I announce that the comic book Tarkhan Skullkiller is available for sale here on the suiseipark.com store, or by contacting Marialexie, and also in a bookstore! \o/

I'm not kidding you, you can get Tarkhan at the Parisian bookstore Les Mots à la Bouche! :D

So you'll be able to put the comic under your Christmas tree!
Don't dawdle, there are not many copies left. First come, first served! :p

For the contributors who were waiting for their comics in person, since the usual Drink'N'Draw Paris brasserie had to close as fast as it reopened and the situation doesn't seem to be close to get better, I'm going to contact you by private message to ask you if you still want to wait until we can meet around a drink or if you prefer that I finally send it to you by post.

Otherwise, apart from Tarkhan, I have made good progress on the comics platform project TGCM Comics. You can see the detailed progress of the project on this blog which serves as a development journal. I've also taken an illustration break for the last 2 weeks so I don't become a complete weirdo by doing only code. x)
I'm going to detail all this in future news dedicated to all this in order not to pollute the news feed of Tarkhan.

That's all for the news!
Have a nice day and see you soon! :D

Suisei

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Dragon Cat's Galaxia 1/2 - Gonakin

Published by Suisei at 03/09/2020 à 15h45
Updated by Suisei at 03/09/2020 à 19h39

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I gave you news about Dragon Cat's Galaxia 1/2, well let's fix that! :D

Last year was the third edition of the Ki-oon mangaka contest. I participated and, since the rules don't explicitly forbid parody, I decided to play the provocation card by sending them a little Dragon Cat's one-shot.

In spite of the absence of any feedback, I had the satisfaction of succeeding in making a 20-page comic in the space of 10 days, from the first line of script to the coloring of the cover and posting it 15 minutes before the end of the contest. There was a little aspect not quite finished compared to what I usually do (the screentones were missing, the FX and the colors of the cover were flat), but still, it's a not bad performance. I will soon be as fast as I was in my teens. x)

Pages without screentones or FX.

A cover with flat colors, 1h30 watch in hand.

At the beginning of the summer of 2020 the buddy JD came to warn me that the emblematic Japanese magazine of manga prepublication, the Shonen Jump, was opening the hundredth edition of its famous Tezuka contest for the search of young talents internationally! And that Akira Toriyama, the Dragon Ball creator, himself, was part of the jury! :D

The perfect opportunity to send my joke.

So last week I finished the screentones and colors of the cover to participate.
The comic is available in English and Japanese reading way on the website hosting the contest.

I will post it in better resolution and in French as well as in English on my website in the coming days, so feel free to have a look from time to time or simply subscribe to Dragon Cat's here to be notified of the pages publication by email.
I'll take this opportunity to put it back in a western reading way to harmonize with the other episodes of the comic so that you won't get lost when reading it. =)

Looks better when it's finished, doesn't it? x)

I'm planning to print this comic, but 20 pages is pretty thin, so I'm going to combine it with another short (very short) story that I plan to do in the next few months. I can already announce you that it will be entitled The crottin's war!
You're not dreaming, we'll talk about cheese in Dragon Cat's. And good cheese! :p
I will tell you more about this little project later.

Otherwise, for the record, this one-shot, Gonakin, is actually the remake of the Dragon Cat's prototype of which I drew the very first pages in 1998, when I was 12 years old.

Without retouching, it looked like this. The pages were drawn on both sides. It certainly does not make us feel any younger!

This old version is available online here if you enjoy reading it.
I'll have to think about finishing cleaning and posting the rest, it's still fun all this old stuff.

That's all for today!
Have a nice day and see you soon! :D

Suisei

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