- Your eye is just sucked right down into our main character. This art looks like
video game concept art. And I thought in a lot of the Western superhero comics I read, there was some over the top muscles, but nothing compares to the stuff I'm seeing in this comic. The list of manga artists that people have requested
I talk about in this series has continued to grow and grow and grow. But the most common suggestion that I've been getting
lately has actually been for a comic that's not
a manga, but a manhwa, which is the sort of
Korean equivalent of manga. And seeing as how I was
looking into one manhwa, I figured I might as well look into a few. So in this episode,
I'm gonna cover a bunch of the more requested manga artists, as well as some very impressive artwork from some manhwas that
I've been looking into. Also, for anyone new to this
series, in the pin comment, I'm linking every previous
episode, including a list of the artist I've
covered in each episode. So before requesting anyone, check there 'cause I might have covered them already. But without further ado, let's get into the first art of the day. (playful instrumental music) The art in "Solo Leveling"
is just so cool looking. And the premise of the
story is really great and leans into some really epic artwork. It's just portals opened up to dungeons that have lots of monsters in them. And hunters have to go into those dungeons to fight off the monsters to make sure they don't come
out into the real world. Now, one of the early very
interesting things that I found when I was going through
some of the issues is how the composition has to be thought about very differently because this comic is being
produced as a web comic. And for web comics, you
don't read it page by page, you read it by scrolling
down through the page. So this means well,
composition rule still apply. The artists have to think
about the composition of their images very differently because things aren't being
revealed in one big page flip. They're being revealed in a scroll. So this leads to a lot of
at least in this series, some very tall panels that you see more of as
you scroll down through it. And specifically, this was
really cool in an issue where our main character was fighting off this giant snake creature because the snake having
a really long body worked really well to
lead us down through some of these really tall, interesting panels. But of course, the main most interesting
thing about this series, which likely anyone watching
this can tell by just looking at this artwork is how
crisp and clean it is. In fact, when I went to first look at some of the artwork for this series, because so many people suggested it, I saw the artwork and I thought, "Oh, okay, this is obviously
artwork from the anime "that's come from this series," is not the actual manhwa artwork, but there isn't an anime
for this series yet. This is just what the artwork looks like. And it consistently looks this great. And something that leans
into this really crisp look, is the fact that the artists
are doing this digital over traditional and
they're really leaning in to some of the digital
effects for the series. Some people have very strong opinions about digital versus traditional art. I think most artists
are generally impartial, although they'll have one that they do more so than the other. Personally, I always work digitally just because I like the
digital art process better, and I like being able to
correct stuff more easily. But in terms of looking
at other people's art, I'm totally impartial. I'm very easily impressed by both digital and traditional artwork. And really, at the end of the day, the thing that matters most
is the artists skill set. And they can bring that to
digital or traditional art and it's going to show through either way. But for this series, I think digital really was the way to go because our main character
gets this ability early on to see this sort of heads up
display that gives him quests that he's supposed to
do throughout the day to get better and better and improve. And with a mechanic like that,
that should look very modern. Being a core part of the story, digital really is a better
way to go in this case. And one thing that I particularly love and this is me showing some of my bias is how they'll often use gradients
on the characters faces and just in a lot of the art in general, but gradients I personally
think look really nice, having just a slight, even in this case, going from a dark blue to a lighter blue down
the character's face, it helps keep the art
from being totally flat and gives it a little bit more life. 'Cause well you would say look at my skin and say it's one uniform color. Really stuff isn't a uniform color, you can see there's
different patches on my hand that are whiter or pinker, it's not really a solid
gradient from one to the other. But putting a gradient
on a character's skin or something like that can
just make it feel a little bit more lifelike and alive and natural. And that's something
that's obviously easier and faster to do when
you're working digitally. And then there are other places where we'll just use some
digital effects really nicely to help sell in this case, for instance, to sell a flashback. They had a little bit of a grainy paper kinda texture over it. That makes it a little
bit more desaturated, just to separate it from the artwork that's actually happening
in the present moment in the story. Now, I'm gonna have to work
hard to not spend an hour just talking about how
incredible Yang Kyung-il's art is in "Blade of the Phantom Master." And there are three main
things that draw me into it. First of all, how
stylish it is and can be, there are some specific
panels where he'll just switch into this very patterny experimental and very mesmerizing sort of style. And second, his fight
scenes are phenomenal. They're just so cool and epic. The depth in so many of them is so intense and then mixed in with the
really depth heavy images. He's also got some really cool
side scroller style panels that are kind of flat
but in a really cool way. And finally, the thing
that impressed me most which is me bringing
in some of my own bias is how fantastic he is at using contrast to really focus the reader on the important parts of an image. And he has so many panels where he shows this off so fantastically, I'm gonna go through a whole
bunch of them kinda quickly, because I couldn't just pick
one or two, there was so much. For instance, this first one of this creature shooting
this blast of energy. Everything else in the background and around is gray and black. But all of the sections of black in the background
are just lightly in there. The only really intense black
or white is the creature and the white beam of
energy that it's shooting, and it helps the creature
stand out even more than it's got some
streaks of white in there. There's also white in the explosions on the lower part of the image, but they're mixed in with a lot more grays to keep them from being too high contrast and pulling us away from the main focus. And then just in terms of
the action in this scene, even though it's kind of a flat panel, the text here really comes forward as if there's a shockwave coming
towards us from this blast. Taking this image that could
have stayed very, very flat and giving it some extra depth and impact. Then in this next image, this is the one that kind
of fascinated me the most, because obviously, the biggest point of contrast is this character's face. A lot of his face is in
a black sort of shadow, and then part of his face
is very strong white, there's not a tone of gray mixed in there. It's very stark, black and white. And of course, it's an
expression which people are drawn to looking at anyway. But then in your peripheral, you can tell that there's something
else going on in the left. So as you're drawn to the next part, your eye is just sucked right
down into our main character, even though he's not the
highest point of contrast, he's where we're going next. Because partially all of these streaks and tendrils are circling down, right in towards that character. He's also got a little bit of a buffer area around him of white, not much, but just enough to make his hair and the shadow under his arm
a higher point of contrast than some of the other parts around him. Now these next two are
two panels in sequence, which I thought were very interesting because they're very similar, but they focus us on
different parts of the image. In this first one, well, the highest point
of contrast is arguably that white being near the top because there's white right
next two sections of black, were drawn down to
focusing on this character and the sort of energy in his hands because that white streak
is bringing us down to him. And then he manages to be
a higher point of contrast, because he's got some streaky
hatch lines in his drawing. He's got obviously an
expression which were drawn to and the weeds in behind
him kind of spilling out, help frame him and pull us into him. But then when we go to the
next panel, which is similar, just kind of a wider version, but has this sort of bird emitting from that energy ball in his hand, that bird is made a much more
higher point of contrast, and it becomes the main focus, because all of the dark
black in behind it contrasts with the stark, pure white of that bird and makes it the main focus. We do go down to him afterwards. But we're not drawn to him immediately, because he's slightly
less detailed in this one. He doesn't have as much
hatched lines in him, he's more just solid black and white. But the solid black and white isn't as intense of a contrast as
in the bird up above him. I can go over 100 different panels. But I'll end on this concept, because it's something that
lots of different artists do. And you've probably
noticed in comics before, but I've never really talked
about it in this series. And that's this sort of halo effect that people will sometimes
do around their characters to make sure they're standing
out from an environment. Basically, if you've got
something in behind the character that's very detailed, you don't want that
taking away from the fact that the character is
supposed to be standing out and generally supposed to be
a bigger focus in the image. So what a lot of artists
do in a case like that to make sure the character is standing out is just put a little
bit of a white or gray or sometimes colored halo around
the character to make sure that their line work
is really standing out. And that is just a contrast trick to make sure they're a bigger focus. Now, this is the kind of art where I think the context
is very important. If you showed me this
art and told me it was from a very Stone Cold serious series, I would probably think it
was really odd and unusual. But in looking at the
story for "Grappler Baki" and some of the things
that happened in it, it sounds like it's supposed
to be pretty ridiculous and over the top. So the equally ridiculous and
even more over the top muscles on some of the characters kinda fits and they really are crazy at some points, especially a lot of the back muscles. On some of the characters
even it's part of the story that some of them have
back muscles in the shapes of demon faces. So that probably gives you a better idea of the kinda story we're talking about. And it sounds like it's a total blast. It's a martial art series
with over the top muscles and over the top fighting. And I thought in a lot of the Western superhero comics I read, there was some over the top muscles, but nothing compares to the
stuff I'm seeing in this comic. But regardless, I think the main thing that I need to praise Keisuke
Itagaki for is his movement. If you're gonna do a series
that's about martial arts, you've gotta be really good at expressing movement in your drawings, and he is phenomenal at it. One drawing I really
love is this one here, the sort of smoke coming
between the two characters and then showing the impact
on the other characters back as if this punch has a bit
of a delayed hit to it. It's just so big and punchy, and I just think it looks really great. And then one of my personal
favorites is this one here, this kick feels like such a big hit and I love how it's just
a straight arrow line through the piece pulling us to the face. And I also like the touch of the movement lines going
in behind the character's arm which makes sense 'cause
his foot wouldn't have gone on the other side of his arm and it just helps push
the depth a little bit. And even looking past the
really great movement in this, he's done a really nice
job with the crowd going from more detailed characters closer to us and slightly less detailed
and less than less than less. He put a lot more detail into
this crowd than he needed to and I think it looks really nice. We've got a lot of different
looking characters in there, which is a good touch. Now, if "Solo Leveling" looked
like anime style artwork, then this art, I'd have to say looks like
video game concept art. It's so beautifully done
in this painterly style. All of the environments have
so much texture to them, both from the painting and presumably from the artist adding in textures in the digital art process. This is another series
that's not afraid at all to take full advantage
of digital artifacts, both when it comes to
texture and the environments and especially when it comes
to things like lighting and glow effects, there's a
lot of those to pump up a light or an explosion in the comic. But back onto the environments, a lot of them are so beautifully done. And even though they are really
simple in a lot of cases, they look more detailed because they're done
in this painterly way. I especially like this image here from very early on in the
series that has a very real feel to it because of the
texture of the painting. But all at all if you look at it, it's a very simply done drawing. We have some faded mountains, a wash of gray blue over everything, the clouds and then our
light street going down with some sort of sonic
boom type things following as the character's going
down through the environment. And something that I
really liked about this art is the contrast between the
characters and the environment. And this is something I've
actually been playing around with in my own art recently, I talked about it in my gym
leader drawing the other day. But in this series, the characters, well, they do have a texture
to them as well in some of the painted lines on them that are sort of cell shaded shadows, but
with a bit of a texture to them. They're not as textured as
the environments around them. So that makes sure that they
stand out from the environments and yet that can be
something that can be hard to find a balance of if
you're making too much of a texture difference between the characters
and the environment. They can look like they
don't fit together. But in this series, I think most of the time
it works really well. Hajime Isayama's titans
in "Attack on Titan" are probably the most
brilliantly horrific monsters I've ever come across in anything. Now I'm more familiar with the anime, but the design transition
is pretty seamlessly from one to the other. And they're so geniusly creepy because of how close to human they are. If someone were to interact
with something in a story like a really freaky looking bear, you're not thinking that there's
a good chance you are going to be able to communicate with the bear or the character will be
able to communicate with it. Because it's a bear, that
idea just isn't really there. But with something like the titans that is so close to human looking, there's that impulse there
that you should be able to communicate with it
and not being able to and looking at them with their dead eyes and often creepy grims, it just makes them so
much more horrifying. And then just the overall
design of them even more how their proportions are often warped in a really creepy way, where they'll have either really
small arms or exposed ribs or exposed teeth and big eyes. It's like Hajime Isayama
specifically took people and just thought, "How can
I warp this a little bit "to make it horrifying,"
and it worked so well. And something kinda funny about the titans is Hajime actually came up with the design for them after an interaction he had with a very incomprehensibility drunk man at an internet cafe that
helped give him the idea for how creepy and weird humans can be. And now Hajime Isayama is someone who has evolved hugely over the course of making "Attack on Titan," and he was a big self critic early on and even beyond early on, he's calmed down on himself a little bit and lots of other people
have criticized his work. And when you look back at his old stuff, it is very clear how much he's improved. And looking at the old work, I personally don't think
there's anything particularly interesting to criticize in his work. It looked like he knew what he was doing in terms of anatomy and perspective, and he just needed to work more at it. And the way he did work more at it and become better at it was
by getting a job doing it. It took him a while, but
once he found a publisher, he got to keep making "Attack
on Titan" as his main work, and that's a good note for
any artists to take away. No matter how much you learn from school or self teaching or online courses, the time you are going to learn the most and improve the most quickly is when you're actually on
the job and being forced to work eight plus hours per
day on just your artwork. But something else interesting
and noteworthy about his art is for someone who seems like
he struggled a little bit with things like faces
on characters early on, he's always done a pretty
great job with buildings, especially later on, he's got
some really impressive shots of just lots and lots of
buildings that show off how well he can render those out. And I'm often more impressed
with his drawings of buildings than I am with his drawings of humans. Yeah, overall, he's an awesome storyteller who's improved hugely. And if nothing else, he's given us some of the most horrifying monsters
in the history of fiction. I mean, I'd say at least. But, alright everybody,
that's all for this episode. Let me know if there's any more manhwa or manga artists you want me to cover or Western comic artists or European or even not comic artists, so maybe we can start branching
out a little bit from there. And of course, be sure to check out some of my illustration videos. I recently did "My Hero
Academia" characters if they were vinomized, I've done a few "Overwatch" characters if they were in Dungeons
and Dragons episodes, "Spider Man Villains" and
the "Star Wars Universe," whole bunch of other art videos. But that's all for this episode. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Christian Pearson, this
has been PopCross Studios, home of the nerdiest
dirt videos on YouTube. And I'll see you all in the next one. Goodbye, everybody.
