Random cartooning preferences questions!

[Tarts]

1) I don't do fingers... but in some strips where there is exaggerated realism, ala Ren and Stimpy, I'd do five fingers. >.>

2) I shade for comic effect. That is all.

3) It depends on the lighting. No light will always be dark-blue hair.... if there were hair on my characters.

4) HALIBUT'D!!!

[Killbert-Robby]

1) I try to do 5 fingers just because I think it looks right, but I have ADD when it comes to character design.

2) I wouldn't touch this one with a 50 foot pole.

3) Maybe an off-black, because pure black doesn't work.

4) Ker-THWACK

[Legion]

1) Most of my characters have flipper arms, with fingers appearing when needed. Not sure what's going on with that one. My human characers have the average four fingers and thumb, though I'm inept at drawing hands in general.

2) Don't do B&W anymore. I used to do simple shading with Photoshop, but it was too much of a pain and made everything look far too gloomy. Might go back to it in future.

3) Black. Or very, very dark grey.

4)SQUISHAK!

[EvilChihuahua]

1. Five fingers. Blessed is the norm!

2. My characters' facial features aren't nearly complex enough to be able to differentiate between races without a darker color of some kind.

3. Well, my main character's hair is dyed blue, so I tend to use straight black for truly black-haired characters.

4. SPLUTCH!

[Eve Z.]

1. five fingers. I do half-realistic comics, so four-fingered hands would be ridiculous for my style.

2. I shade. smooth shading for my coloured comic, and harsh shading for my BW one.

3. well, black is black. and blue is blue.Ted Pax was genetically born with blue hair. But on that BW comic that is, blue is dark-grey.

4. I dunno... SPLAT! I usually avoid writing 'sounds'.

[Vorticus]

!. Four, I'm lazy

@. I don't shade black and white, it comes out looking all wrong

#. I've never had a character with black hair. I'd just use black and highlight it with a shade of gray.

$. SWOARP! gegeuuuh!

[Jackhass]

My! I had no idea there was such an anti 4-finger bias! [Scribbles on a notepad while wearing a labcoat] facisinating.

[Vorticus]

Will the final tabulated results of this be posted eventually?

[Tenma]

1) Five fingers. I think I'd get myself into trouble by not remembering to only draw four.

2) My black and white comics are basically color comics converted to grayscale. This is why I don't do black and white comics any more.

3) I use black with blue highlights for certain characters, and black with gray highlights for others.

4) *HAAAAAARMFFF*

[Doublemint]

1. Five fingers. It's just natural, and it makes drawing obscene gestures more straightforward.

2. I'm still weighing my final decision on how to express skin color in my B&W comic without it coming out as either offensive or just bad looking. Right now I'm leaning towards plain fills.

3. Black hair. It's a B&W world (mostly), though if I ever switched to color down the road I'd probably use blue-as-black for a few of my characters.

4. THUMP!

[Tim]

1) Four-finger hands or five-finger hands?
I strive for realism, so my characters have five fingers. However, I am also lazy and untalented, so oftentimes my character have blobs for hands.

2) To shade or not to shade?
Yeah, I usually don't think to shade...and I'm luck to remember to shade o the rare occasion when I color. As for ethnic characters, I haven't really considered it...I don't have ethnics in my comic (nothing racist, it's more about my upbringing, and I'm not about to include them if only for the sake of equal opportunity). If I were, I'd try to go for a Charles Schulz's "Franklin" effect, I think.

3) Black or blue?
I'm stupid enough with color to use straight black. I always wondered why Superman had blue streaks in his hair.

4) One of your characters just hit the other one in the crotch with a dead halibut...what sound effect would accompany such an action?
*SCHLWUMP*

[JTigerclaw]

1. Four fingers are definately better for my style.

2. Ethnicities are irrelevant in a furry comic. Also I don't do black and white often, but when I do, it's straight black and white, not shading.

3. Dark blue hair instead of black? What? If my character has black hair I make it a very dark grey, or light black to stand out from the black outline (and to use fill bucket without effecting all the lines).

4. There have been some pretty creative answers here, so I'm going to go out on a limb... TESTI-KILL! .....or KA-THWAP!

[Io]

1) Five fingers, trying to simplify it to four just encourages people to slack on their anatomy and understanding bone structure is very important, even in comics.

2) I usually do color so yes I shade, and even in black and white I'll vary the amount of cross hatching to show differences in skin tone. Kinda silly to be afraid of offending someone with adding defined characters of varried ethnicities. You'd think it'd be more offensive to make everyone pale like nothing else exists

3) Black hair I go for a natural look and use varried shades of dark brown for highlights.

4) KA-THUMP!

[Dr Neo Lao]

1: Fingers? I have the nasty habit of drawing too small and end up making the old mittens or just scraggly lines that may be misinterpreted as fingers by a near-sighted bat...

2: I shade when I can, but at the moment I'm low on time and I'm doing a lot of outlines without any shading. But I do try...

3: Huh? I draw black hair black. I mean, it's black - why would I use blue? Unless I'm missing something, maybe a cultural reference?

4: Depends on the effect I'm going for. If it's serious, then I wouldn't make a sound effect. If it's comedic, I'd make the halibut say "Ow!"

*hee hee* TESTI-KILL! good one!

[VinnieD]

[quote="Jackhass"]A few random questions...let the heated discussion begin.

1) Four-finger hands or five-finger hands? Humans have a proper five fingers. The rabbits however only have three digits on their paws both with the hands and feet (real rabbits have five digits on their front paws and four on the back)

2) To shade or not to shade? Shading is one of the most important parts. I do mine by hand with a HB and 1B - 9B pencils.

3) Black or blue? Well it's not a color comic but when it comes up I use dark gray.

4) One of your characters just hit the other one in the crotch with a dead halibut...what sound effect would accompany such an action?

SPLUNCH!

[JTigerclaw]

4: Depends on the effect I'm going for. If it's serious, then I wouldn't make a sound effect. If it's comedic, I'd make the halibut say "Ow!"

How can a halibut to the crotch in a comic be serious at all?

*hee hee* TESTI-KILL! good one!

Thanks!

[Killbert-Robby]

How can a halibut to the crotch in a comic be serious at all?

You think you want to know, but believe me... some things cannot be unlearnt.

[Uncaringmachine]

I use five fingers, half black and half blue hair, and for the sound effect, a solid THUNK! would suffice.

[Cope]

1.) For years I only drew four-fingered characters, but I went with five for my current comic. Four-fingers just seemed a bit too cartoony to be suitable. I still draw my avatar with four fingers, though.

2.) Don't shade; line shading on a person's face can look a bit messy. Especially my line shading.

3) Dark blue is nice. Not that I colour.

4) Fap.

[TharanFayth]

1) Five fingers, no matter how annoying it can be to draw sometimes.
2) I shade with a multiply layer and a lovely shade of gray in photoshop.
3) If someone's hair is going to be black, they're going to have some different color in thier hair just to see some texture.
4) OWNED!! as unoriginal as it may be =P