The new art style

[Jaxzan Proditor]

From the OotS FAQ

That's the out-of-story reason, not the in-story one.

[zimmerwald1915]

Are they supposed to represent stitches on cloth? Bone bits showing from where the arm is cut off? Isnt that a little dark?

They look like buttons to me.

[shamgar001]

As I posted in the main comic thread, unless this change was prompted by a massive loss in accumulated art resources necessitating a total rebuild from scratch, I don't really see the point of changing from stick figures to noodle people. It seems like each strip would take a lot more work. For example, depending on how the Giant does things, either Durkon's skin-tight sleeves would need to overlap exactly over his arms, or his wrists would have to extend believably from the sleeves and pant legs. I'm not saying the Giant doesn't pull it off, whichever way he does it, just that it seems like a lot more work for not much gain.

I also don't see the need for outlines on the stick-limbs. Recoloring the stick limbs from black to flesh-colored and putting bulkier sleeves over them would have been easier for a number of reasons. For example, I can imagine the new hands being formed one of two ways: either the Giant overlaps the objects he uses to create the hands and then uses the union¹ tool to make one path out of them, or he draws the whole thing as one object from scratch. Either way seems more time-consuming than the old method of just placing one path on top of another. [EDIT: As Grey Watcher pointed out in the main thread, some characters, like Xykon, have had their limbs colored something other than black for a long while.]

An easier way to accomplish this would be to draw the stick arms, and then hit Stroke to Path (or whatever it is in Illustrator).

I like the changes overall, including the noodle hands.

[Auburn Bright]

She pinned up the sleeve to keep it from flopping and dangling everywhere.

[AKA_Bait]

While I the new art style is interesting, if a little jarring (especially, as many have noted, the hands) I don't like it for OOtS. Frankly, I don't even think it is as interesting as the style before the upgrade. The juxtaposition of the stick figure style on a complex plot and increasingly detailed level of surrounding art was a lot more engaging for me than the new "noodle" style is at this point.

This forum is now misnamed ("A forum for discussion of Rich Burlew's stick figure fantasy webcomic"), as is the comic. While I know that in-comic cannon is that the Order is actually named after a stick Elan found, it was also clearly named as a reference to the art-style being employed. Now, the stick figures are all gone. This makes me sad.

[The Pilgrim]

At this pace, the Order will grow five fingers per hand next book.

[ChristianSt]

Why is a somewhat thicker colored stick not longer a stick?

I could understand such complaints if this would be "The Order of the Line" ...

[zimmerwald1915]

Why is a somewhat thicker colored stick not longer a stick?

As alluded to a number of times above, the sticks were drawn with paths in Illustrator while the noodles end up as (even if they may not start out as) objects.

[Wou]

One day we wake up, and all the figures have noses ears and 5 fingered detailed palms
I'd think that's an additional work with little gain, but I guess Mr. Burlew knows better, so let's enjoy the ride.

On definitely plus side I appreciate the increase in general size of the pages. Been hoping for that for a long time, it was tiny on any modern-sized screen.

[Morty]

I think I like it, but we'll see. Overall, I'm honestly not surprised to see such a change - the Giant's been doing it for ten years now, and experimenting with his art or deciding on new directions in which to take it is only natural. This one is just a bigger step than the gradual development we'd seen before.

[Caivs]

The new art style is blowing me away, it's simply incredible.... I was already amazed at how a few panels in the last book (Durkon shooting lightning at Malack and Roy cutting the mummies down comes to mind) made you feel like being part of the scene. Now, the 3D effects trump it all, it felt like watching a video game cutscene. I'm surprised at how many people criticize it... I'm pretty sure they'll all get used to it and love it eventually.

Though I worry a little about the amount of work this new style implies, I hope it won't cause Rich too much trouble.

[ChristianSt]

As alluded to a number of times above, the sticks were drawn with paths in Illustrator while the noodles end up as (even if they may not start out as) objects.

I don't care how they appear in Adobe Illustrator. I don't know why anybody other than the one person working with the original files should care about what they are (or aren't) in the original file.

I only said they still basically look like a stick. So I personally don't think a argument "They are no longer made out of sicks!" is valid.

[ti'esar]

While I don't think the changes are ugly or anything like that, as someone who wholly endorsed the Giant's previous stance on visuals and is planning to do his own (non-OOTS-style) stick figure comic eventually, I'm more than a little saddened to see him apparently abandoning that philosophy.

[Smolder]

The new art style will allow the Giant to pull off some plot-pivotal art trick, like noticing that another character has bite marks on their arm. "Did you feed the vampire after midnight?"

[Shale]

I like the detailed look in general, just not the hands. They look less like stylized representations of hands and more like disturbingly deformed hands.

[Wordsmyth]

Sheesh - so much emotion about some old pseudo-definition.

I totally dig this new style - so much expression!

With the hands... there might be a problem when they turn too small - the limits of resolution (btw. thanks for the larger canvas - that is _GREAT_!) claim their toll. Maybe it would be a good idea to revert to mono-colored hands below a certain size, kind of like this:



But hey, who am I to judge!
Keep up the great work, I love it.

[Ted The Bug]

I'm also iffy on the limbs, but the rest looks alright.

Except the things holding Durkon! I loved the semi-stylized borderless ones in the last panel a lot more.

[rukeen2]

I didn't even notice it, until I read the discussion on it. Looking back it's a little odd, but I'll probably forget about it by tomorrow.

[slayerx]

Ya, never had a problem with OotS style before, but i don't really like the hands. I feel like its like an uncanny valley thing; he took a step furthar, but not far enough... its like the trident hands is kind of awkward, bu when done in black you don't really notice it; when they are outlined and colored however, the hands become A LOT more noticable and it just calls attention to that awkwardness. I feel like it would work better if he took it a step furthar and made hands with 4-5 fingers, one of which is a thumb, or took a step back and did hands how he did them before... this is kind of an uncomfortable medium; uncanny valley. Maybe i can get used to it I guess. Kinda funny that I didn't really take notice of it in the julio story; could be that being in black and white I overlooked it.

On the plus side, I like just about everything else, including how the legs are handled...

[Gorgon_Heap]

I'm deeply impressed and quite loving all of it.

The man's giving us a decade-plus of essentially free entertainment and, unlike other web artists I've seen, has been improving the whole time.

Let him work.

[Gift Jeraff]

4 fingers does look pretty good:

Spoiler

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[Sunken Valley]

What do you guys think V's footwear will look like? I always imagined those curly toed slippers prevalent in India and the Middle East but I expect to be disappointed.

[MagicalMeat]

I dislike the change, but I'm sure after 12 or so strips I'll love it. Change is sometimes difficult to accept.

[Baelzar]

That's the out-of-story reason, not the in-story one.

But what if we started reading OotS before the story reason happened? Besides, "linear" guild? What's their story reason?

http://www.giantitp.com/FAQ.html#faq6

I'm leaning towards "Order of the Ziti" or the more drastic "The Chef Boyardee Gang."

[Unrest]

Sheesh - so much emotion about some old pseudo-definition.

Amen, brother! I say, let it rip in peace.

As for me - everything about the upgrade is amazing.

Spoiler: outdated

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Except the hands. I don't have a problem with them being colour+stroke, but it's rather that in this strip, there is so much holding of hands - and this upgraded style I think would require the absolute-pain-in-the-literal-and-temporal-back overlapping of fingers. And even then, it's still difficult to pull off with just three, especially since Rich's style is pitchfork-style and not the live-long-and-prosper-style which would be I think easier to do but perhaps just too weird for OotS (everyone looking like pre-upgrade reptilians?).

Edit: Looked at hands a day later. They bother not half as much as yesterday. Don't you just hate how the brain reacts to new stuff?

The objection to arms still stands, though. Compare little Durkon's arms - in wide sleeves, much dwarf, wow - with adult vampire-bound Durkon's arms. Adult Durkon's are much too thin fer a dorf! Elan, Haley, okay. But Durkon - wide(r) sleeves, I'd say, same for Roy, Tarquin etc. - sleeves never looked too bad (look at e.g. the two lawyers, Tarquin in bathrobe, Elan in sash-and-shirt).

[arkwei]

The hands feel quite jarring, but everything else (including legs) works well.

[zimmerwald1915]

Though I worry a little about the amount of work this new style implies, I hope it won't cause Rich too much trouble.

Okay, just as an experiment, I tried to recreate the vampire spirit (mostly because of the simplicity of the pose) and I ended up with a fair approximation following a reproducible method after about two hours. That was the initial drawing, which would take me about an hour and a half using the old style (less if I had reproducible assets). It took me about twenty minutes to re-pose a model with the old style. With this new style I think it'd take more like 30 because instead of dragging and recurving an existing stroke, the limb has to be drawn anew each time. Rich's times are all but certainly better than mine since he has a heck of a lot more practice and actual training. So the new style characters shouldn't take much longer to pose than they already do. I'd imagine the intricate background textures are a lot more time-consuming.

What I discovered was more onerous about the limb creation wasn't the posing, it was the process of overlaying the sleeves. What I ended up doing was:

drawing the arm as a 3px stroke (I was using the terminology wrong before );
copying and pasting that stroke over itself and then increasing the width of the top stroke to 4px;
drawing the two outer fingers as a 3px stroke;
converting all the strokes to paths;
giving the sleeve 2px outlines and the arms and fingers 1.333px outlines;
creating a union of the arm and fingers;
lopping off the end of the sleeve above the wrist.

The most annoying (it's not hard, just tedious) part of this is overlaying the sleeve and making sure it's going to fit right. It has to be done before conversion of strokes to paths, and I have a hard time remembering. But that's just me; I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually and I'm just as sure that if the Giant ever had this problem he's already over it.

I'm rather happy with how the vampire spirit turned out, though for obvious reasons I won't be posting it here. Next we'll see if I can reproduce my Twi avatar using this new style. If it's successful I'll replace my existing one.

[Draxonicar]

The comic has been through a rather large amount of art updates in the past.

If anything, we've been overdue one for some time now.

[Dr.Starky]

All criticism of the new art style is invalid due to the oncoming of pants.

[Cuthalion]

Like everyone else, I like everything except hands.