In a World Where Dirty Cartoons Are Legal 42

Chapter 42 – Volume 9 – Incarnation Battlefield (2)

“This is the problem.”

This is the scene where Albedo awakens after receiving new power from the fire god.
It’s a scene that’s enough if it’s just drawn normally, but it doesn’t feel like it’s because I’ve put too much energy into the fight scene so far.
I want to clearly show that I have powered up, but it was too difficult to express that level, perhaps because the problem was that I had been squeezing the tool to the limit so far.

‘I’ll take this for granted later on, but I want to give it the most overwhelming feeling the first time it appears.’

I want to give a strong impression that makes me want to momentarily forget the impoverished sensibility that I have been working so hard on and stare blankly at the awakening of Albedo.
However, no matter how much I thought about it, it was not easy to create the atmosphere that I have now with a single color.
I think it would be a pretty good feeling if only this part was worked with color…

‘I can draw if I beat the time, but the real problem is that publishing is difficult.’

Making books in color?
The production cost is so high that the number of items that can be sold is drastically reduced.
Of course, it would be successful and I would make a lot of money, but it was not easy for everyone who was watching my work to buy it to see the next episode.

However, it is impossible to make both a black and white version and a colored version, and in order to do that, you just have to draw another manga twice.
Because the black-and-white version had to be monochromatic, so I had to put the light and shade into a pattern, so I had to draw 12 new ones.
It’s not possible for a computer to automatically pattern light and shade.
It’s been a while since I’ve been really sick of computers.

“Let’s talk about it first.”

I’ve already finished the sketch, but after going further into the actual work, it’s a bit wasteful to revise it.
Of course, even if it was already painted, if it was possible to make it in color, I would have changed everything.
To that extent, I was in the midst of a strong desire to work in color for this work.

When I first started sketching, I was complacent, thinking that I could just draw with a bit more force.
It seems that being a human being is greedy when faced with a situation.
No matter how you look at it, this theory lacks impact, and lack of impact leads to a lack of probability.

It is a powerful enough force to clear up the current situation, even if it is not perfect, for the ‘erosion’ that everyone has been struggling with so far.
It’s something that can’t be expressed carelessly.
Of course, it would be my job to fully express it in a single color.
It seemed that it was not easy yet for me, who had been drawing color comics digitally, rather than the masters of black-and-white comics of the old days.

“Oh, long time no see.”
“Hello.”
“Could it be that it’s new?”
“Yes, I brought the picture for the reservation. I feel like I can start the reservation… But the teacher actually made a rather difficult request.”
“If it’s a reservation, is it the next story of Hwashin Passion?”
“That’s right. But he asked if it was possible to make only the last part of the book in color and attach it.”
“Yeah!?”

It was a disconcerting story.
First of all, the color used for the cover boasts a huge price that is responsible for one-third of the original book cost.
Of course, most of them are paper prices, so if you print double-sided and save the size as much as possible, you can get about 4 pages at that price.
However, no matter how much I compress the ending scene, it would fit in about 12 pages, but even with simple calculations, the price of the current book comes out twice as much.

“Yes, it’s almost exactly what you said. The cost is about twice as high as it is now. Of course, 12 pages is a small amount compared to the total number of pages…”

And there was another problem, which is that the material of the paper is different from that used for books, so only the back of the book feels very different.
The color printing paper currently used for the cover or promo card is very thick and smooth, so the difference is noticeable.

All I wanted was to not notice that there was a color page until I read the corresponding page.
If you use such paper in such a situation, the book itself will show a lot of tea.
In fact, apart from that, the shape of the book itself has a strange feeling, so it’s not good.

“Do you have any other papers?”
“There are, but then the print quality is quite poor. If it’s an oil painting you draw normally, it will look very strange.”

It is a technology that was used in the past and was abandoned because the quality was not good, and it is said that the quality is lower than that of printing in a single color.
When I received the paper that I actually tested, the color was very strange, and the details came out crushed.

“Isn’t it bad?”
“It’s definitely bad, but what’s the unit price for this?”
“It will be about half the normal color.”

Even so, the cost is more than 1.5 times higher than before.
However, in that case, there was a way to solve it, so it seemed to be very good.
It’s a problem because it can only be solved to that extent.

“If Master gives up all profits, can we narrowly match the existing price?”
“Yes!? Profits?”
“I think it’s possible in proportion.”
“Since we only have to handle a little bit, we can do it for that much…”
“Then, I’ll show this to Master. I think this is what Master wants.”

In fact, the reason I thought I should find a way to use it as soon as I saw it was because of the texture of the paper.
Maybe it’s because it’s low-end, but it’s hard to feel the difference because it’s the same thickness as well as the color and texture of the high-quality paper used in existing books.
Of course, if you look closely and touch it, you’ll know it, but if you don’t know, you won’t be able to tell the difference.

‘The printing quality is low, but the most important price and material are perfect.’

The problem with the quality, in my experience, can be alleviated by fiddling with the details and coloring of the painting.
All you have to do is find a way as much as possible and raise it to the point where you can’t feel a big difference from a monochrome painting.
It’s because you absolutely don’t want the expressiveness of the original level as perfect as the cover picture.

“No. Could you test this with a few more pictures? I think you can do it with a few of Master’s works.”
“Yes, I think it’s possible.”

One of the problems with this low print quality now is that the color reproduction is low, so the color is very different from the original.
So, I plan to look at the difference between the original and the sample, and try to draw the color of the original itself differently on purpose so that the output has the feeling I want.
Of course, there are some colors that cannot be produced at all, so there are limitations, but if you think that you draw only with those colors in the first place, you will not feel much awkwardness.

And the next detail is the part where the details are crushed, and I plan to add an effect to this part as if the other parts are also crushed.
If you draw it with a concept where the drawing body itself is suppressed because it is so strong, you will be able to handle it without being strange.
However, all of these methods are not the way I usually do, so it took a lot of practice and trial and error.

‘It’s a tough reservation, but I can show you what I want, but I hate not showing it.’

It’s not that I’m short of money right now, it’s not that I’m short of time, right?
People in this world treat my cartoons as art, but it would be deceiving if I couldn’t truly express them all.
After drawing a few pictures, I was convinced that it would be possible and went to work.

“If you go straight to color from the beginning, you will only feel a sense of heterogeneity, then it will break your immersion momentarily and have a bad effect.”

So the first page goes black and white.
It’s just that it’s not a solid color, it’s going grayscale, and unless you’re looking really closely here, it’s going to be hard to notice.
The moment you open the next page without noticing it…

In a world where there was no color at all, color begins to be born little by little.
It doesn’t immediately become a color page, but as you slowly pass through the squares, it feels like the darkness around you disappears due to the power that Albedo just received.
The world is gradually getting brighter, and it also helps to get the colors back slowly together with the breath of the work.

“Ha, yes. I feel like I’m really going to be lost. This is how it feels.”

I rented an inn for a long term, worked at the inn, and started working right away by making a test print.
Because the color or crushing results come out only after testing, there were many cases where I discarded it altogether and repainted it.
However, the pleasure I felt every time the printed result reached the desired level somehow helped me to endure this seemingly hopeless act.

“This, damn it. It’s really hard to have to do it again every time…”

Since I’ve been working on comics lately, it was nice to be able to make a copy before the high-difficulty work and start again from the copy if it fails.
Color didn’t work for me, so the amount of work to do increased, so I was really dying.
Actually, even if that’s not the case, it’s true that color itself is very difficult to work with with tools now, and honestly, I really miss the days when I was working digitally.

However, there was no way that computers and tablets would fall from the sky just by praying like this, so I had no choice but to grit my teeth and endure.
At least the results come out as much as you grind the bones like this, right?
It’s a much better situation than not producing results at all.

“Now, would you like to check it?”
“I don’t know how many times this has happened. Master asked me to tell him I’m sorry.”
“Ah, this is my job.”

I slowly began to look at the pages printed in color, and let out a sigh of relief when I saw that I had exactly the feeling I wanted.
I feel like I’ve really shown everything that can be shown with this print quality.
I nodded and let them know that it was okay, and said that we should try to produce the final version combined with the normal amount.
Now, if only that part is connected naturally so that it doesn’t show, ‘Hwasin Battlefield’ is complete here.