Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

No one had ever thought of designing movie posters, let alone animated movie posters.

They didn't have this concept in their minds; it was a "genre of painting" that they were fortunate enough to encounter after graduation when they were assigned to work at a movie theater.

Zhang Dabiao immediately got to work.

Yes, they didn't even finish one page of the comic book, but went straight to drawing a movie poster!

This is similar to the concept of signing a contract with a platform when drawing comics. No matter how well you draw the text inside the pages or how coherent the plot is, your cover must be amazing!

With a great cover, everything else is easy!

Writing a novel is the same principle: make the cover and title catchy, then talk about the content!

Then Zhang Dabiao started furiously sketching, immediately applying the rule of thirds and the nine-square grid (golden ratio) composition. He used anime techniques combined with some traditional Chinese painting line drawing skills, drawing however he felt comfortable, just for the sake of speed!

"Why didn't you draw a frame? And your layout is completely against the rules; comic books are meant to be horizontal. What are you doing?"

In their minds, a comic book is simply a square picture on top, in a horizontal format, with a few lines of text below.

Therefore, you need to draw a rectangular border at the beginning to avoid drawing outside the boundaries.

But Zhang Dabiao was drawing a vertical poster, so the paper was vertical. He didn't care whether the drawing went out of bounds or whether he needed to leave space for the text.

Why bother with him?

Just finish drawing!

Zhang Dabiao didn't even turn his head, his pencil flying across the paper.

"Senior, rules are made by people. Draw it however you want the story to be interesting."

"If I draw well, forget about horizontal composition, even if I draw it as a square or a circle, the publisher will still use it."

"Moreover, I'm drawing a poster, a vertical poster."

[Poster? Why would a comic book need a poster? This isn't an animated film or a movie.]

Is this junior obsessed?

[You haven't even finished the comic strip, what are you doing making posters?]

The long-haired senior curled his lip in disdain.

"How arrogant!"

"Comic strips emphasize 'creating form with lines.' If you don't even have a brush and just scribble randomly with a pencil, what kind of artwork can you possibly produce?"

Several older students around nodded in agreement. These days, the mainstream style of comic books is line drawing, followed by pen and ink drawing.

Dip pens are commonly used in engineering drawings, but using them to draw comic strips is just nonsense and heresy!

Moreover, seeing the strange tools on Zhang Dabiao's desk and the messy sketches on the paper, everyone couldn't help but shake their heads.

"First-year students are arrogant."

"You haven't even mastered the most basic line drawing, and you want to run?"

"Teacher Zhou is really something, how could he let a freshman get involved in such a big task?"

"This drawing is clearly not a task assigned by the publisher."

"Why come to a big art studio if you're not going to participate in the assignment? Isn't this a waste of public resources?"

People whispered among themselves, their tone full of sarcasm.

Zhang Dabiao ignored these discussions.

However, some people who had received favors from "Mr. Zhang" spoke up for him, saying, "He has the teacher's approval and brought his own tools. What's wrong with him drawing for a while? He's not bothering us."

"You can't say that. We're all working on publishing projects. The main studio is a collective unit. He's doing other things on his own, which is very casual. Doesn't that affect our work pace and the atmosphere?"

"He's is isolating himself from the group; he's trying to get special treatment!"

"..."

Zhang Dabiao didn't even know how to complain anymore. "I just draw a picture, Nezha, and they treat me like a special case?"

So he drew even faster—[Enough talk, let's see what we can do!]

The furious sketch was finished, a bit messy, and no one could quite figure it out yet, only that it looked incredibly powerful. Then Zhang Dabiao switched to a dip pen, laid out the paper again, prepared the light box, and dipped it in drawing ink.

Taking a deep breath, Zhang Dabiao moved his wrist.

Zhang Dabiao's pen tip landed on the white paper, making a soft "rustling" sound.

The painting he created depicts the climax scene of Nezha angrily pulling out Ao Bing's dragon tendons.

It does not use the flat, straightforward mid-ground composition of traditional comic strips.

Zhang Dabiao went straight for a very imposing, low-angle shot.

At the center of the image is Nezha standing on Ao Bing's enormous dragon head.

Nezha's face occupies the upper left corner of the image, in an extreme close-up.

An angry gaze, clenched teeth, and hair flying wildly in the sea breeze.

The Hun Tian Ling in his hand seemed to have a life of its own, weaving and swirling through the scene, forming a strong sense of movement.

Ao Bing's dragon body, on the other hand, presents an extremely distorted perspective.

The enormous dragon scales in the foreground extend into the depths of the image, creating a strong sense of spatial depth.

Zhang Dabiao's hand speed is extremely fast, and his lines are wild yet precise.

He didn't use the meticulous depiction method of traditional Chinese painting at all, but instead adopted the "speed lines" and "hatching" commonly used in later comics.

The pen tip scrapes rapidly across the paper, creating dense, unidirectional short lines to depict the texture of dragon scales and the surging of ocean waves. Darker short lines are denser, occasionally intersecting, or appearing as hand-drawn serpentine patterns, quickly establishing a strong black, white, and gray tone in the overall image!

The Hun Tian Ling in the foreground is represented by solid lines, while the Hun Tian Ling behind Nezha is represented by speed lines in a slightly more distant area, indicating its blurred appearance. In addition, the crashing waves in the foreground are also represented by blurred speed lines. Static solid lines and dynamic blurred speed lines immediately convey the sense of movement and stillness in the entire picture, much like the depth of field effect in photography.

Pen sketching, dip pen line drawing, large-area brush direct blackening, comic outline drawing, comic hatching to create black, white and gray tones, speed lines to create dynamic effects and depth of field—Zhang Dabiao's hand speed is very fast. He doesn't care which method to use at all. He just draws however he feels good!

Unbridled and without any restraint!

Finally, he dipped white paint into the brush and flicked the brush handle with his finger to create the effect of white waves splashing – this is actually a technique used in traditional Chinese painting.

For some of the more delicate and refined waves, the white dots splashed by the brush were too rough, so he took a piece of gauze, wrapped it around a hollow brush handle, brushed on some white paint, and blew on it forcefully—

The combination of bold white dots and delicate white dots creates a sense of depth and dimension.

Visual effects – immediate and noticeable!

Movement and stillness, layers, black, white and gray light and shadow, sense of weight, sense of space...

The upperclassmen who were just laughing at him have all stopped talking now.

The long-haired senior's pen-washing jar was tilted, and he didn't even notice that dirty water was about to spill out.

Everyone stared wide-eyed at the drawing paper in Zhang Dabiao's hand.

This composition!

This tension!

The visual impact is overwhelming!

They've never seen anything like it before!

Moreover, the images are purely black and white, without any coloring or shading; they are simply black and white lines. They differ from the orderly lines of traditional prints and from pure line drawing. They are not traditional pen and ink sketches either…

Anyway, it's different from all those others, and they don't even know how to describe it.

In traditional comic books, the characters stand still, as if they are performing in a stage play.

Zhang Dabiao's paintings are like pulling people directly into a whirlpool of raging storms.

Damn it—what kind of painting is this?

I've never seen anything like it before!

Everyone was stunned!

One student couldn't help but shout out—

"Da Biao, I want to learn this!"