Been a little occupied, a little tired, a little distracted. Mainly trying to work out writing and some processes but they're not very fun to show, but part of that involved trying to redraw some existing things to help understand them better. There was also a globally open competition by Kodansha with a chance to receive a critique or a dedicated editor. Did go for it but it still yielded some interesting things to think about.
So, the left one is what I'd normally do, the minimum size I'd reduce a page to, 1000x1500, with my standard anti-aliased brushwork, normally a PNG but withh this I tried a JPEG for some reason. 452kb.
Right is more in line with whatt the competition would have accepted. 2508x3541, some kind of upped contrast accompanied with an aliased post processing. Despite a larger pixel count and being a PNG, it's the smaller file at 335kb.
That's real weird and interesting.
So, longterm for any future work, what's a better idea? Anti-alised is what I've always done, and is basically a greyscale image that also allows for soft edges and blending. Alternative is binary/aliased, hard edges, primarily hatching, and the only shading I'll ever be able to do would be with screentones, which can be awkward to use and risk a moire effect. What I've always done is easier but potentially limiting and not future-proofed, latter has lots of challenges and risks looking stranged and jagged but can be dumped anywhere on anything. Also conscious of characters of colour with dark skin potentially looking rough and harder to depict depending on which direction I go with.