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readingatwork posted:Just a head's up. It's still probably technically illegal to use other people's intellectual property in your own work, even if you credit them properly. I think even every day fan art can be nailed just for existing publicly if a company is feeling ornery enough. The only exceptions may be in cases of clear parody (8BT would have a good claim on this, but most other sprite comics tell their own story so would not.), and even then it's a legal grey area. Fortunately 99% of companies out there don't give a poo poo about you so you're good until you start making decent money. Fortunately for me, it's all original characters/art, although they do tend to bump into obvious parody versions of stuff. It's like Code Monkeys, except on occasion, someone might actually laugh at a joke in it. What I'm kind of hoping to do is shrink the file size of my sprite sheet, and didn't know which way to go with the DPI. If I make it a Lower DPI, that means the image will get bigger, inches wise, where if I go to a Higher DPI, the image gets bigger, pixel wise. I don't know which of these two Photoshop computes when it translates to file size (or even if it even makes a difference, at all). Also, I don't know if it'll gently caress up my existing sprite-work.
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| # ? May 29, 2011 09:19 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 23:31 |
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You can actually change DPI without changing pixel dimensions, and vice versa. DPI is simply the ratio between pixel dimensions and printed dimensions, and can be reassigned to your liking without actually altering the document's onscreen dimensions. That's not to say you shouldn't pay attention to it, because it will affect your print dimensions; it's important to ensure that your high-resolution work prints at a desirable size when the DPI is high. And as always with scaling, attempting to increase the dimensions of a low-res file, through tweaking the DPI or otherwise, is not generally gonna work well, so take care. Supercar Gautier fucked around with this message at May 29, 2011 around 17:43 |
| # ? May 29, 2011 17:38 |
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el Brainvomito posted:Do I dare to ask about updating schedules? Honestly, the best advice is probably just to work at a pace you're most comfortable with, and tell the story how you feel it should be told. Trying any other way is just going to make things get weird for you. There's no one ideal pace or style.
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| # ? May 29, 2011 18:12 |
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Dodgeball posted:What I'm kind of hoping to do is shrink the file size of my sprite sheet, and didn't know which way to go with the DPI. All that matters for the file size is the total pixels. As SG says, you can change the DPI and the page size simultaneously in opposite directions so the total pixels are unchanged, and if you do this the filesize won't change. Since DPI and page size interact to determine the pixel count and hence the file size, if you don't care about print at all it's a lot easier to just talk about pixels (and set your photoshop units to pixels). If you want smaller file sizes, you want fewer pixels (but that means you have lower quality for the non-sprite content). Unfortunately, Photoshop doesn't have any way to have different layers be at different resolutions, because that would probably be what you'd really want. "Smart objects" maybe? Reiley posted:The reason DPI is important is so you can work at a higher resolution It's absolutely worth working at the resolution necessary to meet the target quality that you might someday print at. And if that target is Scarygoround's "Blame the Sky"-sized, that's 3.25" wide, whereas if it's Octopus Pie, it's 10" wide. 300 DPI at 3.25" is 1000 pixels, and 600 DPI at 10" is 6000 pixels, which is a pretty wide range. So absolutely if you want to print you should make sure it's high-enough resolution that it'll print in your target format at your target resolution. And doing that requires doing DPI calculations, and if you want to let Photoshop do the calculations for you and work with DPI and inches in Photoshop, that's all perfectly fine and reasonable (it's just one multiplication, but sure). And yes, plenty of artists have been burned by not working at a high-enough resolution and I absolutely encourage artists to think about potentially wanting to print their art someday and work at a high enough resolution for that. But you DO have to know what your target size in inches is, which is something that people in this thread (about webcomics) usually don't mention when DPI discussions come up. And when you're talking about targetting a pixel display on the web (and never printing) none of this really makes sense and you're better off thinking about web-native units: pixels. (I work on videogames where we only use pixels. Twenty years ago I worked on software inside printers (that printed at resolutions between 1200 DPI and 3000 DPI), software that generated the actual "pixels" and generated their own screen tone dots and poo poo like that. Seriously, I actually understand both sides of this problem. And the core of it is that 72 or 96 as screen DPI are obfuscatory fictions intended to simplify life for people who only understand print terminology, but which have simultaneously caused all sorts of problems like screwed up font sizing in Windows.) nothings fucked around with this message at May 29, 2011 around 23:55 |
| # ? May 29, 2011 23:53 |
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nothings posted:All that matters for the file size is the total pixels. As SG says, you can change the DPI and the page size simultaneously in opposite directions so the total pixels are unchanged, and if you do this the filesize won't change. I think 'smart objects' would slow me down, since working on a rasterized sprite that's literally 45p tall by 30p wide should make no real draw on my memory. The problem is, I don't animate a sprite's position and make mouth movements for it; I render the same sprite 4 times with different mouth-states (because I'm stupid). Closed Small Medium Wince So I have a 1.5k pixels squared photoshop file with nearly 200 layers and it slugging along. I was kind of hoping that maybe taking it down to like, 20 ppi would make it load faster/easier. Flash eats up a ton of resources and occasionally locks up. I have most of the pixel art bitmap-traced into Flash right now, so it's not so pressing of an issue for this episode. For the second episode I'll probably be smarter about just generating one position, then 3-4 mouth layers, but I kind of needed the sprites to be absolute for this first episode. Thank you for the insight, though. This thread is so drat great. EDIT: After about two weeks, I think I officially hate Flash. I recognize its usefulness, but goddamn do I hate that program right now. Dodgeball fucked around with this message at Jun 6, 2011 around 13:08 |
| # ? May 30, 2011 02:06 |
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Has anyone here had any experience working with PatchTogether.com? I've had a couple artist friends (not in webcomics) get small runs of resin statuettes done, but anything bigger than that looks daunting.
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| # ? Jun 9, 2011 16:10 |
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Been thinking about doing this in a few years and have been investigating a tiny bit. The Shortpacked character figurines from PatchTogether look good in photos, but a couple other artists I know both had figures come back mispainted or incompletely painted. Not sure how those situations were resolved, if at all. Josh Lesnick had some really nice-looking figurines made through a different company (can't remember the name offhand), but that manufacturer doesn't have any custom figure info on their site, so I'm not sure how he went about it.
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| # ? Jun 9, 2011 21:03 |
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I'm actually attempting to sculpt and cast my own resin figurines for my comic. I got busy, but after this month I want to get that rolling again. I don't think it'd be too hard, resin figurine production can be done small time on the side easy, with the right setup and a ventilated area. And aside from the initial supplies, production isn't that expensive -- it's just a very long and tedious process. It's something I have experience in so I'm hoping it'll turn out good. I considered Patch Together, but I don't like the idea of not being able to control my own runs or produce them in specific numbers, especially very small numbers. Like, if I was out of stock (if only, hahaha) and wanted to go to a convention, I'd want to make just 3 since that doesn't seem like an item I could sell a lot of in person. If I'm in control of that process it seems like that flexibility would work for me way better. I'm too small-time to always have to produce runs of, say, 50-100 figurines. EDIT: Oh, I guess it'd be interesting to at least post a picture -- http://i.imgur.com/J2jOJ.jpg EDIT2: Also, there's ways to probably get a figurine without going specifically to a producer of figurines. Like, you could always commission a sculpture from an artist, then shop around resin casting services for an affordable run and have them just do the casting, and then hire someone else to do the paint job, if need be. It may be pricier, it may be cheaper, but you wouldn't have to go straight to a toy maker for it. Spookyblang fucked around with this message at Jun 11, 2011 around 20:20 |
| # ? Jun 11, 2011 20:06 |
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Hey Spookyblang, I'm really interested in seeing how your resin models come out. I gave casting my own resin models a try a few years ago and decided I'd much rather let a pro deal with it. It's definitely fun, but not something I'd want to do a dozen times, especially if painted. I've also decided to go for a plush toy instead of a resin cast, because I think it has more appeal. (Here, if you're curious.) I'm thinking a big factor here is getting non-fans to want a toy, too.
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| # ? Jun 11, 2011 21:34 |
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See, I'm the opposite in that regard, as I really enjoy the tasks involved with resin casting. Even trimming resin flash and sanding seams smooth. I could do that for hours. And have. It's almost therapeutic. I'll definitely post updates when I get more time to focus on that again.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 05:36 |
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Hey, I've put myself in a pretty weird situation and I could use some advice. A while back I was in a really rough situation and a friend helped me out bigtime; Covering the costs of moving into an apartment, helping with food and utilities, getting me a new computer, and helping with medical bills. We agreed upfront that since I'll pretty much never be able to pay him back moneywise, I would make it up by doing the art for a webcomic he's been writing for a while. This is seriously generous of him and I am stupid lucky that I was able to work out something like this. So it'd be pretty lovely of me to turn it down regardless of the content, and I fully plan on doing it and feel ready to take on the project! However the comic itself is... something I'm really hesitant to affiliate with. I really want to use some sort of pseudonym and be as secretive about my involvement as possible. But on the other hand, this is a huge 2+ year long project. And since he pretty much saved me from living on the streets, I want to make this the nicest looking thing I possibly can. If I'm putting all this effort into it I know I'll end up wanting to openly take credit for my work instead of hiding behind a fake name. I guess I'm asking what other people might do in this sort of situation! Do you think it would be better to use a pen name to protect my reputation, or take credit and just deal with being associated with the kind of story it is? (For the record it's nothing absolutely horrible and it's not porn. I'm not sure how much detail I want to go into though since I'm not sure how relevant it is aaa)
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 06:22 |
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Dabbo posted:I'm not sure how much detail I want to go into though since I'm not sure how relevant it is aaa Well now you've got me all curious. I really want details, now. And for the record, I don't see there being any problem with using a pen name.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 12:23 |
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Lots of webcomic artists do art under a pen name even when it's their main project. The internet being what it is, you do run the risk of the secret name being linked to the main one, but as long as it's nothing horrible I wouldn't think it'd be a big deal. Not like the chugworth guy and his mountain of guro porn, at least.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 12:55 |
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Mercury Hat posted:Not like the chugworth guy and his mountain of guro porn, at least. Yeah, but I'm not really certain how hard he tried to hide it.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 13:36 |
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Depends how leery you are of it; if you think it's likely to mess up your reputation or something, a pseudonym is fine, and you can probably keep it as a special secret section of your portfolio that only goes to potential clients, if you're trying to freelance. If it's just embarrassing... probably your best bet is to get over it. I'm also curious about the details, though I doubt they'd have a major bearing on my opinion.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 14:37 |
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Most people won't care what side projects you're affiliated with as long as you keep the work separate. My first experience with Paul Robertson was the Scott Pilgrim video game. While it was a shock to see some of his other art (particularly guro) it didn't diminish the value of his work or skill. There'll always be someone trying to start poo poo but I don't think most people care that X artist was involved in Y project. I mean, Shel Silverstein drew a lot of adult oriented cartoons with contributions to Playboy but he's still a beloved children's author.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 15:35 |
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Go for the pseudonym as long as it wouldn't offend your friend. You can always claim the work later if you feel that its quality trumps the subject matter, whereas once you've associated your name with it you can't unassociate it.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 16:59 |
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Alright, I was probably overthinking things and worrying too much about it. Thanks for your replies, everyone!idonotlikepeas posted:Go for the pseudonym as long as it wouldn't offend your friend. You can always claim the work later if you feel that its quality trumps the subject matter, whereas once you've associated your name with it you can't unassociate it. Yeah I'm definitely going this route. Luckily he doesn't care how I refer to myself and I know he'll be respectful and not give out my real name/online names I usually use. McGravin posted:Well now you've got me all curious. I really want details, now. Like I said, it's nothing horrible, just embarrassing. The story is written like Dominic Deegan but in feudal Japan and the main character is an immortal time-traveling martial arts master who has to save the world. And it's furry. Granted he's at least letting me get a way with a more cartoony, less anthropomorphic style but I'm still about to spend a couple years drawing Mary-sue's anime furry adventures  I might up making a bunch of posts about this as time goes on since I'm still pretty new to making comics and I'm jumping into a huge collaboration project with no experience whatsoever. Sorry in advance if I end up sounding like a huge spazzy idiot!
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 17:14 |
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If nothing else it's an opportunity to test your mettle. It'd be pretty sweet if you could take this ridiculous thing and make it something you'd want to read-- obviously if the writing blows it's less likely to be awesome, but take pretty much any badly-written comic with awesome art and note that they still do pretty well. If I were you I would convince myself that it's just practice while still making every effort to kick rear end at it. It'll help hone your skills or whatever  Also it's a nice thing to do so good on you!
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 17:40 |
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If crap writing is the issue I wouldn't worry about it too much. Most people know that an artist somewhat at the mercy of the writer. Just focus on making the art as good as possible and I doubt anyone will care. Also, keep in mind that your efforts and art (regardless of your skill level) have value. A webcomic takes a lot of time and energy and you are in no way obligated to do what is essentially a second job forever. So be sure you have an exit strategy agreed upon in advance (for example, you agree to 2 years and then he has to pay you). Furthermore, make sure you have some profit sharing agreement in writing for the off chance that this thing actually takes off. You don't want to be tied to that much of a workload and never be able to get anything out of it. readingatwork fucked around with this message at Jun 12, 2011 around 17:57 |
| # ? Jun 12, 2011 17:44 |
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Yeah, really. Most people can make the distinction between artist and writer, and artists tend to get a lot more slack when they're tied to a bad project. As long as you're doing your job and making things look good, the worst realistic outcome would be that people say "I love his art, shame it's wasted on that cruddy comic." And then, when your writer gets bored of the project and wanders away (Which he probably will - most Mary Sue type comics are not known for their longevity.) you'll be free to go on and stake your reputation to something better. Besides, maybe this is a naive question, but would it really be that unprofessional to just explain the debt-paying aspect of the work to your next potential client?
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 18:06 |
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Kismet posted:Besides, maybe this is a naive question, but would it really be that unprofessional to just explain the debt-paying aspect of the work to your next potential client? I'm not sure of this, which is a big part of why I was worried in the first place :I ALSO HEY already having a minor issue! Here's a really bad drawing of the main character:  He likes it and considers it good to go, but I...don't. He asked me what about it I didn't like, but I couldn't really come up with anything solid. It just looks so goofy to me. I don't know if its because the drawing itself is making it bad or if I just can't get over what the character's supposed to be. He says if I can think of anything to change, I can go right ahead but I just can't come up with anything  I don't know, is there really any way I can give this guy a better design without giving him a complete overhaul? Of course for all I know he looks just fine and I need to get the hell over myself. The only reason this is an issue is that I can't really draw the character in serious stories and situations if I can't take him seriously period, so it could be my problem entirely.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 19:11 |
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Don't feel stuck in a cartoony, must look like people thing. You're not pandering to anyone's fandom. Give him a big nose, paws and claws, whiskers, tail, teeth- you can get really expressive, interesting and serious with a more animal-like appearance. Also what is he? A dog? If he's gonna be an animal make him identifiable, at least.
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| # ? Jun 12, 2011 20:00 |
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Dabbo posted:ALSO HEY already having a minor issue! Here's a really bad drawing of the main character: For starters, that's a really weird pose you're working from right there. You're probably going to be drawing this character mostly from the front so that's pretty important in the preliminary art. Aside from that he's just kind of bland. There's no shape or texture motif in there that pops out. You can start fixing this by finding a shape or texture you have in there (ie the shape of his collar or the furry lines on his cheek) and repeating it throughout the design. Compounding that problem is his boring color scheme. This can be improved by putting in more contrast. Currently you have a lot of desaturated colors, you should try putting something really saturated in there, some highlights might also do wonders. And when you're reworking the color scheme it's important that like with textures you repeat your motifs. For instance that character has dark hair but that's only around the top of his body, if there were also something dark around his feet it would make the design appear more unified. Similarly you have yellow all throughout that design except for his midsection where it's conspicuously absent, if he had a warm light color on his belt that would also make things more unified. and stop hiding his hands.
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| # ? Jun 13, 2011 18:00 |
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I think you'd benefit from drawing lots of quick, small-scale silhouettes--it's much easier to see an overall shape without details as a distraction, and you can screw around with/discard a lot of designs in a short amount of time, so go crazy!
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 03:16 |
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ok so um I tried talking to him about the design more, but he took "I got some really good critique" as "people were attacking the design" and he got all defensive and stubborn. This is probably a really bad sign, since I don't see him being more accepting of critical feedback anytime soon.  And uh, because of this he was really difficult and picky about every drawing I was doing until someone suggested I draw something completely ridiculous to see what his reaction was and... he ended up completely loving it. Aaaand he refuses to budge so it looks like this is officially what I'll be drawing.  I'm really hoping that the further into this we get the less sensitive he gets. I really want to apply the critique I got because I do think I could make this concept work with what people were saying! And I don't want to draw a zillion pages of a shirtless mongoose man, even if his long slinky body is kind of fun to work with. And ah jeez I'm starting to hijack the thread, sorry about that. This is the only place I actually got constructive feedback from, I don't know any other place that would be as honest. :T I'll just stop posting for a few pages I guess aaaaa
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 06:58 |
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Dabbo posted:ok so um Don't worry about hijacking the thread, it's what its here for. As far as the design goes, it's a Mongoose? It... Sort of looks like it I guess? You should probably change the ears though, mongoose have barely little stubs for them, what you're doing is too big. And definitely work on getting a better color palette for the character, because right now it's just horrible.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 07:13 |
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On the plus side, if the crit freaks him out he might stop the comic!  Really though, it's far from the worst design, and you've clearly got the skills to make something good of it. Agreeing with the poster above about the palette, though, it's a bit radioactive.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 10:57 |
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Yeah, seriously, the recommendation for more saturated colors... oof. Oof, man. Other than that, don't sweat it too much. You'll refine it as you go, I'm certain--it's kind of inevitable in comics. Also, resist the urge to overcomplicate his design. You're the last person that will do any favors. If you want to be practical about it, this is going to be a huge time-sink, so you might as well make it as economical as you can without upsetting the writer.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 12:46 |
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Congratulations on finding one of the strangest ways to pay back a friend? V V Hey, who knows -- you could end up liking it more than you think (the next couple years will be far better if you do), and either way it will be an invaluable learning experience if you stay interested in comics.I'm already liking this design much better. The first picture you posted looked like a 1970s anthro-lady PI. His general species is more apparent now, as is the period clothing. And slinky critters are fun to draw. Tool around in a palette program like ColourLovers to look for more harmonious color combinations and let us know how it goes!
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 13:52 |
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I feel like I can tell how bad the story must be from 'Kyo Alamarus' alone.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 14:28 |
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So, I'm gearing up for a new strip. I'm working big, toning with gouash, and have to assemble the comics in photoshop from 4-5 individual scans. Any advice on how to best assemble the scans, and produce the cleanest final? I'll post example images once I get into the studio.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 15:51 |
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Which version of Photoshop are you using? Newer versions have "Auto-Align" and "Auto-Blend" options that make it pretty easy to stitch together pieces of an image.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 16:04 |
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Haven't done it with color, but every one of my pages is built from multiple scans so I've developed a process for it over the past 3 years. The biggest step was learning where the adjustment sliders need to go to make the images uniform in depth, contrast, and value. It also helps to create custom actions for image adjustment so that every panel gets the same treatment. As for assembling on the page, this process has served me pretty well: - scan all panel art - adjust and tweak all panel art (flip checks, corrections, etc) - place all panel art into final size page, resize (roughly) to fit - save this file, separate layers intact, as [pagename]-1.psd" - using Snap To Guides, trim panel art to fit frames. Save this file as [pagename]-2.psd - Do ballooning/lettering/outlining/final retouches, flatten, and save as a TIFF. This way, I've got a press-ready file but can still go in and pull panel art from one of the earlier files if I need to reconstruct or un-gently caress something later on.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 16:12 |
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Out of curiosity, why TIFF?
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 16:44 |
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The Worst Unicorn posted:I feel like I can tell how bad the story must be from 'Kyo Alamarus' alone. Cannot wait to read this comic.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 17:34 |
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The Worst Unicorn posted:I feel like I can tell how bad the story must be from 'Kyo Alamarus' alone. Sounds like a Harry Potter spell for killing ninjas.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 17:38 |
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Confound it how does something like that get as far as character designs and my artist drops out of contact for a month before that point?  But in all seriousness good luck with it. Here's hoping you can make one part of it good, even if the rest seems sub-par.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 17:38 |
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Fangz posted:Out of curiosity, why TIFF? It's a lossless, print-industry-standard format. (Pages are made for print; I just make the web versions by scaling down those files.)
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 17:58 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 23:31 |
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The Worst Unicorn posted:I feel like I can tell how bad the story must be from 'Kyo Alamarus' alone. This is exactly what I thought when I looked at it. Dabbo, please post a link to the comic when it goes up. We can all tune in to watch your art become awesome.
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| # ? Jun 14, 2011 23:20 |
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