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Ninja_Orca posted:Quick question, how much in the way of 'distractions' would you say that a webcomic plot could afford? I ask because in the story I have now, the four protagonists are traveling down a river, walking along the banks because one of them is a dragon so no boat ride. They're traveling to the mouth to go where the antagonists live. I've got three separate encounters possible for on the way down. One is a direct encounter with the antagonists, one's an encounter with a river demon with potential for character development, and the other is an encounter with a secondary antagonist who plays a part in the past of one of the characters. One of those is directly involved with the main plot, the other two supplement it. Is that too much in the way of distractions, or an acceptable amount? I'm trying not to fall into the trap of 'this doesn't matter why are they even going there?' that I hate to see in other stories. It depends. I'd need to read some of your comic to tell you for certain (can I get a link? Sorry if I missed it earlier). What kind of comic do you draw? Is it comedic or more serious in tone? I ask this because I think you have a lot more wiggle room for this kind of stuff when dealing with humorous subject matter. Provided that the detour is actually funny of course. For comedy: Have fun! We're in this for the laughs anyway. If the encounters are entertaining then I honestly don't give a drat if you take a while to get where you are going. For serious plot: You can do it if you want, but try and make the distraction worth our time. Personally, I like the third option because foreshadowing is a nice way to build suspense about the upcoming conflict (provided, of course, that your foreshadowing is followed up on) while making the distraction seem relevant to the whole. Remember, above all else there should be no "getting to the good part"! So if your distraction is going to be less entertaining than, say, a simple travel montage I'd avoid doing it all together.
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2011 01:43 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 09:47 |
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Fortis posted:I don't mean to be a pest about this, but I really really would like some feedback/critique on BSF. I only know one person who will seriously look at my art and give me a critique, and she's awesome and all, but I'd really like to get feedback from people with differing viewpoints. OK, so I just read through the whole thing. Here are my thoughts. Speech Bubbles: Your speech bubbles have improved a lot but could still use some more work. Try and make the spacing around the text a bit more even and make sure the text/balloon buffer is around 1 letter wide all-around. Characters: I'm going to echo the feelings expressed earlier about your characters. When you reduce them down to their core essences they've all simply been done before and better. Your protagonist is a "young hero who finds a magic thing to save the world", Master knight is a "weathered old war veteran who dispenses exposition and advice" and your slime king is simply a dumber version of Ultros. My recommendation here would be to sit back and dissect your characters again. Try to summarize them in 1 sentence that wouldn't apply to any other popular character. Then, try to express that new sentence in upcoming storylines in interesting ways. For example, you could bottom line Seb (this is just an example mind you) as "a boy who craves adventure above all else but only has the power to defend others" and then introduce a new character quirk where he keeps trying to use his sword on grand adventures only to find it won't save him from himself. Your story is still in the early stages so luckily you can do this sort of thing without it seeming out of place or against established characterization. Character Design: You need to draw more real people. I have no problem with a cartoony style, however you really need to make it less stiff and more natural looking. Objects have mass and shape and weight to them and right now your art style isn't reflecting that. Furthermore, when you choose to symbolize an element of a character (like Master Knight's helmet) instead of drawing it with real three dimensional form you need to be extra careful to do so cleanly and with attention to detail. Take this page: http://www.bsfantasy-comic.com/2011/04/04/page-40/ In panel 3 the king's crown is symbolized by three divots. However these divots are haphazardly placed off to one side and not identical to one another making it seem simplified to avoid effort on your part rather than to make an interesting design (which is the whole point of using symbols rather than more realistic representations). In the future pay extra attention to these things as they make more of a subconscious difference to your readership than your think. And again, draw more real people. Plot: So far I'm not terribly impressed. At it's core I see the point of any given story to have interesting characters doing interesting things and so far it feels like 5 chapters of waiting for some possibly interesting characters to get to their destination so that they can do said interesting things. The first encounter with the Slime King was symptomatic of this as it felt forced and didn't really bring anything unusual or unexpected out of the cast. It simply seemed to happen because you needed AN encounter and for this character to get introduced. The second encounter was even worse in some ways as these characters weren't terribly threatening yet they were supposed to represent our big bad and create the crisis which brought our protagonist into his hero-dom. It also doesn't help that they appeared at a fairly contrived moment (just as the heroes were talking about them) and without explanation (how did they get past those guards? Granted it wouldn't be hard but...). That's now 3 out of 3 villains which have been completely without teeth, consequence or drama. Not good 5 chapters in. Good things: The best thing I can say right now is that your comic still has real potential. Again, the point of any story it to watch interesting characters doing interesting things. It's not enough to avoid making mistakes (bad anatomy, annoying character traits, obvious plotholes, etc). There has to be something GOOD to bring to the table or there's no point. Fortunately I think your art is strong enough to hold a story, your setup has potential, and you still have a lot you can explore in your cast. It's just a mater of creating something for people to gravitate to. To this end I'd recommend sitting down and really thinking out the next arc. Decide what your character's are all about, what they value, and what they fear. Then, design a plot by your villain or his proxy that will directly play on some aspect of that, have personal consequences for failure at stake, and have it end in a way that (while still making sense) isn't expected. You've spent 5 chapters getting to this city. Let's make it rewarding! Also, bravo in the dragon statue thumbs-up. I genuinely liked that. EDIT: Also, I noticed a lot of this going on in your backgrounds and occasionally in your characters:  I'd recommend trying to draw your comic on paper with ink, scanning it into Photoshop, and then doing only bubbles and text in Illustrator to see if this improves at all. Illustrator is a good program but I find doing backgrounds with it to be a pain in the rear end since it's unfriendly to things like crosshatching, dotting, tones, and other means of creating value. If you do keep using it though I'd recommend taking extra care to make sure lines touch properly and don't go over one another unintentionally. These areas are where our eyes go to confirm the shape of something so getting them right is important. readingatwork fucked around with this message at May 3, 2011 around 01:46 |
| # ¿ May 3, 2011 01:30 |
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DigitalAdhesive posted:And please don't worry about sparing feelings; I can take a hit Welcome aboard newbie! Word of warning: Never actually say this around here (and be especially glad you didn't say it in Creative Commons) because people will actually do as you ask as brutally as they are physically able. That said... quote:There wasn't anything SPECIFIC I was looking for feedback on; mostly just confirmation that it wasn't god-awful/B^U. Oh, it's god-awful alright, don't go getting a big head just yet sonnie!  What people are saying is that as a comics newcomer you are avoiding a TON of beginner pitfalls that many others (myself included) have fallen into. Things like avoiding hands and perspective because they're difficult or refusing to do backgrounds. Fortunately your art may still have a way to go, but your willingness to experiment with difficult poses, techniques, and compositions is an extremely promising trait and will serve you very well if you keep at it. Remember, everyone sucks at first, but only those that keep challenging themselves will one day stop sucking. Just don't go running off thinking you're all ready to quit your day job and play with the big boys because you've shown a bit of promise! You gots to earn your art-cred round' these parts homie.  On that note... Specific criticisms: -Your images have lots of pixelated parts. Scan/draw your drawings at at least 300 DPI to fix this. You should always work in large file sizes. It makes the work look better and allows for printing options later on. -Your anatomy is way off. People look for an underlying structure in figure drawings and right now your characters just don't have any. The best cure for this is to draw that structure as much as you can. Skeletons, muscled medical diagrams and lots and lots of real people are your best bet. Here is a great site for practice in this regard. http://www.posemaniacs.com/ -All your lines are the same size. Drawings where every line has the same thickness are boring and tend to look flat and static. Try to use different line sizes to emphasis different parts of the body. For example, one could use small lines for the face and large lines for the silhouette to subdue the details a bit. Experiment around and see what you like. -Stop "drawing" directly on to the computer. It's a lot of extra work but doing at least your pencils on paper will do wonders for your work by giving you that one extra chance to notice errors and make changes before the work goes to print. Furthermore inking with pens/brushes may help out since they give you a TON more control than you'd think. The good news: Your work IS improving! Keep at it! quote:I thought about slapping an "Untitled" stamp on each strip... been trying to think of a name, but I've been hesitating because I have it in my head that you're pot-committed once you title a strip! Silly, I know. Can't help you there. I suck at naming things myself. :/ Quick question though. What's "pot-committed"? quote:As to what it's going to be about... if anything I sort of had a Doonesbury theme in mind. Branching characters and narrative that can stand on their own but develop with the characters and can cross paths. This may surprise you to hear but premise and concept mean precisely dick. It all comes down to how any given idea is executed. Focus on making interesting characters doing interesting things and if you succeed on those two fronts you'll find people are willing to forgive most of the rest. That's why Gurren Lagann is so well-loved despite nothing about it actually making sense. quote:I gotta be honest, just not being compared to CAD or the like is a real hit of dopamine to the system for me. Buckley has been doing his thing for years and not only is he still utter poo poo but in some ways he's actually managed to get worse. No new or emerging artist deserves to be compared to him for any reason. Ever. 
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| # ¿ May 7, 2011 06:41 |
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Hyperactive posted:Nope. Just 72dpi. If the whole page is blocky ol' sprites, select "nearest neighbor" when blowing up to whatever DPI you need for whatever the hell you're doing and you'll have giant blocky ol' high-res sprites. If you've got sprites mixed-n-matched with photos or hand drawn art, blow up the sprites separately as nearest neighbor will butcher everything else. Wait. So you're saying you made 8-Bit Theater?
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| # ¿ May 27, 2011 18:42 |
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Quetzal-Coital posted:Yep thats him. Idran posted:And Atomic Robo! 1) Squeeeeee!  2) That's the second big webcomic artist I've randomly stumbled upon on these forums (The other being Ian J from RPG World). I swear that  I spent pays for itself more and more every day.
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| # ¿ May 27, 2011 23:44 |
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Dodgeball posted:For me, pretty much everything is a sprited image. From the characters to the backgrounds, I'm drawing it all and making references to existing I.P.s different enough to avoid litigation. (this is for a series of flash animations). I'm generating sprites at the smallest possible size in photoshop (just so I don't have to worry about half-pixels or loving up the way something looks.) Then I bitmap trace it in Flash and it's all gravy for scaling. Was just hoping for a way to make the Photoshop image file size smaller, so it would take up less memory as now I'm at the 200+ layer mark and it kind chugs along. 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. I'm not saying don't make a sprite comic. I'm just warning all the people out there that if you are looking to make money at this you may want to do something with original sprites and backgrounds to avoid hassles further down the line. readingatwork fucked around with this message at May 28, 2011 around 16:48 |
| # ¿ May 28, 2011 16:43 |
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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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bigbigtruck posted:It's a lossless, print-industry-standard format. (Pages are made for print; I just make the web versions by scaling down those files.) Is that any better or worse than scaling down from the original PSD file? My typical process is: -Scan a piece in at 600DPI -Stitch the pieces together and flatten the layers (I don't have many pieces so I don't need to keep the extra layers) -Color, add text, etc -Save this as my main file -Flatten and adjust the size of the image to 72dpi then "Save for web and devises" (I like PNG personally as I do black and white mostly, but JPEG is nice for detailed color pieces) -Undo all of that up until just before I flattened the image -If I'm printing something re-save it again as a TIFF at the size/resolution I need. Does this seem like a decent process to you all? EDIT: Oh hey look there was another page of posts! Dabbo posted:Pretty much! Don't worry, I'll be linking it here so you can all enjoy the train wreck. No way you should totally keep us in the loop! Think of it as a creative exercise. He's going to give you terrible ideas and your assignment is to weave that poo poo into gold regardless of how you feel about it. Like doing improv really. But yeah, you should totally post your comics/concept art/etc here along with notes about what kind of instructions you were given. I'm vastly curious to see your thought process on this deal. Good luck dude! 
readingatwork fucked around with this message at Jun 15, 2011 around 05:07 |
| # ¿ Jun 15, 2011 04:52 |
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FunkyAl posted:Seeing how he appears to be trying to emulate terrible media, perhaps the best course to action is to share with him...better media? So, like, get him to read Cheap Thrills (which is a very good comic that would probably appeal to him in some tangential furry-related way) and whenever you have a dispute over characterization or pacing or somesuch, you have a mutual barometer of quality you can fall back on, which may improve the comic in general a bit. I don't think he'd go for that one. He seems to have a certain (terrible) aesthetic in mind and is hell-bent on not deviating from it (and I suspect I know why  ). I wouldn't worry about changing what this guy already likes at this point since he seems to be getting way too butthurt over it. Instead just focus on making the newer designs as appealing as possible before you show him and try to do your best within the parameters you are given. And, of course, be sure to document the whole process here.  nothings posted:It just needs light fictionalizing. You know, the mafia is holding my family hostage to force me to draw this lovely webcomic. It's like Bakuman but with a higher body count. Love it! readingatwork fucked around with this message at Jun 16, 2011 around 12:35 |
| # ¿ Jun 16, 2011 12:33 |
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Hyperactive posted:Oh, draw the stupid comic. Will he? He's not the one putting in the effort of actually making the drat thing. Furthermore If this does happen will he still want repayment? A written contract is probably wise here. Agree on a timeframe you will work for him in (for example, 2 years), what happens if you pull out early (if you quit after a year you now only owe half), what happens if he quits early (the debt is ended), and of course be sure to note exactly what your role is (are you just an artist or are you doing web design as well?) so he can't dump more work on you later. Note: I'm not a lawyer. I just play one in my self-insertion furry fan-comic.
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| # ¿ Jun 16, 2011 17:12 |
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Ninja_Orca posted:Sorry to divert the conversation, but I have a question. How should I write out transitions for my artist? I have a scene that starts with the protagonist in one place and time, then I want to cut away to a daydream sort of thing, then have her be interrupted but have it be an earlier time than before. Like, she's sitting somewhere, daydreams, then is snapped back to reality but it's a week before. How should I write out that so it's not completely confusing? This is a bit much on it's own. You may want to bust out a "1 week ago" narration bubble on the last transition just to be sure.
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| # ¿ Jun 16, 2011 22:41 |
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Fangz posted:This is literally the plotline to Misery. Uh... If we're talking about medical bills here then we could easily be dealing with tens of thousands of dollars he owes. Granted, it's unlikely that the amount is quite that high. I'm just saying that I think it's a bit unfair to just tell him to "get a job" with out knowing the details of his situation. EDIT: If he won't do a contract then just get him to send you an email outlining this stuff and then file it away quietly. Then, if he get's all legal on you later you can pull that email and use it like a contract (if the judge accepts it of course). If nothing else then you'll at least have documentation of who does what. Honestly though, if it's that much money then just do the lovely comic. Put enough effort in to make it good practice but beyond that don't sweat it. Because honestly, I'd rather draw someone's lovely fetish comic than get a second job right now. I wish I were kidding. Edit 2: Ah! Apparently I fail at reading comprehension. In that case for the amount of $1000 bucks owed I'd keep the update schedule down to only one a week. A comic can take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours to draw. Assuming you value your time at a mere $5/hour and you take 5 hours to draw each comic then that's still $25 worth of your time and effort per comic and by extension $1250 worth of effort per year. In two years you'll have given him a $2500 value which seems more than fair. Don't make this argument with him BTW. Just tell him that's all you have time for. readingatwork fucked around with this message at Jun 17, 2011 around 06:04 |
| # ¿ Jun 17, 2011 05:37 |
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Slashie posted:Print out two copies, meet with him and a non-involved third party (a mutual friend, ideally not someone either of you has a business or romantic relationship with.) That's probably a bit much. I'm pretty sure the 2 copies will be enough to keep both parties in line without getting witnesses and notaries involved. Anyway, we're all overthinking other people's problems and should should probably cut Dabbo some slack since they seem to have the details hammered out now. All that seems to be left is to watch for updates.  Dabbo posted:So yeah we both apologized for being children and things seem cool. How do I sign this contract its a wordpad document do I print it out and mail it to him to sign that seems silly You could do that. In fact I think most lawyers would recommend it. However, another way would be to email him with the contract in the body of the text (along with your fell name and the date) and have him write back with the same contract into in the body saying he agrees to it and then have him list his full name and the date at the bottom. Then, you each just print/save a copy for yourself and you should be covered. It's not perfect, but it's way less drama-inducing while still making each of your roles clear. readingatwork fucked around with this message at Jun 18, 2011 around 17:43 |
| # ¿ Jun 18, 2011 17:32 |
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My thoughts:KingKalamari posted:Oh yeah, I was supposed to post the rest of that comic for critique on here like, a month ago. Somebody dropped the ball there (That somebody is me) 1) That's not nitroglycerine. That's dynamite. For some reason this bothers me. Probably because she's supposed to have some expertise in this sort of thing. 2) You need to pay more attention to the edges of your forms. If something is made of old worn brick odds are it wont usually have a straight edge like the one you get with a mouse and the line tool. Try drawing real brick and note how the contour is actually ragged. These edges are one of your best tools for depicting texture in a drawing. Don't let them go to waste. 3)If you are going to have scratch marks like this then they need to go with the lines of perspective and be arranged in a way at least slightly resembling what brick looks like. Right now they just depict that your walls have A texture... of some kind. 4)The big-lipped expression doesn't work with this character for some reason. I don't know it just seems out of character. quote:1) Futurama would like a word with you... 2) This effect get's lost in her hair. Sound effects and the like are a great way to convey information. Don't just toss them on as an afterthought. 3) I really like your male character's expression here. Unlike many of your other frames, this drawing really gives him a personality and clearly shows why both of the characters are interesting and how they differ from one another. Try and create moments of clearly defined characterization like this one more. quote:1) If you're expecting an explosion and have ever been near one before then you should always be covering your ears and not your head. Seriously, those things are deafening. 2) OK, can't see why someone who does this for a living didn't think of that possibility... But I digress. You're explosions need work. They don't take the "BAM" icon shape but instead a cloud form with bits of debris being thrown from it. Look to movies for help on this one. 3) Where as your expressions were really good in the last page. Here, not so much. First off, they don't look like their really falling. Second, the expressions aren't really very funny and don't reveal anything interesting or new about these characters. Considering that the building just exploded around them, I think it's safe to say that this would be a revealing moment. For example, the girl could react with anger while the boy reacts with fear. ALSO: You need to stop breaking your frames with your word balloons. Instead plan for them in advance and zoom the scenes out a touch more to compensate. Doing it the way you are now interrupts the reading flow and looks lazy since none of them are restricted by borders. If you don't know how to make a balloon be hidden under a frame we'll be glad to show you how. Overall: You're improving! Also you draw feet and hands which is super awesome! Your major issues right now are mainly that your characters lack much real definition and as a result they're kind of boring. I can't really tell you much about the girl other than she's kind of a dumbass spaz that likes adventuring, and as for the boy I can decipher even less. At least that's what I would say if not for the second panel of page 2. Whether you meant it too or not that panel revealed a ton about him. For example, he's cynical and questioning by nature. He's close to the protagonist, so much so that he's willing to be touched without so much as a reaction. However this lack of reaction also reveals that their relationship is platonic and likely brotherly/sisterly in nature. Compare that to Penny Arcade, in which Gabe and Tycho's physical contact with each other is both limited and rare due to all the hate boiling right beneath the surface: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/5/16/ Keep em coming! I love watching artists improve. Fake edit: Oh! Why is the kid wearing only one glove? I just noticed that and it's bugging me now.
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| # ¿ Jun 23, 2011 05:16 |
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Magnus Condomus posted:As I understand it, Dynamite is just diatomaceous earth saturated with Nitroglycerine, so I think it's fine the way it is. drat you science! KingKalamari posted:That would be pretty awesome actually. Sure thing! I'll whip something together and post it tomorrow. If I have time I'll throw screenshots and poo poo in too. quote:Okay that actually has a really silly and mildly pretentious explanation: I've been trying to make all the human character's designs asymmetrical in some form because...I can't actually remember why anymore but it was important for some reason. That and he is the sort of guy who would wear only one glove because he thinks it looks cool (He is not a fashion-minded individual) Ah! I was half expecting him to rip it off at some point to reveal a Lovecraftian tentacle hand or something. Fair enough. Though if this is going to be a "thing" with him you may want to make him look a bit more like a hipster or something. Right now it looks like he either lost one glove, or is wearing the one to hide something. Speaking of Lovecraft, I actually have two ideas bouncing around in my head and I'm not sure which to further develop. Would you all rather read a story about a bunch of kids trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian version of a major city filled with horrors and death(it's a comedy!), or a story taking place in a steam-punk version of the 1920's about a young con artist with the power to steal people's memories teaming up a robber-baron's son to uncover their city's secret past? Just curious.
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| # ¿ Jun 25, 2011 06:38 |
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KingKalamari posted:That would be pretty awesome actually. OK, here's how you make balloons that don't break your panels in Photoshop. When you begin this stage of your comic you should already have certain things done. Your comic's line art should be finished and touched up, and you should have done any coloring before hand. I've gone ahead and drawn us a panel to work with and added some adjacent panels that we'll say we don't want the balloon to touch. I recommend pulling out a few guides to help yourself keep track of where the borders are:  Now, create your balloon however you prefer. I use a 4-layer system that separates the black backgrounds from the white of the balloon as well as the tails from their heads. This lets me manipulate these different aspects individually as I wish. At least that's how it is if I'm forced to only use Photoshop. I actually tend to import my file into Illustrator and make these things with vectors. However, let's stick with just one program for now. Feel free to make your baloons however you see fit. Here, you'll see that I've positioned my balloon where I roughly want it but, uh-oh!, It breaks the frame and nudges one of my other panels:  Before I worry about that though let's get the text where we want it. This is where those guides come in handy. Remember, the only part of the balloon that will show is the part that's inside the panel:  Put your balloon layers, text and all, into a folder above the line art. You can do this by clicking the small folder button at the bottom of your layers pallet and then dragging your layers onto the new layer that's created. Make sure they're in the right order and select the folder layer itself. Now, click the "quick mask" icon (circled below). This should make a small window appear on the folder layer (also circled below). Click on this window once to make sure it's selected. You will be able to tell because it will have a small black border around it:  With your quick-mask selected you now want to select the area you wish to hide. Click the rectangular marque and make some rectangles that cover up your balloons (hold shift to add to the area you have already selected). Make sure that they stop at the INSIDE edge of your panel lines . I find that a nice short cut for a corner like this is to actually make the selection away from the panel and then nudge it into the correct space. Again. guides are helpful with this:  Now, Fill the selected area with black using the fill tool. This tells the masking layer to cover these pixels in this folder up:  You'll notice that I missed the edge of the balloon. That's fine. Just press ctrl (cmnd on a mac)+D to deselect and use a black brush to paint over the part of the balloon you missed. You may find that if you have hand-drawn panels like mine you'll get an unwanted effect where the mask cuts of the natural-looking side of your lines. To fix this simply use your black brush to "erase" (remember that we're just hiding things here. Don't actually use the erase tool!) down into the balloon to uncover the frame lying underneath. It takes some finagling but if your careful you can make it pretty seamless.  The nice thing about masks as opposed to the eraser tool is that they're independent of the object you are covering up. This means that you can go down into the balloon layers and move stuff around without having to change the masks too much. I felt the balloon placement and thickness could be better so I simply manipulated some stuff under the mask. I also collapsed the folder seeing as how in a normal comic you can have a dozen of these things:  And done!  Note: This is just how I do it. Feel free to point out any ways to improve my process. Next up: Doing this with Illustrator
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| # ¿ Jun 25, 2011 22:56 |
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Pick posted:gently caress you for reminding me College Roomies from Hell existed. Oh God damnit and now YOU'VE reminded ME of it!
readingatwork fucked around with this message at Jun 25, 2011 around 23:22 |
| # ¿ Jun 25, 2011 23:17 |
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el Brainvomito posted:I've been thinking about starting a comic journal, but the cruel fact is that I'm bit of a boring person (more of a passive type rather than eccentric). So it made me thinking, if I write a fiction in comic journal format; better drama, and interesting social aspect, which also brings some cons like ending up a white male while posing lesbian in Libya (was it?). I like the fake-o-biography concept. However If your taking that route I'd recommend making something that is closer to Marble Hornets than than a normal biography. That is, an original piece of fiction disguised as a biography.
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| # ¿ Jul 5, 2011 20:12 |
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1) OH MY GOD THE LACKADAISY GUY IS ON THESE FORUMNS!  2) bigbigtruck: What's your URL? I think I missed you mentioning which comic it is that you drew. 3) Fortis posted:BSF almost exactly 4 years ago, when it wasn't a webcomic and Seb was mute: Actually I just caught up and I wanted to point out that you're storytelling is really improving. I had a much better time reading these chapters than the last ones. My nitpicks would be that while it was nice seeing the master as a kid we didn't learn anything new about him, Grrg, or the overall plot. Furthermore you missed a good chance here to expand on Seb's character by showing events "as he saw them" rather than how they actually occurred. I also still think that you could stand to define your characters a bit more (though this too is improving). Oh! And totally still calling the master out on sending the kid's alone. Good foster-parenting there dude! :P On the plus side though your dialogue is better, and I really like your silhouettes for you upcoming villain lineup. I actually really want to see what these guys can do now. Keep them coming!
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| # ¿ Jul 12, 2011 01:39 |
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Psych posted:Can we put this off till Labor Day? 24-hour comics need three day weekends. Seconding this. But i'm totally in!
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| # ¿ Aug 3, 2011 21:27 |
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Seris posted:Hey guys. My first thought is that you are falling victim to something I did back when I first started drawing called "Only coloring halfway". Basically, coloring is a bitch and takes a fuckload of time. You'd avoid it but it's become sort of "expected" in webcomics so you try and have it both ways. Instead of coloring everything you only color bits and pieces, label it a "style" and walk away. The problem is that this never looks very good and that hit in quality isn't worth the gain in efficiency. In your case the result is that these pages look terribly unfinished and unbalanced. There's no rhyme or reason to what's colored what color or why you chose the colors you did. Some panels are completely full of color adding a lot of visual weight to them while adjacent panels have practically no color at all making them look barren and forgotten by comparison. I'm also having big issues with your see-through people in panel 1. Were I browsing the internet and came along your comic this would have been deal-breaker #1 and you should stop this practice right away. The same goes for your use of photos (altered or not) for backgrounds. It doesn't look stylistic, it looks like you didn't want to draw a background there. Either draw all your backgrounds (recommended) or make ALL you backgrounds photographs. Just make sure you're using copyright free pictures as you can get tagged for using other people's photos without their permission. My advice is to back and rethink your techniques. Either develop something that colors every element solidly in some way like traditional cell-shading (and a line art style that holds color better) or develop a black and white style that uses tones and/or crosshatching to make up for what you lost with a lack of color. It's not as popular, sure, but if you don't have the time/energy to color you don't have the time/energy to color. I sure don't!  Beyond that? Just keep practicing and avoid being "efficient" at all costs since "less work" usually means "worse art" when you're still learning. Good luck! EDIT: The Lord of Hats posted:Well, I'm certainly no artist, but that 3rd panel is really empty compared to the others, and the color in other panels really makes the lack of any kind of background in the 3rd panel stand out. You don't even see his arms or shirt, it's just hands kind of floating in a void. On the positive side, HANDS! The fact that he's drawing them in the first place makes me much more optimistic than I'd otherwise be. KingKalamari posted:Holy crap. I did not realize just how frustrating it is to ink in Flash compared to Photoshop until just now. I've been doing all my stuff in Flash up until now because I was worried my hand was took shaky but after trying with photoshop I do not think I am going back Yup. Sounds about right. Just set UNDO to one of your F keys and resign yourself to the fact that you're going to use it a lot. Frankly, even the pro's seem to delete each line 20 times before finding one they like so I doubt you'll be able to avoid this. That's why I like actual ink. Though it has the opposite problem... readingatwork fucked around with this message at Aug 6, 2011 around 23:15 |
| # ¿ Aug 6, 2011 23:11 |
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Oooh! Much better! Nice contrast! Still calling you out on the photographic panel though. :P Also, I think tones would work well with your style. Consider playing with them instead of using solid grays.
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| # ¿ Aug 7, 2011 01:11 |
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Hey Blasphemous Saga Fantasy guy! Just wanted to say that your coloring lately has been really good (http://www.bsfantasy-comic.com/2011/08/25/page-90/). Nice work! I also finally feel like I'm starting to see Seb as a character rather lumping him in with every other young male fantasy protagonist like him which is making reading this actually pretty enjoyable. Keep em coming! --- That aside, how do you all go about picking a visual style for your stories? I'm in the planning stages of something right now and I'm discovering that rendering characters in even slightly different ways can result in wildly different tones. The basic idea is about a bunch of kids with various personality quirks stuck in a post-apocalyptic version of their city and the various (episodic) adventures they have trying to get home. Kind of like one of those 15 minute kids shows on Cartoon Network if occasionally one of the characters gets ripped to shreds by a lurking horror. The whole things is basically a parody of Lovecraftian-style horror but at the same time I want to be able to tell a larger story as well. Any ideas on how one goes about doing this? Thanks! Also, how in the ever loving gently caress do you draw fog in pen and ink?  Edit: I love you Kismet! readingatwork fucked around with this message at Aug 26, 2011 around 02:53 |
| # ¿ Aug 26, 2011 02:33 |
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KingKalamari posted:This sort of got overlooked when I posted it and I'd really like to get some feedback on it (Particularly the line quality): There's lots of improvement from your first post, particularly in the area of backgrounds. There's just a lot more personality in them than there used to be. However, I agree with The Worst Unicorn though about the greys blending (and the expressions too actually). In the future try using different shades of grey for shadows and shading and see what that gets you. Maybe a little lighting would spice things up a bit That aside I like your setup and your character writing is improving. It's unusual and gets the reader asking questions. That's pretty good for page 1 of an arc. However you need to pick from one of two formulas: 1) Play absurd situations straight (recommended) 2) Play serious situations absurdly The reason you can't do both is because it's impossible to be clever or witty when the characters, their situation and the tone are all ungrounded. What you probably want to do is to tone down your characters quite a bit and up the weirdness of their situation (space was a nice start). They can an should still have weird quirks but try to play them as straight as you reasonably can given the consequences. Try and think of the strange and funny things normal people would do in these situations. Let's call this the Dr McNinja School of comedy. The alternative could work too, in which case you would up the goofy in the characters (Make sure at least one of them is still relatable. Probably the kid) and put them in more familiar and grounded situations (so, in this case you could put them in more of a "hard" sci fi setting). The humor in this case would come from your strange characters turning familiar situations on their heads. I call this the Phinneas and Ferb school of comedy. Either can work. You just need to lean more towards one or the other. I hope that makes sense. PS: I have to ask, wasn't the kid supposed to be the smart one? My memory is blanking on me but I'm pretty sure I remember that the basic dynamic was a crazy adventurer and her more well-grounded sidekick. It's not a huge deal but the change up is bugging me a bit.
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| # ¿ Sep 1, 2011 05:11 |
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FunkyAl posted:This one time a fellow named "Drew" left a comment about how my art was great and my writing sucked, and his solution was to email him for some ideas. I'd totally be down for this if I weren't taking 2 classes while working full time on a split shift. 
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| # ¿ Sep 1, 2011 20:00 |
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If you are planning to print your work someday is it better to work in CMYK or do the original in RGB for the web and then convert it over later?
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| # ¿ Sep 2, 2011 18:44 |
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kefkafloyd posted:Leave your contones (your actual art) as RGB. Assuming you did your linework on a separate layer, you'll be able to convert your blacks and grays to even K values. If you don't know how to work in CMYK or how to tweak it, let your printer handle the hard work. Thanks! This was perfect!
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| # ¿ Sep 3, 2011 07:55 |
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The Worst Unicorn posted:Hmm. K.K., a good place to start might be to really nail down the reason why that happens, that'll keep their odd behavior consistently odd. This pretty much. I like the places this dynamic can go, it just needs to be able to pass the smell test. Just make sure you always have at least one person clearly be the straight man. Edit: For example maybe she could be obsessed with her work while he's a control freak. It's fine when they're in the field because he has an outlet in her but when he's cooped up at home he has none so he starts to get all claustrophobic and weird. readingatwork fucked around with this message at Sep 3, 2011 around 20:31 |
| # ¿ Sep 3, 2011 20:24 |
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Kismet: Nice job! You have balls to color when constrained for time like that. Derringer: That is awesome and I hate you for it. FunkyAl: I actually really liked the offbeat tone of this. Good work!
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| # ¿ Sep 6, 2011 04:56 |
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Unbelievably Fat Man posted:There's not a hell of a lot of comic update scripts left these days. Most comics in the last couple years have used Wordpress plugins and/or themes (specifically Webcomic or Comicpress). But the thing is Wordpress is a blog engine and while there's a lot of similarities between webcomics and blogs there's also a lot of differences too. And you need to know a lot about Wordpress' template engine to make a usable website. It's like trying to kill a fruit fly by napalming all of France. Way overkill. I think it would be pretty good for a sketchblog or an old school political cartoon. The major problem with Comicpress is actually if you have multiple comics on one site. Wordpress by it's very nature doesn't like multiple streams on one location so having one feed for your main comic and another for little side projects is normally a no-go. For me, I almost never update and don't really have a following yet so I just update everything manually for now. However eventually I'm going to want to actually start generating traffic so things like automatic updates to the blog and comic sections are going to be a necessity. When that happens I'm probably going to have to just bite the bullet and split myself into two different sites with two different Comicpress installations and just eat the cost because I honestly don't know a better solution. Or just quit being a pussy, pick a comic, and stick with it. Whatever. v vAlso, any good gallery services that aren't DeviantArt? Right now I have an html-coded section on my site (Yes I know it's a work in progress and not at all ready for prime time yet. Be nice!) but updating it has to be done manually and that's kind of a pain. Any thoughts on this? Right now I'm thinking of just dumping it all on a tumblr account and having that page redirect there but I'd prefer something a bit more professional looking. Edit: Also, how do you get that neat little line of social media buttons I see all over the place? Right now I'm being all ghetto about it and just making some images I created into links. However, I suspect that is probably both wrong and stupid and can be done FAR more efficiently. readingatwork fucked around with this message at Sep 7, 2011 around 23:59 |
| # ¿ Sep 7, 2011 23:56 |
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Derringer posted:I use tumblr for the story that I posted the pages of. I plan on doing exactly what you said. My idea was not doing is it easier to work from, it also gives readers the ability to watch the tumblr in which I can use posts as the news post and such. Thaaaaank you! Any idea how to add "share this content via [INSERT SOCIAL NETWORK PROGRAM]" buttons to your stuff or is that strictly a Comicpress deal? Furikku posted:I use Artician, which is more customizable and seems less... devarty. Here's my page for an idea, though I just use the preset looks because I'm lazy. I was thinking something closer to these guy's portfolio site. I'd just use theirs actually but it seems that they made their own. Stupid showoffs! Edit: Going through your gallery. Nice art btw! Magnus Condomus posted:I've seen a couple of websites use Gallery 2, which may actually be Gallery 3. I don't know how easy it is to set up or maintain though. This one has some possibilities but I really wish it were more minimalistic in it's layout. Not really something I'd want to show a potential client. Oh well. :/ As for drawing things quivering don't shake things digitally when dealing with line art. As a rule try to avoid "tricks" with PS. They generally look pretty artificial. Instead focus on traditional drawing and illustration techniques and simply use PS to make them digital and streamline them a bit when reasonable (ie: using the color picker to help with a color scheme or masks to let you color under a drawing rather than having to worry about painting inside the lines). readingatwork fucked around with this message at Sep 8, 2011 around 05:07 |
| # ¿ Sep 8, 2011 05:02 |
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Derringer posted:What are you using for a site? I know tumblr has a connection option for facebook and tumblr. But also Wordpress blogs have several widgets that do this too. This is actually perfect! I'd of installed it last night but apparently that was the night that the entire western US lost power. :/
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| # ¿ Sep 9, 2011 15:06 |
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maxwell.mu posted:I posted a question in BFC and the Legal Questions Megathread but I thought I'd toss it out here as well, in case someone has had experience with this sort of thing: Assuming that you are paying him a fair wage (above minimum) that MAY be OK (the fact that he's in China complicates things). Just try and imagine what defending this will be like if you find yourself in front of a judge. If the pay (which you should specify and record as you send him checks) is fair I think you're OK. However if you're paying him 5 bucks a page and he gets none of the rights or any ability to profit off of his work you could be in some trouble for violating labor laws. Then again he's in China and he'd likely have to come here to sue you. So you will probably be fine. Though I have to say were I you I'd just agree to co-ownership where you get the rights but he gets 50% of any profits. The way you've explained to so far seems not only somewhat unfair but also impractical since he may just cut and run if this thing takes off and he starts to feel that the set amount you've been paying him isn't worth it anymore. readingatwork fucked around with this message at Sep 10, 2011 around 13:43 |
| # ¿ Sep 10, 2011 13:41 |
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Hate to double post but I wanted to note that I was wrong earlier and that you totally CAN have more than one Wordpress/comicpress installation under a single domain as long as their directories are named differently. The two pages will just read like: yoursuperkeensite(dot)com/yourkeencomic. Which is fine for a side project you don't plan to do anything with but if you're serious about a making money at a project you're probably still better off paying the 10$ a year to get a new domain.
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| # ¿ Sep 11, 2011 07:18 |
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Magnus Condomus posted:This is what Kazu Kibuishi did with Copper. drat! How big are those originals anyway!?
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| # ¿ Sep 19, 2011 04:35 |
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vs Dinosaurs posted:I might want to start a webcomic and before I embarrass my self in front of the world I would like to embarrass myself in front of you guys. Any criticism/suggestions/ripping me a new one/discouraging me from this terrible idea would be appreciated. You'll have to post at least 5-10 comics before we can tell you anything useful. With only one it's impossible to gauge your art skills or know if you can be consistently funny. Try making 10 over the next 5 weeks and then post a link to the collection. That will give you a good feel for the kind of workload you can expect as well as give us a feel for you as an artist. Good luck!
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| # ¿ Sep 22, 2011 23:24 |
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Space-Bird posted:Hi everyone. I've been following this thread for some time now, and it's totally great. It's helped me out a lot. I've finally worked up the courage to post a project I'm working on. The story will hopefully be fleshed out and make more sense as I put together more pages... I've been using hand written words instead of fonts, hoping it gives it some flavor. I'm definitely struggling with the whole 'everything I do is crap' phase and I'm hoping to grow any improve with each page. I like the style and you're initial story setup is interesting. I'd read more of it. That said I'll echo Furikku about the lettering. The size varies even inside bubbles and in page one there are WAY too many speech bubbles in that last frame. I'd stick with hand lettering though since you have a very clean style and it works well with the art. The only other thing I could really say is work on how you draw adults. The kids are fine but the adults can be stiff and lacking proper expression (they all seem kind of squinty). Practice and getting comfortable with the characters should fix that naturally though so don't worry about that too much. Good Luck! Let us know when you get a website.
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| # ¿ Oct 1, 2011 16:40 |
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Furikku posted:I'd say stick with handwriting; it complements your style well, and with a little extra planning and work you can get text looking pretty nice. I personally went with hand-lettering partly because it's faster for me to adjust everything by hand than by computer, and partly because I couldn't find a typeface that worked for what I wanted. Hand-lettering is pretty easy, so I don't see a reason not to use it if you can. I on the other hand could never do this because I make terrible, terrible typos.
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| # ¿ Oct 2, 2011 00:16 |
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neonnoodle posted:edit: drat. Your expressions on your old man are a tad off but other than that these pages are pretty impressive. drat good line work!
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| # ¿ Oct 18, 2011 05:08 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 09:47 |
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Speedball posted:Guys, I have a coloring question. I'm not entirely happy with the coloring in the last panel here, what would you guys suggest? I'm trying for something dissonant in the background (hence why I went with white to contrast against the super-dark rest of the page). I've considered making the cracks blood-red...hmm... 1) Do you have a link to your comic? Your art is rough but your subject matter is interesting. I'd like to see the rest. 2) Tough call. Try maybe a black background with red radiating from the character? I'd have to play with it myself to get a really good feel for it. I wouldn't worry about making the whole panel stand out (color wise) by making it white though. The change in character coloring alone should be enough to do that. If you are really intent on making that frame unique though I'd recommend hand-drawing the border and enlarging it a bit so it cuts into the other panels a tad. 3) ALWAYS make your textures (in this case your cracks) go to the edge of whatever they are contained in (the panel border). It only takes a few seconds and is the difference between a character in front of a background and a character surrounded by an unfinished doodle.
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| # ¿ Oct 21, 2011 16:47 |
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