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I think the bigger issue is that those eyelashes are drawn bigger and bushier than the eyebrows. Make 'em whatever color you want, but you might want to reconsider how you are drawing them because they really don't look anything like eyelashes right now.
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Jun 10, 2016 08:55
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I'm really glad that last comic ended with you on your own, good work on getting out and turning such a stupid assface of a person into something entertaining.
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Jun 14, 2016 23:17
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Retro Ghost posted:I drew them in 300dpi I think! But, I did draw them in RBG mode.... What should I do about that? Flatten the image, then switch to CMYK mode and see how it looks. Flatten it first, because as shitpostmodern said any adjustment or transparent layers will be really off color-wise. Don't like it? ctrl+z, make your edits, try again. Unless you really want the colors to print exactly as they appeared on your monitor, they should be reasonably good. You may have to tweak any really bright/neon colors, but I've done that for a lot of printing projects and they all looked pretty decent in the end.
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Jun 15, 2016 23:26
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The Ayshkerbundy posted:what are some good ink pens for comics? Should I get nib or fountain or brush? I'm looking for a least one that could get nice thick lines (along with the obvious thinner ones for thinner lines). Buy some pens and get drawing, everyone has their own preferences that fit to their style and the only way to find that out is to just draw tons and try new materials until you find some that are comfortable for you. You can buy sets of Faber-Castell or Pigma liner pens that have a variety of widths for thick and thin lines. If you're just starting out with drawing (I'm assuming this is the case because you don't know what kind of pens you want to buy), you will probably find real fountain pens incredibly difficult to draw with. I would say just buy a set of Pigmas and maybe a brush pen and start drawing until you figure it out on your own.
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Sep 5, 2016 08:22
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GreatJob posted:Is anybody doing NaNoManGo this year? I'm using it to get the rough ash-can version of my long-form comic legible for it. Would love to have some like-minded people doing the same thing over November. I am debating doing it since Inktober has been really great for my productivity, and it'd be cool to keep the productivity train rolling.
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Oct 29, 2016 10:20
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My NaNoManGo goal is to have a script and thumbnailed pages for a (very) short story set in the mesolithic universe I've been planning in secret for over a year now.
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Nov 2, 2016 02:14
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:So I can't draw worth a drat but I've found an artist who has reasonable rates and is willing to to that part for me. Is there a preferred or industry standard way of setting a layout for an artist to work from? Talk with your artist about it, you can establish a system that works for both of you. Also be aware that they may bring some fresh ideas to your layouts that you hadn't considered, obviously if you're paying them you should get what you want but I'd at least keep an open mind. As far as NaNoManGo stuff goes, I've been outlining my story but don't have any art for it yet. November hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to focus on a lot of paid work, as terrible as that sounds.
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Nov 15, 2016 10:36
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I'm officially going to change my NaNo goal to be "have a script outline" because man, November is hitting me hard. My NaNo goal is the one deadline I have this month that can be postponed or moved so...
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Nov 21, 2016 09:49
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KingKalamari posted:Speaking of advertising oneself... Sometimes you have to be that guy, though. If you think your work is worth seeing, you gotta be visible so it gets seen - there's no real place where you can put work out there and have it instantly receive the popularity it deserves based on its quality, you have to be willing to yell about it and get attention. Have you submitted your work to any comic/webcomic focused blogs? There's a bunch out there, and some of them are pretty specifically tailored to niche media and creator types - if you fit into one of their categories, they would be more willing to run your submission or write a review of it. Also you wrote a whole paragraph about a cool thing you did and didn't even post a link. Post a link!
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Dec 9, 2016 18:51
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Scribblehatch posted:You think the guy who makes the comic I just linked does any marketing on the side? The lady who makes that comic (Hae Mi Jang) got her start thanks to a government agency in South Korea called the "Korea Manhwa Contents Agency." Basically, she had access to an agent right from the start which allowed her to focus more on drawing and less on marketing. She has a huge advantage in that she had someone else doing all the marketing and contract finding for her right from the beginning, and it shows because her art is really great. I would wonder, though, where her career would be without help from a government agency that does not have to make a profit. If she spent all her time drawing and none of it advertising her product to people who want to view it, and the KMCA wasn't marketing for her, would she have her comic up on Lezhin? Would she have gotten a contract with BOOM! to draw a series of Clive Barker comics? With very, very few exceptions, SOMEONE has to do the actual business part of running an illustration/comic business and putting your work out there, no matter how stellar or awesome it is. The world isn't a meritocracy, unfortunately. If you want to make a living doing artwork, you need to do the not fun part in addition to the drawing. If you don't live in a place that gives you access to an agency that handles that for you, you have to do that yourself. EDIT: squidster beat me to a lot of my points, but my main one is that just because you didn't bother to research anything about her career, you assumed that she didn't do any marketing or publicity and that's pretty obviously not true. gmc9987 fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 02:10
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BoneMonkey posted:Oh my loving god I have nearly finished a god drat comic project for the first time in my life! This looks cool as hell.
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Sep 1, 2017 08:04
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the old ceremony posted:yeah seriously do not ever go back and edit your old stuff page-by-page until the comic is 100% finished, your comic will drop dead immediately, i can't even explain the mechanics or the psychology of how it happens but it happens every single time to everyone* no exceptions. the same goes for writing a novel or any huge creative undertaking btw I can vouch for this advice. Finish the entire draft of your project, then go back and edit the whole thing. Going back to fix problems in an ongoing creation will cause you to lose interest fast, just take what you've learned from this one and apply it to the next chapter. As far as critique, a couple things that stood out to me - I think you should take the old ceremony's advice about atmospheric perspective, and also give yourself permission to not draw every single detail of the backgrounds. Specifically, the crowd scenes - I don't think the photoshop crowd you have in the opening shot and page 5 works too well with the rest of your artwork. What you did on page 25 works a lot better, even if it doesn't necessarily have the sense of scale you were going for. With a few more details in select places in the crowd, and a couple spots of color, you can create the impression of a lot of variety without having to actually draw ten million faces. All the shots of the Magnus gate looked great, and work together well with the amount of detail present and the colors you chose. For the sequential transitions, I'd recommend trying to keep the word bubbles and narration boxes within the borders of the frames, and to keep them persistent even as other panels move in to complete the page. For example, It seems disorienting to me to have panels appearing from left to write in pages 10-12, but the narration boxes don't stick around and they appear from left to right, then back to the left again for the final panel. Your reader has to search for each box which distracts from the reading experience. Overall I think this comic is cool and I want to know what happens next. Really good work!
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Sep 19, 2017 17:08
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Covok posted:Do I sound like I'm setting myself up for failure? I want to make comics because I've always wanted to entertain people and tell stories. It also seems like a good outlet for my depression and suicidal and nihilistic thoughts. This has lead me to, for example, start a game business where I sold some games, run a blog where I interviewed game developers, and some other weird projects that I did for some reason. I want to give this a whirl, see what I can create, and see if I can entertain people. But I'm worried, since this has a higher barrier to entry, that I'm not properly pre-planning all of this. A lot of these questions depend on how you, personally, define some terms. What does failure mean? What is the "higher barrier to entry" that you're talking about? If we have a better idea of your expectations you can get some better advice. Whether you're expecting to break into the big time with Marvel or just host your own updated-weekly webcomic makes a big difference.
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Dec 18, 2017 00:00
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Covok posted:That's fair. Like al-azad said, the only way to really fail at this is to never start. But I've found that you can be more likely to achieve success if you give yourself a list of quantifiable goals. What I mean is, "Entertain an audience" isn't really a thing you can measure or attach a numerical value to, so it's very subjective. Say you receive 20 fan emails and 2 hate emails from your project - on some days, when you're feeling good, you may feel you've succeeded. Other days, when you're not doing so great (you mentioned suicidal thoughts), those two hate mails will make you feel like a total failure. If you change that goal to something like "gain 20 followers on [insert webcomics hosting platform here]" that's easier to measure and offers concrete evidence that you're succeeding, and minimizes using the negative responses to count against your successes. If this were me, I would write up my goals like this:
All of those goals are easy to quantify, and also easy to break down into further goals. Once they're done, you can look at what you have and figure out another list - do you want to focus on gaining visibility for your finished comic? Or do you want to go right into the creation of the next in the series? It's up to you, but as long as you keep your goals quantifiable and realistic it's easier to get where you want to go.
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Dec 18, 2017 11:32
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Schneider Heim posted:How can the terms in the sample contract be enforced if the artist and client live in different countries? Enforcement would be a legal nightmare I'm sure but you still want a contract. In my contracts, I always include a paragraph at the end that specifies the state/city I would be filing my case in if things ever got that far (although I phrased it more neutral-sounding and legalese than that). A contract is equally about covering your own rear end as it is about making sure you get what you want from the other party - it keeps you from being responsible for paying for stuff that doesn't meet your standards, and it also works a lot like a cheap lock - it helps keep honest people honest by giving them specific terms an timelines to work within.
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Dec 19, 2017 10:51
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Schneider Heim posted:Okay, it's more for one's peace of mind, then. I'm just concerned that some artists might balk if I ask them to sign a contract with me, but I'm guessing those who get scared aren't worth commissioning anyway, right? Well no, it IS a legal document. The peace of mind it provides is through being a legally-binding contract that has consequences should either party breach it. It may not be financially beneficial to take the offending party to court, but it also gives conditions that allow either party to break the contract, so that they're not obligated to complete artwork for you if you're perpetually late with your payments, and you're not locked into paying an artist who is continually late delivering. Although speaking as a freelance artist, 9 times out of 10 most payment/contract issues I've come across have been a client not wanting to pay, or trying to convince me that "Of course they'll pay, but there's no need to, like, make it official. Just trust me!"
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Dec 19, 2017 21:27
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CelticPredator posted:A while back I tried doing a comic, wasn't really feeling it. But I started it up again, mostly for something to do with this idea while I wait to turn it into a short film/feature. Basically making little story boards and stuff. I'm assuming the speech bubbles are done in illustrator or photoshop on top of the scanned artwork? I don't know what resolution or size you're working at but you should consider adding a 1/8th inch inner stroke to the word bubbles as you're placing the text. Use that as a guide for how close to the edge of the text box letters are allowed to go, then turn it off when you publish the final page - padding around the edges of word bubbles are necessary to keep things readable without tiring the readers' eye. I would also reconsider blue gradient text bubbles with white text as the primary mode of talking. Nice improvement from page to page, keep it up!
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May 9, 2018 15:35
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Johny-on-the-Spot posted:E: final layout, and text was all done in indd, individual panels were done in photoshop. The font is "Jack Armstrong." Does anyone else build pages like this? Or is it easier to do everything in one program? Nice job! Every program has their strengths and weaknesses - Indesign's text layout capabilities and multi-page documents make it ideal for laying out comics. If it works for you then it's the right program. I've found setting text in Photoshop to be one of the most frustrating things I've ever had to do, it is just missing so many functions that a dedicated layout program like Illustrator or Indesign has.
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May 19, 2018 10:05
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lofi posted:Really? What sort of thing? I have gently caress all knowledge of text-layout beyond photoshop, I'm all in favour of new cool tricks. Indesign has easier options to deal with kerning and leading, for starters. You can create paragraph styles so that with a click of a button, all text in a single word bubble is formatted in a new style - useful if you have characters whose "voice" is rendered differently from normal talking, for example. In addition, these styles are editable after the fact so if you decide you want your villain's text to be red instead of black, a single change in the style editor will update all the text in your whole document. You can do spellcheck across the whole document, you can find and replace words and names across the whole document, you can add "master" elements that automatically show up on every page and update appropriately (page numbers, copyright info, whatever else you want on all pages). You can type text along a vector path for easy complex wavy bendy text layouts. You can make text frames non-rectangular, so that the text automatically conforms to the shapes of your word bubbles. You can add in padding to your text fields as well, which forces text to keep a certain amount of space from the edges of the field, making it easier to read.
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May 20, 2018 08:38
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lofi posted:Well, guess I'm gonna be learning indesign then, that all sounds really useful. Photoshop can do vector-pathed text, though. I don't mean turning the text into vectors, I mean you can draw a wiggly vector line and then have the text follow all that line's bends and curves.
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May 20, 2018 19:48
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lofi posted:Yeah, you can do that in PS. Oh neat, I had no idea. Thanks!
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May 21, 2018 11:10
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ThePlague-Daemon posted:Does anyone have any tips for using gradients? I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I feel like I could streamline the drawing stage a bit if I used them right. I use them as overlays to make things fade or gradually change color, set to low opacity and usually multiply or screen mode. Basically as post-coloring touch-up to accentuate different areas.
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May 29, 2018 21:44
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FunkyAl posted:Like, here's a question I pose. Comics are "texts" and clear symbolism helps them read better. it is possible to make great sequential work with complicated tools and rich images, but the information conveyed in those images usually demands more space and limits. a tryptich of paintings is great, but twenty paintings would be too god drat many! but twenty or more is a great number for a book! So if people are now trying to make comics in the form of old school, ink and clear exaggerated icons and labels and words comics, but with a time consuming process, why? Photoshop doesn't force you to add time to your production process or make you paint in a painterly/concept art type style, it's a design choice that many artists make. Photoshop is maybe not the best choice for convincingly emulating traditional media but nothing about the program forces you to add more time to your production timeline or to use a more time-consuming style than drawing on paper, that's all up to the artist and how they choose to use the tools Photoshop provides. FunkyAl posted:I think the rain effect you have in the comic is good, but i also think it would be just as easy to draw in with the rest of the linework. Also that rain effect would have taken me at least 10 times longer to draw and color with the rest of the inking process than doing a simple noise layer > filter > duplicate layer in photoshop. Whether it fits the style of the rest of the artwork or was a good design choice is up for debate, sure, but saying it's "just as easy" to draw 100s of tiny lines that also don't obscure the underlying artwork is not something I'd agree with.
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Jun 6, 2018 10:08
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ThePlague-Daemon posted:The art's really unfinished, but I was hoping to post something for feedback and I'm a little pressed for time because I'm going out of town overnight. I like the artwork, but IMO there's not enough contrast between the text and the background, I have to squint to read the text. There's a couple ways to tackle that, you could try making the font thicker or lightening the color so that there's more contrast between it and the background. One thing I would strongly recommend for readability though is to either alter your artwork or the text placement so that your text is all located on one solid color, rather than crossing over into different color and value fields that are in the background.
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Jun 9, 2018 10:59
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SexyBlindfold posted:Hey thread! Awesome! I backed that book and can't wait to get my copy.
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Jun 30, 2018 22:33
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Nessa posted:My local comic book store is starting another term of their artist in residency program and I'm being encouraged to apply again. I get your hesitation, but... couldn't you just write a letter to the same colorist? This is actually how every letter of recommendation/list of references thing I've ever done has worked - you let the other people know what would help you out the most to mention or write, and then they do it. It's kind of a lovely system but if you have a colorist who will sign off on all the specific things you need to look good, you should do that (in my opinion, I'm interested in seeing what other people think on this topic).
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Jul 12, 2018 22:51
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Nessa posted:Well, I haven't really spoken to this colourist much in the past 7 years or so. I don't know about the norm, but it isn't uncommon. In most experiences I have had with this, the person you're asking will at the least ask what details or topics the letter should focus on, and what experience you have that they should play up. Some things to consider:
Basically, if a person agrees to sign off on a letter you write - imposter syndrome may make you think it's cheating or lying, but they are basically telling you "I believe in you, and I trust you to tell me exactly what will most help you get this position."
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Jul 13, 2018 10:43
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Hihohe posted:Cool! you guys are great. Sure, export out a .jpg or .png or whatever your final format is, open that file in whatever digital image editor you used to draw your first image, and resize it. 800x600 is pretty tiny overall, especially now that 4K/retina monitors and tablets are a thing. I'd make your original file as big as possible, and resize your flattened outputs based on where you're going to be displaying them. Print files, meaning files for printing in book form, are generally 300 dots per inch (DPI). This means that for each inch of the final printed piece, there are 300 pixels in that dimension. A file designed to be printed on 8.5" x 11" paper would need to be at least 2550 pixels by 3300 pixels to be 300 DPI. For computer monitors or tablets, the dimensions can be a lot lower. My personal advice, if you're looking for advice in terms of page dimensions:
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Feb 7, 2019 23:35
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