Making Comics: Howling into the void three times a week.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Making Comics: Howling into the void three times a week.

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Avshalom posted:

i promote my webcomic by showing up to the big-name expos in the nude and doing my special promotion dance, which is quite similar to my angry dance

# ¿ Dec 10, 2016 15:32

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 16:17

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Back in 2011 I found PW pretty effective for driving new readers to my last comic from other comics in the network. Unfortunately since then, ad blocker adoption has become almost total among the webcomic-reading audience (young, computer savvy). The PW ads I bought for my new comic were totally useless. I also tried Facebook ads and they didn't work, either. I found I got more readers from cross-posting to Tumblr than anything else.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 16:56

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Neon Noodle fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Aug 21, 2019

# ¿ May 17, 2017 13:56

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

al-azad posted:

Don't you will die poor and everyone will hate you.

Am dead, poor, can confirm

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 23:28

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

FunkyAl posted:

To add to this, learning how to use color in a psysical media can only improve your understanding of color in a way (whoa hold on contoversial opinion comin watch out uh oh.....) that digital media just can't! Like, i've been learning to oil paint this year and colors in real life have started looking better. watercolors or oil pastels are great places to start because theyre cheap and easy to use!! AND if youre still interested in lesrning how to explore a limited palate, its much much easier when you have physical tools instead of the virtual infinity a computer is constantly trying to offer you

TRUUUUUUUUTH on digital color. It is not like paint color. It just isn't. It's very hard to learn color digitally. I didn't learn poo poo until I started painting with watercolors and gouache.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2017 00:58

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Holy cow that's great!!

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 14:30

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

I love that walrus. The whole thing is great. That duck is a sovereign citizen.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2017 01:30

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

FunkyAl posted:

mine was a bloom county ripoff

I'm going to say something crazy here, but I also recommend getting a nib and some ink like how cartoonists would use in the 1900s and such. It's a precise, direct, and inexpensive tool and when you run into technological issues and need to wait out equipment it is an effective way to stay productive. I also have a theory that producing digital art is slower than traditional because the computer is trying to simulate a process which is instant in real media, and there is an unavoidable but imperceptible lag between input and screen response. you are always producing art "ahead" of the computer so to speak and this adds to a kind of "lag" state. This is in spoiler tags that so from the outside it sounds like cartoon whispering noises

this the real poo poo :colbert:

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 02:36

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

FunkyAl posted:

fat shark!

I'm calling this a "Test page" because i tried goache out on it. I now want more colors of goache!

Gouache owns, this page owns, get some better quality gouache!

# ¿ Jan 12, 2018 15:06

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

M. Graham is a good brand, I think I reacted to the fact that the saturation on that scan is pretty cold. It makes it look like the paint is lower intensity than it really is. The way you're using it, you could just as easily use straight WC and get pretty much the same effect. I use Holbein but I usually layer up to a more opaque finish.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2018 20:28

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

RoryBlank posted:

I drew a webcomic about drawing webcomics and I can't tell if it was too mean, not mean enough or if I'm just being a jerk

I hope you know how good this is

# ¿ Jan 14, 2018 13:45

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Yeah this is a serious pro strategy.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2018 18:17

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

GORM! *whipcrack*

# ¿ Mar 11, 2018 22:33

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

I love u avshalom

# ¿ Mar 25, 2018 14:03

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

loving do your poo poo or else I will kick your rear end

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 13:31

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Please ~~work out~~ draw comic

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 13:31

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

I�ve never had fun in my life and I�m sure as hell not gonna start now :colbert:

But honestly I believe you can approach drawing with a mindset toward making it more fun the same way you might sit down to draw with the goal of improving your perspective or your line work or any other aspect. I�ve gotten a lot of benefit out of the concept of �Psycho-cybernetics� (a very old and weird self-help book), which describes all learning as a wandering feedback/reinforcement process. You try stuff, remain open and playful without a strong mental grip on what�s happening, but with a sensitive perception of how it feels and how you steer yourself slightly toward what feels better. That steering process reinforces itself gradually until you can just think about where you want to �go� and go there without having to force it.

To me this idea is connected with Taoism and the allowance for the �life force� to flow into the directions it goes. Non-forcing is key. It�s possible to gently intend to try something without white-knuckling. There�s another self-help book called The Relaxation Response that talks about the mental attitude for meditation, and the author describes it as something like a passive curiosity about whatever happens. I�ve relied a ton on this philosophical stuff because of struggling with anxiety and other brain monsters.

Make having fun the goal of your next drawing? :bravo2:

# ¿ Apr 13, 2018 12:13

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

gmc9987 posted:

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.

All of this and more. You can lay out whole pages with panel divisions and then edit the artworks or each panel separately in Photoshop or your image editor of choice. Then save and it updates the linked file. A lot of this stuff is also present in the higher-tier version of CSP, but if you already have CS6 or pay for CC, you can do a ton with a combination of PS and ID.

# ¿ May 20, 2018 13:26

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

It made sense in 2007

# ¿ Jun 12, 2018 20:09

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Ain�t it the truth. :smith:

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 01:36

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

I feel you, bro. I don't want to go pro ever, but I'm still out here making stuff. For a while I had dreams, but they were vague and not based on what I really wanted to get out of life and work. These days I do what I want to do.

Unfortunately other posters are right, the "best" place to socialize with other comics people (at all levels of aspiration) is Twitter.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2019 18:09

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Ritznit posted:

Maybe Gumroad? You can set it so the thing is avaible for free but people can also donate while they get the download link.

Gumroad is really good, I�ve used them for probably 8 years? I sell both physical and digital items and have never had a problem.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2019 11:26

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

mrfart posted:

Their payment plans seem confusing now. The links on their help page don't work anymore.
Do you pay a monthly fee, or just a percentage on a sale?

Percentage on sales.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2019 14:11

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

I feel like I'm almost at the end of this

# ¿ Aug 21, 2019 14:58

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

thanks, man. I'm so depressed I can't even blink.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2019 16:46

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

nankeen posted:

we were always born right here, right now. you know your work and you're doing amazingly. that comic touched a mutual grief in me like very little else has in years.

i hope you feel better soon

also technically perfect in craftsmanship and layout etc

Thanks a lot, that means a lot to me. I'm trying to figure out how to get this poo poo out of my system without falling down a bottomless pit. I did Cute poo poo for so long and I wish I could return to the innocence of that, but obviously that's not how life works.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2019 17:03

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

the zeitgeist is the timeghost :iiam:

# ¿ Aug 21, 2019 18:16

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

You guys, you guys are some nice guys. :kimchi:

Thanks.

Unfortunately I can't submit that to the Nib, they don't publish anything that's already been online anywhere. But I am planning to pitch to them soon.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2019 14:36

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

tenshianna posted:

Hey fellow comic-maker-goons, just want to drop a link to a video series I'm starting on comic making techniques, may or may not be of interest to folks here. Starting with using 3D tool for 2D art and other various bits and bobs, just chatting through how I construct a comic page really. Might be a bit basic for people here, but I'm aiming to de-mystify the process for people who might be less experienced or perhaps just want to have a look in at how a different artist works maybe? I dunno...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gA7ylV2yo

Subscribed! This is cool. I like long process videos.

Here's the first couple pages of my next thing:

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 14:28

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Thanks.

Here's the next few pages:

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 16:42

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

TheHan posted:

What�s the general consensus on breaking the Z format of panel reading order? Sometimes on pages I�ll lead try and lead the reader in more of a S shape, if there�s something on the far left side I don�t want them to see yet or if things come together naturally.

If your page layout requires you to reverse the standard reading direction, redesign the page.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2019 16:28

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

So good so good so good :allears:

# ¿ Jul 17, 2020 13:44

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

mrfart posted:

I just finished making a font for a new graphic novel. It has a lot of variants (variations of the same letter, to make a font look more natural) and ligatures (combinations of certain letters have their own variation).
It all looked perfectly well, but now I notice to my horror clip studio doesn't seem to support ligatures or variants?
It just uses the first variant of a letter and none of the ligatures.
If this is true, I'll be forced to switch between clip studio and my 10 year old copy of photoshop to type all the text.
This seems like such an important part of comic fonts that I struggle to believe it's not supported? I really hope I am doing something wrong and it is possible to use them. Maybe any of you have any experience with this.

You wouldn't happen to have a 10-year-old copy of Indesign, would you? Because Photoshop's text handling is horrific.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2020 03:25

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

Wow

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 14:20

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

all social media is complete poo poo op

# ¿ Nov 30, 2022 23:28

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 16:17

Neon Noodle: Nov 11, 2016; there's nothing wrong here in montana

This is great, thank you for posting

# ¿ Dec 12, 2023 11:36

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Making Comics: Howling into the void three times a week.