Comic Creators Thread: Ways to Stay Motivated, Creative, and Productive?

The Lovely Bastard

see how much more radical my words are compared to his primitive scrawlings?

Crimsondude

Well, Munch clearly has a better sense of pacing.

The Lovely Bastard

pffft

he just don't want to draw as much

he lazy

Crimsondude

I also think the beating went on too long.

The Lovely Bastard

I didn't, but I am fine with it being shortened for page constraints as it would cut into the flow of the next page
and the only way to make it fit would be to overhaul the entire story, which is too much unessecary work for two panels.

and because I, too, am lazy.

there are only two fights in the whole issue, and I wanted each to be ridiculous for different reasons because Juan is a terribly unreliable narrator, which becomes clear as it goes on and a one-sided fight would get blown out of proportion like that. he would so gloat over that.

the conceit of Juan stories are him telling Frank why he is beaten down, so they have the feel noir by someone who doesn't really know what noir is. he mixes up loose cannon cop movies, action movies, and sin city narration and thinks they make him look tough. juan is, in reality, a shit detective and mostly gets lucky.

it's not easy to get that from four pages in the middle though.

herojoe

Really good art, Munch. I wouldn't mind seeing an Animal Man or Deadpool themed one.

Solar

Cool work from you two, I've got nothing to really add that hasn't already been said.

Munch, are you available at some point to just look over any of my scripts? You don't have to draw anything of course, it's just that you are an artist and I am am not really very good at art. I've been practicing lately but I'm still miles and miles away from anything decent, and you will have a much better sense of layout and pacing than me. I'd just appreciate that kind of input, since it's hard for me to know what to do in regards to layout and so on. I tend to pull out comics that I like and look at them for ideas, but that only goes so far.

Munch

Sure. PM me sometime, or just post them in here.

Solar

Cool. You're the best buddy!

Munch

Here's why everyone should feel bad for my collaborators. Someone tells me they want a Luke Cage/Iron Fist, and I give them Plantman, featuring Iron Fist and Luke Cage.







In all seriousness, hope you like them, Solar. I would have posted this yesterday, but hurt my back at the gym, and couldn't tolerate bending over my drafting table long enough to work on it.

Herojoe, I'll see what I can do about a Deadpool or Animal Man themed set.

The Lovely Bastard

MUNCH THAT IS NO EXCUSE

WHERE

ARE

MY

PAGES

Antimatter

i was considering asking about a festive man-thing but plantman there is roughly what i was thinking of

you do good work munch

Munch

TLB I AM GOING TO BED

Anti, I'll happily do a Man-Thing for you, if you'd like. I loves drawing Man-Thing.

Or I can do something else, for you. Just let me know.

Antimatter

gosh

i wouldn't want you to put that much time and effort into something i'd only use for a month but thank you so very much!

Solar

Munch that is great! Power Man and Iron Fist, my favourite comics duo ever. And don't feel bad about plantman, he's exactly the kind of punk that Danny and Luke would beat up and then turn into a Christmas tree. Thanks buddy!

DouglasDanger

I need to figure out how to write dialog. My dialog is so poor that I lose interest.

Solar

Dialogue is the hardest part buddy, hardest part by far. I've started doing stuff like grabbing trades from my shelf and reading how writers I like construct sentences for certain characters, create the scenes that I really enjoy and so on. I've also started reading aloud what I say, does it seem overly cumbersome, melodramatic and so on, does it fit the voice I have in my head and that kind of thing.

But yeah, like I said, hardest part in my experience. Practise is the best way, practise and reading books you like in an analytical manner to try and understand what makes the dialogue good. I understand that it will be some time before I'm able to improve myself significantly, but I'm confident that with practise I'll see a real increase in quality. That's the hope, anyway!

DouglasDanger

Is it better to do the lay out/ break down first, and then write dialog, or write dialog first, or write both together?

Solar

I personally tend to lay off spending too much time on layout. I'm not an artist so I generally write "In Panel X Super Steve is vigorously punching Villain Victor in the face," rather than being too descriptive. I figure if the artist knows what angle to do things at best and so on, so they can busy themselves with that.

If I really need to, I'll say something like "close-up, we can see he is visibly terrified" and that's it. If the artist wanted to remove a panel or add a couple in order to make their visuals flow better, that's fine, as long as the dialogue works and stays in the same order and on the same pages, and the pacing is what I intend.

So for me, I tend to think "okay, on this page we have a fight. I can see how it goes in my head, with that sort of guestimate layout, so four panels seems good, and then now I'll do dialogue."

Getting the layout right first is a good idea, and thinking about it is important as well as considering the artist, but at the same time being too descriptive seems like it might be constricting them, and that doesn't seem good

But I am no expert, just an enthusiastic amateur, so if someone tells you different don't quote me. It's just what I am doing now. If I figure out a better way, I'll do that instead.

DouglasDanger

I do something similar, when I do anything at all. I cannot draw at all, despite spending a considerable amount of time and money attempting to learn. And I rarely finish things, so I rarely look for artists.

I just started a little scene. I have an idea that I think is fun, juxtaposing the far-out with the mundane...

herojoe

Yeah I like to give the artist a lot of freedom since they usually make things look way better than what I even thought of in the first place.

DMAC

My friend, Dan Taylor is trying to get a new comic project off the ground chronicling the adventures of famous horror sidekicks Renfield and Igor. He has a Kickstarter page up for it here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/716674654/renfield-and-igor-meet-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde

If this sounds like something you’d like to read, please consider donating. Some of the donor rewards include a print of my artwork or the physical artwork itself done in pencil on bristol paper.

TexiKen

Gave you guys a shot, hope you get to your goal.

DMAC

On Dan's behalf: thank you.

Mim

I didn't know if I should take this to the Artists Corner or here but I have some questions about drawing on bristol board.

I have 9x12 bristol board, how big should my live area be then?

Mark Andrew Smith

wwtMask wrote:

Holy hell, I got a great brain wave in the shower on a new story and managed to slam out the first five pages of the script in like 20 minutes. I'm going to get the dialog correct tomorrow and then post it for everyone's perusal. Shit, I need to live in the shower if it's going to get my creativity fired up like this.

The shower, the gym, hiking, and swimming are all great ways to generate ideas if you have a notebook. I think sometimes the best thing to do for writing is to get out of the house on your own, and do some physical activity where you just have time to let your brain cut loose and wander a little bit.

DMAC

Mim wrote:

I didn't know if I should take this to the Artists Corner or here but I have some questions about drawing on bristol board.

I have 9x12 bristol board, how big should my live area be then?

Not sure what you mean here. Are you planning to frame what you draw? Are you concerned about scanning? Those are about the only two concerns that I can imagine needing to take into consideration.

Munch

So, after months of not really working on it, I'm back to inking this thing. I finished the pages I needed to finish pencilling, and now I just need to ink two pages, and tone/tweak/letter the rest.



I'm not particularly proud of how long it's taken me. My only excuse is the crippling insecurity and procrastination that makes it easier to doodle around with sketches and stuff, rather than commit to an actual project, and see it through.

Mim

DMAC wrote:

Mim wrote:

I didn't know if I should take this to the Artists Corner or here but I have some questions about drawing on bristol board.

I have 9x12 bristol board, how big should my live area be then?

Not sure what you mean here. Are you planning to frame what you draw? Are you concerned about scanning? Those are about the only two concerns that I can imagine needing to take into consideration.

I'm scanning these photos. But I figured you needed a live area to draw in while drawing a comic and I was just wondering how big it would be on a 9x12 sheet.

The Lovely Bastard

chupacomics need to be drawed, munch

finish that loser comic already

TexiKen

Have you guys thought about maybe doing it with Kickstarter, that way there is a bit of incentive behind it?

Munch

I believe it was Crimsondude that raised that possibility with me, but ultimately, I don't think it's really right for us.

While it'd be super-awesome to get paid, we're ultimately nobodies, who would only be supported by a handful of people. Most of them from this forum, I imagine. It's not like it'd be enough money for me to quit my job and devote eight hours a day to the comic, and I can't exactly take a month-long vacation.

Besides, it's more important to me to just get the thing out, and have people read it. Asking people to pay anything for it, just creates a barrier to that goal.

That said, we have discussed the possibility of, once we have a good chunk of comics (80-100 pages worth), putting out a TPB with some bonuses/extras. But, that's a ways off. I'd also like to do something similar to what squidbunny and Toji Suzuhara did, and offer .CBZ/.PDF files containing the full chapter plus extras, while we serialize it online.

Incidentally, here's a little process stuff from me, in case anyone finds this sort of thing interesting. Getting a tablet and a decent image editing program (Manga Studio EX; recommended!) really changed the way I do art, in that it allowed me to screw up a lot more. Take for instance, this thing I did for Solar.



Wow, that first drawing's really just awful. My pen bled when I was doing Iron Fist's eyes, Luke Cage has the dopiest face in the world, I didn't want to bother with any kind of background, and I half-assed the wires dangling off Plantman. Basically, I just rushed through it, and figured I'd try to save it later.

First, I had to redraw Luke and Danny's faces from scratch. With a tablet and MS's pen options, it's a lot easier to work in fine details, which made stuff like Danny's smile, elf ears, and symbol a lot easier to do. I also gave Plantman a little frown. I also had to fix Danny's hand, which looked similarly awful, first shrinking it a bit, and then redrawing the fingers to better. I also added some extra Christmas lights to Plantman, and some leaves to Danny and Plantman, with one of MS's brushes. The leaves aren't something I'd normally do so lazily, but I knew this was going to be for a simple sig, and would be displayed small enough to hide how crummy they look.

The next step was toning. Sometimes I use a bunch of tones and spotted-blacks, but I wanted this to look pretty light and fun, even though it's set at night. So, I just threw a light tone layer over Luke, to separate the foreground from the background a bit, and then used a tiny piece of one of Manga Studio's "cheater backgrounds," to add a sense of space. Said cheater backgrounds aren't anything I'd ever use in something that was actually important, but I kind of like putting them behind sketches.

Then, I just had to color it, using one layer for the snow and Christmas lights, and one for everything else. I'm pretty bad at the whole coloring thing, leaning heavily on the color scheme designer to look passingly competent. For Iron Fist's hand, I just selected the line-art, deleted it, and then moved over to the color layer, where I filled the still-selected hand shape with the appropriate color, and then blended it into the rest of the glowing hand.

And that children, is how lazy people make art.

I should probably mention that, when doing commissions and such, I put a much greater effort into making sure things look right, before inking. Just as a for-instance, this Beast Man I did for a friend, is as it appears on the page. The only thing altered is the black frame at the edges, and the brightness/contrast. Otherwise, it's all ink and Pro-White correction fluid.

Ditto for this Metamorpho. The only thing I fixed there was redrawing his crotch-line, and the color I added to the background.

But, for stuff where I have no intention of selling/giving away the original, I'll tweak the shit out of the line-art, until I'm basically happy with it.

The Lovely Bastard

I expect only the best for juan's adventures

Though, our idea is not just to have books featuring EL CHUPACABRA: ACE DETECTIVE

it would be a story anthology

I am still calling it Chupacomics because

1. The word is fun to me
2. It's catchy
3. Whenever munch gets frustrated he can call himself a chupaconvict of chupacomics

DMAC

Mim wrote:

DMAC wrote:

Mim wrote:

I didn't know if I should take this to the Artists Corner or here but I have some questions about drawing on bristol board.

I have 9x12 bristol board, how big should my live area be then?

Not sure what you mean here. Are you planning to frame what you draw? Are you concerned about scanning? Those are about the only two concerns that I can imagine needing to take into consideration.

I'm scanning these photos. But I figured you needed a live area to draw in while drawing a comic and I was just wondering how big it would be on a 9x12 sheet.

Are you planning to draw a standard comic book page at that size? Most comic art is done at 11 x 17" and then scaled down for printing. This guy has done an 11 x 17" template for Photoshop: http://geekywhiteguy.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Book-Board-Template-192036115. You could take that and scale it down to 9 x 12".

Mim

DMAC wrote:

Mim wrote:

DMAC wrote:

Mim wrote:

I didn't know if I should take this to the Artists Corner or here but I have some questions about drawing on bristol board.

I have 9x12 bristol board, how big should my live area be then?

Not sure what you mean here. Are you planning to frame what you draw? Are you concerned about scanning? Those are about the only two concerns that I can imagine needing to take into consideration.

I'm scanning these photos. But I figured you needed a live area to draw in while drawing a comic and I was just wondering how big it would be on a 9x12 sheet.

Are you planning to draw a standard comic book page at that size? Most comic art is done at 11 x 17" and then scaled down for printing. This guy has done an 11 x 17" template for Photoshop: http://geekywhiteguy.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Book-Board-Template-192036115. You could take that and scale it down to 9 x 12".

Yes to your first question. I have my art at the 11x17 but I'm interested in working smaller. Thank you for the template and I'll be sure to scale it down.

liquiddark

Finished the first draft of the first volume of OMH. Looking forward to getting the other two done and getting an artist. Not easy to find someone starting from cold. Thinking about how best to present the book. I'm thinking of serializing online and collecting for digital and print later on at the moment. Looking to get a website up in the next little while for it as well. Plan is to have an artist for April or May concept start, and to have pages in hand sometime this summer.

The book's been hard to write, but rewarding so far. A lot of changes in myself and in the book mirroring one another, and a lot of just watching the thing flower as a work on its own. Still a long way to go, but better than it was. Most of the shape is there, at least. Meat and bones still to come.

herojoe

Old Man Hero is a great title. I'm still trying to come up with a title for my anthology. I could just cop out and just have it be "Title of one Story and other Stories" but I want it to be cool. :-s

liquiddark

Thanks I usually start with a title, so I'm usually not much help, but what's the subject of the anthology?

herojoe

It was just going to be horror but then I decided to just make it a grab bag with no particular theme. Which is probably a bad idea, but I didn't feel like writing that many horror stories. The way I see it the twilight zone had lighthearted stories every once in a while so it's the same kind of idea.

liquiddark

Maybe start with grab bag as a title and riff on that? The first (terrible) ideas that come to mind are A Lighthearted Grab Bag of Horror and Villainy, or The Grabbity Bag.