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Advice for a Comic of humorous proportions.
Seiphon
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
A freind of mine has badgered me into doing these over the last few years. things he wrote and I drew.
So I finally bit the bullet and did a couple, I'm really not good at photoshop colouring, I figure I should just practice till I get it right.
I'd love some opinions, Crits, and advice to improve.
Seeing as its a pretty relaxed project, these are more for funs sake than anything.
As you can see I really suck at Photoshop, but this isnt my usual style.
So I finally bit the bullet and did a couple, I'm really not good at photoshop colouring, I figure I should just practice till I get it right.
I'd love some opinions, Crits, and advice to improve.
Seeing as its a pretty relaxed project, these are more for funs sake than anything.
As you can see I really suck at Photoshop, but this isnt my usual style.
Seiphon on
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I think you've got a decent drawing style and the text was the first thing that jumped out at me - unfortunately due to looking very much 'photoshopped on'.
Hand draw it and i'll all look a million times better imo! 8-)
I forgot this one.
this was my first attempt at photoshop colouring in this "Style"
As you've surmised, your worst trait s your coloring. Even down to basic things, like the explosion in the second comic. Warmer fire is yellow, the warmest being blue, and "cooler" fire is red, so the yellow should be in the center, the red on the outside of the explosion. It's a common mistake, because red is such a "warm" color.
Either your colors are flat, or when you color, you use what's called "shading to black". That is, you simply select a darker version of the "base color" or your "flat color" and airbrush it on. A better way to do it is to work shadows into "cooler" colors. Cool colors being green,, blue, and violet, while warm colors are red, orange, and yellow. There are many "in betweens". Violet is warmer than blue, incorporating red into it.
There's a lot to color theory (hard light, soft light, color palettes, defining form, light sources, backlighting, etc), and a lot to drawing figures. I can't go over it all here, but here's a good tutorial to get you started.
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
PSN: MaximasXXZ XBOX Live: SneakyMcSnipe
Its meant to be more based on tabletop gaming more than video gaming, mainly because we feel that the tabletop gaming comics that weve seen are, well, more than lacking.
But I do agree,I also think it would benefit from a few more that are not focused on gaming/tabletoping. Though I'm not a writer, at least, not a competant one.
Your layout in the second comic in particular is overly complicated. Showing the two main characters talking about the classes doesn't add anything. With two identical opinions and goals, knowing that Guy With Bad Haircut A is describing one and Guy With Bad Haircut B is describing the other doesn't provide any kind of necessary flair to the comic. You could just as easily pull those panels together and eliminate the images of the guys. This would save a lot of space and make the comic appear shorter, thus increasingly the likeliness that people will read it.
In a comic book this might be a nice flair to prevent the reader from getting bored with the same panel layout repeated on every page, but with web comics you have to realize that each comic is being read individually. Also, most of your readers will be at work when they read your stuff and looking to spend as little time/effort on getting their daily laugh as possible.
I didn't even read the stuff you just posted because I have no idea where to start reading or where I would go to after I started. That's bad.
So, I'm done being wordy. You've got a good base here, roll with it, practice, etc. Don't give up!
This has been Hypocritical Judgment On A Web Comic by a Guy Who Isn't Making Web Comics with your narrator Sgt Scruffian.
The first comics you posted are extremely hard to read, so in turn I did not bother to read them. It's probably a combination of the font you used, mixed with squeezing way too many words into bubbles that are too small. Readability is near the very top of the list of basic things that are required to get people interested in a comic. People will just pass on it, if it hurts their eyes to read it.
On the subject of the comic itself, the basis of it is so done to death that it's impossible to get excited about about a comic with Star Wars geeks. Unless it's well written I guess, but this goes back to the hassle to read problem. Also, just looking at the amount of words, I can tell you there's too many. To the point is always better than needlessly wordy.
That cloned to kill helmet struck me as both awesome and well rendered! I like it.
I also like the art in the last post much more than the original webcomic. It's much looser and it has a nice energy. However, in comic form it's kinda hard to follow where I'm supposed to be reading because it's all over the place. Maybe a combination of the two styles of the comics you posted? The new one reminds me of the style of 30 days night, which looks cool, but I found reading the graphic novels were just too loose artistically. I don't know, it's all just preferences though.
INSTAGRAM
The art is nice, i'm not a huge fan of the style but there are plenty of others that are.
That columbo would make a cool tshirt. I like the text done by hand in the bloody comics, but beyond looking good it's still hard to read though it might look better at a larger resolution.
But the text is too small, so fixing that ought to be priority
....the only thing that I never though of before was putting Columbo on a T-shirt, that just blows my mind.
EDIT: Frankly, I think a comic about a mandalorian accountant would be positively hilarious. I'd buy that shit up.
XBL: LiquidSnake2061
I claim royalties on columbo shirt
colouring is still not improving, at least, not that I can see. Am I keeping it too simple? Or does that work better than if I try and do multi-levels of shading and lighting, I dont want it looking like a polished turd after all.
Actually, now that I look at it, just by removing the last panel this strip becomes 150% better. And it wouldn't break the H scroll.
INSTAGRAM
The ebay gag is just way too mundane for it. I'm expecting Adult Swim and you're giving me Zits.
The most miraculous thing about it is the less-than-18-hour turn around time from ordering to delivery and the "ebay"-marked boxes even though ebay purchases come from individual sellers and the packaging varies drastically.
I would amp it up a bit.
But the art is great. I really like it. Goodlooking and consistent.
edit: Also, any reason he's holding a pen in the first panel and a shirt in the last?
As to holding a pen, he's meant to be signing for the delivery at the door, then moving inside to holding a t-shit that he's just recieved.
...and I cant beleive your calling me out on the delivery time's and packaging of ebay products, thats just being anal.
Basically, unless it's meant to be a diary, there's no reason to be this down to earth if you want laughs. It's a comic, you can do literally anything.
There is just nothing zany about getting drunk and ordering things on ebay. Drinking somebodies handwash on the other hand is totally zany. And that's why the strip peaked out in the second panel, only to be ruined by the last one.
INSTAGRAM
What has already been said is what is killing the entire thing for me.
PSN: MaximasXXZ XBOX Live: SneakyMcSnipe
Exactly, you have a good starting point, but if you were to draw a curve of excitement throughout the panels, it should top at the last one, not peak in the middle and the go down again.
As for critique, I'm not too sure I agree with the solid-color backgrounds. Maybe if you could just do like, suggestions of objects in the back, that'd be pretty sweet. Otherwise, I'm thoroughly enjoying your stuff.
The shirt in his hand is really confusing, because none of the boxes are opened and his shirt matches his robe, so did he buy the shirt and robe at ebay? or did he buy a matching shirt? or are neither actually from ebay? Right now the joke ends with he bought stuff at ebay, and since we don't know what any of that is, it could either be really mundane or obsurd.