How's Your Webcomic? #317

I just get directly inspired by other things. This, for example. Nice to see you again, any progress?

I decided to challenge myself and my friend to do 22 pages in november. I have october to get ready. I have the story all set, just need to flesh it out enough for chapter 1. Its gonna just be a practice run, but I need to start working on this thing,

i finished doing artwork of one of the big boss monsters.

what part of "let this be the last" don't you people understand?

why would HYWC have a "last" thread? people will be working on webcomics forever, why stop?

fucking awesome. this looks so damn professional.

Yeah, thats the style I would like to draw Elemental Ruins in.

I dont know how i would ever do it, but i really want to throw some videogame parts into the comic. When they go through the ruins, it starts an rpg where you can actually fight monsters and collect treasure.

but i really have no idea how i would do that.

You could probably rig up something like that pretty easily in RPG maker.

I did buy RPGMaker recently, but that seems like it might be clunky to download elementalruingame.exe every time you want to progress the plot. On the other hand, the people that want to skip the games and go straight back to the comic wouldn't have to worry about some shitty mandatory flash game to progress.

Yeah, maybe just throwing a small dungeon together in RPGMaker would be the best course of action

ask Kazerad how he did it in Prequel.
and for your own sake, keep those segments short.

EVER so stoked. this'll be the first time something so extensive is published online.. i'm going to have to link to it in some ostentatious fashion, I guess on the fanart page..

bug-quest.tumblr.com/post/150980372895/
i could have sworn this was supposed to be cooler

better than the ending to AI

Look for real costumes from other peoples/other ages and draw those. Doing this you will start to expand your mental library. Eventually start extrapolating and mixing the designs together.
There are so many crazy interesting designs on real clothing from exotic peoples though, you barely need to create anything, you just need to find the right references.

Here's some pictures from my reference folder, with little tags for name of the peoples and type of clothing. I also saved these drawings of yours, btw, really neat, charming stuff you've got there.

yeah i leave myself little notes. though it works even better if you make little sketches
right now i have a standing order with myself to use more 'caplets' which is those short elbow-length capes people used to wear. different from a poncho in having a normal split front and neck tying just like any other cape would.. worn by like sherlock holmes and shit. sometimes in conjunction with another cape. it's capes upon capes!

I'm hopelessly ignorant about huge swaths of things like fashion, but I think that gives me unique insight. Always try to use whatever you have to make things fun and unique

Fresh from the garbage, Here's a new page.

itll never end because you keep those bitter tears coming

i think the punchline was supposed to be the literal punch, which i think makes sense but like, doesn't register right away. so, better punchline maybe. is the direction to go in i think, .

I hate to be "that guy" but how does one get started? I have skills in art and writing, loved making comics when I was a kid, but I don't have any ideas for themes/characters/zip. I would really like to make this happen, it seems fun!

The Writing Excuses podcast did a season about taking a project from start to finish. They're talking about fantasy novels of course, but a lot of the content about generating and choosing ideas and developing characters also apply to comics.

writingexcuses.com/category/season/season-10/

El bumpo

Once been doing something, but I'm not done. Here's a comparison between early and current designs for Selena.

I've * stupid corrector and stupid me for not double checking.

while your art has improved I honestly prefer the older design

I'm surprised that her features are still flat on her face five years later.

Generally improved, though.

Well, that's an issue that I never paid any attention to until not long ago. Though I don't expect any significant change any time soon, I'm making that a goal to aim to. People in here know I changed the most in the last year and a half than the other three and a half years combined.
But it's still evident that there's much more to grow, so I'm gonna try on y'all a bit more.

Uh, thanks for your insight, truth be told,I decided I wouldn't revisit that, shall we say, style, for this particular webcomic, but I'd like to do something kinda animu again in the future.

And here's the current WIP, lads. I'll catch some z's and get back to you later, don't let this one die on me.

Instead he should ask somebody that knows what he's doing.

What I don't understand is why you keep spamming this. Was your own webcomic a failure, therefore you have to be a burden to other artists?

Don't worry about it too much. Everyone grows at different rates and learns lessons at different speeds. You've made progress in a lot of other ways, so I'm sure you'll drift further from unintentional symbol drawing as you go.

All the good artists are leaving this thread like rats fleeing a ship right before the iceberg. Let it die.

this is getting interesting
Think about someone you've never met or heard of but would be interesting if you did.
think of a situation that would be unusual and that would make you think of weird stuff, then think of the kind of people who would interact with it, as well as the people who would just go with it and be normal. If you can't think that vaguely, look around you at real life, the past, fictional stuff, any of these scenarios, then tweak them somewhat. what if that guy WAS telling the truth. what if that technology DIDNT get invented or didnt work that way.
just what-if yourself into a comic. you can do it.
even if you can't do any of that, just look at all your favorite shows and comics and ask which bits you'd like to put together that haven't been put together, and what aspects were missing due to constraints.

hey, would you mind using a tripcode or some type of name when you post? I'd like to have an extended conversation with you about this.

>would you mind not being a coward?
just stop giving him attention.

He's mocking them by emulating the person they think it is.

Here's my gag a day comic that I use to just work on comic formatting and pose stuff. I need honest criticism.

The art is bad and the joke isn't funny.

explain a little more on the art side please?

not that guy but.. the one dude never turns to the side to address his pal, who also never moves. I can see you did't recycle the art, but the question becomes "why?" since they didn't move one bit. If you had to redraw it anyway, you could have had them move slightly. especially since the features and proportions shift slightly as you go
i appreciate the use of clavicle lines, but you should look up how those connect. also they aren't visible under shirts.
you're making arms double in length as they bend, a common error. Other than that, the art's fine for a cartoon style

as for the humor, that's just not a joke. And even if it was, that would be an extremely awkward way to set it up. You have to try to write realistically, listen to people talk.

also those word bubbles are straight up terrible, but i'm sure you knew that and just felt it was unimportant. certainly it's less important than the other problems, but it's also by far the easiest thing to fix.

You're doing this digitally so there's no excuse not to use some undersketches on another layer, so that all your joints connect right. Work on hands, definitely. You hold a smartphone differently than you hold a soda can.

and to add to that, the joke has been made so many times that even when it's well told it's pretty stale.

well that's what i meant by not a joke. it's literally just a statement at this point. a long, long time ago it might have been a joke.

Newest page from yesterday's update. After this chapter I may switch back to Black and White to save time and crank out more pages since greyscales take a huge chuck of time I could be using to just move on to the next page. Or work on other side projects.

That doesn't answer the question.

dramatic, man. worthy of chochi

Thanks.
>worthy of chochi
I still have yet to catch up on Beatriz, but I'll take that too.

Real medieval or "exotic" outfits with a little tweak. You can also get some pretty interesting things when combining different cultures or different time periods.
For example, I like the High Middle Ages; simple chainmail + surcoats with long wooden shields; LONG selves and veils... find what you like or stuff that is overlooked and give it a bit of your own spin (that's how I go on about it, at least)

Pic Somewhat related; not satisfied with his helmet ATM but I like the whole rest

WIP: 3 pages, roughs, "Fili & Noli Hit The Level Cap".

This'll be the final strip in Volume 4. My intention is they'll start off wearing "high level gear" for the first three panels, then it will gradually change over the course of the strip until they're back to their usual appearance on the last page.

Hm, OK, thank you for the critisism! I will defiantly take that into account for the next page! Are there any practices/techniques I can do to help with hands and drawing the different perspectives?

What would be the healthy amount of artists drawing porn of a show?

belongingtonobody.tumblr.com

She'a such a cutie

i really dig that helmet. it protects his googly cartoon frog eyes and gives him the appearance of a headshape more like one of those frogs with the... you know the ones.

Today, the gang figures out what the meteor is, but it only leads to more questions.

zyxcity.tumblr.com/

how you guys think the story is going so far?
spireacomic.com/comic.php?lang=en&idtira=290

Hey, when you resize art like in panel 2, you should try to re-ink it or go over it again with just colors depending on the effect you want. Otherwise the resized lines look uneven and sloppy, especially if you're making it REALLY small relative to your total resolution.

a subtle joke but a nice one. I'm surprised i've never seen a game comic end that way.
but this is just the end of the volume?

I only resized the sketch layer. That IS re-inked.

absolutely, there are some fantastic exercises in the links in the first post.
man, without her body visible, that alien... that alien just popping in from offscreen.. hoo wee..

>more questions.
no kidding. like how it stayed intact or why anyone would do that

also just fyi, compact talcum powder is just called talc. it's where we get talcum powder from.

Ah, so the meteor volleyball comic actually lead to something.

Good work, keep it up.

I got hired by my local college paper to make comic strips for them

>AUDIBLE GASP
Already added to my reaction image folder.

Heh. Not bad.

I really don't want to be an ass but...how?

There's uneven artifacting here that I've never seen outside of resizing. Color bleeding that wouldn't make sense as human error. What kind of settings did you have? How high is your DPI? Did you manually resize your page after you finished or do you work at 600 X 900? I want to know what in the world happened because it shouldn't be coming out this pixelated after a re-ink.

Honestly I'm scared out of my goddamn mind because I'm not really a good artist

>Two sisters go after one guy

Meh, not trying to sound like an ass but is that the whole plot? I could see that as a short arc but if it's going to main thing then people are going to get bored of it quickly

And please don't have the spoiler that Dillan is gay..

...

user, are you blowing-up a small cropped portion of a down-sized page and then wondering why it's pixelated?

So the rabbit had an X-shaped scar under his eye. I hope to see a flashback about that.

>how

Well, user. I inked with a much smaller pen size. You see, she's much smaller and "further away."

I admit there are tiny coloring and clean-up errors at the original resolution. But then again I knew I'd resize it before publishing it.

No, I'm looking at it in normal resolution.

I AM asking if he severely downsized his page among other things, though, yes. It'd make sense if he reduced the resolution by half after giving it a really thin inking, but otherwise I'm stumped on why it looks that way.

that took me longer than it should have
>Two sisters go after one guy
it's worse than that, I'm afraid

I'm shocked he actually re-inked it, because it looks like a normal drawing, shrunk down
and i greatly disagree with the suggestion that you should re-ink something after you shrink it. That's literally the point of drawing something bigger and then shrinking it, to achieve a tiny drawing you could never have drawn by hand because the pixels are too big. This looks almost unnaturally good.

Now that's some good shit.

A'ight, looking over your series, I see you got some potential. Just keep doing what you're doing, maybe polish up the art a bit and you'll be going places.

>Well, user. I inked with a much smaller pen size. You see, she's much smaller and "further away."

Listen, I only asked because the final result doesn't look great. I wanted to understand what you did because part of these threads is helping each other. I'm sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, but I don't need the passive aggressive snark.

might be projecting a bit there, guy
final result looks weird to me, but in a good way

... aaaaaand it's already on KYM. Lovely...

How many times do we need to explain this? Why only recently?

Stop.
Trying.
To help.
Nunc.

He doesn't take to advice that isn't objective. You're just annoying him and yourself.

>it's worse than that, I'm afraid

What do you..
>Look at the character bio
>"Wait why is the tomboy named Terrence..."
>One of the sisters is actually a gay brother

O-Oh..that's kinda hot now. Well you could do something where the gay brother likes to steal the sister's dates by dressing and pretending to be her. Yet that might lead to the fanservice/lewd route but I'd read it if you did that.

i knew this comic would be perfect for someone
for me it was a pretty big disappoint

This comic's been pretty good so far, but who's the main character?

I don't even know what you want me to do.

You were wrong about what you thought you were seeing, and I indeed did do what you told me to do. You're like a telemarketer that can't take a hint.

Well it has potential, I would take the comic into the fanservice route, change the brother as a trap that likes to prove that he's cuter and hotter than her sister, which pisses her off.

Like whenever she's around boys, the brother will jump in looking sexy, which the boys turn their eyes towards.

>Boy 1:S-She's cute, whose that? Your sister?
>Samantha: No, THAT'S MY SLUT OF A BROTHER
>Boy 1: B-Brother?!
>Boy 2: I-Is he single?
>Boy 1: DUDE...
>Boy 1: I-I don't care, he's hot...
>Terrence: Oh you boys are making me blush~
>Samantha: AHHHHHHHH!

If you do something like that and make threads about the comic then other people will glue on to the brother, make fanart (likely lewd), read and love it, etc etc.

Now if you're trying to do something serious then ignore this but I'd give it try at least.

I tell you I just want to understand what you did, apologize for offending you, and say I don't appreciate the hostility.
...and your response is to tell me how wrong I am and say I'm annoying.

What is your problem?

He already told you what he did. He resized the sketch and inked with a smaller pen.

You, clearly.
Just shut up and deal with it. We don't need more drama bullshit.

Pussed out on my last one....and started doing this one

tapastic.com/series/Fuckin-Scumbag

...

...

I'm not still asking; he pretty much explained here
that he resized the page after inking. I'm just confused why he's acting that way.

Probably a good idea, yeah.

the hostility's in your mind. it's really important that you realize that, because there's no appropriate way to react to something you've imagined.

This reminds me of some classic 'zine comic stuff, man. it is not remotely up my alley, but you're doing a fantastic job of what you're doing.

Coldfusion, don't defend him AND drag this shit out. Please.

Thank you...

And I welcome all criticism, good or bad...

And please keep death threats down to two paragraphs

You know, it's pretty easy to tell when it's you because you always accuse user of being Coldfusion. You samefag pretty hard, but you're not very good at it.

I think the general advice not to inflate drama is valid, no matter whom it's aimed at. Particularly people who have admitted they're guilty of that in the past.
But at the same time, when someone is genuinely delusional, there's no avoiding drama by just ignoring it. They will continue to act in disruptive ways as long as they fail to understand they're wearing shit-colored glasses.

Very edgy, but in a genuinely charming way. Reminds me of Invader Zim a bit. I like your art style here, you got nice nice usage of black and white, crosshatching, and the character designs are pretty cute.

Agreed. It's why the whole "don't reply to Bones" thing has never worked.

I feel like it helped. I mean, he's gone now, right?

I am asking him to not drag this back out when user just said they'd shut their stupid mouth. I call him out when he does stuff like this because he keeps taking his trip off to do it and it's annoying as fuck.

...but I should probably not even bother. This is the second time I've been accused of samefagging for telling him to stop it. Even responding to you right now is just gonna stir shit up. C'est la vie.

Your shitty avatarfagging reaction images are also a solid tell-tale.

Who do you think we're talking about right now?

>Anyone who uses a reaction image is this person I dislike.
>This person is also Bones.

Please tell me that is a joke.

>when user just said they'd shut their stupid mouth.
They did? where?
Because if so, yeah, it's a bad idea to pick the wound back open. You never huck a rock at someone while they're walking away just to get-the-last-word. that's a douche move and a great way to piss off Pesto.

Put your name back on or calm your ass down.

Right up in here And then user/Coldfusion/WhoEvenFuckingCares started it up again. And I told him to not. And now I am Bones the Samefag as decreed by So maybe I should take my own advice and shut my mouth, because I'm giving that user paranoia.

/hyw/ was a mistake. Let this be the last.

Well I mean, Miss Melee left so...

Any good sites detailing the ins-outs of how to format text on comics?

"i'm not still asking" only referred to the single issue of the question of whether it was resized. Not shutting the aforementioned stupid mouth entirely. Which is why it kept going in subsequent posts, talking about hostility. Which is what I replied to. This is just a normal conversation right now, these threads have had much, much worse drama. If anyone's making it drama right now it's you.
But you've said you'll shut up, which means now I should.

you mean like kerning and stuff? spacing, centering? that sort of thing?

>you mean like kerning and stuff? spacing, centering? that sort of thing?
Exactly this.

I'm thinking of making a fancomic before making my own original webcomics for practice. Admittedly I've got a lot of stuff drawn/written down already but I think it would help if I get a feel for it first if I worked on a fan work before diving right into my own stuff.

that's a great idea
I haven't perused the links in the OP yet, but I'm pretty sure there's something in there for it.
We've also had a few amateurs in here with bad text formatting, and people have helpfully (sometimes passive-aggressively) posted helpful diagrams and images (some a bit pedantic) for how to fix your text in photoshop at least... so I don't have access to those but someone else here probably does?

Like this?

I don't quite get why number 2 looks better.

Do you just want the balloons not to be that wide generally, and go for more of a circular shape?

You have to take any expert advice with a heaping spoonful of salt. A lot of it is "just because"
The parts that are geometrically aesthetically pleasing are legit, and in general it is kind of lame when the end of a word balloon has two two-word lines like that, but it's vastly preferable to that center-aligned circle. I say balloons should always be as wide as possible, even a single row if you can manage it. Because that's how text appears in things we use to display text, be it a website, a closed captioning bar on tv, a word processing program, a video game, or even how we write on paper

While it is true people improve at different rates you can move much faster if you devote time to drawing from life daily.

Oh god no don't listen to this hack Wide as fuck baloons are more obstructive to the art, simple as that. The more perfect the circle, the less obstructive. It's not "just because" at all.
Making wide balloons because video games do? Jesus fucking wept. I hope this guy is trolling

words are rectangles. letters are rectangles. word balloons should logically be rectangles.

But rectangles have larger areas than circles for the most part. The more distance on the X axis the words create, the more obstructive they become. It's simple mathematics.
Also narration boxes are rectangles. It's how we distinct them from word bubbles.

>But rectangles have larger areas than circles for the most part
This was poorly explained, sorry a rectangle trying to fit the same amount of text as a circle that "looks good" (words centered etc) has a larger area.

it's true, a circle is the most area-efficient shape possible for given dimensions
however, fitting rectangular things inside of circles is always going to waste more space. Plus, if you have multiple word bubbles to put together, the more rectangular they are the more they fit together.
I'm not suggesting actually giving them pointy corners, yeah that is definitely for narration (due more to convention than any intrinsic reason). Dialogue ones should have nice round corners. If they're a single row, they'll come out like capsules

Rectangles can work, but they've been traditionally associated with electronic noises/speech so that might be off putting to readers. Rectangles with rounded edges usually look pretty good, though.

One thing i never see, but would love to see more, is 'pillow' shapes. a rectangle made of outwardly-bending arced lines, meeting at the corners.

I'm the user you're actually replying to and yeah, something like this is basically what I was looking for, so thank you.

But letters aren't rectangular, all vowels are circular and several consonants are too. Words inherently are yes, but blocks of text are any shape you'd like. Circumscribing is still the most space efficient way to put one shape entirely outside another if I'm not mistaken, and text blocks in bubbles usually are square shaped (which is technically a rectangle but different from a space efficiency perspective.)
Rectangles take up more space. Comics are a visual medium.

>letters aren't rectangular
we're taught to make them that way. To leave them spacing as if they were. and certainly typed text always essentially is. Heh, remember old computers and how they actually blinked a rectangle around the letter as you typed? Those were the days.
>blocks of text are any shape you'd like.
If you like, but I'm with in saying that the "right" example of 02 in that list looks bad compared to the "wrong" one. I'm used to reading text as written out in a text document, a letter, or a book. Having to stop every two or three words to move to the next line is really distracting and ruins the flow.
And let's face it, comic panels are almost always square, so fitting a circle inside it intrinsically wastes more space than a rectangle. (with rounded corners, as mentioned earlier)

>comic panels are almost always square
Lol what? They're mostly rectangular. But inscription still just has less area. Less area has less visual obstruction. The only measure of wasting space is area vs area

you know I meant square as opposed to circular, not square as opposed to rectangular. don't be intentionally obtuse.
That said, they ARE usually pretty close to square. maybe 3:4 at the most off
The point is, the area around a circle inside a square is pretty useless. If space is at a premium in your comic, it doesn't feel like you've left yourself a lot of space if it's just sitting around the edges of the balloon doing nothing.

I don't blame people like Scott Adams for just making the text something that appears overhead as if narration, or people like Bil Keane for just putting it at the bottom (though that is basically just giving up)

It would be disingenuous of me to acknowledge a flaw and not work on it. On the other hand, I still priorize getting the strips done, so I have to admit it'll take longer. Which is what implies. That doing regular practices is what helps improve faster and better, but I still want to focus on making comics, because that's what makes me happy, and I'm aware I have no saying when someone criticises me for making that choice.
I can only promise it'll get better.

I slept over ten hours today, I feel I lost a day of my life. I woke up and had to haul ass to the office, I wanted to colour the WIP I made earlier.

messy etchings and general ideas. Hopefully this will look a lot better after I blow it up, and do some clean lines.

Instead of the standard stitching for a Frankenstein monster, I need a way for her to detach and reattach her arms because it would make sense that the character who built her would want that. I want to try and design the sockets so at a distance they appear to be the welt for a pair of stockings; The character was - after all - created to be a part of a dancing troupe.

Yeah, making comics is the best way to get good at making comics. The fact that you enjoying doing it makes it even better. If you want to learn to play the piano you don't go out and learn to play guitar.

Since 2000 Widescreen and manga style paneling has become a lot more prevalent which uses large rectangular panels.
Yea of course if you're already WORDSWORDSWORDS you're fucked, but circles are easier to plot. Some artists, (Simon Hanslemann, Dave Sim) plot their speech bubbles before they even draw a figure.
I do blame them, it's a bad way to read, that's something that actually interrupts pacing unlike the lettering be a little different than a prose book. Bitching about not being able to adjust from prose to the way things are lettered in comics is such fucking bullshit. Poetry has nonstandard lettering, advertising has nonstandard lettering, and no one gives a shit.

great anatomy. nice to see you can draw cylinders.
What's your comic again?
what's a welt? wait, are those things you drew supposed to be the sockets?
shoulders are almost ball joints, but are really just a pair of ~120 degree hinges arranged perpendicularly. For ease of drawing and if you aren't really concerned with showing the hookups realistically (like if her arms can move on their own Thing style), then I would just draw a solid demarcating line around the shoulder, and when it pops off, have a ball-ish knob poking out of it (or a hollow hole with a knob poking out of the torso where it used to be)

oh wait, now I get what you're saying. Instead of detaching at the shoulder, you want them to detach a third of the way down the humerus, with a little tooth-and-gear thing, so it looks like the top of stockings. Yeah that would work great. it'd leave her with some stubs she could still shrug with. You could even make that a little visual gag.

I dunno if the analogy applies. Learning to draw from real life would definitely improve anyone, regardless they do comics, animation, or whatnot.
I just decided to make it a side activity, while I do the stuff I want.

> nice to see you can draw cylinders

Kinda, if I can manage to steady my hands. Hopefully inktober will help me in that regard.

>What's your comic again?

It's called Deadland. It's a western mixed with generic fantasy that takes place in a terrible desert full of supernatural beings that never age.

If you're interested I can post a more detailed synopsis, but that's the general idea.

>You could even make that a little visual gag.

Already did. She's the type of character that needs the ability to shrug at all times.

>what's a welt?

I'm going to make a bad fanart of you green text user

Ha, we're on the same page then. Jawesome.
Well I don't recall seeing you around here except maybe one single post, but I'm loving what I see so far, so.. please stick around.

>sarcastic joke about low art quality and these being the correct tools for some people here to use
i mean bump

Wait. What? MM left hyw? Why?

Because you're all fucking faggots. That's why.

who the hell is Miss Melee?

Finished a page. Rip me apart.

I don't know shit about comics, but as somebody who doesn't know shit about comics.

I think it's too small.

At least it looks too squished together. Maybe it's the word bubbles, like the art should be larger and the word bubbles a bit smaller.

as someone who enjoys this one, gotta agree. Also you're not the first person to bring it up. It's cramped, but that's a common feature of amateur comics who seem to just want to get out as much dialogue as quickly as possible.. as if they wish they could make a cartoon instead. Of course some of the "classic old internet amateur comics" feel is one of the things I like about this comic, and the art has improved a lot. The question is, how would one go about cramming fewer panels in, allowing for bigger panels, which in turn allows for more zooming out and thus a greater variety of panel layouts?

I did all the layouts for every page of this chapter at once, which was months and months ago. At the time I felt like the crampier panels were a good choice and you guys are spot on about why. I kind of treat my panels like they're storyboards.

I was GONNA say that I'll work on it when I get to sketching out the next chapter but I just looked at the next page's sketch and it looks like this. These word bubbles will kick my ass if I don't space them out.

Funny thing is, they seem to look better before all the coloring goes in. Possibly because of how much of this comic is in a really dark area.. though that makes the titular glowing wings really pop, so I can't fault the choice.

Hold that thought, I had a page 18B here and it looks like I already did some fixing.

The progression of WORDS is going down but I should keep spacing it.

The big problem is that I have trouble actually noticing your art while I'm reading because of how the word bubbles are placed. It just kind of goes, and it's all occupying the upper third of the panels. So yeah, bigger art, and give them word bubbles some breathing room.

Up until the last 2 or 3 years I haven't done a lot of coloring, and a lot of my digital coloring tricks come from making sparkledogs, so I'm unlearning some things.

Honestly, I don't mind a wordy comic too much, but your panels also tend to be zoomed in very closely, probably so the expressions of the characters stay readable? Plus you have a large group of characters in the same scene, so that adds to everything feeling cramped.
I mean, I guess you have to show that everyone is still around, but all these different things just add up to making your scenes feel like they're taking place in a closet or something and the camera man is with his back to the wall already.

Maybe just vary up your shots more in general, have some more extreme close-ups for impact, have some zoomed out panels that show a characters mood through strong body language, that sort of stuff.

>sparkledogs
not even a little surprised. But it's neat seeing you improve, and I'm glad you didn't throw your roots totally out the window. There's good juice in them roots! art juice!

I think you're doing a good job. Though there are a few grammar/spelling issues. Maybe get a friend to help you out with that.

>muh space battles suited to static 2x2 squares
Well well well, look who decided to not stagnate

They coincidentally stopped posting their updates here right after a long post explaining how their own writing kind of fucked them over. Between that, that one review for the Webcomic Police, and the fact that fewer people were talking about how Miss Melee is the best comic in the thread...

So it's confirmed? Who else have we lost recently?

You think MM would be so petty that he'd leave the thread because of what people said of his work? Pfft

Hey, people being rude is the only reason I can think of. They used to post pretty much every update here. It's been about a month, now.

Maybe the picture of maude would be better at the bottom of that first panel.

So in the first panel the eye would go down in a straight line from the shouted 'maude' to the inset of maude, then back up to the quieter 'maude', then back down to ground of the third panel.

Instead it does an S shape, know what I mean.

Tight comic, good writing too.

You have a sense of humor.

And that's pretty much all you need

EVUL BEERDS ERREWEAR!!!

Probably. Is there a problem with that?

Dude, first time seeing you here. How have you been? I'm Gerard from the old meetings with Gaby and Kei on Kunai

name your top 3 HYW comics, no particular order

Now I'm intrigued.

What was the long post about and what do you mean "their own writing fucked them over"?

Also I wonder if they thought they were too good for /hyw/ and didn't want to waste time with us noobs or if /hyw/ -comments just gave them cancer because let's face it -- we tend to be assholes sometimes.

Nah, don't ride the drama train. I dunno what they meant with that comment of them fucking themselves, but is they don't come around anymore because they think they're too good for the thread or because they can't handle shitposters, that would mean they were lousy, petty people, and I refuse to believe that.

Welp, managed to finish another one. CF, I'll send you the one without the censoring directly to you. Using imgur with my phone is a pain.
Funny stuff: In the original plan, everyone was gonna end naked, including Selena, but I thought censoring all that would be a pain, so I scraped the idea.

Actually what's the general perception on the use of upper/lower case when it comes to the text?

It was a long explanation about how Mark's lack of established personality creates a Catch-22 with him knowing/not knowing his wife is a superhero.

But like EF said, there's no point making a big deal about it.

Probably should have made the head bigger/closer, because it looks like the balloon is indicating the arm as the speaker.

Oh, true that. Welp, nothing that can't be fixed somewhat. Thank you!

needs more line width variance
sorry I'm too sleepy to think of a way to phrase that that doesn't sound rude

Like, line weight? I'm terrible at judging where to, but I have come empty handed when looking for any explanation that helps me understand how to properly evaluate it.
I used to evaluate thru distance, but I've been told it didn't work well, to be so orthodox about it.

You, however, seem stuck in a rut.

Are you going to cry?

Why don't you show Nunc your comic? Put him in his place with your superior comic.

Over you continuing to make a fool of yourself? Nah.

Not him but I think most artists use a combination of several factors to determine line weight:
- distance
- light source (thicker lines in shadowy areas)
- major shapes vs interior details (thicker lines for big shapes, thin lines for small detail)
- contrast (two thick lines meeting doesn't look very good, it's better to have both be at least slightly different widths)

Of course, it's a bit more complicated in practice because a single line can start of very thick and taper to a fine point, or two of the rules above stand in opposition to each other, but those are the basics, as far as I know them.
Everything else is just practice. After a while you'll start to develop an eye for what works and what doesn't.

they just had guest page for that quinn comic
it really just seems like they outgrew this thread

and can you really blame them for leaving?

Please don't antagonize him. I get it, I really do, but just don't.

Gera!!! Como andai chei?
Yo acá ,renegando de la vida pero adorando mis dolores

CHOCHIIIIIIIIIII

WHERE'S MY PORN

literally been throwing money at the screen for over a year and nothing happens

>I get it, I really do,
I'm new here, why is this?

No, you shut up too.
I'm invoking empathy here so they'll cram it.

He doesn't take criticism the /hyw/-prescribed way. How dare he defend his artistic and narrative decisions!

does dewd still post?

Todo bien. Tratando de aprender un poco mas del arte y tratando de remontar un comic. No tengo DA ahora, así que no sé si andas en ese círculo o estás publicando en otro lugar. Yo estoy ahora en earthfield.tumblr.com

I don't think I buy that, but I see where you come from. I just hope you're wrong.
On the other hand, to each their own, I guess.

>criticism

You misspelled memes.

Oh shut the fuck up.
If you're gonna just bitch and try to start drama then go.

It's a real bitch, but a good trick is to determine a minimum width you feel your style allows for certain elements.

come on lets be honest
would you really stay here if you didn't have to?

look at all this shit and hardly any comics
its just memes and shitposting now

>Complains about shitposting and drama.
>Directly contributes to it.

You do this on purpose, you cunt.

I understand the frustration. Lots of semi-literate children who are more interested in seeking attention than webcomics, either other peoples, or their own, and some of them don't even have one.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Just work on your webcomic. Try hard. Post your page when you finish. That's all it takes to improve these threads. If other people aren't going to take it seriously, you don't have to either. It was never a good place for cosistent, quality feedback, or for promotion. It's just another thread on Cred Forums.

adding a bag of trash on a trash heap
not like it matters this place has become toxic

Well, I'm here to improve, so granted, I'll be here for a while, but people make it see like they left because this thread is a cesspool, which I don't agree, that's all.

I'm using regular markers 01, 03 & 05 so for the most part. Their thickness is consistent.
I'll keep the light variable in mind. For the most part, my coloring is fully improvised, but once the color is done, I can see of thickening the line digitally.
Thanks for the feedback, it's really helpful.

No problem, I just wish it was easier to get talking about technical aspects like this

You could give inking with a fude pen a try - they allow for more dynamic line widths but aren't as difficult to control as a brush or a brushpen with bristles.

>someone stands up for themselves when the troglodytes of /hyw/ troll and bully them
>y-you're starting drama!

How does they handle xerox paper? I'm using that for my comics because they're cheaper, but they don't handle wet ink very well.

>people give advice and their opinions in a thread asking for advice/opinions
>stop trolling be nice ;_;

Good question - that probably depends on the brand/product? The ones I have (pic related, tombow fudenosuke) are rather dry and remind me of fineliners except with more flexible tips, that's why I brought them up. They handle perfectly fine on cheap paper, I actually use them for writing notes as well.
Might be a different story with a different fude pen, though.

This guy gets it.

I've argued for mean crits being just as useful as polite crits, but there's a point where people are repeating the same thing someone else said because they think it's clever. That's not a critique.

I've become wary of posting because I get the same fucking comment about character design. That if I change it would change NOTHING else about my story, the quality of the art, or the crafting of the comic overall. Only that Anons decide to post the same thing every time.

Which wouldn't be bad if that wasn't all I got and it didn't start a cascade of people repeating or asking what the comment was about every single time.

I've ended up posting pages with Major errors that I had to hastily fix after it posted because people were too busy back slapping over their jokes to notice actual flaws in the narrative or art. If catching those kinds of things is not what the thread is for, what is?

Memes were a mistake. Let this thread be the last.

Well it's just funny is all, he's like "if we take this path, it'll be hard, but if we take this longer path, it'll take 3 days" and kevin's like ohnoes but even the harder path would be almost as long, so that's sort of irrelevant

Actually, now that I think about it, the pentel pocket brush works great on printer paper as well (that one has bristles though and is more tricky to use), so maybe all brush and fude pens are fine on cheap paper? Though the pocket brush is known to be a bit on the dry side.
Generally, the paper shouldn't get so wet that it wrinkles from the ink either way, but bleeding might be an issue with some products that have a very rapid inkflow.

So, at what point does bad art become "stylized?" How much better would the art on these need to be in order to be considered serviceable?

And yeah, practice, whatever. The thing is I do this for fun? So it's not really something I'm willing to invest much time in. I have a job that takes up most of my time.

That said, I have been thinking about putting them up online somewhere. (This is the first one I did, that's why the art is noticeably shittier. Also I can't draw side profiles for shit.)

Would you guys read these if they were updated weekly on a website?

I'm not really to happy with this one. The joke is too simple.

Shit, meant to write that for this one. I'm happy with the news reporter one.

The way Kevin's mind works, he'd even complain if he had to walk for 5 minutes. The "harder path" will become important later, because they'll end up taking both paths anyway. For Falk, it's not about how fast they can be there, he just tries to avoid angry elves.

Kevin also doesn't have a map, so he has no clue how long which path would take.

Does this one even have a joke?

This is by far one of the laziest things I've ever done, but I'm happy with the caption. I need to redraw it.

Here's the last one for now. I promise I won't keep spamming these. Thoughts, advice?

jawesome in the extreme.
Are you going to put the uncensored ones up somewhere? You shouuuuld. but if you don't maybe that'll be my excuse to put them on my site. I was already going to link them.

it's never a good idea, I've found, to point out when someone makes a change, especially if it's a change they resisted earlier. Even if you think you're just patting them on the back and confirming it, reinforcing the lesson, you're probably just embarrassing them

Very Brad Neely. I get some chuckles for sure.

That's the funny thing. I've never been resistant to breaking the 2 x 2 grid format when the page called for it. I'd think anybody who reads my comic would know that by now. He's only embarrassing himself. I've only just given him the rope to hang himself with.

indeed.
just try to be the bigger man without resorting to the same snideness. even if you've earned it.

It's coming!It 's comming!...

Groso lo tuyo. No empèzaste ningun proyecto aparte lo que tenes ahi?
Mi DA es chochi.deviantart.com ,pegate una vuelta.

So what's the status on Beatrice? I drew you lewd fanart once upon a time, but you may have missed it. I'd like to draw more someday, but It's kinda like Prequel. I don't know if I want to put a lot of effort into fanart if the actual creator isn't doing much.

Here's my latest page. It's another rather talky one, but hopefully with a bit more visual interest than my last talky page.

hey everyone, some of you are probably familiar with my Cred Forumsventure comics, im the conrad drawfag.
thing is i finally decided to try and have my own webcomic again (i tried back in 2013, it didnt went very far).
the comic is about three friends and their wacky adventures, is open enough that i can have them do anything i want and any joke i can come up with.

this is the page, im using the same layout of JL8
disregarding-reality.tumblr.com/

ill be posting 4 strips that are still not on the page so you can have an idea of what the comic is about, please tell me any criticism, specially about the page layout (and if at all possible a way to fix them)

1/4

2/4

3/4

4/4

No, tengo un proyecto en camino, pero no quiero saturarme y terminar colgando todo =/

One more page done! I'll update the main site later.

Thanks, he's definitely a major inspiration.

Okay, that got a laugh out of me.

Seems competent, if average and boring. If I ran across it out in the wild, I wouldn't go bother looking for a source.

really good stuff. Best comedy strip I've seen here so far.

>"Memes are bad and ruined this thread for me."
>Ends post with a meme.
Way to invalidate your own point.

>He's only embarrassing himself.
The only user that brought that up in this thread is trolling you. The whole point is to make you respond and get upset. They can't get embarrassed about whether they're right or wrong because they don't care, they're just trying to bait you into responding.

>he's only pretending to be retarded

Back in my day, trolling meant something.

There's some good stuff here.

Panel 3's action could be clearer and more exaggerated, like 2 and 4. Have her pulling her bloated intestines out in a big old YANK and fill up that right hand side of the panel. At the moment the action is too passive and is disappearing off the bottom.

Panel 5, spelling: "... where you didn't fuck things up?"

Panel 1, spelling: "it's like the artist"

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Re-posting page from last thread, do the sunrays look okay, that's what really worries me?

Oh man, I love the character design in this; very old-school. Nice neat lettering too.

The main problem is that things are a bit too crammed. The speech bubbles and characters seem to take a bit too much of the space in the page and there isn't much space to breathe (mind you, I often have the same problem too)
The MAIN problem I'd say is that you abuse the same "chest-up" shot panel after panel, and IIRC you don't often use the full figure of characters (unless I'm misremembering), this makes individual pages duller than they should be

Point is, don't respond to obvious bait. You aren't going to embarrass them, you're just going to validate then.

ok, ill work on the typos, thanks man

user, trolling means to trick somebody else into getting upset, angry, or saying something really stupid.

Pretending to be retarded isn't trolling, because it's just you saying stupid shit. And when you do it, you're embarrassing yourself, whether you have the self-awareness to realize it or not.

I see what you're doing, but I'm not falling for it. Take your (You), because I refuse to compromise my own advice to point out the obvious

In today's comic, the gang find out who's behind the fake meteors, but it gives Liz a sense of grave danger.

zyxcity.tumblr.com/

You bet buddy!

What should one do if one's work is generally best suited for 'underground'-ness or rather, one's work is known to be too samey/indulgent yet yonu have a burning passion to produce it anyway?

It keeps feeling like I either don't feel right showing/collabing with others or that I scare everyone away. I'm also not really into being typecast via content ratings, my stuff looks like a children's/all ages style but often behaves like a lot more intense stuff.

I immediately love this
aaand now i'm not sure
nope, i'm sure. i love this. yes I have absolutely wished I could do that.

Looks like the plot's about to get juicy. Can't wait for tomorrow.

Man, that yellow-headed guy is really sweaty. The girl's pretty cute though, what's her name?

>first page is "it's been three years, what's going on in this comic!?"
i am confuse

the only panel in which the sun rays dont look perfect is 4. I'm not sure what about them should be different

haha, awesome. did my commentary help write this one or were we just thinking the same way?
make friends with others in the same boat

The yellow guy is Ben "Battle Face" Fatone, and the girl is Tuler Dula.

They're friends who work at the local park.

Heh, yeah, it's a little shout-out.

Yep, she's a cute.

A CUTE!

That's what makes our little community feel worthwhile, man.

Thank you! Costuming my characters interestingly (even the background ones) is important to me. I'm an oldfag; I learned character design from reading Dave Cockrum comics. ^.^

i definitely see the cockrum influence

I don't know why, but something about this comic feels fresh. I want to see more of this.

porn when?

as i said i tried to make this comic back in 2013 but i got boored after 33 strips

disregardingreality.smackjeeves.com/comics/1690688/cover/
if you're curious im alluding to the first arc of the comic that basically worked as a set up for the story, im bothered that this kind of shit is still relevant
1/4

2/4
originally both characters were supposed to be based on the archetypical "fat neckbeard" and "ugly feminazi" but i decided to streamline their designs and do away with that characterization otherwise the jokes would have gone stale fast

I don't wanna do it, these characters are own creation, it'd feel weird.

Y'all can do it yourselves if ya want though, I ain't gonna judge.

also we can see the origins of emil who was not originally intended to be a part of the comic but i decided i liked more the dynamic between three characters than two
3/4

and there we go
4/4
id like to know if the intro for the new comic works as its own thing without knowing abot this previous installment

Man, this fucking series came out of nowhere and now I'm all excited to see what's next.

Why'd you do this to me?

Just made this one.

Let's just put it this way, it works better having these. If you were going to start over, I'd start with these four at the beginning.
I actually kinda wanna go read the entire original 33 but if you think they aren't important then I'll save my time, i'm already binging everything by View right now, and it's kicking my ass

>not a single hint of of a nipple
Come on man.

ok, for now ill concentrate on making new comics, im just triying to get into the rythm of making a wecomic.
as soon as i can do this on more serious capacity ill get on that

Hmh, I actually thought those looked fine; I'll see what I can do. Though it's good to know they look good for the most part.

Ha, I'm the same when it comes to char design; which is often makes me think it's always a shame so many of my characters I spend time designing appear for two-three pages. My biggest personal influence was Jeff Smith (Bone)

Well, December's Comic Con (yeah,we're greedy and extra nerdy so we have TWO of them each year) is right around the corner down here,so I'll have to get the first chapter finished before the end of october so I can print it and sell it there...so there you have it ,a rushed and by all means forced schedule of sorts :)

Now talking seriously,updates restart next monday.

Las cuentas primero,man :V

Also, god damn, horses are hard.

trace a photo nigga damn

Good luck with your comic con deadline.

I, for one, look forward to the return of Miss Froggy McPoutlips.

>Another person getting ready for a December con.
Neat.

i didnt know those existed.
fuckin good idea seeing as costumes are hot, nerds are frequently overheated, and there's lots crammed into one place. let that cold air inside, man

I tried. ;_;

cmon make your own bump image

the most disgusting thing about this one is the leg hair

eyy fuck you. better too much than too little.

well be thankful i didnt give her a bigger bush

bug-quest.tumblr.com/post/151076009430/youre-right-this-is-a-miraculous-thing-its

I guess this'll be the end of me shamelessly reusing panels and giving exposition via answering asks for now.

also this

bimp

That was the point. Even if I hate them they're not going away.

These threads were a mistake. Let this one be the final one

Haven't updated in a year. Let me know if I should start again or just leave it.

bear-honey.smackjeeves.com/

now that's a girl you take home to mama

oh. trapped again.

i like this so far! and it looks pretty low-effort, so I say keep it up!

i love you will you notice me sempai

I just found these markers are rather affordable, for my third world shitty economy, but we don't have many retailers with it. I'll give them a try.
Thanks for the feedback. I can't stress enough how much it helps.

I'm not very good at making dresses.

Those ballerina shoes didn't last long in the desert.

looks like a good dress to me. and i love the relief on that thing on her head

i've been debating putting this here for a while now so i'm just gonna do it.

relativelypainless.com/comic/1

Guys I have a story idea but there's a dilemma.

It's the kind of story with a situation that normally would include a lot of The Black People. I'm worried that if I don't include The Black People, it'll be seen as racist because of racial erasure. But I'm afraid that if I do include The Black people, that'll be doubly racist, because it could be seen as stereotyping and cultural appropriation.

What should I do?

Signed, a The White Person.

What's the story?

Why would it be stereotyping and cultural appropiation in the first place?

just draw anthros, ez

> a situation that normally would include a lot of The Black People.

Oh boy, what kind of situation?

You're probably overthinking things.

Similar dilemma, but I'm a chink, it's cool for me right?

turn them into aliens or magic ppl, no blacks, blacks are too few, no money, whites will savage you if you out of line.. and you don't know where is the line...

>What should I do?
you should suck my ballllllls

take pleasure in all inadvertent offense you cause, they deserve it and they're doing it to themselves. only repent for INTENTIONAL offense
anyone who tries to tell you that's an ignorance-is-an-excuse argument is basically advocating the creation of unnecessary additional pain by way of intentionally increasing sensitivity

It's uh...Well, it's about jail
It's partially influenced by my personal experience doing 3 months for possession.

spaced that layout down even further.

black people arent offended by being depicted as being in jail
it's not like they put themselves there. (i mean they did, but you know what i mean)

SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIT

Just make it space jail dawg

>what should I do

fuck off back to Cred Forums

yeah maybe this is for the best.
and when it's allowed to breathe, this art really shows its stuff

I mean it'd probably be weird if everybody was white.

I say just roll the dice on the races of your characters and go with it. Shit doesn't matter anyway

>show reality of jail including blacks based on personal experience
>get accused of racism
kek

nigga grow some balls, The Wire is created by a white dude.

This

it does in prison. criminals are like the most racist folk around. even outside of priz, gangs are segregated as hell
ignoring the huge number of black folk in jail would be an insult to the people trying to point that out and ask people to ask why.. ALL the people. and all the reasons they're hoping you'll think of.

>GAY
too far, too far

GAYLIENS

ridiculous!

...

If it's based on personal experience, you should probably just be true to what really happened, and how it was really like.

>an alien race that can only reproduce in prison and so commits crimes at mating season
it's brilliant!

i need source on this

just so we're all on the same page it is important to remember that today will forever be known as national gay furry alien wizards go to prison day

it's a real movie dude. basically a parody of blaxploitation movies about gay aliens that want to kill all the women on earth so the men can enjoy gayness
the title is a lot less random when you remember that Plan 9 was originally 'gravediggers from outer space'

google it nigga, it's only ~30 minutes long and made by euros

have you seen anything from that new FX show "Atlanta" That show does a good job portraying black people in stereotypical situations while making sure to actually make them characters, rather than just stereotypes.

tfw no thread

Any post-apocalyptic titles dealing with Y2K?

I wanna do one about a pair of new-millennium kids wandering a lack-of-electronics-induced wasteland kinda like Tank Girl/Mad Max mixed with 90's pop-culture references like Surge soda and Bill Clinton as dictator.

Do it, we need more comics here

Okay fuck you i want to read this

Finally got the lineart done, sans cleanup.

I remember way back when you were workshopping this conversation in the thread. I'm so glad it worked out so naturalistically

>Positive reception (so far)

Aw fuck, I really do need to flesh out my story.

Basically, there will be three parts, each with various chapters:

1. Adam and Eva (Names changed) watching the ball fall in New York on Dec. 31st, 1999. Ball stops at 2 seconds, grids across the U.S. go down.

1-2. The two are home alone (drinking Zeima beer!) and are rounded up by the National Guard and escorted to nearby NYC. (They live in Rochester)

1-3. Society falls more and more every day, and Bill Clinton, now a dictator, runs a lottery to see how goes out into the American wasteland to connect with other cities.

1-3. Adam volunteers and takes off alone to go to Cali, establishing connections along the way.

2 and 3 are rough atm, but there will be rogue roadkill collectors and all female cults and such, and final battle in Sheet Metal City (formerly NYC) with three special endings that are secret.

sounds good, time to get started on designs

Wait, I thought our protagonists would be kids?
I liked the premisse, but here is my 2 cents about these details:
Terrible names. Also how is Bill Clinton communicating with the national guard in NY? Clinton gets too crazy too fast, and he also still hold too much control over the people. If you need to have the government rounding up people the people in New York, have mayor Bloomberg do it.

But speaking about NY, the story starts in New York and ends in New York? I guess it can work as a before and after thing, but wouldn't it be better if the story started in more rural US, where people would be less affected by y2k, walking all the way up to New York, where our protagonists would find pandemonium?
Also, at the start of an apocalyptic story it's best to break down the different reactions of people slowly, so it's best to have our protagonists isolated from most of the world at first, they are finding out what is happening at the same time as we are. See The Walking Dead, Y the last man.

To be quite frank, when I read the premise I didn't think we would get to see the moment shit hit the fan, I thought we would be droped on an already fucked up world. Also we would only discover Bill Clinton is the dictator way later in the story, since, you know, who knows what is happening in Washington DC while people are just trying to live by in this new world.

I'd still like to read this comic thought.

Another day, another good read after work.

>tfw can't draw

>tfw spend a disproportionate amount of time on the writing and keep procrastinating on the drawing

You designed such cool connections for where her arms detach, wouldn't it be better to show them off, not have them half covered by part of the dress?
Other than that, the corset sits a bit low. Not sure where corsets usually start tbqh, but design-wise I think it would look better for it to sit higher - right now her torso looks strangly elongated compared to her arms because of where it starts and ends.

I love the combination with the boots though, it's great because it looks alternative and suits the character, but also makes sense within the setting.

Dude you need to draw lines of action if you want to draw fast move

something like this

Why did you turn original design into generic one?

Is this a parody of tumblr feminists?

You are looking at them in reverse order

Third panel is completely unnecessary

Fixed

Also why even the last panel, now it's fixed

I should read this from the start. Good dialogue and "acting", so to say.

Sounds kind of retarded. It reminds me of that one failed prime time sci-fi series and also the Hunger Games with a touch of Judge Dredd and probably another book or two.

Everybody rips off stuff but it shouldn't be that obvious.

words words words words buckley words words

>You designed such cool connections for where her arms detach, wouldn't it be better to show them off, not have them half covered by part of the dress?

True, I'll change that top part completely, have it blend better with the corset

>this is just the end of the volume?
Each volume is a printed collection, so I figured this would be a nice place to end Vol 4. There's never been any real continuity, and the stories kind of flit around the timelines. While the strips on the web are the chronological production order, I shuffle things around for the printed collections, depending on what I want to start and end with, and where I want page turn reveals, etc.

This leaves things open for if I want to continue doing more of the same for Volume 5, or try something completely different, like a single issue long form story.

>start a new project
>only two pages in
>one of your all time favorite artists swings by to by a huge compliment to your character design

upwards and onwards

>two or three sentences per panel

Wow, it must be such a struggle for you.

Looks exactly like most of the old furries I know of. Probably all influenced by the same people/each other.

The fonts on this page is terrible, but it seems better on the new one so I guess you figure it out.

For me it's no so much that there's too many words but that their penmanship is so large and somewhat unstable that it takes over the page.

The last panel the characters are practically buried in the balloons.

This

Never use pencil to write words in speech baloons always use computer for this

"Never" is too strong a word, especially at the pencilling/roughs stage. But if you're going to hand letter you need to be sure your writing is neat and appropriately sized and spaced.

I agree with , in that the lettering in could be a little smaller and more compact, so as to not take up too much space and overpower the images, as in the last panel.

Eisner is rolling in his grave at this post

Yeah, it's getting a little embarrassing at this point. I really don't like the look of digital lettering, especially with pencils, so I finally sprung for an Ames lettering guide. Thanks for the critiques!

Also you could write the words on another page and edit them in later so you can edit their size accordingly.

New page.

The thing that makes the page work is that they're interacting. They actually converse with each other and emote, doing things and just...being people instead of barfing out progress for the story.

The lettering is a bit overpowering, but a lot of us can learn from this page. Too many of our comics, too many comics in general, have lame talking heads and characters without agency and stiff dialogue.

Thank you! If you need a link:
lidocomic.tumblr.com

One more of these done!

If you worry about not including something because you-re afraid people MIGHT be offended, you-re work will just stay in that "safe" area where it might still be good but not quite as memorable. Portraying things as you see them isn't the same as going out of your way to offend someone.

Given this is the context
just throw in some white dindus in there as well.

In today's comic, Mr. Xancton puts some insight on the Elastians, and Remy learns are dark secret.

zyxcity.tumblr.com/

then it turns out clinton was a computer all along!
a manputer who was really being operated by a fembot!

yeah seriously. i like the old one better but it's definitely more generic.
i remember EF's art taking a weird turn and becoming a lot wobblier after being so confident and nice-looking, some years back, but it has really pulled out of that now and it looks more unique for the experience.
oh okay! In that case, that's perfect

Man that's dark. I feel sorry for the guy.

that explains why he's naked instead of decked out in spiky black armor. "Dress for the job you want" they say.
follow your dreams, demon lord guy
EEEeeee

Oh shit, so Remy is an elastian. I wonder what's gonna happen if the others find out.

>I'm sorry I just gotta ask again.. this was the WHITE man?

The only one who knows Remy is an Elastian is Liz, and the only reason they know each other is because of something that happened during the Great War of 2098 with Remy's dad.

I'll elaborate more in the near future.

This story's running deeper with each page, keep it up Rin!

pudding bump

Name one good reason to start a web comic

Free will?

You have free will to do anything, why web comics?

it'd be kind of stupid to do a webcomic and not start it. it might not seem like the most important part but you'd be surprised what kinda troubles cam come up in a comic if you don't start it.

I can't speak for everyone, but personally, I simply enjoy storytelling, and at this moment, webcomics is the best platform I have to do so. I tried zines, I've got to publish in a local magazine too, but webcomics give me the freedom to decide for much to tell and how I do it.
When I find a more convenient platform, you bet I'll be moving there

You have free will to do anything, why shitpost?

I'm lonely

Aren't we all?

you catch more friends with honeyposting

I started doing it because I had a story that I really wanted to tell.

Fringe benefits include thousands of page views per update, fanart, and the respect of the artists I've always looked up to.

New WIP ready to be colored!

Practice. You're not going to get anywhere if you can't make pages in a timely manner.

Because you can.
Because you must.

you need to make a "laughing bitches" image with these two

yeah posting on Cred Forums, what could possibly go wrong?

i know it eat sup a lot of my time. but as i've gotten slower, i've also gotten better. more careful, more planned.

yeah im in class

...

Showed this to my GF. She laughed so hard. So I take it. It's good.

these done by pen then scanned or?

aboop

I've been asked by a friend who likes one of my characters almost two years ago the same.
She wanted to use them on facebook or something, and never got back to her with it.
I find funny the pic you're posting is one of the pics she wanted as well.

Welp, I went and did it. I'll colour it once I'm back home, I guess. Though I'm not sure if I should try to do the eyes again, similar to the original. They seemed too squinty for me, so I did my own thing.

awesome! I love shit like this. I used to think about doing it myself

wat????

what part of that givin' ya trouble?

This is some good shit.

Keep it up.

Terrific, my dude.

doubt anyone remembers it, but I posted a sketch of this monster in a thread wayyy back, trying to come up with some rrrl weird-looking shit. nice to have some opportunities to use leftover stuff that wouldn't be appropriate most anyplace else.

Has any comic here made it yet?

whoops. coloring error. fixed on the site.

fuck, just got to #43
congraturation!

Alright, did my annual redesigning, or well, updating of the designs at the very least, of the characters, I like how this came out, feels more fresh.

anna's missing his or her tail
did sarah lose a hand?
man, anna has pupils now and sarah doesn't.. that's a weird change. but I'm still liking how much more geometric sense everyone makes than in the past (aside from SD looking really wobbly)
Keep an eye on the girls' legs just being sort of random tapers, don't let that run away from you too hard, and.. there's something terribly wrong with everything below annabeth's waist, dunno what's going on with those calves or the upper taper of those shorts.. but the arms are all uniformly looking hella improved. so good to see that.

Oh yeah the tail, I do forget that sometimes.
And nah, her hand is just in her sleeve, that happens often.
Sarah still has her spiral pupils, but only when she's closer to the camera.
Yeah, SD will probably never change.
And yeah, annabeth's legs could use some fixing up.

>3 years of progress

...

I agree. I thought it was funny too.

Where do you guys learn to draw? is /ic/'s info good or do you have any good preferences or books?

trace it till you make it

Copy it till you make it

aimeeknight.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/edwards-the-new-drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain-viny.pdf

What is the best way to begin an action/adventure comic?
>A glimpse of main character's past
>right into the action
>freeze frame, record scratch
> narration
What is the best point to start story at?
>at the end of the lore
>In the middle of the lore
>beggining of the whole lore
Would you love a scarred, trench coat wearing, edgy looking main char but is actually very friendly?

what kind of fronts is that?

i started working on my comic again,
just kind of putting the story pieces together and writing a few more drafts before i start doing thumbnails

also this is pj and she's tired of everything

because i'm addicted to being gay and it's the only thing that stops me from sucking every dick in existence

cute, let's see more

I like to update my sheets once in a while.
wanted to share this with you guys.

this is really neat and i like your designs and expressions and the hatching for shade its all just really fresh, so yeah good stuff.

Kill me for editing a meme with my characters, please.
I know it looks hideous, I don't have enough fucks left to fix it. Imma color the current WIP .

very nice, would like to see more

Any advice on screentones? I really like the way it's done in pic related, but can't replicate it in mangastudio nor find any premade. Please advise

user, this is pretty nice in general, but you gave her a big bulge. Fix this and it's fine.

ease into things at a turning point in the character's life, when shit's getting started for them properly. the fateful day that changed whatever for them, even if that just meant going for a drink when some shit went down

lorewise, the opposite. make it towards the end. something that's been building up to this time

this basic formula is how actionadventure shit has usually gone and it works a treat. but you can totally try something else

He's a retard who comments on nearly everyone's shit with babbling, don't worry about it.

I respect that you tried a more difficult angle for panel one, but you really need to work on your perspective and proportions. Especially the latter, because his entire fist could easily slide into his mouth.

>tfw you give up on your comic and none of your readers even care

Just ignore coldfusion. He's even more retarded than dewd. He has literally no standards and comments on every single comic posted here with inane babbling that only he understands. He leaves his trip off most of the time because he knows people would just filter him.

Finish CitT, Scribble.

I gave up after 2 years, but gave it a rushed ending so it could at least conclude. I got more comments on that comic than any other comic, most were negative but fuck it, it was finally over. People called me a hack, said that I would never amount to anything, etc. It hurt a little but fuck if they were that invested why did they never comment or anything? Even when I asked if they were reading and even made a poll

With my new comic I'm not using the same name and it's been good so far.

what's the new comic?

Finally finished the update, I'm gonna catch some z's before starting with the next one.

What's the old comic?

>here
No. Any comic that is anywhere near professional level leaves the thread right before they start to make it. They all recognize /hyw/ for the cesspool it is and rightfully leave before it can damage their future career.

Funny
Not funny

1/2 isn't bad

>They all recognize /hyw/ for the cesspool it is and rightfully leave before it can damage their future career.
What's wrong with hyw?

way to ruin it, the 'comic inside a panel' was a great idea, and now there's no actual joke, it just looks like shock humor.

Other than a handful of drama queens like that guy, nothing. Damage a career? Please. Totally undeserved ego right there.

People leave the threads because they're pretty useless. Not enough traffic here that it's worth it for promoting your comic. Not enough people here that know what they're doing to get good advice and criticism.

He sounds like a bitter faggot who got his feelings hurt by a critique.

>Not enough people here that know what they're doing to get good advice and criticism
Hang on a second, are you saying the dewd and coldfusion aren't comic-making geniuses?

I just can't believe that.

Case in point.

Most of the decent to good criticism I've seen here in the last six months got ignored, treated with contempt, or started a shitstorm. While we don't have many people who understand what they're talking about, we also have a lot of people who can't deal with criticism that isn't 100% objective fact ("the eyes are aligned wrong") or proceeded/succeeded by a lot of compliments.

There's times when the thread works, but getting adequate discussion going is difficult when a large chunk of the content providers and observers ignore it or shoot it down.

There's no time when this thread works. Let this be the last.

>most of the decent to good criticism

What decent to good criticism? Only one I saw that got ignored was the text justification.

There's barely been any criticism in this thread at all, like a fourth of it is shitposting. There's some decent advice in this thread that didn't get so much as a "thanks", but that's a different subject.

I could look through the archives for the last few months, but it'll have to wait until this evening at earliest.

Don't bother, it doesn't matter.

If not, then why even ask?

It was a rhetorical question. Do you know what rhetorical means?

why are these threads so depressing

It's rhetorical, user.
They just want to indirectly say you're wrong so they don't have to substantiate their argument or deal with pesky facts compromising the narrative. If you continue the conversation you're wrong, and if you don't theyre right.

Do you? You didn't recognize that my response is as well.

> pesky facts compromising the narrative

Dumbass, that was a rhetorical question.

Because they devolve into shitposting quickly.

>tfw you did nothing wrong

We might be here all day, since all our questions so far have been rhetorical rather than proper inquiry.

...

Sounds like somebody can't handle criticism.

There is nothing to criticize about the man's work. It's not been matched since.

How's Your Webcomic General

A Play for Two Parts

Person A: Hi, here's my latest page.

user: You misspelled a word in panel 1.

Person A: Um, no. That's the proper way to spell that word.

user: Oh look, another webcomic artist who can't take criticism. How surprising.

user: And there in panel 2, another misspelled word. Maybe if you listened to criticism you wouldn't look so retarded right now.

Person A: user, that's a proper noun. I can spell it any way I want.

user: Oh what, you think the rules don't apply to you? You think you're better than me? Just because I'm trying to help you, you think you can insult me like this?

user: Person A, you're getting trolled hard right now. Stop ruining these threads.

user: Shut up, Coldfusion.

user: Hello, friends. I am newfag here. This is being my first time in thread. Why is Person A such an asshole?

user: Just stop replying to person A, user. I've tried to help him a million times and he just won't listen. He just doesn't want to be good I guess.

user: image.jpg

user: Boy, isn't Dewd the worst artist in these threads. He sure is the worst, huh. Hey whatever happened to Bones? Remember him?

I hope my audition for Person A goes well.

I'm torn.
I love it, but I'm worried you're actually serious. That you are doing this unironically and believe in those strawmen.

Shut up, Coldfusion.

In the last comic of this week, Remy asks Liz about the Elastians.

Next week, Liz tells the whole story of the Elastians, his time in the army and how he met Remy's dad.

zyxcity.tumblr.com/

Why say Person A instead of their actual name? I've only seen this happen to one person here.

...well, at least, since Scribble left.

Shamelessly plugging my stuff again....Namely cuz you can get lost in this thread....

tapastic.com/series/Fuckin-Scumbag

Shoulda just waited, ~30 posts until bump limit and new thread.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how sad is next week going to be?

Try to avoid B^U when possible.

Also, you don't have to do anything about it, but multiple repeated panels like that gets boring.

Oh, shit....sorry

It's no problem, I'm just saying you'll get more attention at the top of the next thread.

I wonder what they're watching.

Not sure, next week will be the first time I tackle a wartime story. Gonna try my best though.

Yeah, sorry about that. Wanted to keep this last comic as low-key as possible though, because next week is gonna be a doozy.

In fact, I'm gonna work overtime during the weekend to make sure next week's comics are high quality and detailed. Maybe I'll even post some WIP's.

>it only happens to one person

lol,no

Hey, don't apologize, it's just something to keep in mind for the future. It's an early attempt at a comic so you're still figuring out what works.

Really? Could you give me an example?

I only know about the one that happened in this thread.

Lurk more, newfag.

It's all good.

anime ace I think

>Immediately after this is posted the exact opposite happens.
It's like poetry, it rhymes

>Can't think of a single example.
It's okay to let the charade drop, user. I already took the bait, we both know.

That feel when can't draw because parents and brother walks in to your room constantly. Can't draw at the night because too tired after work, can't lock the door because no doorlock

What are you drawing that you're constantly worried about people walking in on you? Porn?

Would anyone be able to tell me if the engrish here is accurate? Just to make sure I won't mess up with typos.

Of course porn

Looks fine to me, spelling wise. I would just change -
Panel 4: "Yeah... Go home, kid."
Panel 8: "Hah... Well, okay..." (As you've used "yeah" already recently.)
Panel 9: Remove "of it" from the last dialogue; "You won't be havin' any for a long time."

What could really do with improvement is the general shapes and spacing inside the speech balloons. The text is getting right up close to the edges with some of them, when it would be better with a little more room. Conversely, Panel 1 Dialogue 2 has 3 lines of text squashed at the top with a gap underneath; you could probably fit in 4 lines more comfortably.

Something seems off about the spaces between words. The gap between "why anyone" in P1D2 seems half the width of everything else. Are you putting 2 spaces between every word?

I would change the placement of the balloons in panel 1, and have the reading direction run clockwise. "I'm just wondering" goes into the upper right, while "People go missing" moves to just left of centre at the bottom, so it leads directly into panel 2. The connecting tail will guide the eye and take care of any confusion with the reading order.
Similarly, in the last panel, I'd move "Enjoy the fresh air..." into the bottom right, to take us out of the page.

Thanks user, I'll be sure to have all these issues fixed in newer pages.
I need to plan out better where the art and the speech bubbles will go.

WIP of the next page.

Generally, I put the text down first, at the rough layouts stage, so I can see how much space it will take up, and figure out the ideal places for it. I mark off spaces for the speech balloons at the pencils stage; most of the adjustments, editing and positioning will occur at this stage. Once it's time for inking, I put the balloons in first, to fix them in place, with minor adjustments to position if necessary. Adding the tails comes last, once the artwork has been inked.

I've taken to drawing the speech balloons as part of the artwork, so they're fixed in place at the inking stage. If you're putting your balloons on a separate layer, you've got more leeway to adjust them. It's better to fit the balloons around the text, than try to force text into a balloon.

You do seem to be leaving enough space for speech balloons in your artwork, which is good. By working out where the balloons will go early on, you can avoid covering up artwork, and use their positioning to guide the reader around the page.

Made the slight adjustments and added another design, thanks for the tip.

thank you sir.

I've posted these characters before but I often post another story. can you guys who I am? (those in the skype chat keep it hush hush.)

I saw this first and took me quite a while to understand what the fuck was going on
Like, she was using some weird, oversized, vibrating sex toy on herself all of a sudden

>tfw revenue from your comic has dropped more than 50% in the last 6 months

99% of the criticism dewd receives gets ignored, not just text justification.

>having revenue from your comic
You lucky fuck

not anymore

...