/hyw/ How's You're Webcomic #293: tallentless hack edition

Share your comic with others!
Link your website and portfolio!
Critique and comment on others' work!
Make every character bisexual for attention!
Give up and just draw porn for patreon money!

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Other urls found in this thread:

myscriptfont.com/
artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
quickposes.com/pages/timed
senshistock.deviantart.com/gallery/
shutterstock.com/
pinterest.com/characterdesigh/
tumblr.com/theme/39018
pastebin.com/kNR2W5mV
docs.google.com/document/d/1uwfOSHXfrgvcf--PkPz9jXL6p5RqIsrYvXYwgQpgT3k/edit#
youtube.com/watch?v=PQ0lck7oo4A
courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse456/07su/administrative/invisible_ink_part_1.pdf
courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse456/07su/administrative/invisible_ink_part_2.pdf
courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse456/07su/administrative/invisible_ink_part_3.pdf
chrisoatley.com/category/podcasts/
web.archive.org/web/20140625035030/http://paperwingspodcast.com/
blambot.com/
cienciasecognicao.org/rotas/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Robert-McKee-Story.pdf
miss-melee.tumblr.com/post/143483233951/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

>5 minutes after OP goes up
>no second post with all the links and info
"tallentless" is right

Jeez, OP
Scrub Authors' GOODIE Bag

Here’s a short list of sites that any new webcomic artist or writer will find handy:

>*-Struggling to find that perfect FONT? Create your own using this link;
myscriptfont.com/

>*-Don’t forget to brush up on that ANATOMY:
artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
quickposes.com/pages/timed

>*-What’s a list without some reference STOCK IMAGES?
People: senshistock.deviantart.com/gallery/
Scenery: shutterstock.com/

>*-Here's a big fat compilation of CHARACTER DESIGN REFERENCE:
pinterest.com/characterdesigh/

>*-Finally, here are some links to get a rough WEBSITE started up:
Easy to use tumblr webcomic theme: tumblr.com/theme/39018
Do’s and Don’ts for starting a site: pastebin.com/kNR2W5mV

>*-Here’s the contact sheet if anyone wants to put information down, like their site and webcomic:
docs.google.com/document/d/1uwfOSHXfrgvcf--PkPz9jXL6p5RqIsrYvXYwgQpgT3k/edit#

>*-We also got a SKYPE CHAT room going on,
To join the chat, seek out 'starlinemike' or 'scribblehatch' and they'll add you in.

>*-We also got a DISCORD CHAT going on,
Ask for an invite in the thread.

>Wise words from John Cleese:
youtube.com/watch?v=PQ0lck7oo4A

>Invisible Ink:
courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse456/07su/administrative/invisible_ink_part_1.pdf
courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse456/07su/administrative/invisible_ink_part_2.pdf
courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse456/07su/administrative/invisible_ink_part_3.pdf

>Paper Wings
chrisoatley.com/category/podcasts/
web.archive.org/web/20140625035030/http://paperwingspodcast.com/

>Fonts for your webcomic on Blambot:
blambot.com/

>Writing Resources:
cienciasecognicao.org/rotas/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Robert-McKee-Story.pdf

>Guide to promoting your comic:
miss-melee.tumblr.com/post/143483233951/

I was hoping for a buffer before i post my substandard cringe inducing shit that wouldn't have been acceptable for a webcomic in the early 2000's let alone today

I was meaning to make it in black and white and only realized after i colored it

now i think daytime scenes will be colour, black and white for night (90% of the story is at night)

>3300x5100
Scale it down by at least half for online display.

Make the title brighter so it draws the eye better.

Did you trace the house or did you try to construct a perspective?

Why is the house the brightest thing in the scene?

Why is the underside of the porch roof brighter than the top?

Why are the windows blue in the middle of the night? There's no blue sky to reflect. If the lights were on, they'd look pale yellow to someone standing outside, and if they were off, the interior of the house would be pitch black.

Just stay away from colors entirely. Working in a three-dimensional color space is an added complication that you as a beginner really don't need. At most, make day scenes faintly yellow and night scenes faintly blue.

Might as well repost this, since the old thread died.

Hopefully I can finish the roughs today.

1000 pixels max for the width IMO.

Thank you for the advice
>Scale it down by at least half for online display.
I'm working big, still working out the software, shrinking it seems to make the file larger wtf?
>Make the title brighter so it draws the eye better.
that's so beyond not being the title text, it's just really to show where i'm going to put it
>Did you trace the house or did you try to construct a perspective?
trace, i'm going to use a lot of tracing more to get the perspective and proportions right on things
>Why is the house the brightest thing in the scene?
it's the only thing in the scene, but i was trying to tone down the colors, didn't work though
>Why is the underside of the porch roof brighter than the top?
because it's traced from a daytime picture and i'm a moron because that's stupidly obviously wrong now that you point it out
>Why are the windows blue in the middle of the night? There's no blue sky to reflect. If the lights were on, they'd look pale yellow to someone standing outside, and if they were off, the interior of the house would be pitch black.
I was trying to show that the window was open, something awful is about to happen in that house
>Just stay away from colors entirely. Working in a three-dimensional color space is an added complication that you as a beginner really don't need. At most, make day scenes faintly yellow and night scenes faintly blue.
I think i will stay away from colours, if i was actually capable i'm make the whole thing just black and white but that's actually really hard to do effectively, so i'll stick to grey-scale, maybe add some colours for emphasis, like red for blood, yellow for police badges, some red and blue lights for police cars, but 95% greyscale

GOOD MORNING /HYW/! I LOVE YOU!

>How's You're Webcomic

WHO DID THIS

REVeAL YOURSELF

me

>you're
>tallentless
>Make every character bisexual for attention!
>Give up and just draw porn for patreon money!
>didn't make second post

>still created a thread when no one else would

This "delete this" guys is the best troll we could ever have

Right, so there's a common problem where fans will latch on to the villain, often trying to excuse their behavior no matter how evil or monstrous.

I hate the idea of this happening to my villain, because she's an old school pirate(pillage, plunder, murder, rape, etc), and thus evil to the core. The only thing I've managed to come up with is to make her intentionally annoying, but even then it seems like people will just find her goofy personality more funny than disturbing.

How does one avoid putting Draco in leather pants?

I hate you so goddamn much.

Make her an ugly male. I'm serious. As long as she's female on any level of attractiveness higher than Jabba the Hutt, someone will like her.

At first, make her second in command to a sane, pragmatic pirate. Someone who accepts surrender, takes prisoners, ransoms them back or sells them into slavery. Put her in a boarding party, mutiny/commandeer the second ship, and kick off her newfound captain status with an indiscriminate massacre. Maybe she kills a navigator willing to collaborate, a valuable hostage, or other people she should really not have killed. Establish that her impulsiveness isn't just run of the mill evil; it's bad pirating and she does it because something's fucking wrong with her.

I was actually writing a somewhat similar story back when I wanted to write a scifi. Ended up ditching it because the research was too daunting.

You do realize where the term "Draco in leather pants" comes from, right? Making her a dude ain't gonna do a damn thing. And as for the ugly part, need I remind you of all the Joker fans?

be grateful that people like your characters that much?

you can't control what your fans do. just do what you think is best

Nice Dewd impression, Dewd

Make sure the audience knows her as a monster before they know anything else about her. First impressions count for a lot.
Also, make her ugly and dull-looking. People will always like characters that are cool or cute or pretty.

I have to say, though, I don't think it's actually possible to do what you want to do. People latch on to unrepentant real life serial killers and dictators all the time.

>her
there's your problem
even if you make her disgusting and fat, someone will have a fetish for her or think she's empowering

Neither of them are ugly, especially not Draco. You may argue about Joker but I still think he usually looks normal, just with a paint on his face. You want your villain to be cruel, unpredictable, creepy but not funny. To add to the effect, give him a potato face with warts or other some skin condition. If justifiable (probably not with a pirate), make him obese too. Low body hygiene. Make him repulsive.

I like the first impressions idea. And it won't be too hard since she really is a monster.

But you may be right int that it's unavoidable. Someone will waifu her, so I guess I should just focus on making her an effective villain above all else.

And even then the "high test" posters will be all over her.

The problem with villains is that any villain that's supposed to be a legitimate threat has to have a lot of good qualities, except turned to a monstrous purpose.
Strength of will, courage, cunning, determination, a commanding presence, a drive to see their dreams made real.
The halo effect of any entertaining or interesting villain will easily make people overlook their moral flaws. That's just how people work.

It's not hard to think of counterexamples of villains empowered by circumstance (think of your average rich twit stereotype) or whose wanton cruelty is more handicap than asset. Not every villain has to succeed on their own merits, or at all.

This guy is right.

The goal is to make the reader want to see the hero beat the villain. That doesn't mean you have to make the villain totally unlikable.

My story revolves around a character we'll call Oko, of the 3 main protagonists, her perspective will be the greater focus of the project.

Shes an esper, so the rule is that everything on the panel, she sees (such as thought bubbles). She'll also represent the reader, as in she'll learn at the same pace about the world as the reader will.

Her story is that she's been growing up with these powers that have been more of a curse to her than the gift she believed they would be. After being driven out and subsequently being put in the care of a distant relative, she is striving to find her place where she can do the good for the world like she knows she's ment to do.

Fast forward 2 years and Oko is being detained by an off-the-books UN organization known as AEON (a successor to the WW2 American OSS) after inadvertently using her powers unfavorably to the UN. The first few chapters will be Oko's recounting of the events that lead to her detainment and interview by AEON as to what her punishment will be.

They don't have to have all of those things, but a rich twit still has the confidence and will to be an asshole with his power, at least superficially.

Are we pitching ideas?

OK, so an upper class, privileged gay guy at his first job as a journalist is meant to write a hit piece series on a white nationalist who runs a gang of white supremacists. But as he is prying into the guy's life he accidentally gets befriended by them and as he gets closer he finds himself falling for the strong, muscular guy instead. meanwhile racial tensions are running high and gay people in particular are being targeted allegedly by white nationalists, but out protagonist uncovers that there is a lot more to the white nationalists than he first thought, that they are all real people, and that the stories being reported in the mainstream news have almost no bearing on reality.

As the violence on the streets worsens, can our protagonist survive falling in love with a violent neonazi thug?

ok Sup Forums have fun with your fringe audience and underground success, hope you can draw

You can split hairs until any action taken is motivated by "will" that is somehow nebulously admirable. Your ability to argue that doesn't really mean rich twits are remotely admired in practice though.

A villain plain doesn't have to have any admirable qualities. A villain can be a needy stalker whose cop dad looks the other way (or whatever), and for most people this will be enough to make the guy repulsive.

>she's an old school pirate thus evil to the core

This doesn't compute.

The main nazi guy will literally go off on WORDS WORDS WORDS insane rants about the jew elites, indians shitting on the streets, the insanity of transgenderism, niggers ect ect ect. his rants are in the background as the character's thought bubbles go on top of his bullshit rants.

Sounds like that movie where Frodo played a young journalist infiltrating British hooligans, except with a slightly changed theme.

i have never heard of that in my life

>You can split hairs until any action taken is motivated by "will" that is somehow nebulously admirable.
I don't think it's splitting hairs to say that any character given agency is going to have people like them. People really like proactive characters, and villains tend to be really proactive.

Nah, fuck that "dashing rogue rebelling against THE MAN" shit. The romanticizing of pirates is hideously obnoxious, and willfully ignores that these "people" are marauding scumbags. Pirates are evil and they can all eat a fat dick.

I think it's a semantic argument for sure. In practice, barring crazy deviantartist fans, there are plenty of just plain repulsive characters.

t. british merchant

I think I'm finally done with this page, for now at least.

>barring crazy deviantartist fans
I guess we've been talking at cross purposes - I thought those were exactly the kind of fans we were discussing. Yeah, you can definitely make a character that the vast majority of your readers will hate or pity while still having them be a good antagonist.

Yeah, trying to preempt the really crazy people who read your story just seems pointless to me. I usually try to write to... not the center because my thing's kind of niche, but to a reader who's at least somewhat like me.

>People really like proactive characters, and villains tend to be really proactive.
So, in theory, would having the protagonist be proactive, and the villain be threatening in a passive manner reverse the Draco effect?

You know who else were marauding scumbags? The navies that fought against the pirates. Shit, the buccaneers were out for totally justified revenge for what the Spanish did to them.

Not entirely, but having a proactive protagonist is always a good idea so you should definitely do that.
Watch out for having a passive villain though.
It very easily turns into a boring conflict, which is probably the one thing everybody can agree to hate.

The argument was built to basically apply to all characters. Greedo might run into Han by accident, but he deliberately tries to shoot him. This makes Greedo adimirable. Such willpower.

I wouldn't worry too much about the slim percentage of people who will idolize Greedo.

>Not entirely, but having a proactive protagonist is always a good idea so you should definitely do that.
I think the reason proactive heroes aren't that common is because aggressive action is seen as unsavory? So if you go and jump the villain at their house, that makes you the asshole or something.


>Greedo fans
>mfw I realize such a thing must exist

>Give up and just draw porn for patreon money.
This is a lovely idea. I need more practice first.


Working on next months update. I've really stepped away from the brush, but I'm going to spend all my cash on fucking microns.

I can't decide how to texture the scales on this thing, SoI am going to work on another panel for a while.

How about some WIPs for a change?

Aggressive proaction, sure. If you storm the villain's lair after he's done something to warrant it, like trying to blow up the president's dog, that's fine, but if he hasn't done anything yet, you're just being a dick for no reason.
Having the hero still be a good guy while trying to change the status quo is just plain a harder conflict to write than one where he defends the status quo, so it's not as common.

Of course I might be discussing things in too binary terms - having the hero learn of the villain's plot in advance and work to stop it isn't entirely proactive, but it's much more proactive than having him just happen to be at the right place at the right time.

Accept that it will happen and don't change the character. You cannot dictate how people read your comic. What you can do is focus on your comic and portraying the character as you envisioned.

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>tfw artistically at a level where I could make decent money , but I just can't into drawing porn because it doesn't interest me at all

Goddamn lucky furfag bastards, getting to do something they love and being paid money for it like it's an actual job. Bah humbug.

Situations of "official" conflict can help with this.
Procativity in war or cold war against the enimies of your nation is okay. So like you can kick the Red Skull or The Red Ghost's shit in and nobody is going to Squawk.
Terrorist groups like HYDRA work too.
There is actually a great FF story (84-87) where SHIELD sends the FF to Doom's country to fuck with him just because he might be up to something.

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THIS THIS THIS

The worst thing is seeing an author get mad when people interpret his creation in any way other than what he intended. Not recognizing that every person thinks differently is a sign of autism.

Don't be autistic.

Yeah, I was just kidding it doesn't interest me either.
Further, from what I 've seen, you can make a living with a fairly low level of skill, too.

>I think the reason proactive heroes aren't that common is because aggressive action is seen as unsavory?

I think this conclusion just comes from thinking about your story in abstract and genericized forms. If your story is just a straightforward fight between a good guy and a bad guy, just showing up at some guy's house and shooting him isn't going to leave much room for sympathy. If your hero wants to find the lost city of Id, they can be pretty proactive and still sympathetic.

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Gotta hate when coke gets stuck in the intersection of your philtrum and your nose. Doesn't look like she minds.

Good stuff.

I know that feel.

>I think the reason proactive heroes aren't that common is because aggressive action is seen as unsavory
That's not an answer, because it doesn't explain why it's seen as unsavory. It's simply fear of radicalism, fear of real change. It's a common setup: heroes preserve, villains destroy or alter. Everyone gets caught in this superficial effort to stop the villain and forgets to inspect what exactly is being fought over.

my webcomic is doing really well IMO. Ironically I gave up drawing porn for patreon money to work security and focus on my passion project, a realistic diverse contemporary cinematic drama about the intersection of politics and emotions

here, I'll be a total slut and post the newest chapter some of which hasnt gone up anywhere else

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>The goal is to make the reader want to see the hero beat the villain.
What kind of a goal is that? Be more ambitious.

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I have an idea that I'm still trying to flesh out. Any opinion is appreciated.


>Fantasy setting
>Most of the world has the technology of the middle ages
>All except for a group of people called the Unbidden who have advanced technologies.
>For the last 300 years no one has had contact with the Unbidden who have remained within the high walls of their city which no one has gone into and no one has come out of
>MC is a princess of a nation called Estrella
>Suddenly, on her 21st birthday, The Unbidden emerge from their isolation and begin to attack Estrella.
>The MC manages to escape with the help of her faithful bodyguard, but not before Estrella is conquered with ease.
>Now the MC with the help of her bodyguard must find out the mystery of the Unbidden and their reason for their sudden aggression

this is a blue board, tasteful nudity is still bannable. i like the picture though
i suppose my main question is... does anything actually happen? i'm assuming it focuses heavily on character interaction, which is fine, but if someone asked you to describe the plot of it, would you be able to?
visually i really like the colours, also the person with the purple hair is qt. if i had one complaint, it'd be that and doesn't read very well

This is about 50 pages in. This is a comic for people who hate comics in the vein of my hero felipe smith. I see film as a superior form of storytelling and so i emulate it without handholding or over-explaining what's happening, because I have faith that adults are smart enough to parse the meaning of pictures which aren't really all that abstract. I like to think that I treat my minuscule audience like adults

Here are the first six instalments of my stupid, ugly comic "Space Cunts"

Doing a comic when you prefer film seems contradictory.

good cape man vs. evil goatee man: who will save girl woman? who will get smashed with fists? good cape man is now a black woman, because writing interesting POC characters from scratch is too hard! HULK SMAAASH

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I'm having a hard time making villains that are realistically beatable, and others I don't really want to get killed.

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Ah, you're one of those.

It's a lot cheaper and easier to produce than a film, though. It makes sense.

Do you want your villains to lose or not?

i think goal wise, not combat

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well anyway here are some comics. No super heroes or villains, just people
>medicineofficial.tumblr.com

Hahaha. I don't know whether this is intentionally stupid and shitty or not, but it made me laugh.

i have no idea whats going on...
very good art tho.

This is my favorite.

Read more comics.

yo this is actually fucking great

As someone using a similar format and cinematic traditions, I've got to say that it's still crucial to understand both composition for static images and storytelling technique geared towards comics in particular.

"I'd rather do a film" isn't really a valid response to "this isn't working as a comic."

"I trust the reader to figure out" isn't really a valid response when what was meant to be transparent has been rendered opaque by your handling of the subject.

Mind you, I'm not that guy and not really sure what they felt they were missing. I'm more of the mind that page 7 was totally superfluous and might be better handled as a single panel replacing panel 1 of page 8.

that's a cool idea, i haven't read a comic that does that on purpose before. i would say that something not reading/flowing well is a problem that occurs in film too, so watch out for that. with what you've described, i'd say it's ok if a few people don't know what's happening, but if you're seeing a lot of people like then you might want to reassess what "hand holding" actually is

also your comic still needs a plot, however abstract but i'm sure you already know that

Have her kill someone the audience likes. If she's greedy, violent, murderous, and classic evil pirate you've got a lot you can work with. Don't give her anything that makes her sympathetic, make her a demon in human skin.

People may still excuse her, people still excuse Aileen Wuornos. It doesn't matter, you can't control your audience, the best you can do is tell a good story.

Kill women and children, and if she is sexualized have it be grotesque. Have her be a terrible personification of some abusive sick anti-love that is numb to all but hedonism and those who cannot keep up will be dragged kicking and screaming. If she is not "traditionally" attractive, all the better. It adds to the removal of her from what is woman and what is human.

She's a pirate, and assuming a historical setting, you could get her involved in scalping, white slavery, heresy, church burnings, ling-chi, getting people drawn and quartered, or selling out people she disliked to the Navy just so she can watch them be strung up and pecked apart by crows.

If she's your bad guy, make her horrific. She should be like classic Jason Voorhees. When he shows up, something wretched is about to happen and we spend our time fearing his arrival rather than in later installments where we just want to see how over the top the kill will be.

A couple pages down from this, you have "if it was it was the right person."

Also, your college professor seems written weakly. Most actual lectures see professors trying to walk students through a line of argument, attributing each idea or system of thought to its source, not flatly making factual statements and occasionally namedropping an authority as if they were presenting a singular factual view of the world backed up by a bunch of people who agree with each other. Would it have been hard to look up some actual lectures on youtube and crib from them?

The student finding flaws in an argument that don't engage with or understand the premise is fine, as is the "take it as fact / will this be on the test?" apathy of most of the class.

it comes from a real life experience with a teacher actually.
it really blew my mind to realize that real human beings sometimes behave like poorly written characters

it's understandable they'd like a murderous pirate in context, in a time when that was only slightly less fucked up than the usual way to make a living. the pirate is the equivalent of a crooked banker. everyone else is sailing ships and shooting people, you're just cheating when you do it so you get more money that you stole directly from people that didnt do anything