How's Your Webcomic? #344

Rule 34 edition? Probably not
Post your comic here, tell us about it. Share your process. Tell us your inspirations.
Previously on HYW:

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=5xPvvPTQaMI
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/
mediafire.com/folder/9pf1nwwa92lbp/Comics_for_making_Comics
youtube.com/results?search_query=how to draw comics
youtube.com/user/armouredskeptic
youtube.com/watch?v=ZLJwa3oUm3Y
youtube.com/watch?v=WeuGQboEoYU
youtube.com/watch?v=O2tG8PGySVI
youtube.com/watch?v=LhqUk28OwHs
youtube.com/watch?v=aX-0Yj638SY
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

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/ (surprisingly not a typo)

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

>DISCORD CHAT going on,
Ask for an invite in the thread.

>Wise words from John Cleese:
youtube.com/watch?v=5xPvvPTQaMI

>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/

>Comics for makin' comics!
mediafire.com/folder/9pf1nwwa92lbp/Comics_for_making_Comics

youtube.com/results?search_query=how to draw comics

yo slime mold guy, from the end of the last thread
this is already better, see the effect of the unshaded eyes? though actually now that I look, this one has shading at the TOPS of the eyes, indicating they are not only flat stickers but sitting underneath brows. That works fine. Stylized eyes SHOULD be flat, unless you're intentionally making a bug-eyed goof of a character.
but one thing I have to ask is why the faces' shading is so much softer and more gradiented than the other parts? it's true of the cover but it's true of this one too. the way the hand and the neck is shaded seems like it'd work just fine on the face but you didn't really do it that way
also izzat sum stubble on the face? i see two uneven patches of gray

Doing softer shading on the face was a combination of trying to make the face look gentler/friendlier and me being too lazy to do that kind of shading on the whole figure. You think the cel-shadier shading looks better on the face? I tried un-blending it a little.

Also, the grey stuff on the face was an attempt at color zones.

yeah I know how you feel, it's scary trying to put harder shading on a face, but you have the chops for it. This looks way better
>color zones
yeah I don't think this style really works with those, but good for you for trying. I can tell you have what it takes to do good realism

End of last thread repost

blamp

What art/artists inspires you, /hyw/? Are there any art styles in particular you try to imitate/learn from?

I used to respect really complex art back when I was a kid reading cape comics, but it took anime, videogames, and cute stationery to teach me that you can get a lot across with very little, as long as you do it just right. There's really subtle tricks of geometry that make it cute instead of lame
Muppets too, come to think of it. Their designers had a lot of little interesting rules that not only helped make them cute and unique, but helped hide the fact that they weren't actually able to change expression

Thanks for these responses from last time, guys. Especially I decided to aim more in-line with my style than to make sure each girl was attractive. Loosey's not supposed to be, if you can tell why, and Meg's just kinda physically a 7 but personality a 4.

It's just good we have new blood coming in

and by that I mean bump

Why's hyw so dead today? What is everyone busy with?

Koji Kumeta.

He seems to know precisely what he's after when it comes to character designs. And having 30 different girls with pitch black hair stand out from each others.

his ability to make distinct silhouettes is top notch

it's chinese new year and they're all chinks

man i want some lucky money!

Finally finished the Haunted Mansion drawing with my characters. A good friend of mine did the shading. Really pleased with it. Plan on doing more of these sorts of things.

Kirby, ditko, and Romita sr.

man everyone has such good rolemodels

that doesn't matter, get a good comic instead

instead of being inspired?

Here's my new West Tree logo.

thought it had to be trolling at first, but on closer inspection you can see clear signs of what was once two good ideas: two joined letters, and quick symbolic representations of characters at each of the stems.
I guess it's a good reference for redoing later.

I can see it being one of those iconic logos everyone recognizes, really good!

What was wrong with the 80's style logo though? I felt it was also perfect.

Kill yourself ColdFusion

ooh, swing and a miss. close though

You are willfully retarded.

it's a meme retard

Fuck I thought you had died.

Well, that is just a banner this is an actual thing Blu Trinity wanted me to make for there site.

But I wanted to get really into it. My design class has really gotten me into doing patterns and really thinking about the deeper meaning into how i implement what I draw.

What went wrong?

...

looks a pink scrotum on the bottom. fucking atrocious

>what went wrong
just how messy it is. if anything deserves symmetry and relatively straight lines, it's a logo. and I mean, there's such a thing as intentional messiness, the likes of squigglevision and such, but this just looks slapped-together. Like I said it's a great guide for being redone with more care this time.

you do know the one feigning unconditional praise is on your side, right?

you do realize you're responding to memes?

user, he is Dewd. Have you seen his comic? He is always "fixing" stuff, except for his awful lineart. This logo is the perfect representation of his retarded comic. Ugly design and lazy wobbly lines, it's also probably a stolen idea from a better logo. Don't waste your breath.

jesus christ he's back, this thread is absolute dogshit now

Jesus fuck.

Isn't that just what I said? aside from the stolen part, which is nonsense.
also when is he ever fixing stuff? I -wish- he'd fix stuff.

sure is. I thought maybe you had left with him, but nope. nothing better to do I guess.

Fixing is in quotations because I meant it ironically. His "fix" are his multiple changes of font, brushes and coloring, each one uglier than the last.

What I am trying to say is that you are wasting your time trying to help Dewd, he will just ignore you as he is beyond help.

that's not really what the word fix means, but now I get what you're talking about. Yeah he keeps on changing tracks, experimenting with new stuff. It's definitely getting in the way of progress, but I reckon he would have just quit otherwise, when it stopped being fun.
Still he listens to me sometimes. I'd say roughly half the time.
>it's worth iiit

So what was your "breakthrough" when it comes to art?

For me, it was just mirroring my drawings. Holy shit, it makes every flaw and awkward imperfection glaringly obvious.

The first time I finally got something down that looked halfway like what I imagined without using any references. It was a fucking struggle but that feeling of really creating something from nothing was what got me hooked.

I have a series of breakthroughs. My latest one is that I've found a way to do quick pose construction involving circles and tubes that really actually does make poses easy to play with, and finally using some foreshortening on limbs. Before I'd tried much-more-complex and much-more-simple construction methods, but this one's juust right

Working on a Nuzlocke that takes place after nuclear war, pretty proud of this page. I'm about 9 pages in, so far.

That's a pretty bonks concept but I can tell you're gonna have fun with it
Just one thing though, I don't think I'm being super autistic when I point out that your ratta's muzzle changes in every panel

Just finished my 19th page layout for my first draft. Also fuck life in general for restricting me to only work on this at night after my work shift when I am exhausted or during the weekends when all my friends are out having fun.

>responding to coldfusion
He has dewd's dick lodged halfway down his throat.

I realized too late I was replying to Coldfusion. I'm sorry user

It's OK, you're the victim here

Got some spare money I wasn't expecting to have, what's the best way to pay for some advertising?

what is the best first step to start posting your comic online? Taptastic or something similar or Tumblr?

Tapastic and Tumblr are both garbage for reading webcomics.

well what are other suggestions?

Those are the two most popular platforms. There's this one retard that gripes about them because he's a bucket crab stuck in the past, ignore him.

Good shitposting is the kind where your shitpost looks like an opinion a relatively sane person could have. Step it up user.

Smut doodler visiting from /d/ here. What would be a smart workflow for developing a lewd 1-3 page comic?

I find writing and page layouts really difficult to do.

If it's short and self-contained, you already know how it's going to start and end, which is good as you know what you're working towards.

Figure out and write down the sequence of events and the important moments and dialogue.

See if you can spot a transition or scene change that might make a good point for a page break.

Go over the sequence of events and break it down into panels. Can any of the events and dialogue be combined into one panel? Have you written an event that should be split into several panels?

Make a rough sketch of the layout of the panels on the page. Have you left enough space for the important actions and dialogue? Do you need to resize any panels? Are there too many/too few panels on the page?

Redo the rough layouts several times until you're happy everything flows properly.

Now you can start to draw the strip properly based on your rough layouts.

Ideally, your own domain and pay for hosting.

Comicfury and smackjeeves host comics with reasonably reader-friendly navigation.

1-3 page? Anything goes, you don't need any planning for something this short.

That guy who did Spawn. I don't care what anyone says.

Yasuhiko Yoshikazu

Thanks much, I'm having a ton of fun with it.

The muzzle changes with facial expressions and design for the sake of goofy humor, but doing it too much might not be ideal out of nowhere. I totally get what you're saying.

interesting. never heard of anyone doing that before, but I guess it does sort of have a 'color draining out of your face' effect.

Finished another character portrait and made minor changes to the others. Only one left and all the protagonists will be done.

Looking good, man. Only comment is that maybe you should up the contrast between Cin's face and the red on the right behind him, the values kind of blend together

Does this look better? I reduced the saturation and darkened the parts in his cloak.

Yeah, I think that's a little better. The face pops out more now.

New page up at theharvesttower.com!

Movies, I like paying attention to framing and lighting, even if I struggle with both.

very nice, the paper texture really works for this. Not a fan of the frame shadows though.

I'm in the same boat man, life is hard.

What resolution should I draw my webcomic in? A lot of people seem to make theirs positively enormous.

You draw huge then scale down the finished piece to whatever you need.

Bigger is better if you think you'd ever want to print. Draw at a minimum of 300dpi, and the standard size for comic pages is 8.5 x11 inches. Keep in mind, you don't HAVE to put your pages at 8.5 x 11 inches, feel free to use other aspect ratios, but that might make it harder to print.

But that always felt like cheating to me, and I kinda don't wanna spend days scrolling when I draw.

Good! thanks for the help.

My inspiration comes from Katsuhiro Otomo and Koji Morimoto, the artists behind Akira, Robot Carnival, and Memories. Their proficiency with drawing complex and believable technology has always baffled me and I've always tried to mimic them. Some of my prized possessions are my hand painted animation cels from their works. Secondary inspiration comes from studio trigger, their way of drawing expressive people with so few lines is very admirable.

better to go too big than too small. For my landscape drawings I always do 1920x1080p since that's roughly the resolution of a computer monitor. For my portrait drawings I always keep the 1920 width but just increase the height. Then I scale it down when posting online.

It's not cheating and it ensures no matter how it's viewed it will always look clean.

Oh well. At least I found out before I already had a bunch of pages drawn.

Mitsuru Adachi is my inspiration. Now that I'm doing more digital than before, I lost a lot of practice with inking, but I used to poorly imitate his inking a lot years ago.
He is still my idol and I look up to him to this day.

As stated in , find a standard printed comic size, and work to that at 300dpi. You can then scale down for screen.
Draw at 600dpi (or even 1200dpi) if your computer can handle it.

I draw at A5, 1200 dpi, which is 6992x9921
This is printed at A5, 300dpi, or 1748x2480
Published screen size is A5, 96dpi, 700x1000

Knowing the final print size means I can size the text and artwork accordingly, so it isn't too large or too small. There's no point noodling around with pixel-sized details that are going to vanish when reduced.

Even before digital, cartoonists drew their strips larger than printed size, usually 1.5 times larger ("half up").

You won't be drawing at 100% pixel size most of the time; you should usually be zoomed out. Find out what print size looks like on your work monitor, and keep that in mind (hold a piece of paper next to the screen if you have to), so you can have some idea of how large it will look.

If I had friends to have fun with I'd probably put them first, man

>scrolling
new to digital art, are you? you don't scroll, you zoom in and out constantly. get it on a hotkey that you're comfortable with
it's not cheating because your screen has incredibly low resolution. Think about it, you're running, what, 1600 pixels on your monitor? That's a tiny tiny piece of paper. real life has a huge resolution. There's no alternative

>new to digital art, are you? you don't scroll, you zoom in and out constantly
I've been dicking around with it for eight years, though I never bothered zooming in and out. Never could tell what the final product will look like if I draw at the wrong level of zoom.

Doing this on my tiny Cintiq feels like it would be many times more trouble than it's worth. I see your point on real life resolution, though. Wouldn't it be as easy as just zooming out to whatever size you're gonna reduce the final picture to, though? What's the point of zooming in and out?

I did a really rough layout of a page. I'm new to actual pages and not four panel things. Is this at least somewhat passable in terms of following whats going on?

I didn't have any trouble with it.

>Never could tell what the final product will look like if I draw at the wrong level of zoom.
that's part of drawing big and saving small. also I can't believe that in eight years you haven't gotten any kind of eye for it
>Wouldn't it be as easy as just zooming out to whatever size you're gonna reduce the final picture to, though?
Try it, then zoom in on your lines afterwards and see how they look. If they look shitty, then you're in my boat. If they look fine, then by all means draw the whole thing zoomed way out. Since you have a cintiq that should be a lot easier for you than for those of us using non-screen tablet digitizers
>What's the point of zooming in and out?
checking on your lines and doing the fine detail. I spend a lot of time at 200 or 300 percent. other times I zoom out to 33 or 50 percent so I can see the whole thing at once (50, 25, etc give you a good representation, it's the uneven numbers like 33 that tend to make it hard to tell)

Hehehehe. I like this. Nice use of nested and overlapping panels.
The only critique I would give is to make differing use of the negative space. Some panels have a ton of useless sky, others are very cramped and require text to touch or even overlap the art. With things this simple you should have no trouble taking the 'camera' in for more close-ups and out for more wide shots to vary things up. source: I have that same issue

>I spend a lot of time at 200 or 300 percent.
Doesn't it look like garbage when you shrink it, then?

take your own advice retard

I know I don't have a problem with this. I drew this scrolling animation background usually at around 67% on a canvas around 1500 x 4000 pixels. If I drew the whole thing with the entire image in frame it would of been impossible.

Cool beans.


Thanks I wasn't exactly sure how it was gonna play out.
I definitely understand what you're saying even just some trees or something would help the backgrounds. This was kind of a dry fire to just get an idea onto paper but I'll definitely work on using the space better.

>If I drew the whole thing with the entire image in frame it would of been impossible.
Well, sure, but you can draw at 100% pixel size without having the entire picture in frame.

Just finished the last portrait for the protagonists. I feel like they all ended up matching pretty well. I might do some of more minor characters just because they're so fun.

i got a new idea for a webcomic called Trope Dykes

meet the girls, from left to right:

The armored Skeptchick,
shes one of those super famouse youtube athiest, she will master-debate you all night long!
*real life counterpart: youtube.com/user/armouredskeptic

Angry Joelana,
she's pissed, she plays games, and god help the people who dared to make it not longer than 4 hours long! mortal enemy of nintendo and yoututbe copyright robots!
*real life counterpart: youtube.com/watch?v=ZLJwa3oUm3Y

joelina Roegina,
she likes to eat shrooms and sleep in an aqua coffin! She also loves ufc, is a host on ufc, has her own trippy ass podcast and used to host the fear factor show where people would eat bugs, poop and vomit on national telivision!
*real life counterpart: youtube.com/watch?v=WeuGQboEoYU

The crazy flat earther chick!
She's gone a little to deep into the rabbit hole and after 1 weird conspiracy theory after another she finally found the ultimate truth! The earth is flat and any one who thinks other wise is either a sheep or a shill. she loves
Alexia Jones and is an self proclaimed enemy of the illuminati!
*real life counter part: youtube.com/watch?v=O2tG8PGySVI

Alexia Jones,
buy her water filters and super female vitality pills today and she will spew out all kinds of weird ancient alien, 911, reptilian, clone, matrix, illiminati globilist agenda shit to her millions of followers
*real life counterpart: youtube.com/watch?v=LhqUk28OwHs

Stormchick Sup Forumsdancer,
she has been on 4chans Sup Forums longer than anyone, she has taken all the red pills and is 100% woke senpai! Hitlers ass was tight, gas the bikes, race war now! get those buns nice and toned girls! After 100 redpills on
Sup Forums she went from a red headed trailer trash slut to one of trumps awoo wolf girls with white wolf hair, ears, and a tail!
*real life counterpart is any alt right female on pol: youtube.com/watch?v=aX-0Yj638SY

Make it happen, follow your memes

Watch out man, the SJW's will hang you for this.

Only if you shrank it using 'nearest neighbor'. that would result in very ugly pixel art
if you shrink it using any other algorithm though, it uses anti-aliasing to trick the viewer into thinking the lines are quite small and detailed, when they aren't
open up any comic you find on the internet into your program of choice and zoom in and look at the pixels and how the anti-aliasing works. every comic you've ever read online, unless it's videogame sprites or something like Prequel, i promise this is what they did, and it looks good, right?

true but once in a while you'll want to zoom out and take stock of everything, make sure it's all in proportion. At least during the sketch phase
ragdoll girl is super cute. I like her. I wish monstrous mimi artist was still here.

>i promise this is what they did, and it looks good, right?
Yes, when I realized this a few years ago, all my illusions were shattered and my false idols torn down.

he's a troll, dude.

jeez you don't have to be so sarcastic. I didn't mean to condescend, but you're out of touch with several basic rules of digital art, so I was just trying to help. I'm actually really curious to see what yours looks like if you've been drawing at display size.