HYW/How's Your Webcomic? #349

Post your comic here, tell us about it. Share your process. Tell us your inspirations.
Previously on HYW: Prompt: Draw a yet-to be setting in your comic
Topic: Magic systems, what are your thoughts on them? How does yours work?

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
ggz.thecomicseries.com/
vidyadeparted.tumblr.com/post/157475850313/vidya-departed-chapter-1-part-1-the-bi-monthly
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

Me and a fellow Sup Forumsmrade got nominated for an award with our webcomic. Hoping it leads to a boost in readership and opportunities. Nice to know that these kinds of threads can pay off in the long run.

thats really cool senpai, which award?

Dwayne McDuffie Award. It's kinda new. This is its 3rd year.

What's your comic?

>award for diversity
What a merit

Hey /hyw/ ,

I took one user's advice and made some changes to my most recent update. I'm moving into grey scale and color, but I've been told by /ic/ that my fundamentals are shit, so I'm redrawing my first chapter as well. Here's the updated update, with the first chapter as in to follow.

1/?

2/?

I'm talking with an artist I know about collaborating on color, since I'm a bit shit on my color theory (thanks /ic/), as you'll see in the first chapter I'll post next.

3/?

...

...

I don't mean to be an ass, and I'll admit I'm going off memory but...I don't really see the difference. The old man's hands appear flat and as if they're rendered in a different style and level of detail, the characters' poses are stiff, some of the composition is questionable (a kid saying they have to swim in places an adult would walk is shoved in a corner, has more of their body visible, and is standing straight up? what???), everyone looks like they're viewed at roughly eye level even when they're not, the panel composition and flow seems likean afterthought...

Some of the backgrounds are nice, and the fish was done well, but the page lacks coordination and your characters don't feel like they're actually there.

ooh, water-droplet magic? jeff goldblum would be pleased
but since you havent drawn all the droplets in yet it looks like snot magic, and that is amusing

...

I fixed your comic
Less panels, more essence

You're not an ass. I'm not a graphic artist, I'm a draftsman and sculptor. This is a pet project of someone who is self taught and never took a drawing class in my life. I have no ego, so I just ask that if you must tell me I'm shit, then be specific so I can improve.

I set out to make a test comic because I knew I was not good enough for real comic art, but I want to get better so I practice and share.

that's super fucking funny. That was the first thing I did when I started redrawing the thing, except I took out the bend and gave a full page to the deer dragging, with better perspective.

Nah, it's not magic. It's just supposed to be raining. I haven't gotten around to drawing most of it yet.

Actually, since magic is kind of the topic of the thread, DnD-style flashy magic is one of the things I really wanted to get away from with Carrion Girls. I mean don't get me wrong, I like wizards flying around and having magic multicolored laser fights as much as the next guy, but for something set in the dark ages I feel like something more mystical and dark fit better.

So (human) magic in Carrion Girls centers on the unseen worlds of fate and "spirit", rather than physical reality. Rather than throwing fireballs, you do mystical bullshit things like tattooing a horse's head and hiding it under the floorboards of someone you don't like to give them cancer.

yeah I like me some flashy magic but sometimes the pure workable methodical hexy traditions are fun too, and for a comic like this they're way more appropriate

wait, is she not using that kind of magic to track the kitty? she mentioned using its fur or something, right? it's not like, whichever direction the water drips off her hand is where the kitty is?

Yeah, I'm not completely clear on how she's supposed to be doing it, but you'll notice she's got a little charm with some red string and some black hairs dangling from her ring finger. Probably she's carved Svarti's name or some kind of magical stave on the side of the little wooden tile that we can't see, filled the carving with a few drops of blood and the way the tile points or pulls tells her where to go.

ohhhh a hanging compass, okay. I'm sure that'll be more clear once it's finished

I've seen them both used very well in comics.
The more "unseen" magic tends to add this mysterious aspect to the world, as it's something the reader can't quite understand.

Personally I'm actually a big fan of flashy, at least in my comic (never been a fan of magic lasers, though). I definitely agree that the more occult-y type stuff is more fitting for CG

I tend to ask myself questions that I think the audience would ask should i publish my work today (not that i'm even very far along in the process), that and letting scenes play out naturally in my head, has really helped me out. Here's an example.

>Setup, I and a friend had created a LOT of characters and scenarios. They were all Trope heavy
>Had a ninja girl character whose parents had died (I can name 3 anime we could have stolen that from.
>Most of these Trope characters
>One of the core characters is Desmond Estus, born in Great Brittan, comes to Japan on a mission

>Audience Question
>Why is a Brit doing work in Japan?
Well, his employer assigned him
>Does his employer have Japanese people who could do missions?
Loads
>Why didn't they assign one of those? They wouldn't stick out too much
Its like the Frog in the Pot analogy, outsiders would be more likely to view their surroundings objectively
>Would any of the Japanese employees have a problem with this?
Probably

This brings in Ako, whose Clan, once prosperous, is in financial ruin after all of their best ninja were killed. Ako has taken it upon herself perform missions outside of her age appropriateness to raise money while her older brother runs the clan. (Her brother outranks her but is more of an admin, as is the case for historical ninjas). Ako has beef with Desmond because the contract requires him to work on her families land and as far as she was concerned, the contract should have been her family's to begin with. She became a character fueled by money, but not for greed. I'm satisfied enough with this progress for her character to incorporate her back into my story.

Your rendering is definitely getting better and better, don't ever feel that you're putting too much effort into small details, so long as you're learning. It's through these long trials that we pick up better work flow, tricks, or just muscle memory that help us reduce time spent while maintaining the same level of art quality.

I am eager to see how far this painting style will develop, it looks great and unique so far.

One panel of a page im working on lol
Generic slice of life story about a french teenager transitioning between secondary school and college

i could go for some slice of french teen life. that is a cozy room

Did a character bio for my main character!

Gonna start putting my comic up online now that I'm almost done with the first story.

hooray! bios. Something so many comics neglect including mine

I really like character bios for comics! I might shorten it though, make it more to the point.

One thing I really like about Cucumber Quest are the simple little character bios.

ahem. new wip. might not be able to get back on the internet and upload it until tomorrow. all it needs is word balloons and its done.

website: ggz.thecomicseries.com/

really interesting stuff man

Nice to see your still alive Dust.
Always got that smooth character designs and colors.

>Anyway

I've just starting doing the line art and planning from my pages after sketching a few out and...

Good Lord i though i was gonna make the line art good... But for some reason it's Not the way i thought i was gonna look.

Is it me or Do you think there okay? OR do they need improvement?

I'm in love with the lines you used for the background.
But yeah, the character definitely looks off. Not sure why though, sorry. Something about the curves not being smooth enough? Too samey line width?

i like it
do you mind pinpointing the vanishing points? im trying to understand perspective

>3rd panel
>full body leotard
>4th panel
>now a dress
??

First panel looks great.

Second one, the lines just look REALLY sloppy on the character. Just take your time and smooth them out more or something.

Any better or worse?

Definitely better, the hatching adds a lot desu. Are you going to be doing this in greyscale, black/white, or what?

Black and white AND Grey scale, I'm still trying to experiment with what i can and can't do.

>But I'm also doing certain scenes in the comic in color, for the extra experiences. or at least when i can color more comfortably.

Completely separate from the previous issues, I gotta say it's a bit off-putting that there are things closer to the camera than the character but with way thinner lines.
Like, the broken egg in the lower left has really thin lines so I have a really hard time seeing it as being closer to us.

Here's this week's Monster Lands sketch! It's Emperor Offed. He's a tall dude. More will be revealed about him later.

i love your notes and little mouse so much.
my pressure sensitivity has problems with that too, it just cuts off at a certain point.
huh, there's something about this guy.. he seems so solid and hard, but his silhouette has almost no ridges. even the plates under the pauldrons are so thin they're almost streamlined.. the torso-piece doesn't have a ridge where it stops, it's just flush with the underneath bits... the pauldrons themselves seem paper thin, the ankle and knee joints all have a totally smooth connection and the arms are quilted leather(?) so they bend flexibly too. the phalanges of the fingers have some thickness, but the handpiece is flush either open or closed. am I way off base?
I guess if I'm fair, real suits of armor usually fit together very snugly too, but they weren't just begging for some thick-platey arthropod-jointery like this is.

Ah HA! now i see.
Wow you know i was in the mind set of doing the line work first then refine whatever I'm missing after a quick revision.

I guess it makes sense to do this before i present it on here, but this also isn't finished so...

>Thanks for reminding me what i should have been doing from the beginning...

>Offed's (Try saying this out loud dude this is a hard name) body decayed long ago, and that was years before he died.
>Body decayed.. years before he died...
>Decayed... before... died...

Dude what...?

Thanks! Yeah, I feel like it comes in cycles - you learn to do something new that looks good but takes forever, you get effective at it, and then you realize you could do something that takes even longer but looks a teeny bit better.
Of course, sometimes you learn something that simultaneously saves a ton of time and looks way better and that's just the best.

His body had decayed but he was still alive, then he got blown up and went away for real. Sorry for unclear wording.

REALLY like this design, man. Love the ears.

I really dig this art but I feel like the speech bubbles hide too much of it.

but what if you find a lot of things that save a lot of time but make it just a teeeeny bit worse?

Thank god, So I'm guessing that armor was used to protect him, but not from everything. Yet it survived the explosion.

>Lol this guy has the same foot design as my character. freaking good looks learning how to make these work in combat. It took me awhile to get the angle right for mine.

How do you figure? Like the text is too big?
It's not like they're covering anything important in this page.

Then you use the fast methods for the bits that aren't very important so you can make the important bits even better. For instance, hand drawing every leaf on a tree can look a little better than using a leaf brush with a few hand-painted finishing touches, but it takes longer and it doesn't add much.

yeah curled-up toes are hard to draw man
it's a deal!

I'm new to this. this was made as part of a do the damn thing effort after years of kicking it around.
dunno what else to say.

Neat.
Nice values except for panel 5 - Birdman's head needs a darker background.
I feel like you're having trouble keeping the details of the mouse-design consistent.
Using the square brush is not what you should be doing if you want the background to be unobtrusive. Try an airbrush.
Honestly, how much time did you save by copy-pasting the mouse in the last panel? At least draw the tail different.

Is this the final product of page 1 cause if it is it's good.

Though i'm not gonna lie to you i really can't take these characters seriously the contrast in the suit and the actually animal wearing it... it's a really awkward juxtaposition.

Not that you shouldn't stop, but that just me you know...
Got any different design you did for em?

did you forget to color the fur in panel 4? the heart on the chest is a little inconsistent too

I really like this and the character designs. One question though:

Panel 1: white feathers
Panel 2+: black feathers

or did I just unlock the deepest lore?

fair
well, I'm not sure. I've redone the story a lot since I made this months ago but my problem is that I keep changing things, and I'm starting to think I should go with the direction this particular iteration started in and try to meet myself halfway with doing and concepting.

hmmm. I kinda don't mind that it's awkward? At it's absolute basic fundamental heart this story is supposed to be about cute(variably) characters in a kind of edgelordy universe.

though your exact phrasing is "actually animal" which is confusing because of how damn stylized they are. Not to dismiss your perspective, I just don't feel I understand. It's a dang furfag comic!

pic related, a sort of newer design but not technically the same character, tho from this thread's perspectively I doubt that really matters.

maybe it's a head feather? this is apparently a bald eagle

admittedly this is a very rough page

see that looks a lot cooler. it's not so straight upright.
animal heads are usually elongated forward, while human heads are elongated upward, to go with our upright stance.. so furry bodies (especially ratsmen) are best hunched over somewhat, or at least leaning in a battle-ready stance
ESPECIALLY with bent legs like this. the other example has totally straight legs, and apparently plantigrade feet (the bird seems to have them)
while this black-suited fellow is digitigrade and looks way cooler

Look at his little face!

honestly I kinda have to disagree. there's particular posing and actions that are served better by a plantigrade set up. though maybe I"m so desensitized to furry imagery the visual dissonance is lost on me.

There's a bit of inconsistency here bud...

You see the character you have in the first one are animals with humanoid bodies (nothing wrong with it). But look at your character in the second post although it's humanoid it still has it's animal anatomy a bit.
(Mainly it's hind legs still being mostly animal like)

Also Mice don't have hind legs like dogs, they possess similar hind limbs to us humans in a way but more elongated, designed to crawls and stand on temporarily.

Starting my storytime of one of my earliest and definitely most favorite webcomics thanks to an user at /wsr/ who got the lost pages from the author

sure, but then you humanize the heads more. You flatten the muzzles, increase the cranium and forehead, make them look more like animal-ish humans instead of egyptian gods

well, six of one, half a dozen of the other. mice are plantigrade but they have long feet and bent knees. We went into this a few threads ago with that guy drawing a cute little mouse guy..
you don't want them to walk digitigrade but they should pose that way for action-readiness, the same way a human does sometimes. once again I gotta point out Scurry as an example

not at all. I think this image sums up my point. From a pure aesthetic standpoint, the digitigrade "Weakens" her stance. but it's pretty subjective so shruuuuug

Guess so man it's you're choice in the end either this.
Or human anatomy.

a mouse is a weak creature, a weak stance suits it. that's why Splinter is such an iconic character, the idea of a wise old rat sensei makes so much sense
but the shitty new show makes him 7 feet tall and straight upright like a pole, it's baffling.
I like all three of these, but keep in mind the face is drawn much flatter here and that helps it a lot. also the center one has some issues that would only be appropriate on a goat or horse, so that's right out

>tfw dont know how to start your story
>tfw have points/scenes you have down to a t but dont know how to lead to them properly
Where do i start bro's?

Well, find out what kind of story you want and the characters. The idea of a story is about a character's journey.

go ahead and start in the middle why not?

i never thought about that
It would make character introduction a little clunky but could be fun

that's why you put in scenes that quickly make it clear what everyone's about
the worrying guy worries about the things in that scene, the dumb guy gets it wrong, etc.

then you can have the nitpicking uptight chick lead you into the flashback later on when you figure out how it should have started, by nagging everyone and reminding them of the past

How would you guys feel about a villlian who can go back in time and at the same time a different dimension?

And as a result deletes about 5 pages from the site's archive?

From my experience with in-universe retcons, a story-based time shift that affects the archive isn't as fun as it sounds in theory. You'd have to hold out on doing it until you have a sizable audience for the gimmick to work in the first place, and it'd mess up the experience for newcomers.

I've always wanted to do something like that.. but it only works if you actually have a big enough readerbase that someone's going to notice it.
what I'd really like to do is rig up some kind of cookie system kinda like that "you only live once" game, so that it would legitimately show something different after you've read something once. really fuck with the reader.

Oh yeah I know, that's why I'd have links to previous dimension's adventures in the desription.

I have a decent reader base, about 80 people per day.

Just wondering, are there any resources for haircuts, specifically haircuts that represent different personalities?
I'm trying to find a haircut for a stuck up woman.

hmm that's a good amount..
so basically you're saying you'd have a branching archive, but you'd make sure when people go back, they see the alternate one?

I prefer things like.. a really subtle hand or something reaching in just offpanel and affecting something, and then much later on a time traveler goes back and it turns out that was his hand
I never managed to do that, but I did once put a really subtle written note in a panel, then a more clear one in the next panel like "hey look at the previous one" and the subtler easier-overlooked note was like "See?"

That's a good question. Things like that are usually either very subjective or super cliche. I'd say that in general, the fancier the style, the more overbearing and stuck up the person probably is.. they clearly care a lot about their appearance or else they use it as a vehicle to show off how rich they are.

How do these lines look? I want to get the coloring for this page finished tonight but I don't think that's happening.

Try going onto beauty websites, they should have plenty of resources for that. I don't know what kind of hairstyle would represent a stuck up woman, but I'm kind of imagining straight black hair with a bob.

Shit, forgot the image

love it
jotted down my two cents real quick; the flow is quite rocky imo

This is looking really good, but a few things seem a little off to me. To me it looks like panels 5 and 6 could be switched with panels 3 and 4. Ms. Mouse here just thrusted the sword into bird dude, right? So wouldn't she have her hands on the sword like in panel 5, before releasing it in panel 3? Plus, going from detail shot to detail shot, to full body seems like a more natural shot progression to me.
Idk, I might have it all wrong. I'm just curious why you arranged those panels like that?

Oh well, I'm not gonna do anything like that, but I do plan to have him go through a trippy flash with trippy music everytime he does go back so that'll be something.

bump

15 hours... why does it take you so long to digitally paint? i did this skull in less than 4 minutes from scratch off the top of my head, no ref

do you force yourself to take super long breaks or is that the actual time you spend on the page not counting the breaks?

surely you jest

Stop being so masturbatory, bones. You couldn't even paint this panel if you were given 15 hours.

small page update

The perspective looks a bit off on the sidewalk in the bottom right of the last panel, and honestly the whole scene looks kind of weirdly squashed. I feel like if those buildings are meant to be sized appropriately for people, then that is one weirdly massive sedan (or the other way around).

The detailing and use of negative space is great though, keep it up.

Ya im gonna redo the front car, the one behind it is way more appropriately sized, and not far behind it

infact, im probably gonna reduce the population size and just remove the sedan in the front
It's supposed to be a small town in Sanford from Hot Fuzz

Who/what inspires your art the most, HYW?

I started reading Dungeon Meshi this past summer and it's the culmination of all of my artistic goals; character design, expressions, color, backgrounds, it's just all so good.

Finally finished the first big update of my new chapter
Feel free to critique, I need everything I can get

vidyadeparted.tumblr.com/post/157475850313/vidya-departed-chapter-1-part-1-the-bi-monthly

>what
Movies, and TV
specifically Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Her, Twin Peaks

>who
Yoshito Usui, Bryan Lee-O'Malley, Katsuhiro Otomo, Alex Ross

>artist has inferiority complex about their art
lel, no artist has this problem ya dingus

in all seriousness, looks good mang. I think your concern about the line width might be based on how the character's are the thickest in the entire picture, so it kind of seems out of place.

As an experiment, I would try thickening the outer lines of the rock formations and the egg in the foreground, see if that changes your opinion of the character's lineart