How's Your Webcomic? #355: Don't Let the Thread Die this Time Edition

You've got a webcomic, right? Post about it here. Share WIPs, pages, drawings, scripts, whatever. Get comments and critique.

Previous thread: Seriously, let's try to keep this one from 404ing overnight

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
boysland.thewebcomic.com/archive/
householdslimemold.com/
fav.me/dazc859
youtube.com/watch?v=lEE4yZgphFk
discord.gg/7ufnv
ggz.thecomicseries.com/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Scrub Authors GOODIE Bag
Here’s a l,short list of sites that any new webcomic artist/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

boysland.thewebcomic.com/archive/

Posted up chapter five, going with two shorter chapters per month as opposed to one long one per month as suggested via an user.

Two days ago I realized that I was being an idiot for not using more than sketching blue and inking black to draw my panels. I'm doing it digitally, I can use whatever I like! And so I went and used bright red to ink and paint details on the already being inked draw.

It ended up speeding my progress, surprisingly.

Is this going to load my picture or I'm cursed to not show it?

This is giving me some serious Digimon vibes, even down to the logo. Not that it's a necessary detriment, but from the look of it I expect a Digimon fancomic, which can be problematic if you're trying to do an original concept.

Oh, it works! Finally!

So, as I was saying, now I can draw each panel from scratch in less than 4 hours, which, believe it or not, is fast for me. I've also found a brush that resembles what I do with my graphite pencils.

A pitty I cannot continue to draw until this wednesday.

I keep running through scenarios from the webcomic in my head, usually in more of an animated format than a comic. At this point I've given up on trying to get the story onto paper, since it won't turn out the same way it does in my head and by the time I draw it out, the story will be rote to me. I'll end up revising chapters or entire character beats to keep the story fresh.

Inking of page 2

and the recolor of page one i did recently

I felt the same way about starting mine off on paper. It's really hard to keep the tone and pacing I want when my drawing isn't up to snuff. Can't really outsource to another artist and hope they keep the same schedule either.

Just have to improve bit by bit. Even if your art sucks I'd still read your comic for a good story.

>beats
>triggered.jpg

we must be down a eurofriend or something
speaking of foreigners:
literally just checked your comic and it made me wanna check to see if there was a new thread. You made a few typos:
>Monstrum Entry 01
its* soft face
>pg 7
Gonna* be tons of enemies
>pg 8
Should be 'you've done it again' but I could see him saying 'you done it again' as a little dialectical quirk.. but considering this is a guy who, a few panels later, says he questions the validity of his tail's assertions, he should probably speak properly
>pg 9
overthinking is one word. you can just add a hyphen though
should be 'eh, pardner?' not eh? pardner.

also I wish I had a better way to bookmark a page that would always show the FIRST of a new update, instead of the last. I keep reading the last page on an update and being like.. what?
I'm glad you took my pacing suggestion though!
also I freaking love this comic. the humor is top notch.

Here's some finished character bases at the 3 distances I'll be working with. The top one is a guest character a friend of mine designed but I think I managed to make her design fit the style of the comic pretty well.

What do you mean exactly, what's the red doing for you?
can't speak for the guy but I THINK it's meant to be a style pastiche of shounen adventure and especially monster farm / digimon types

And this is how page 1 used to look just for comparsion

Character interactions, how they develop on their own and around other people, that sort of thing.

yeah that fits pretty well
your friend's style reminds me of a friend of mine

After reading the first two chapters, I gotta say you nail the kids-anime-adventure tropes perfectly, though. It's got a lot of corniness, but that's the charm of it. I'm enjoying what I've read so far, it's very fun and cozy so far.

That's what I assumed as well, but I think the issue is that it's stylistically a little TOO similar to Digimon specifically. Rather than feeling like a kids with monsters adventure story in the same genre of Digimon, it feels like it's just trying to BE Digimon. If it was a fanfic, that wouldn't be a problem, but since this is an original story it comes off as very derivative. I do enjoy this comic from what I've read of it, but subconsciously as I read the comic I compare it to Digimon just because they look and feel so similar.

Nice, are the large sprites just going to be waist-up talksprites?

Nice colours. A bit dark, contrasted, but I like them.

Besides aiding me drawing because I have poor eyesight and red over white is a winner in the contrast challenge (more so than black, believe it or not), that way I can shadow the parts of my original draw that I want in greys and black, as well as add and change parts over finished portions of the draw. For example: in that unfinished panel I was drawing the items and shadowed parts in the background in different layers, one at a time. Drawing in red over a merge of sketches in light blue and finished black helped me finishing the drawing because I was able to tell which part was the one I was drawing at each moment without doing anything else.

I hope I've been clear with this stuff. It's hard to explain, but it definitely helps me a lot.

Yes, just for whenever characters are talking. The medium sprites will be used when they're interacting with something and the small ones will just be used for environmental shots.

Thanks, this was her initial sketch. She explained that the device replacing her arm would channel a sort of symbiotic slime organism to create a prosthetic hand.

that's not what he was referring to user

Well honestly, I'm not sure what he's referring to then.

the monsters really do have the same odd digimon sensibilities. if the kids had the same vertical eye styles and Sonic-esque limbs, I'd agree with you. But that kid is more Genki or Satoshi than he is Taichi, and really he's pretty unique. the style of the humans is what matters most in making it look more original

I guess I meant which things are you turning red? It's interesting to see someone else's process
and even after this explanation I still don't understand what you're using the red for

obviously Beats by Dre, which I believe is some kind of shoe

I'm afraid I don't have the red in the .psd anymore (I turned it black) so I can't show it to you.
In that panel, it was the filling black inside the doors of the fridge, the tone lines in the low side, the contents inside de fridge once I had the fridge done.

In the following panel it was fist the two guys and the dog, then turned to black; next was the posters in the window and the window frame, then turned to black; next to that, I painted in red the tone in the window's glass, then turned black once I got what I wanted; and so on.

That way I could see what I needed to erase that was out of the outlines or were making the picture less clear, or wrong.

okay so basically the red is kinda "not ready to finish inking this yet, but don't want it to disappear once I delete the sketch lines" stuff? or is it like... refining a sketch, wanting it to stand out from the previous sketch lines?

"Ok, I need a secondary inking layer to add details to the first one and erase stuff easily without putting the first one in danger. But I need to see what the hell I'm doing before merging both of them into the same black mass".

Might as well drop today's page here. I'm not quite satisfied with the colors on this page and I don't know why.

I'm considering just posting the next page on Friday instead of waiting another week.

I can see how that would be a problem for some but at this point I think it's too late to change the looks of the monsters. The logo part I don't understand though.

Well shit, I'mma haflta go back and edit. We always get too excited and post ahead before doing one last look over.

What's more embarrassing is neither of us working on this are foreigners.

We'll look into the bookmark thing. And thanks! I'm glad we have people enjoying it!

Correct, it is supposed to be in the vain of those shounen/kids-with-monsters series that were popular in the late 90's and early 2000's.

That's unfortunate, but once the story picks up hopefully those vibes you're getting will fade. At least I hope. The story does deviate from the formula later, at least I think so. But time will tell and I'd love to get your continued input.

I'm glad the corniness is seen as a plus!

here are some of the original designs from two or so years ago. I think they've improved immensely myself.

ahh okay gotcha. that's a useful technique!
it might just be me, but I feel like the purple clashes horribly with the rest of the page being cool cadet blue tinted. still, that's hardly unrealistic for public transportation.

The logos for Boys Land, Digimon Digital Monsters from the US, and Digimon Adventure from Japan.

>neither of us working on this are foreigners.
really? I could have sworn one of you was brasilian
psst. in the vein*
i like those old designs too, but you've definitely improved

FUCK!

thanks for spellchecking for us all the time yeesh

so... no similarity at all then?
thanks for letting me. gotta get those urges out in a positive way.

Meant as sincerely as possible by the way.

Here are the main line of kids before we updated them as well. I think Marco has vastly improved.

Yeah I don;t see a huge similarity. But maybe I'm biased/too close to the project? All criticism is good criticism.

what about the original logo for the virtual pets?

OH SHIT! You're right! I never even looked at the before. That's completely coincidental I swear.

Maybe we should change it then?

now THERE'S a similarity
if you're gonna have one, it should be to something more obscure like that. you get indy cred

personally I think you should add something just to make the logo less monochrome (appropriate for packaging, but for a comic, eh...) like i'd do a smaller scratchy version of each letter inside the black in some bright red.. but since the comic's black and white that might not work

god damn i love drawing splosions

Honestly I really do love your monster designs, they're a little busy, but they're right up my alley in aesthetics. I drew the Ursa girl cause she's cute, hope she looks alright.

what are the origins of your monsters? Are they digital as well?

some namefag drama, forget about it

Also not gonna lie, this story is influenced by Digimon, (and others like Monster Farm, Pocket Monster, et cetera,) and will definitely have similarities like evolution and such.

But to distance from those we purposefully tried to include other elements, make parts of the story more "adult," (later in narrative anyway,) Western designs for the humans, and a different and more fleshed out lore rich world to explore. So I sincerely hope that as it continues those ideas and similarities will fade and be seen more like homages than anything else.

They are not even close to being digital. However I can't tell you their origin without spoiling the comic so...

OMG I LOVE THIS!

fukken saved

>Western designs for the humans
I wouldn't go that far, they fit the anime aesthetic, but they are definitely not SO anime that it's distracting or anything

Well I would say as it is you should have your logo reference whatever the origin of the monsters are, much like how digimon logos are usually pixelated and digital looking. As it is it just feels too much like digimon and although that would be fine if digimon were a dead property you probably don't want to look like a knock off of something that's still alive and well.

(artist here, other guy talkin' is writer)

Surprise fanart? That just made my day user! thank you so much.

Guys you have no idea, just you wait, Boys Land is gonna get so freakin' cool the farther we go. We haven't even hit the sweet spot yet.

So it's true I did in fact take inspiration from the Digimon virtual pet logo, glad someone found out. Also the designs are inspired by Digimon as well, although my deviation is to make them a little softer, less muscle, belts and guns haha.

Glad there's people reading! That makes it all the more worth it to make the comic.

One does notice that the anime designs are already 'softer' than the hyperdetailed original art. I always found that interesting.. digimon had those detailed paintings as their starting-point for the designs, while pokemon had watercolor paintings

This is the up-to-date logo, the one being passed around is the 2014 variation.

I can agree that it may remind people of Digimon. But I think that it's far enough as it's own that I wouldn't worry about a lot of people thinking Boys Land is a Digimon-fanficiton haha.

I stand corrected. I'll leave design critiques to the guys who draws next time. Whoops.

Website?

>When the thumbnail looks like an angry red bird looking back at you as it shoots a laser out of it's cloaca...

Is it a bad idea to have a story where no one in the main cast dies but most of the main antagonists do?

Ooh, that's probably part of it. I saw a lot of red seats in my ref images and thought they would work well, but now looking at these photos again the interior has more of a green tint to it than blue...

No problem, I like what I've read of your comic so far, hope to see it get even better.

householdslimemold.com/

I'm challenging myself to finish the BQ issue 1 script. I'll be updating daily.

cannot unsee

sounds fun to me.

Website, REEEEE!

how is this even remotely a novel idea ... ?

thanks to the user who did vote

So this week I only got a splash page done but getting back on track this upcoming update. Here's a link, only got four pages done. variable-comic.tumblr.com

I don't see the problem with it, but most stories go this way don't they?

I just had a feeling that it would be cheap to not kill at least one main character

woo, I don't remember what I voted for, but.. yay

I posted some old pictures of this guy a while ago but I'm now working on a more finalized polished design for him. Does this seem like a solid design for a stealthy gigeresque abomination? I want his design to be memorable but not look too much like any existing giger painting.

hmmm.. the torso is very gigeresque, I think it's the part I like best.
the rest... could use a little work I think. For one thing, it looks like it would sound like tearing, twisting metal every time it moved. not terribly stealthy. ditto that big echo chamber above the head. and while it may seem sensible that tiny feet = tiny footsteps, in reality the larger your footprint, the more balanced your weight is

of course it doesn't have to be realistic, but you're asking how it LOOKS, and I can't use anything but realism in my judgment of that

I actually like the smaller version you've drawn a lot more maybe it's the thinner limbs or something but it just looks a a lot better I also like the square eyes more
the fact that you can't judge a design based on what you think looks good and instead rely on what's most realistic is really strange not being mean that's just really bizarre

I just mean that form follows function. If you ask "Does this look like a good stealth machine" I have to say no. stealthy things are smooth like a stealth bomber, they don't disrupt things around them, they just moove smoothly

bump

Thanks for the feedback from last time; I'm looking to improve color scheming, especially with this coming page, because the last one doesn't do the original show justice.

Just finished inking and coloring all characters for this current page. I'm moving on to backgrounds and other details now, so it should be a matter of days before Page 2 is posted.

Page 1: fav.me/dazc859

As this user said it feels reminiscent of Gigeresque, along with that new Scorn game: youtube.com/watch?v=lEE4yZgphFk

I wouldn't say it's a knock off, but you can tell there is elements that cross over.

Though this is more of a freehand, fun, reference sheet, I suggest going for a full out legit on reference sheet.

But I like it so far, got anymore?

dramatic special-effects-filled action movie climax achieved. clearly Europan alloys don't have a high heat tolerance.
also Sasha is weird.

A character who's gonna show up way later in the comic but I just like drawing. I am allowed 1 (one) shameless bishounen character per story.

Eh, it might. If your story has life or death stakes, it would be weird for none of the good guys to die. Maybe you could just kill off a side character or two?

Please don't let this thread die while I'm asleep again.

...

I think it totally depends on the context of your story. Like if the stakes are high then yeah it's odd. If not though then not really.

Also depends on your demographic, the younger the intended audience the less you need to kill the good guys for believabilty. Good guys rarely die in kid shows. They do, but not often.

>the younger the intended audience the less you need to kill the good guys for believabilty
uh, user? you do realize kids hate that about 'kids' shows' right? that's done on behalf of complaining parents. it's kids who MOST want death to signify significance. the rest of us are embittered and would rather just have something nice to soothe us in our shitty adult lives

Hey can I get an invite to the discord ?

discord.gg/7ufnv

someone's definitely gonna keep bumping tonight, right? good.

Thanks

>Page 10

I thought you weren't going to let this thread die, /hyw/.

The thread is kinda dead compared to usual, can't be helped user.

where the comic maker wannabes at?

Mine?

Day 2, This was a mistake. Composing panels on a page, then composing the page next to it is fairly draining intellectually. Though I've gotten a fair amount of it done and will have the book laid out by tomorrow, which is gratifying.

I'm now realizing that aside from Briana there isn't a lot of visual reference for the world she inhabits, which I suppose is a natural pitfall of concentrating mostly on her tits and macro level narrative.

This will make my timetable that i thought was fairly generous really tight as I'll have to design on the fly, suddenly 100 days feel like nothing.

But, we soldier on, I'll do it for her.

Good luck, Sidney!

writing

kek

most recent laserwing

When's the next page of Goth Grill Z?

When's the next page of Artborn?

I mean, you're not wrong.

Whoa, I see it too now!

Finally got an artist down to work on my comic. Problem is he wont be able to start until he's done with school in June. But it's a good start.

tfw this will probably fall through just like the other artists.

what is the story of your comic?


well if that fail you could start learning how to draw right now

>what is the story of your comic?
Fantasy setting where tensions are high between the religious orders of the world and a group of humans who believe machine enhancements are the only way to survive. Both sides being manipulated by a group who took "machine enhancements" too far and have become horrible abominations on their quest for "perfection". Main characters are a soldier and an angel who's wings were removed by these abominations for an unknown porpoise.

made a cover page for episode 2 of my Goth Grill Z project!

its gonna be great~!

HD VERSION(and website): ggz.thecomicseries.com/

Have you considered not-baiting and making an actual series of it? I'd be interested in the designs if you stopped purposely being shit.

unfortunately for people interested my METEOR RANDOM project i my main focus right now, my other 3 projects GGZ, DEMON FUZE, and FATES CHAOS are only getting table scraps of my attention right now as I try to make my cartoon webcomic about super fighting robots not only a reality but even more original than it already is because to many people made a weird megaman connection out of no where which i even had to admit was a little to close to be a coincidence, even though it was just a pure coincidence!

METEOR RANDOM is not a clone or a rip off of MEGAMAN if anything maybe it was subconsciously inspired by it, maybe, kind of... but its super original you guys. super original!