If you're able to draw at all, you're able to draw a webcomic. Do not expect a huge following. Do not expect to earn $$ doing it. DO expect to evolve, grow as an artist, and learn a lot from the experience... and you'll benefit and maybe even enjoy yourself .
When I began my style was radically different and... well... worse.
This is a comparison I did last year:
I LOVE my characters, even more so because they've grown with me, but I can recognize that they're my starters. I can now consider illustrating professionally because I've learned so much from doing Thatguy, as well as a few other comics I've worked on.
LukeEkblad wrote:Ok, I have a great idea for a Comic and alredy drew and posted the first one. I took a picture of it, inked it on the computer then posted it! I'm just waiting for the email to come that has my password and stuff. It been like 10 mins alredy, is it soposed to tack that long?
It takes, like, a week or so. It should say in the sign up materials if you just read through them. You have to be patient in the beginning, but once your site is all set up and ready and you figure out all of the details, it all speeds up.
The question isn't if you can make a comic, but should you. Almost anyone can make a comic. I say you should make one.
Here are some things that can help, though:
-Try multiple poses. Yes, front-view is easy, but it also gets boring. Even drawing in different angles can help.
-Always try something different. Sometimes it can help. I learned that trying to do a sword-wielding pose.
Most importantly,
-Avoid over-exposition. Show us, don't tell. Don't just tell us about an angry monster, SHOW us. But not too much, as telling/showing us something too much can lead us to think you are fixated/have a fetish about it. Transforming? Fine. Furry? Fine. Gender-swap? Fine. Size difference? Okay as well. Age-regression/progression? Okay. (But expect possible undesired links from many sites)
It's when the above are told/shown too much is when there are problems. So Sally can change into a man? Fine, just don't tell us 1,000 times or show us 100 times in 100 pages. Size changing dragon? Okay, just don't do what Boston and Shaun does and make it the entire story.
You can have characters with these attributes, but don't make them the focus of the story. Too much of ANYTHING is bad, so don't be afraid to change it up. Let them sit out a couple episodes. It only took a couple comics like El Goonish Shive or The Wotch for me to realize I did the same kind of thing. (I didn't know those types of comics even existed!) In a way, the same is true of many gaming comics. Not everyone is going to care about the same stuff you do.
After a while, when things are going well, it's time to improve. Check out some references for drawing various things. Try them out.
draw, it doesn't matter what you do if you like to draw then draw. anything you do you get better at by doing it. those people who go "gee I wish I could draw gud" are never gonna draw good, cause they aren't drawing.
if ya want to do a comique do it. Like anything in life, if you don't dive in then you'll just watch from the side lines all your life.
<KittyKatBlack> You look deranged. But I mean that in the nicest way possible. ^_^;
You seem to be interested enough to at least give it a go. Seems to me that you've made up your mind, and reading back, yeah. You've done so. Now you just need to see whether you were right and can continue with it.
That doesn't necessarily mean this one... but continue with drawing comics. Like you, I'm on my first webcomic, I've just kept at it, like many others who've posted here already.
Go ahead and give it a good shake. See what drops out.
Remember when your imagination was real? When the day seemed
longer than it was, and tomorrow was always another game away?
LukeEkblad wrote:Ok, I have a great idea for a Comic and alredy drew and posted the first one. I took a picture of it, inked it on the computer then posted it! I'm just waiting for the email to come that has my password and stuff. It been like 10 mins alredy, is it soposed to tack that long?
Haha, yeah, it takes a little while. Spend your waiting time buy drawing comics.
LukeEkblad wrote:Hi guys. I'v been drawing for a very long time now and I have been wanting to maybe start an online comic. I dont know if I need more practice or if i'm good enough to start a comic already.
Slightly irrelevant as you've already gone off and started one but can I suggest an alternative answer to the one that has been offered so far. Don't. The impression you give is that you want something to challenge/practice/show-off your artwork - that is fine and laudable and a comic will do those things (partly because comic book sequential art is far more challenging than other forms). However, starting a comic book is not the best way to do that - comics are stories, or a series of jokes, they are first, middle, and last about ideas. Art is just the chrome on top of that, if you have good ideas you can get away with bad art, if you don't no artwork is going to save you.
And there is an alternative available. The forums have a spot where you can advertise for work - drop in a post, give samples of your work, and ask 'hey, any writers looking for an artist?'. You'll find it much more challenging drawing to someone elses ideas rather than trying to think up ideas in order to have something to draw.
That guy wrote:If you're able to draw at all, you're able to draw a webcomic. Do not expect a huge following. Do not expect to earn $$ doing it. DO expect to evolve, grow as an artist, and learn a lot from the experience... and you'll benefit and maybe even enjoy yourself .
When I began my style was radically different and... well... worse.
This is a comparison I did last year:
I LOVE my characters, even more so because they've grown with me, but I can recognize that they're my starters. I can now consider illustrating professionally because I've learned so much from doing Thatguy, as well as a few other comics I've worked on.
Hey hey save it for the next evolution thread. It's almost a year after the last one.
I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not a nice person. Occasionally I play one on tv, but only as a walk-on.
1. Get an editor to check your spelling and grammar. Ur is not a word. Already has two a's in it. As a comic reader and producer, minor errors are one thing, for most folks they're the result of typos or slapping the comic together at one in the morning. However, consistent errors and poor grammar physically hurt my brain. If you don't know how to spell a word, you have the freedom (as creator) to pick a word you do know how to spell.
2. Find a scanner. Somewhere, anywhere. Photographs of drawings are not the same as scanned artwork, and utilizing a scanner will make an amazing difference as to the quality of your work. Even if you only scan it and tape it to the internet, it will make a huge difference.
3. Take notes in Biology. Accompany those notes with doodles. Learn skeletal structure, musculature and range of motion. It will make you a better artist to know what's going on under the surface of the skin and how it works.
4. Develop a signature style. A unique way of presenting your characters that is just yours. Add some flavor to it. Right now, both drawings you have up look kind of flat and generic. A lot of folks (especially if you look at the 'old art v. new art' thread) started with a specific cartoon style, we'll call it 'banga,' and eventually developed their own way of drawing their characters.
5. Have something to say. If you just want to show off your art and practice it, join deviantArt. Make a comic if you have a story, characters, theme, style and time for a comic.
6. Have a friend who knows html, or learn it yourself. You can have a brilliant comic, but it isn't showing up on the page by itself. Your comic is being displayed via webpage. The two should fit well together. Poor navigation and site design can be as much a turn-off as a boring story or shoddy artwork.
7. Have something other than MS Paint available to you by way of graphics editing. In Help Center there have been numerous posts about what softwear people like and use. The GIMP is free, as is OpenCanvas 1.1. Both of them are good programs. Learn to use your program to polish your layout and add text (if you're not hand-lettering. And... if you already need an editor, please don't), and clean up your lines and colors.
Have those things in place before you launch your comic if you want it to be readable. On the other hand, if you just want to put up silly drawings, and work on your art, deviantArt is also an excellent community for that. And people won't expect updates on any regular basis.
It's about fluff, angst, drama, comedy, gaming. Come play in our world.
geekblather wrote:I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not a nice person. Occasionally I play one on tv, but only as a walk-on.
I don't know why you say you're not a nice person. All the suggestions you gave were very honest, but worded in a pleasant and encouraging manner.
On another note, does anyone remember the first comic strips of "Calvin and Hobbes", back in the 80s? The art was really crude, but by the mid-90s it got a lot more polished. But you see? The newspapers still published the newer stuff! It's my guess that they were more drawn (no pun intended) by Watterson's writing at first.
If you want to start a comic you should just do it. I started more or less on a whim, wanting to get into webcomics, and at first, my stuff sucked. But if you obsess about your art to the point where you never finish a strip, youll never grow. The way to grow is to keep doing it -preferrably- every day. YOu'll make mistakes, but over time, you'll start to learn how your characters work and your writing and your pacing and ofcourse your art is going to get better. And maybe if you don't like how it turns out, you can always start something else. Your old stuff won't be a wasted effort, it'll be practice. It's all really a learning process. It'll take a while, but it'll be worth it.
largopredator wrote:If you want to start a comic you should just do it. I started more or less on a whim, wanting to get into webcomics, and at first, my stuff sucked. But if you obsess about your art to the point where you never finish a strip, youll never grow. The way to grow is to keep doing it -preferrably- every day. YOu'll make mistakes, but over time, you'll start to learn how your characters work and your writing and your pacing and ofcourse your art is going to get better. And maybe if you don't like how it turns out, you can always start something else. Your old stuff won't be a wasted effort, it'll be practice. It's all really a learning process. It'll take a while, but it'll be worth it.
Couldn't put it any better.
One-liners: Come for the laughs, stay for the abuse.
noir wrote:.... comics are stories, or a series of jokes, they are first, middle, and last about ideas. Art is just the chrome on top of that, if you have good ideas you can get away with bad art, if you don't no artwork is going to save you....
Ooh, excellent point. As noir says, you can offer your skills to other writers instead (although that can be problemeatic), or you can use a comic as a chance to hone both crafts at once, ILLUSTRATION and WRITING. As geekblather wrote: #5: Have something to say. Do you have something to say? Now's the time to start really scripting and planning and deciding exactly how you WANT to say it. Having a grand plan in advance will help give your comic much-needed direction.
The success of Seinfeld proves Yeaduff right, of course. You can be about nothing in particular and still be wildly popular. I still maintain that having a direction strengthens a comic immensely (even if that direction changes like the wind). I have a clear direction in mind for each storyline I do, although my most popular strips are often those that fall between-stories... so take it or leave it.
Good art will get people to look at you. Good writing will get people to look at you again.
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