Introduction Thread - Welcome to the New and Old

[Kmag1up]

Hello!
My name is Kmag, right now i feel like I'm at an AA meeting with this post...heh.
I guess i wanted to join this forum because I became a fan of Shine and Hellsing around the same time. Though Hellsing was first. I'm pretty good to know i guesses....but i don't really post often so i guess that is good to...(oh and i don't seem to capitalize because my daughter ripped off the left hand shift key and i haven't gotten used to using the right hand one...)

so...Salute, Salam, and See ya!

[Spaceprincess]

Thanks Metruis! I do have my comic up and running. It's been up since 9/08. I just haven't gotten around to the forums.

[Metruis]

Hey, Kmag1up, aren't those keys, oh... interchangable? Take the right one off and stick it in the left side. ^_^

It might work. At least, on my keyboard it would...

Welcome to ComicGenesis!

(pokes SpacePrincess) Hey, you set up a website, that's not not-internet savvy! Psst, just one thing you need to fix, if you see this. In your dailytemplate.html, you need to add ONE dash before your archive link. So that it's /archives.html rather than archives.html, which is making the system add the /d/ to it. Looks cool. And very pink! I like it, usually these humor strips tend to feature guys.

[Spaceprincess]

thanks for the tip. I was wondering where the 404 errors were coming from. I use Go Live(it came with the CS bundle) and some times the links don't always mesh.

[Metruis]

Yeah, I used Notepad. (snrks) And when things go live, since ComicGenesis has its own coding way of things with the tags, you just can't preview how everything will work.

[Spaceprincess]

I like the way GoLive works, just because it works a lot like other adobe apps. Every one i talk to uses dream weaver or a simple text app. I like your comic pages what do you use to do your art? and what do you use to do your lettering? I use a combo of photoshop and illustrator(i sound like an adobe commercial) I also do a lot of hand drawing.

[Metruis]

Dang, I ought to make a new tutorial, my old one's out of date or I'd just link that. Basically, I do a really rough pencil sketch to serve as 'characters go here and panels go here and dialogue goes here' and Photoshop over that. Hmm. Photoshop, plain ol' round brush, hardness varies now... I usually use 100% to slap down some base colors and now somewhere between 40-70 for shading different things. Pencils on multiply, a background color underneath that, backgrounds underneath the pencils, base colors underneath the pencils, rough shading to kind of get outlines overtop and start shaping the people, pencils get deleted and everything else is painted over those layers. I don't use fancy programs or fancy brushes... just plain ol' Photoshop and a round brush. I do use the 'texture brush' option in the brush options for things like tree bark and other stuff, and I do have a collection of brushes that do things like scatter grass and leaves around though. But you could do my comic art style with nothing more than Photoshop base things and a tablet.

And lettering... same deal... Photoshop. The pen/vector tool for most bubbles and the stroke layer effect.

I started doing more by hand but I wanted to digitally color (I can't imagine buying that much watercolor paper... eep... I prefer doing art by hand, but still!) Essentially, I could do it all in Photoshop but I hate sketching digitally. ^_^ But yeah, nothing fancy here. Just Photoshop. I occasionally use a couple other programs... OpenCanvas mainly because I like its pencil tool best and if I need to add a panel or change one, I'd rather not waste another paper. I don't have Illustrator or I'd play with it for lettering.

In short: a whole BUNCH of Photoshop.

[Spaceprincess]

Photoshop is a life saver. It comes in handy, especially for those of us are sloppy inkers. I use it mainly to clean up my inking and to add color/garyscales. I'd like to hand color but it doesn't turn out as consistent. I like doing water colors but you're right water color paper is expensive and it doesn't scan very well. I like to use illustrator to do my lettering. I feel there's a lot more you can do with text in illustrator, though they have added a lot of those features to photoshop. I know some people don't like illustrator, it can be hard to learn and frustrating to use, I took some graphic design class where we used ill. for most things. If I were more ambitious I'd do my drawing in ill. A lot of animation is done in vector form now a days. It can give you nice clean lines that are easily editable/scalable.

[Evilmallard]

Hey guys!

I'm not really new...which makes me old, I guess.

I used to have a make a webcomic called Fishman...which was later changed to Flounderville after some guy threatened to sue me because our main characters spelled their names the same or something like that.

Anyway, that webcomic eventually got to the point where it just wasn't fun anymore...and life got in the way...so I gave it up.

But now I'm back, to let you know, I can really shake it down with a brand new username and a brand new webcomic called Space Fish. I am going to make a thread for it once the comic account finishes getting set up (still have approximately 5 days to go), so I won't go into much detail here.

I've already got 5 comics made, so by then I should have passed the "20 comics minimum before posting in the pitching thread" limit.

Hopefully I will have time to be a more active forum participant this time around as well.

[Metruis]

Welcome, EvilMallard! ...Back, I guess, not that I knew you before. Good luck with your new comic!

SpacePrincess: Well, my inking is pretty awful so I don't ink. Because I don't care to actually clean it up. I do know what vectors are, and I've even used them before. I use vector for logos and things like that. Due to being scalable. My art style wouldn't work/be doable in Illustrator without a ton of time, though. And I agree, there's more you can do with lettering but I get what I need done in Photoshop.

Hand coloring's fun but yeah, it is hard to scan, too.

[Spaceprincess]

Cool. I like talking shop. I find everyone does things a little different and picking peoples brains is the best way to pick up the little tricks, especially for photo shop. I've never used open canvas, I'm not very familiar with it.

[Metruis]

Photoshop? My favorite tricks are the alt key for the eyedropper, [ and ] resize my brush and shift + [ and ] change the softness of the brush. OpenCanvas is really good for sketching in, but it's not good for much else. It's basically made for artsy stuff and it does work for that, I enjoy the fact that I can replay the painting really fast, too... But it wouldn't be optimal for a comic as the text tool sucks.

[Draven_Xero]

Yo! Guess one could say I'm new to the boards...I'm pretty sure this is my first post here (I've been lurking for a while). Anyway, the name's Wes. I'm what you'd call a wannabe comic artist, but I REALY want to be a comic artist, so it works out. I've been doing a little project for a couple of months trying to get my drawing chops back up, and I'm also working on a storyline for the real thing, whenever I get around to actually launching it.
So, like, howdy'n'stuff!

[Pantagruelian]

Hello!
Me and co-writer Jason have been around since late-July of this past year with our strip P.A.N.T.A.G.R.U.E.L.I.A.N. and since we finally have our strip up and running in a relatively timely fashion (him more so than me) we thought we'd get around to introducing ourselves!

- We're both college students-
me (Kyle) for art and Jason for astrophysics
- We've been working as a creative team since middle school-
where we've churned out the designs for two different card games (neither have gone anywhere), a gaming website (which no longer exists), several different OC/gaming comics, and inspired/helped each other to create our own independent comics.

uh... I can't think of anything else...

[Metruis]

Hey, welcome to ComicGenesis, Draven_Xero. Sounds fun! Hey, doing a little project before the big one is a good idea. I didn't do that. It was not a good idea. Good luck for the big one too!

And hey, welcome, Pantagruelian! Wow, sounds like you guys have done a lot of stuff. I've worked with a co-writer and everything for years too and believe me when I say, it's far more fun than working alone, and I guess you've found your ultimate creative sidekick. My comic is not done with a co-writer, but there are references to things we've mutually created so even that's kind of a spinoff from co-writing. Good luck with your strip and with further collaborative projects!

[Spaceprincess]

welcome Pantagruelian, do you have a link for your comic? Working witha partner an be fun. I used to write with a freind. We did a comic together, it never went any where, but it was fun bs with him over ideas. But i prefer to work alone. I like doing my own thing without having to compromise.
Draven_Xero, If you want to be a comic artist then be one, It's a matter of just doing it. good luck and get your comic up!

[Pantagruelian]

Thanks for being so inviting Spaceprincess and Metruis! Our comic can be found at http://pantagruelian.comicgenesis.com

It's nice to have a partner in metaphorical crime though- we both have our own style, but we keep the same character designs and switch who updates every other week. And we always try to poke fun at each other in the strips- I personally think Jason has the upper hand most of the time though... xD

[Ceridwen]

Hi, I've actually had my comic since June, been posting here and there, whenever I can fit it in between school and work...there was a long period where I couldn't because my tablet pen disappeared and my scanner is teh awful, but then I bought a new pen...but now the new pen has disappeared too, AAGH. Anyway, school ended last week and today I had the random urge to make the POG and banner and stuff for my comic, so I did...well, the best job I could do using comic pages I already had uploaded and my mouse :p Anyway, I'm not much of a forum person, but I try to be...truthfully, I just get lazy and forget to come back to read replies, hehe. But I'll try to do that for this one. Oh and uh, fair warning...yes, it's true, my comic is a shonen-ai/yaoi/boy-love/call it what you will comedic romance comic, but I should hope it's not totally unbearably cliche. Also, of course, my art is teh suck, but I'm sincerely hoping that if I keep getting pages out, eventually I'll get better.

Okay, I think I rambled on enough...thanks! Bye!

[Spaceprincess]

Ceridwen- not bad. There is nothing wrong with being cliche as long as you added your style to it. Drawing is 90% practice and repetition so keep working at it.
Pantagruelian- very strange, but in a good way!

[Metruis]

Hey, welcome, Ceriwen! I've had a comic since June TOO. But I haven't had that bad of luck with my tablet pen! OY! Sucks... and you're right, Space, it's all about the practice! Webcomics are a good outlet for that. I suggest, Ceri, that you check out Blambot fonts and invest in a new font rather than Comic Sans (which is horridly overused for webcomics). Your art isn't half bad, decent for its genre. Nice manga. Scanner, I wonder, are you scanning on 300 dpi? And check your settings. I used to get some bad scans because it was set to auto sharpen and stuff like that. Good luck! I hope you find your pen! Your art isn't teh suck, it's just a bit typical looking for the genre.

On the other hand, Pantagruelian, really unique for the genre! Not really what I expected to see for crime but it's cute!