I could use some feedback on my strip

Theresetbutton · Post by **Theresetbutton** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:27 am

Well, any feedback would be fine

http://theresetbutton.comicgenesis.com

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:29 am

My first thought is why do you leave the lines jagged like that?

Kris X · Post by **Kris X** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:33 am

Please, please start by saving in a cleaner way. I suggest saving your image as a PNG instead of jpg. It could be a lot more cleaner and less fuzzy.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:49 am

Thirded the "Save this in PNG format oh GOD MY EYES".

That aside, I don't get a lot of your jokes, or I get them but don't quite laugh. But you do a good job with the artwork, so I'm going to assume I just have a different sense of humor than you.

That guy · Post by **That guy** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:01 pm

I think it's more a sizing issue. If you save your pictures LARGE and shrink them down they will look cleaner. If you save them SMALL and enlarge them they get pixelated. You can generally also select a file size for saving. If you go high the download will be longer but it will be easier on the eyes, go low and suddenly things get fuzzy.

The pictures themselves look great - just a little blurred by technical problems. You might want to set up a little more WHO the character is - what his goals are. I take it he's a video game character, but not any specific game... don't be afraid to use some cheesy exposition in the early strips so we know what the point is. What game is he in? Is he always in the game, or does he also live in a "real" world? Does it matter to him if he beats it? Is it single-player or a big MMORPG? Is your purpose to follow a character through his game (storyline advancement) or to poke fun at gaming in general? (one-liners & gag strips)

There are a lot of things that pop up... you don't need to answer them all, but if you had a clearer sense of direction they wouldn't be an issue.

Twotimingpete · Post by **Twotimingpete** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:19 pm

what we're looking at isn't jpeg degredation. it's not a format issue. saving this as a png wouldn't look any different.

the issue is he's using the paintbucket tool with apparently a high tolerance setting and he's not going in and cleaning up what it doesn't fill. paint bucket tool tends to leave a small area around the linework (depending on the tolerance setting) that needs to be manually cleaned up, which he doesn't do.

Swikan · Post by **Swikan** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:36 pm

Theresetbutton: I will let those who know the art programs better take that area. I will make one suggestion tho, that being to add the text after the image is shrunk.

As to the story, I think the concept is really cute and has the potential to be really funny. I realize it is still in the early stages, but for a story, it feels a bit disjointed. If you are going for a gag kind of thing, the gags need a bit more.. ..something. I'm not sure.. It's just not quite there yet.

Dr_Destruction · Post by **Dr_Destruction** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:42 pm

twotimingpete wrote:the issue is he's using the paintbucket tool with apparently a high tolerance setting and he's not going in and cleaning up what it doesn't fill.

Or you could just uncheck the box that says Anti-Aliased on your paint bucket tool. Of course if you really want good colors you should do them in Layers. Select your space and then fill it in, in a layer on top of that. Color over the edges and then selct layer properties and set it to either "Darken" or "Multiply" either one gives you the same effect if the background is pure white. If you shade it though "Multiply" gives a darkened coloring effect.

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:36 am

He's using gradients. Saving something with gradients as a PNG will either A-chew up the gradient and make it look crummy or B-make the file huge if the gradient is preserved

.

Theresetbutton · Post by **Theresetbutton** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:16 am

Okay, well as far as the comic files themselves, I'm working on it--I don't have the best graphics software...yet. As far as the story, there's a lot I haven't explained yet. Sure, they're video game characters. BUT not to any game, I've got it set up where they're all students in a fictional video game world. The way I see it--in this universe, in order to make it into a video game, you've got to LEARN how to be a video game star first. But that'll all be explained in the upcoming weeks. These first few strips are just here to capture the 'mannerisms' and personalities of the main characters. Great tips though and I'll bust my ass to get this stuff done right--

Dburkhead · Post by **Dburkhead** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:22 am

Swikan wrote:Theresetbutton: I will let those who know the art programs better take that area. I will make one suggestion tho, that being to add the text after the image is shrunk.

As to the story, I think the concept is really cute and has the potential to be really funny. I realize it is still in the early stages, but for a story, it feels a bit disjointed. If you are going for a gag kind of thing, the gags need a bit more.. ..something. I'm not sure.. It's just not quite there yet.

My own technique (at least in recent comics) has been to use the magic wand tool to select an area, "expand" the selection a couple of pixels (I've set up a macro for that), then use a paintbucket tool with matching set to "none" so it fills the entire selection. All this is done on a separate layer from the lineart with blending set to multiply so the black and white line art is nicely preserved.

Mind you, none of that makes me draw any better, but I can get nice and neat coloring of those poorly drawn pages.

EvilChihuahua · Post by **EvilChihuahua** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 1:49 pm

...What the bugger is on that monkey's tail??

And as for a bad graphics program, try googling "Gimp". I've heard it's a great free alternative to Photoshop.

Theresetbutton · Post by **Theresetbutton** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:22 pm

Oh that? It's a bomb. I thought it would be cool to throw a bomb at the end of his tail--you know, something that only a VIDEO GAME CHARACTER can pull off. I'm looking into GIMP, as well

there's a cast page too, at http://theresetbutton.comicgenesis.com/cast.html

Swikan · Post by **Swikan** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:19 pm

:lol, I got that it was a video game character ("in training" or "job hunting"). and I really liked the old-school/classic video game environment. I saw some Sonic the Hedgehog cliffs and hillocks!!

I really think the concept is funny (liked that he had a Myspace page, too). I like the way you draw the characters, too. But the technical stuff mentioned above is distracting from all that. I hope you can get gimp to work for you! Some of the artists on this forum are doing amazing things with Gimp.

As for my comments above on the writing/story, I think you will hit your stride soon and I am really anxious to see these characters develop/go somewhere.

Theresetbutton · Post by **Theresetbutton** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:43 pm

Thanx. Most of the 'video game' elements are going to be retro, too. Unless it's something EXTREMELY popular, i'm not using any new video game staples. Which explains why all of my characters look like generic platform mascots

. Can't wait until GIMP finishes downloading--I wanna see what I can do with it!

Garneta · Post by **Garneta** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:06 pm

I think the logo looks a bit crowded, it's hard to read the comics title for all the pictures crammed in there. Maybe it would help if you dimmed them down a bit, or even just changed it entirely.

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 11:26 am

If you didn't own photoshop nor Gimp, what were you using to make these? MSPaint?

Theresetbutton · Post by **Theresetbutton** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:49 pm

ArcSoft Photoimpression, ever heard of it?

KODAMA · Post by **KODAMA** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:43 am

bah PNG. I say save it as a GIf with a custom palette.

Since it seems your comic is obviously using less than 256 colors at a time and has big areas of solid color, GIF format would be ideal. (256 colors is enough to represent most small-scale gradients)

Theresetbutton · Post by **Theresetbutton** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 8:11 am

Okay, I fixed the issue with the logos, and while I was at it, I fixed the buttons (they looked pretty bad). I'm still trying to get gimp, as it's a huge file and i'm living in 1999 (aka I'm using dial-up). I switched over most of my files to PNG, but I'm not really seeing a difference, though.