Lettering

Megaskunjii · Post by **Megaskunjii** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:18 pm

I find that the artwork is quite good, but the lettering makes it difficult to read at times.

What kind of applications do you use to transfer things to electronic format?

Decomics · Post by **Decomics** » Tue May 23, 2006 3:42 pm

I scan the images in and modify (as necessary) using Paint Shop Pro 6 (archaic but it gets the job done).

Sorry about the lettering. That is one area that I may experiment with larger lettering in Book Two.

I prefer to hand render the letters because (a) I've been doing that since 1980; and (b) it's much quicker.

The real quirk is in the artwork not being inked. I think if it were inked, it would probably be much clearer. I darken all the lines by lowering the gamma. This often causes some darkening around the letters that renders them harder to see.

Increasing the lettering size may help. We shall see...

Megaskunjii · Post by **Megaskunjii** » Sat May 27, 2006 6:39 am

I highly reccomend either inking the material either electronically or physically. Your line work is good and inking it will be worth the trouble... especially when you compare your early work to mine. When I first started, Super Temps looked even worse without inking and a splash of colour -- mostly due to a lack of detail on my part. By contrast, your early work had a good level of detail and is consistent. Inking will only improve it further.

ShardZ · Post by **ShardZ** » Sat May 27, 2006 9:07 am

Some of the text is a bit cramped in earlier balloons, which would make re-lettering as larger text difficult... but even rearranging the lines slightly so that they're level would help quite a bit (at least it seems a little lopsided in, for example, the fifth panel here). Of course, some of the small and cramped lettering is, I believe, (please correct me if I'm wrong) supposed to be small and difficult to read, because it was spoken in a rush.

There's always something to be said for that extra level of dedication (which seems rare in online works). Inking would definitely help, and (if publishers or prospective readers are picky) there are also programs to turn one's own lettering into a font... worry-free consistency while still being original. At first I thought you might have used something similar for the fragments of the letters in the first comic, but on closer inspection I'm not so sure... I have no experience in detecting these things, but the lettering is beautifully consistent and even.

Just my two cents... or something.

Decomics · Post by **Decomics** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:31 am

Hi ShardZ,

Yes in the first comic and the 12th comic, I used computerized lettering (good eye!) and in the 5th strip, it was meant to be frenetic and hurried-looking, almost to illegibility, because that was Crystal's state of mind at the time.

Re-lettering the initial strips may be near-impossible without going the computerized route, which would require more time than I possess...

I'm a family guy who works long hours. I do have a tech support job so I can work on art simultaneously, but beyond that, what time I do get I usually spend with my wife and kids (and the one MMORPG I actually play, The Saga of Ryzom). So, I may need some help from someone if we need to go that route...