Friday, September 28, 2007

Comments For Page 364

So that's what awaits in the labyrinth. Still, that's doesn't explain why Slara is so upset. Could there be something more to the labyrinth then we've been told? Wait and see.

I'm trying something a little different with the panels. I originally wanted the maze to form it's own panel and break the top panel into three panels, but it didn't really work out that way. The words kind of got in the way. I suppose I could rework it, but I don't want to spend a lot of time on it.

Speaking of time, did anyone notice how late in the day I'm posting this? After all my talk about getting faster and better at putting up pages, I end up being late again.

This time it wasn't really my fault. Thursdays are busy days for me anyway because of Choir practice and art class. On top of that, one of my nieces came for a visit and I didn't want to miss seeing her. She doesn't visit very often and her visits are always short. Yesterday was no exception, but it still took a chunk out of my drawing time.

I did get all the drawing done last night, but the coloring didn't get done until this morning. It really amazes me that it takes two hours to color my art. It's not like I'm doing anything complex with the colors. It's mostly just using the fill tool. The hair and shadows are what take the time. I guess that's why I like drawing Slara the best - no hair to worry about.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Comments For Page 363

Oh No! It's the Labyrinth. Wait, what's so bad about a labyrinth? Come back Friday and find out.

Well, this page took more time to draw then the last one, but I'm still making good time. I don't know if it's because I'm starting early or because I'm getting better at it. Either way, you don't have to wait to read my pages anymore. I've been posting them by midnight EST for a while now.

Noting new to report, so I'll go for now. I'll see you on Friday.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Comments For Page 362

That's a pretty neat trick. Truthfully now, how many of you have seen this before?

That's two tasks down, what will be the next challenge? Time is ticking away. The gang needs to get the satchel soon, or their friends may not be alive by the time they get there.

I got this page done in record time. There are more panels then usual, but nothing too challenging. Only Racheal's pose in the last panel required any real effort. Don't worry, there will be more challenging scenes to come.

Nothing more to add. Things are going well. I'm working on a few things. Hopefully, I have have good news before next weekend. I'll see you wednesday.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Comments For Page 361

Walk through a piece of paper? These tasks are getting pretty challenging. Assuming the gang can get past this challenge, what will they have to do next?

I roughed out the page first before doing the final drawing and I think some scenes look better for it. The hands in panel two and six certainly benefited from getting the rough proportions finished before redrawing them.

Normally, I don't like taking the time to rough things out, but I misplaced my drawing pen and had to make due with a back up. Once I got my pen back, I was able to finish things fairly quickly. So maybe roughs actually speed up the drawing process. I'll try it again and see what happens.

I don't know how many reading this are interested in creating web comics, but if you're not checking out Webcomics Weekly, you're missing some great advice from four long time web comic developers, including Scott Kurtz - creator of PVP.

If you do create your own comic, or are interested in starting one, you might want to check out the 52 Comic Challenges. As of this post, they are on challenge five, so it's not too late to join in. I plan to start this soon myself. I'll keep you posted as I make updates.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Comments For Page 360

Looks like the gang has several challenges ahead of them if they want to get the satchel back. Will Slara be able to figure out which sword is the correct one? Come back Friday and find out.

I was suppose to explain who Kate is in relation to Slara and tell you why she was at the party. Since I didn't get into that in the story, I'll tell you here.

Even though Kate and Cepani are twins, Cepani became obsessed with the word of the law while Kate dedicated her life to living them. While learning the art of the sword, she met Slara who was also learning the martial arts. They became friends and shared many adventures together. Eventually, Slara left to explore other worlds while Kate continued her studies. Since Slara is now back in her hometown, she invited her old friend over to visit.

However, when Kate showed up, she found that Slara had brought some strange people from another planet with her. Kate felt a little uncomfortable around these strange people are decided to distance herself from the others.

Now you know the story.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Comments For Page 359

Oh, I see. It was Cepani that was the referee of Racheal and Slara's fight. So then who is Kate and why was she at Slara's house for the party? You'll have to come back Wednesday to find the answer to that question.

A more important question would be "What did Cepani do with the satchel and how are Racheal and the gang going to get it back?" Actually that's too questions. The first question should be answered on Wednesday as well. As for the second, that may take a little longer to figure out.

The middle panel took a lot of time to draw, and it looks okay. But it doesn't look like what I had planned to draw. The temple on the previous page wasn't as good as I would have liked either. Sometimes I wish I had the time and patience to draw what I see in my head. On the other hand, you don't really need a lot of detail in a web comic. The point is to tell a story, and as long as the words and pictures tell the story, it doesn't matter how detailed they are.

As an artist, I want to produce good works of art that people will enjoy reading, but as a reader I'm happy to just get a good story. The art only bothers me if it's really bad and you can't tell what's going on.

It's different if I'm looking at single works that are meant to stand on their own. There is certainly some styles I like more then others. Unlike most people, I don't like art that looks real. I know a lot of artists pride themselves are creating realistic paintings, but I find it's too easy to copy and alter photographs to really appreciate a realistic painting. Fun cartoon drawing are a different matter. It takes a lot of skill to create a fun design. Many amateur cartoonist draw unfunny stiff drawings. I'm often seeing the same style over and over again. Give me someone who's not afraid to try something new and has a good eye for detail. This is what I want for my own artwork. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm at least trying.

I've studied Don Martin and Mat Gross. Next I want to look at the works of Carl Banks. I've looked at many other artists, but these are the artists I want to be the most like. I don't want to copy their styles, I want to have people laugh at my drawings like they laugh at these great artists' work.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Comments For Page 358

This picture just doesn't do the Forest Temple justice.

I hope the transition from the first three panels to the last one wasn't too abrupt for everyone. I was looking over the story and felt that there was just too much talking that didn't really help move the story along. I figured I would just cut out all the filler and move right into the next part of the story. As a gift to those who might want to know what was cut out, here's the script for the missing pages.

BONUS

After Kate (pronounced Ka-Te) says that it's dangerous to travel at night. Racheal asks what could be so dangerous that they couldn't handle it.

Slara explains that the forest is home to many animals that hunt at night and are not particular about what they call food.

Toi says that she will dispose of anything that gets in her way.

Slara says, that's what she's afraid of.

Original page 359

Kate says that many of the animals of the forest are as intelligent as "you or I." If someone started attacking them, even in self defense, they would retaliate and a war could break out between the races.

Slara says, "Let's all go to bed and we'll meet here early tomorrow and head into the woods."

The Next Morning

Kate "Stick close to me. The forest is still dangerous even in the day time.

Scene of the forest with strange sounds and shadows moving around.

Suddenly the forest opens into a glen and the temple can be seen. This brings us back to the current story.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Comments For Page 357

Who knew Kate had a sister? We just barely learned that her name was Kate as far as that goes. Was it Kate's sister who took the satchel? Does Kate know where it is? Is the group finally going to get a break? Don't count on it.

I don't know how many people noticed, but I put up the inked version last night and only just got the color version up now (noonish). I have a business meeting this afternoon, and figured I wouldn't get the page done until afterward. Fortunately (or maybe not so fortunately), I woke up early this morning despite going to bed pretty late last night. Consequently, I had time to finish the page before the meeting; however, I didn't get much sleep, so I might not be able to concentrate during the meeting.

Just to clarify, this isn't a school meeting but a real money making deal that could greatly affect my financial future. Actually this is only one of many meetings, but it's still important that I pay attention and understand my options.

I should also point out that the only reason I was able to put up an inked version of the page is because I'm doing the inking in Photoshop now. Originally, I was inking and coloring each panel was I went along. Sometimes I would go back and fix some rough drawings when I had time and basically did things in whatever order suited me. Now that I'm using Photoshop, I need to get all the drawing and inking done first before I can do any coloring or shading. This gives me a nice inked drawing I can color (and put up on the site when I need to), but that means I can't do a rush job on the drawings and worry about fixing it up later. They have to be completely finished and take takes a lot of time.

On the plus side, that means my pictures are looking better all the time. I don't need to waste a lot of time with Manga Studio's glitchy drawing tools (again this is a problem with using the program in Vista and not a problem with the program itself) and I can play with some of Photshops extra settings to help make my drawings better. I won't be using any fancy tricks with photoshop, like blur filters, until I can shorten my drawing time a bit more. I can't spend a whole day working on my comic pages and I don't have much time to play with the program. It's only going to get worse when I start my job, so I need to speed things up rather then take the time to add an extra layer of detail. If this comic was supporting me, it would be different but as it is I need to make money however I can and that means I can't spend much time with each comic update.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Comments For Page 356

Why is Balap accusing Kate of taking the satchel? You'll have to come back Wednesday and find out.

I did a couple of things to improve the images as you can see. First I noticed that there are options for loading and adjusting each Photoshop layer seperately. I had been adjusting only the top layer thinking that all the layers were being affected. Since the main drawings were never on the top layer they always suffered. The lines are much soother now.

The second thing I did was a cosmetic extra touch to remove the white lines in the JPG image. I did this by filling all the black lines with dark gray. This removed all the white from the image so that the lines look cleaner.

Not much else to say. I'll see you Wednesday.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Comments For Page 355

Seems like the animal token may have more powers then expected. The question is why. There have been two stories about the origins of the tokens so far. Are either of them true? Is there some other explanation for where they came from and what they are for? Someday these questions will be answered, but not today.

I've got the process of making my web comic as streamlined as possible. That I good thing since I'm tired and feverish right now and I couldn't have finished this page on time otherwise.

I've been trying the check for errors on this page and I don't see any. However, in my feverish state I can't be sure. If anyone sees any problems, please let me know in the comments.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Comments For Page 354


There's only one thing to do when the sun goes down. Party! However, it doesn't look like anyone's in a partying mood. At least Racheal and Toi were released from their cages. This is partly because they have calmed down a bit, and partly because Slara feels safer with her two brothers there.

I've been playing with the settings on the fill tool, trying to get the edges to fill properly, but there are still some issues with shading large areas. It's really only noticeable when the image is small. In the full size version, you can't notice the edges at all. This might be an difference between gif and jpg formats, since it isn't as noticeable in the Photoshop or Manga Studio versions.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Comments For Page 353

Looks like Slara waited too long. Now she'll have to wait until morning to start searching for the satchel. Hopefully Kang will be better by then and can help in the search.

I think I've finally found the correct settings to fix the problems with working between Photoshop and Manga Studio. The current page looks better then the previous ones.

Notice something different? I've finally added a gutter between the panels. If you go to PVPonline, you can find a new feature called "Webcomics Weekly" This is a weekly feature (every Friday) that has four or five web comic creators talk about their craft. The main purpose of this is to instruct other web comic creators on how to make better comics.

One of the pet peeves given had to do with the gutters between panels. Framing each panel helps the viewer see each panel as a separate image instead of as a big blob of images. If you look at my previous page, you notice that it's hard to tell where one panel ends and the next oven begins. The cage bars really break the images up in a way the just looks wrong. Adding gutters between the panels looks better and helps the reader see what's going on better.

The next step is to use the gutters to create the best effects. For examine, having one panel without a boarder makes the panel seem much bigger and has a expansive effect on the viewer. There are a lot of tricks you can do with boarders that you can't do when you only have thick lines between panels. On thing you might notice is that the word balloons sometimes extend beyond the panel boarders but you can't see the part that goes over the edge. I had a hard time with the word balloons in the previous page because I needed to resize them so they wouldn't cover any other panels. With a gutter, I have room to stretch the balloon over the boarder without it covering the next panel.

It's a little extra work adding a gutter, but the better appearance, the ability to move word balloons over the boarder and the other visual tricks you can do, more then make it worth it. I'm going to keep listening in each Friday to see what other tricks I can learn. If you have a web comic or plan to start one, I suggest you listen in as well. You'll never find a better source of web comic advice anywhere.