Are you struggling? Enter the Workshop and let me/us help you!

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 05:52:49 UTC #1

I feel that many new users or those finding themselves struggling to gain views or subs have it very hard on Tapastic. While I can't expect Tapastic to just do something (heck I'm still waiting for them to give me arranging episodes) the fact that so many users on here, on a very community based website comic feel that new artists or struggling artists don't deserve to get the support or attention needed is quite frankly one of the poorest things I've heard.

So you know what? If Tapastic or the so called users of this site won't help you out, then I will.

I can't say I'll sub to your work, but I will do everything within my limited power to help any new and aspiring artist or any artist struggling to get something done. This isn't merely going to be a place to just review your comics, it's a workshop. I want to legitimately help out anyone who thinks they need it. And if anyone wants to help out as well, that would be wonderful.

If there's any new artists or struggling artists who want some hints, tips, tricks, reviews, critiques, etc to help them, I'm here...and hopefully some others will be there too for you. Can I promise that you will jump up 50 subs, no I can't unfortunately. But this ideology that the weak just have to struggle and nobody is here to help them irks me to no end.

There you go. Anyone who feels they are struggling and wants some kind of help is free to come. I will gladly discuss your series, the troubles you may be facing and what we can do to improve your work. I'm hoping others will be able to do the same and offer their support as well.

Herofeeder 2016-09-11 12:43:58 UTC #2

im only confused on using PS and medibang ..id love to go in to hangout and learn a bit about that or in a skype call. that would speed up the procces i guess ...also i think something is wrong with my PS ...certain brushes cant be enlarged for more then 300 pixels.no idea why that is

CHMsketches 2016-09-11 12:44:25 UTC #3

That's so nice of you. I think you'll help a lot ^_^
Honestly, no matter how positive you are, sometimes you just feel down, because you want to show your work to people, and it doesn't work XD

I would like to hear some tips to do a better comic: any tip about the panels, placement, order. :)))
For reference, is here

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 15:02:15 UTC #4

Unfortunate I don't use Medibang, in fact this is the first time hearing that. However as someone who uses Photoshop, I can certainly try to help you with that. I use Photoshop CS4 so I might not be aware of any potential new additions added to later versions. However even in that case the similarities are close enough that I can help. Though at the same time I can't say I'm the expert.

What version of Photoshop are you using? I've never had this trouble with brush sizes myself and as I'm looking through the web with Google to find any answers I'm having a difficult time as well. It may be that your version of Photoshop has that limit. I myself can't go past 2500px on my version.

I'll keep looking and perhaps someone else on here might know what to do. If all else fails though you can always reset Photoshop to its original settings.

To restore preferences quickly using a keyboard
shortcut: Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or
Option+Command+Shift (Mac OS) as you start Photoshop. You are prompted to delete the current settings. The new preferences files are created the next time you start Photoshop.

There are times when I've just had to plain reset my PS setting its original state. If it does come to this, you might want to check what your current settings are and you can change back to them once the reset is done. Sometimes I've found out while I'm working is that at some point I accidentally clicked something and it changed up Photoshop in a way I wasn't expecting.

@ CHMsketches: I'll give your series a look ASAP. I want to save my answer for a post specifically for you. I didn't realize my answer for Herofeeder was going to be as long as it was.

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 15:25:45 UTC #5

Let me see what suggestions I can give. As I was reading through the first thing I was going to suggest was to try and straighten your panel boxes. It seemed like you hand drew them but as I checked at the end I noticed you were starting to do that. That's good, I think you should keep doing that, it gives it a cleaner more professional look in my opinion.

As far as actual paneling and placement order goes I honestly don't really see much of a problem. Of course if someone else again has a suggestion please give your feedback.

One thing I'm on the fence about is the text thought. Visually I think the text looks nice and it seems to fit quite well with the design of the comic. However on a reading experience, I sometimes find it hard to discern. It may be that for me, text and images should contrast a bit so that each one is easy to read and they don't start blending together.

Of course this style is certainly good to use in some points but when it comes to direct dialogue, again on the fence about it. I kind of like the text you used for your 2nd page on "The Conference: Pt 1" I think it might help to utilize this text style for basic dialogue and to use your more expressive text for more expressive moments.

I'll take the page "The Life As...(Part 1)" as an example.

When Nicole comes up and says "I have a connection" I like this. I think the expressive style of the text lends to the expressive style of the panel and the same goes for the old man's "What?" as well. Then you get to the part where it says "I love that Spanish thing you did."

At this point being more casual dialogue, I merely feel that a bit more contrast is needed when it comes to direct, more simple dialogue. As another example you might imagine a comic where it'll have bright word effects during say a battle. "BAM!" *KA-POW" and etc.

They look great but you wouldn't necessarily want that kind of text as dialogue.

Hope that makes sense.

As I said before anyone who wants to add something else or heck, even correct me on something is glad to. I've never actually done a comic style like that, I'm someone who works on manga styles but I tried my best to give as best assistance as I could.

mg78 2016-09-11 16:52:13 UTC #6

well, i need help to check my scandalous english.
...and a PR too lol.

Herofeeder 2016-09-11 18:32:56 UTC #7

is something suposed to pop up after i press alt control shift?
bcs its not

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 18:39:05 UTC #8

First click on your Photoshop icon and then after you do before Photoshop loads up hold those select 3 buttons. That's when the icon will show up. It should look something like this:

Again you might want to check your current preferences so you can go back to them and save anything specific like brush styles, etc.

Well if you are having any trouble with your English, I'll be glad to help you out. Perhaps you think your translation is off or something?

R.n.P 2016-09-11 18:47:00 UTC #9

Woah, to say the truth I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high but I guess I'll try my luck out here. I've been struggling over getting help with my comic coloring and I'm just looking for someone or a team that could help me with it, basically just two episodes a month, it seems easy but the main problem is when it comes to the amount of pages I make for each episode, I do at least 13pages for an episode so its a lot when I compare mine with most I see. An easy part for me is getting one to recognize the potential I see in my comic's story but its difficult to find a way to compensate the helper. I'm still young n inexperienced so I don't know a way I can pay someone in another country easily unless I can find someone in my immediate vicinity which is Hungary but even with that the problem of me still having to focus on the course I'm studying will still hinder me from moving about a lot. It really sucks n I don't wanna give up on either my comic making or medicine course.
You can check my comic here on this link to see what I mean THE LAST SAMURAI

mg78 2016-09-11 18:57:24 UTC #10

i do ugly mistake here and there, mostly. just few time i translate so bad that the dialogue look like a "no sense"

Herofeeder 2016-09-11 19:16:54 UTC #11

this is what showed up not sure where to go from

Herofeeder 2016-09-11 19:18:58 UTC #12

w8 never mind i reseted it , but its still not working sadly its CS 6 i think its bugged or something not sure really

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 19:28:06 UTC #13

It seems what you want is "collaboration" help. Unfortunately I myself can't help much on there. Even if I could, I'm not sure how much I could trust my own coloring techniques. If anyone on here would like to help, that would be awesome. As far as coloring and having someone directly work with you on your comic, it would be best to ask the forum for Collaboration.

Unfortunately most people just aren't going to do things for free. If you can't provide some level of compensation, most people just are willing. However I'm not one to just leave a person hanging so let me try to provide some level of support.

Reading through a bit of your comic, the fact that you've already made 30 Subs in 36 episodes is already a testament to your work. While I won't lie, your art does need improvement, your comic has certainly hit a level for the audience that they enjoy. Maybe its the story or characters? If had to offer some improvements they would be this:

1.) Work on proportions. This is something I myself have to work on as well but it might be the most important thing to do. It's difficult drawing some times and it takes practice. Here's something I did a long time ago.

And it's...not that good. In fact it's kind of bad, it looks like a cat got sick on my paper. This is what happens when you draw entirely in MS Paint! This image was created about 5 years ago in 2011.

And here's one of my most recent pages for my own series. Now to say its flawless is a load of junk. But look at what 5 years of what hard work and practice has done for me? It's amazing and it makes me feel so proud that my art which was absolute garage in the past now has a semblance of slight professionalism. And it's like...what will it be like in the next few years? How much can I improve now?

I can't make you into an excellent artist in a few days or weeks even if I was an excellent artist myself. It takes time and diligence but if you keep up, you will have an excellent looking series.

But perhaps there is some other things I can help with. I believe you sketch your comic first. That's fine of course. But because sketches are often unclean it would help for you to then use a program like Photoshop or something to hep clean them up. It would also be great if you ink your lines, blacken them out so they're cleaner. If anything you should try this out with a lot of things, drawings, text, panels. Do it with shading as well.

Sketching out your comic is fine to start out with but once you've cleaned it up and digitally enhance it, many improvements will be made. It makes it look cleaner and easier on the eyes.

Hope that helps.

I'll see about checking a few of your sentences and see what needs improvement if you wish. I can't exactly be just a grammar checker though. I'll see what I can for now but something that always help me is to write out the dialogue in something like "Microsoft Word" first and see how it looks there and anything that needs to be edited and fixed and then copy that to my comic itself. It saves me a lot of trouble with potential errors.

Yep you must have pressed Ctrl, Shift, Alt before clicking the PS icon. But it seems you figured it out. Unfortunately if that didn't work I'm not sure. Can you possibly send me a screen shot of what this problem with the 300 px looks like? If you don't know there's usually a button on your keyboard called "PrtSc" Print Screen. Pressing that sometimes with Cntrl Alt will copy an image of your PC screen and you can paste that.

If I visually saw what was going on, it could help me understand the problem better.

MidZM 2016-09-11 19:42:55 UTC #14

Well I guess this is probably the best place to put this since my critique/review thread kind of died.... With only one review of someone saying they liked it
But it would be great if you could review my webcomic Marked, I've tried making it look like a Manga (Read from right to left) while at the same time using cel shading from Anime. As for backgrounds I do know that chapter 1's backgrounds are very... Meh, and half way through chapter 2 it's also meh, the same thing goes for clothing in both instances. But in recent chapters I've tried to improve on them, my only problem at current time is learning what to put in backgrounds XD, sometimes it just seems to bare.

It's awesome that you're trying to help out the community and us unknown comic artist

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 20:03:53 UTC #15

I'll give your series a proper review as soon as I can. Just looking through a few pages, I kind of like what I see. I like your character designs and your art I think, at the very least is quite decent. I'm sure improvements could be made but it's not something that stands out to me as something that's hindering to the reader.

If there's one thing I suggest firstly, on your description and perhaps the first page as well, make a note that the series is read from "Right to Left" like a manga. Most people kind of assume you read the other way. It'll at least get rid of potential confusion.

Now for background help, here's what I suggest.

Try out different tones and patterns. You might have a white screen, a black screen, a special patterned screen. It just gives it some flavor though you have to know which patterns work best. When it comes to drawing more specific backgrounds, something I do myself is try to draw it in terms of layers. What's in the front? What's in the middle and what's in the back? I try to visualize the basics of the background.

So as example I might just draw a house...and then I think, what might go behind the house or to the side? I may draw a tree then and then I'm like, what can go behind the tree? And I may make a railing or something? Then once I'm finished, I go back to the whole image and see any little details that I might add. Fun things that will help bring the image more to life.

Let's use a panel from my previous page as example. Simple but I think it will get the point across. When I first did this panel, it consisted of the character and a single horizontal line. So as I worked on it I thought...what's behind this guy? And I drew the grass. I then thought what's behind the grass though? And I drew railings. What's behind the railings? And I drew in the sky. I got my objective of the background done and then worked on it to put in any of the necessary details to finish it up.

I won't lie, backgrounds can be tedious at times, it's no wonder you or anyone else has such trouble with them.

I'll try to give a good review of your actual story some time soon.

Herofeeder 2016-09-11 20:18:28 UTC #16

the round brushes actually ccan go waaaaay more then 300 px
but most of these cube or sharp brushes nope

ReroOnyx 2016-09-11 20:30:57 UTC #17

Hm...I'm not really sure. I checked my own Photoshop and tested out different brush styles like square brushes and I didn't have a problem. Try this out, I was reading up on someone who had a similar problem with Photoshop CC. They're brushes could only go up to 300px as well. They switched to a different brush Type (The Mixed Brush in this case) and when they switched back it fixed the problem.

If you do that or switch to say the "Pencil" and then switch back to the paintbrush, see if that helps at all.

MidZM 2016-09-11 20:36:29 UTC #18

Thanks for the advice
I'm not sure how far you read into it but a bit later into chapter 2 backgrounds pick up a bit more and some things were scaled down a bit such as the class room in C1 Page 2, it used to be quite large when I first made it, though it might not be completely noticeable.

ptrcksnntt 2016-09-11 21:04:38 UTC #19

I dont suppose anyone has advice on streamlining workflow? My comic Lax Legends is pretty detail heavy, and I want to kick up the update schedule to once or twice a week, but as it stands now I'm barely managing one every two weeks. To do that I need to build more of a backlog with multiple pages pencilled and inked long before being colored, but I'm worried to do that I'll have to sacrifice quality.

I'm also open to any general concrit folks have, if you have any. Thanks in advance!

Herofeeder 2016-09-11 21:28:20 UTC #20

nah man no luck at all i think its just bugged and i should install a new PS ...but last tim i pirated i was 9 years old and Starcraft Brood war was a hell of a game