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Apr 2020

Describing my characters. I don't do it in my short stories. Longer works, yes. But not for my one-page stories. That's something I could fix, and probably should, but won't.

I won't change the multiple storylines happening in parallel. Back when we were playing the story that would later become Terra Prima as an RPG, several scenes happened like that and I want to keep that feel. The storylines will come together in the future, but there is still a while to go. Also characters, I have dozens, but I like them and enjoy drawing them and their interactions. Maybe as I learn more about comics, I'll make this kind of narrative work better, but it's the best I can do right now :slight_smile:

Same as @joannekwan, color and grayscale shading! I know that colors would probably help my comic's performance, but I right now cannot really get the time to do so! Maybe one day, but I really just cannot get the time.
I'll stick with hard black shadows and black details and I'll roll with that!

I refuse to drop the sketchy artstyle I have for comics. It takes less time to finish pages and coloring is easier and faster. It might be messy but I like it that way. :triumph:

For me it's the pacing. Look, if I had all the time in the world I would defenitely improve it, but unfortunately I don't have a lot of free time to make my comic and I also don't want to let my readers wait for an eternity for the story to progress, so I tend to rush through some parts.

I think black and white matches the tone perfectly! If it was a live-action it would look so cool in black and white as well :heart_eyes:

Thanks that helps a lot! I make a few panels suggesting the location, and the bigger issue is my disgusting lack of talent to draw architecture, angles, etc. The 3D models could be an option! I would need to check that they don't look far too realistic next to my characters.

The light brushes had never worked for me because I end up with a muddy mess, I admire the artists who can make these background work. But I will practice next time I have to draw buildings. :slight_smile:

You can use Sketchup for NPR (non-photorealistic) 3D models or even just export them as lineart to fit your style.

A well known and used technique for not always drawing full on backgrounds is using an establishing shot whenever you change the scene or your characters change places where you show the background and easily recognizable parts of it. Later you can use those recognizable parts here and there to remind the readers where this is taking place. (Until you change the scene or your characters change where they are - then rinse and repeat,)

Thank you very much!!! I didn't know what software or where to start!

Lol, color and the fact that it's page format. Aas a joke I did a page in color and in scroll format and very manga for April fools--gained like almost 10 followers in a day when I have a comic with barely 66 followers as is, so it's like...well that's nice. Too bad I don't have time for that.

But then I thought about it and like...you know how Sunday comics were in color while the other days of the newspaper comics werent (for you old people in the back who remember newspapers) what if...I just occasionally did some pages in color and a different format? As front page bait? Like once every few months? I mean newspaper comics did that for like 50 years.

Continuity....most of the time...I am fully aware I left out an item or piece of furniture that was in a previous shot but....then there’s an angle where it would make tangents with the focal point or I just forgot and it’s going to be half covered by word bubble and I just go “EHHHH ONLY LIKE 12 DUDES READ THIS IT’S FINE’

Probably gradient maps and/or overlays. Can't always have to do everything by hand orz, should be enough to know what day it is or time with the colors used...Cuts me some time to know which colors work and colorpick what colors to be used.

No linearts because they take too long and I'm just going to paint over them.

I critique my novel probably more than my readers. There’s time where I wish I’d gone in a different direction, and I know I need to go back and fix grammar and errors. There’s so many chapters that it will be a chore.
As for comics, I need to upgrade my art. I’m confident in my stories but I’ve been practicing at developing skills and I’ve stopped posting to do that. I hope I can continue eventually.

Resolution, probably. (If you've seen my art, you know what I mean)

I understand how to deal with anti-aliasing now; it'd be feasible for me to finally get rid of the pixels. But am I gonna? Hell no. For one thing, it would make even simple editing 9000% harder, and my time is limited enough as it is.

Even without anti-aliasing, I could just make everything bigger...but I'm not gonna do that either. I like having small files that are ~130 KB for a full comic page. It's like a Great Depression-era sort of thing: I grew up with cheap computers with limited file space, and I've learned to like being able to conserve. Even now that terabytes are a thing, old habits die hard.

I need to make my chapter longer. Like I write less than 1,000 words per chapter. And I need to post more. But I won’t, because I could be doing more important stuff.

Like eating, sleeping, drawing, creating characters, eating, devolving my story, eating… I could go on!

I like sketchy line art and drawing the least amount of hands. I'm lazy with drawing hands though. I try to draw one hand every page so my comic doesn't look like it's all talking heads.

Lining and shadowing, of course. I already can do it better than in my comic, but it takes so long time to polish everything, and I'm just too lazy for that, but I'm fighting with my laziness, and maybe sometime I will make a complete process every time. Or not.

Line width. I like my thick lines and variation. I refuse to change that.
Also I refuse to use brush stabilizers and bezier tools. They don't feel natural to my hand. So what if my lines are a little wobbly every once in a while.

Oh, and release schedule. I could probably hack a one page per week formula, but I don't like feeling pressured so...bi monthly it is.