Whats a stupidly simple thing you do that makes your comic way better than it has any right to do

[jessicasurline]

If we are talking about panel composition, one thing I do is change up the normal panel structure for intense scenes. I tend to stick to standard square and rectangular panels to create a sense of normalcy. But to add interest and a sense of action, I throw in some diagonals to spice up the panel flow. When this is done right the readers react really well.

Example for normal structure:

Example for intensity:

[jessicasurline]

You sound like a teacher from a 3D texturing class I had in college. And I must agree! You both are totally right in my opinion! Textures make everything more awesome!

[Kamikaze]

3D texturing was one of my faaaavorite things to do in college! I will say when the textures are used on the backgrounds it's literally just an overlay on top of the photoshop color work. The backgrounds are modeled up,vectored in illustrator, then colored and textured in photoshop. :3

[jessicasurline]

Yeah texturing is a lot of fun! Sometimes you just need to slap an overlay of rust drips over a brick wall to make it look right.

[Chopythes]

Scanning it.

HAHAH; OMG I'M SO SORRY BUT SERIOUSLY! It looks way better on the computer than on the paper for some odd reason!
Here's some examples:

I rarely do any changes after I scanned it, I always make sure that they're in B/W mode before scanning. I might edit out a few things but that's actually quite rare.
Here's another fine prime example:

AS you can see, the latter was completely changed with colour, for some odd reason I thought pink would go very well with a horror story.
Follow my advice: It doesn't.

(So basically, I just scan the pages, pray to the lords all mighty and hope for the best xD)

[efdvorsky]

OOOOH!! Oh yeah I had never realized that!! That's awesome and so so so subtle indeed! Thank you and @niah146 for explaining it!

[UzukiCheverie]

I make all hair colors and pants colors that aren't black or meant to be sleek utilize the Canvas texture that you can get with SAI. Of course, I'm making the complete switch to Clip Studio Paint now so I don't know how I'm going to be able to continue to do that (textured brush I guess, buuut it's not quite the same) but I'll see what happens When viewed on the actual site though, it looks pretty nice and sorta helps differentiate tones when you've got a bunch sitting against one another.

[Tieback]

Dang, this is a tough one to answer.... I think there are many little things I do to elevate my comic. If I had to pick one, I'd say the way I go about creating the written dialogue. I draw and paint my comic by hand, and I write the dialogue by hand too. I think this gives my comic a very personable feel, and it also works well with the light hearted fairytale genre of the comic.

To make sure I write my dialogue with consistent size and spacing, I use a lined sheet that I trace over. If it's a long sentence, I might play around with how the dialogue is broken up among rows. Once I find a way that looks right, I then trace the dialogue on the final page. After the page is colored, I finish by inking it.

[NanettesClouds]

Clip studio has a bunch of different textures that you can overlay onto your work, they're in the materials folder :v They might not be the exact one that you use, but you might be able to make one yourself that looks similar.

[UzukiCheverie]

Haha, thanks! I'm always discovering something new about this program so I figured there must have been a way, thanks so much :') I'll check it out!

[Shanny8]

I mainly use black gutter backdrop against my work. Right now, most of my panels have been within the perimeters of almost ordinary, coz I'm still assessing what I can do with the webcomic format. As soon as I get a better grip on what I can do, then I might start to experiment with my panel layouts more.

[nattbear]

I don't think it really fits the "stupidly simple thing", but what i THINK i do to make my comic better is the use of details... Details people sometimes must think it's too complicated to keep in a comic... But, well.. I believe that's what makes my style mine.. and my comics better ;x
Ultimate craziness: I detail shoe soles!!!

[NickRowler]

Messing with the vertical scaling of my text.

The top one is with no scaling.
The bottom one is the one I use.

[El_Psy_Congroo]

Breaking panels is tons of fun! Sometimes having an image in the gutters (sans backgroind usually) has an interesting effect. I also have no plans of printing so sometimes I make use of the vertical scrolling in interesting ways when I can.

Recently I've also put more consideration in composition. Ive been trying for tatami mat feel for some of my recent pages. Also, having a few lines of action and aligning your drawings accordingly is surprsingly effective

[factioncomic]

Thanks for sharing this! It's great to think about speech bubble placement as you're story boarding, it's something that is easy to forget about but is often the most dominating feature of the page. Great points all around.

[Evan_Bee]

There's really great stuff in here. Will definitely be following this thread!

[scythe]

I write a first draft of dialogue. Then I leave it for a month or so. Then I edit/rewrite it. Then I write more pages, then go back to that page and change it as needed. Then I drop that dialogue on to a page and edit it again. Then I draw the page and edit the writing again. Sometimes I even edit it after uploading. Long story short, your writing can always be better, and it's not too hard to make it better.

[NanettesClouds]

Wow this post did a lot better than I expected it to do. There's a lot of really great little pieces of advice here, thanks everyone for sharing!

[indagold]

I scale text slightly if it doesn't fit it in a word balloon.
Blur the final image and overly it if it's a bright scene or foggy to add a little bloom.
Use image editing filters to adjust dull scenes or to color correct it.
Use the inner shadow option and change it to a light color and turn off multiply to make a backlight on characters.
Oh and if you have linework and extra colors you need to get rid of, I use the channel box for that.
I guess this only applies to photoshop somewhat.

[DavidPerry]

I focus on precision of expressions. A reader gets a whole dump of excitement when they see a face they immediately empathize with. I like my characters to be highly expressive without leaping too deep into Tex Avery mode. I know that people first coming to the comic are going to scan the page as a whole before they even start reading, so I want something to immediately grab their attention, which will inevitably be part of the artwork and not the writing.

Then you've got to deliver with the writing.