Zekiran_Immortal

I love how we're one of the few servers to just pony up characters, instead of mocking the post and begging for info.

We're up for anything, Ex.

Name: Winter's True Spirit
Global Contact: @Zekiran Immortal
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Magic
Super Rank & Super Group: Founder, Spirits of Paragon


Dunno who all can jump on this...

Name: Retail Retali8r
Global Contact: @Zekiran Immortal
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Natural
Super Rank & Super Group: Founder, Comic Gallery Irregulars

Like I said earlier, check out ebay for a reasonably good 11x17 scanner. While mine integrates with my PSP interface a little oddly, as it comes with its own system for activating and scanning, it *does* work very nicely, and it's big. And, for under 200 bucks.


Now if only I could ditch this crapola HP printer I've got, and get a 2nd one like I bought for my office... I didn't think I'd *need* a photo-scanner-printer-fax thing. BUt it was like 90 bucks, and even though it's not bigger than 11x8.5 it's still really nice.

Technology!

Pssh.

I've been writing books since i was 10, and haven't finished a one. But I'll hold you to it if I get anything published lol!!

Actually the things I'd highly recommend anyone looking at the technology should read, are the Art of Inking (published by Dark Horse) and both volumes of Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. While I don't necessarily agree with everything he has to say, the 2nd book has a LOT of information from the "insiders" view about the history of how comics are actually made, rather than their contents which the 1st volume concentrates on. I found it fascinating, however I already knew most of the things he had to say - it was just neat to see it all in one place.

Really depends on what you have for art...

Professionally, I've seen plenty of good and plenty of bad physical pages. I've seen pencil lines so tight that inkers actually refuse to ink them - for fear of screwing the lines up.

Over the years, (and yes, I worked a comic shop here in san diego, the center of the Wildstorm universe) I watched as comics went from all hand-colored using dyes and brushes, to computer separations - yes, people used to do the color separations *by hand* not by using a computer to do the work.... I've seen art that used to be placed on a platten photographically - the blacks, and colors done separately... They're not done that way any more.

I have also unfortunately seen the end of an inking era. Plenty of comics still do have inkers who work over the pencils, and then they scan those and send them to the colorists and letterers. But a LOT of comics have gone the way of "the pencils are good enough! color it from there!"

Most pencillers *cannot* get a good, solid line down. Thus, the colorists have to work with sloppy, vague linework, and guess at where details should go.

The colorists are usually the last people to get the product, and they're almost always blamed for books being late - even though it's more often the penciller themselves....

If *I* were to be coloring my own work? I have a scanner that's 11x17 which is GREAT, perfect for comic art pages. Hard to find in stores, but well worth cruising around ebay to get one, they're not that expensive from ebay (I got mine for 140 bucks, which is a third the price of some in stores!). I scan the full page, at around 300 or even 400 dpi - this is at least twice what the print dpi is. (Some comics are 150, some only 75 dpi, but that may have changed more recently.)

Myself, I love coloring WITHIN THE LINES thankyou very much, so I try pretty hard to have solid, easily selected areas. I *hate* using layers, myself, but I know people who do professional comics use a lot, lot lot of layers when they're coloring...

If you don't have a tablet, you should probably look into one. Coloring with a mouse is great for pixel art and simple web graphics like I make for my dragon-collecting group, but *not* for professionally-styled books or artwork...

Most folks do "flats" which outline the basic large areas of color in their basic tones, then do some shading, and finally detail work. It takes a long time to do some pieces, purely because of the detail that you'd WANT out of it - but likewise I've also seen details lost in the printing process, so generally keep details simple or clear.

Also.... paper - different color pallettes work on different paper stock. A bright, white glossy paper looks *entirely* different from typical newsprint matte stock, but both are still used in the comic business. I've seen really great comics RUINED by having been printed on the wrong stock.

Print out pages with just text, using the alphabet or a sample text including all letters (the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog) and next to it the font size. Print a block of text from 24 or 28 point all the way down to 5 or 6, to get a good idea of what you'll be seeing. Also remember that not all text has to be black on white.

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how to airbrush bite marks from your models' bodyparts....

TL

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TMI! TMI!


Actually it brings up an interesting aside: Some artists shouldn't try and be photographers. We had a book of Boris's photography sold at my store, and while it was ... nice... it was pretty clear that he only used reference photos and hadn't really gotten his act together as a professional photographer.

How do I know this?

His models all had their bra-lines still dug into their skin, when he photographed them. Any pro would have made sure they were 'natural' by the time the shoot happened, or - far more likely these days - edit the skin to be smooth instead of furrowed.

It's been something that bothered me for years. Just wanted to get that off my chest, so to speak...

Hehehe Arbiter Sands, dear. He's a hottie.

And it certainly does look rather.... messy. Those red-confetti streamer guns the Arachnos have are a bit confusing...

Well, if you pay them enough, I think Adobe has a tutorial.




I despise that company, sorry. :/

You'll want to mostly practice. There are doubtless tutorials, just google for the product and "tutorial"... I'd trust a tutorial made by someone who uses the product regularly, more than the product's built in one. Go to youtube as well, there might be something easier to use there, than just an html page.

Everyone does things differently, and most comic artists I know use at least 3 different products regularly (depending on their needs) to scan, color and produce their works. So... having one is going to get you a certain level of ability, but sometimes you'll have to send the image to another format or program to fiddle with it more. Elements probably has most of what many colorists use and need, though.

Well, you can always try a different tactic, since you've got your comic online. I don't know how you personally start creating, whether you start on a tablet or a piece of paper and scan?

If you're scanning paper and going from there, don't put the word balloons and words on until *after* it's been shrunk. Do a test or two with just the lines, to see if you need more room and can move things around digitally rather than by hand.

If you're doing it all on a tablet, again I'm not sure what size you're working with to start, but putting the words on *after* any resizing would probably work well if you're concerned. Give it a try anyway, to see the difference between lettering the full-sized image, and lettering the small sized one.

Seven is pretty small, printed. Though, again, if it's in a font that's clear and doesn't lose anything by being broken up (too thin) or crunched together (too fat) it's still readable by most people.

It really depends. The print size of a comic book differs greatly from the design size. Most traditional (american) comic pages start out 11x17 and are shrunk by about 60 % (depends on whether they have a border or bleed to the page).

If you're making a comic, make sure that you choose a font that is easy to read - sans serif, in any case because serif fonts become difficult at even medium sizes.

Also, per each word balloon or exposition block, the font size can change depending on how much you need to cram into it.

Don't start with the same-size page as a real comic book, definitely start larger and shrink down. Almost all art looks better printed smaller than it's designed. Web comics, not so much.

Mmmm, redwidow is hot

Very nice work!

I'd highly recommend ONE post with ALL your images in it.

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Why do I have the Woody Woodpecker theme in my head?

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o.0 Because you are insane and want to make me bewildered?


heheh.

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I loved that video ^.^

So, what do you guys do on test with no blasters conrollers or defenders?

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Actually I saw several LFT trollers, and at least a couple kheldians looking furtively to see whether the changes in them are worth while.

Of course, no one wants to team with a kheld, who's 50, when their shield guys are 2 and 5.

I just put together one that I'm probably going to take live, just to have, because I think she's gorgeous.

Phoenix's Fire is her name. Fiery Melee, Shield defense with the fire-elemental shield. I took my vet pet as the red wisp, goes with it really well.

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I have a couple of Pep from some shard TFs I did which I thought were pretty cool.

This one was taken by my fellow Legendary Cursed Cricket.



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Best. Ever.

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I tried to do this last night... But when I went to paste into paint, I got a black screen instead of game footage.... Any idea why?

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If you're using Vista that's a known issue and I think there's something about it up in the Technical Issues area.

If you're not using Vista, I don't know what it could be other than perhaps not enough RAM or something, to perform the paste.

I think that would be hilarious if written with tongue in cheek.

If you get a good couple days going, it's easier to justify slacking off.

... Then again I have 3 background documents (characters and pertinent points in history along with randomization for new characters) that I also have to keep up while I'm writing. And, make sure that the historical doodads are somewhat entertaining, and that the main characters all in a family line don't get too ridiculously boring or repetitive. There's a lot of begatting in my books.

We on Protector just now, at 2:30 pacific, had basically ALL hero zones - I don't know about villain side, don't have that on my global chat - open at once, after 3 or so hours of nothing.

Weird. Fun, but weird. But then it just comes down to whether you want to hack it out with 3 people in FF or head off to the Hill at Talos, what a weird thing to happen.

Oooh, the shading on that is really nice! Good work!

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You could always wait for shields, and use the ice themed elemental shield.

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Yeah that one does look really cool out of all of them. (pardon the pun)

And I know what you mean about adding the armors, the thing with any tank or any armory stuff that is a power, I think it comes down to accepting the fact that once you turn on a power, you can't see your character's appearance anyway. Heck I made 2 human-only kheldians just so I could see them the whole time.

@Nod: woah, lol that's an awesome dude. Big. Pointy. Chunky.

lol.

Well, I've got an axe/ice type named Blaque Axe (formerly known as Blaque Ice on test, but they destroyed that server copying virtue on to it, so... he's gone ) who is done in shades of black and blue.

Almost any shade of blue, green or grey goes well with ice.

My ice blaster Infinity Grrl takes a different approach, with a violet and purple color scheme.