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So it's only two pages so far?
only the first page, next is up on tuesday
Congratulations on your launch, Linwelly! The art is fantastic. I love how well you do the lighting and the character is beautiful. Can't wait to see more!
Just an FYI for everyone that I may be off-grid for the next couple of days. I'm moving to San Francisco.
all the best for the move then!
only the first page, next is up on tuesday
Are you...doing a page a week?
If you want to give your comics an extra level of "Oh wow!" I suggest going the motion comic route. Motionartist from SMS is pretty great for the price.
The reason I suggest that over say, Deviantart's motion comic setup, is because you have to upload all your raw artwork to someone else's server to use Madfire. Frankly I don't trust that one bit.
That is the plan I hope I can achieve, I managed to get a bit of a buffer so February is safe for posting. For the moment I need longer than a week to make all the renders for one page but in the moment I still have some scene adjustements even though I prepared all the important serttings. And that takes more time than anticipated. So I#m hoping for some free days I can catch up with my time frame.
It does look incredible though.
Good luck.
Sorry to be late with answers...
@Linwelly Taiduo looks fantastic! I like what you're doing with the colours.
As for preparing, I have most of what I need for Demon Division: Dwellers (some locations, characters, etc.), but with Division, it's shooting out of the hip at the moment. Page 12 of Demon Division went online today, and my co-author and I are still revising page 13 and 14 for text, and not a single image of that is rendered. We're also still putting together cast and locations, though we do have the overal plot of main events of that.
On top of that, my inexperience with creating comics shows, and as I can only do any real work on the comic during the weekend... you get the picture.
@evilded777 the character looks great and makes me curious. One suggestion, though - the text on the first promo is hard to distinguish from the background. A different colour, perhaps?
@magicjava Yes, having a decent character work is a must. I mean, most of the comics I read, the characterization was what ultimately pulled me over. How detailed the character backgrounds you do?
I attached an image that didn't make it into the comic - it's a bit of a teaser for things to come... To the left, Mage Elder Seth Caelen, in the middle Duon, and to the right, Simon Taggart. The shield's a combination of a shpere primitive and something I modelled in Hexagon, using some Iray FX shaders. The "bindings" are from a set I bought at the store.
A great topic and thread for sure!!!!
Wow, nice effects! What I like most is the subtle wings on that guy ( not that I think he's an angel or something) they are delicate and translucent, very cool!
Thanks, Linwelly! The wings have a long, long story behinfd them. In the actual incarnation of the story, they aren't supposed to look like real wings at all, but more like "tendrils of magic energy", kind of what you see with the character from the title page of Dwellers. In the very first, original version of the story that I wrote, like fifteen yeas ago, this was really set in an "angel and fallen angels" setting, and had nothing to do with the mages and overall-plot of Demon Division. Nevertheless, Dweller's plot is still hinting at the original plot in some points, and some of the characters (i.e. Seth, Duon and Dan Tae) have made it over to the new universe, albeit a little bit adapted. And the entire set was inspired by Journey to the West - manga Sayuuki, amongst others.
I have a couple more plots/stories that I'd love to turn webcomic, but the problem is time. I have a fulltime job that currently needs a lot of overtime. It allows me to finance my hobby of 3D, but the drawback is that I just have very little time to actually do 3D because of it.
Technically, this is just one of the wing sets from the store with a glass/gem shader on it. I keep the displacement/bump maps and transparency maps and then throw light at the setting. Cutout opacity is set lower than 1, otherwise the wings would look massive. That's still not really the look I'm aiming for. Normally, I do several renders of wings, people, background FX, and compose them in postwork to get the result I hope for, but that doesn't always work.
Progressing... Here's the newest page of Dwellers - I'm still struggling with "How much images/text can go on a page to make it still readable"? I know that I'm a bit handicapped by the fact that I cater two languages in the speech bubbles, but I still don't want to put too much into it. And, it should be readable on small devices, too. I#ve signed up for a webinar at Digital Arts that covers the topic ( https://digitalartlive.com/event/how-to-create-comics-graphic-novels-illustrated-narratives-for-mobile-devices/ ) So maybe I'll get the right idea there about what to do.
Bee, bubbles is a big topic, I was stumbeling over a lot as well, especially with that problem of small device reading. I tend to have rather small amounts of text. Studying the way others went on with that on webtoons I decided for that long scroll down format as well that results mostly in one large or maximum two images per "screen scroll" which leaves space above or below or on the sides to add the bubbles. Plus I decided for transparent bubbles which fade out the image behind a bit but still leave the context.
For now I will publish only in english as I haven't yet seen a decent online comic collection page in german, if you know about a site I would be happy to add myself.
@BeeMKay its the compression. The original was fine. But: noted.
Motion artist looks pretty cool. I’m going to give it a try.
Different characters get different levels of detail. Everyone gets an origin story, even if it's just a quick blurb. All heroes get at least a 1 page origin story. More important characters get a full origin arc.
No need to over do it. Superman's original origin story in Action Comics was just 2 pages long.
Here is my attempt at a cover. Don't know what text is required. I used Gimp to blend based on the blue common to all three figures. Used Inkscape to create and place text.
ohhh.... very colorful. I like the flag in the letters. Thanks Ra. :)
Tutorial: Title Text
This tutorial will show you how to make text for the titles of your comics. We'll do that by recreating the title text for my Heroes of the Wild Frontier comic.
Creating Title Text
Step 1: Get the Font.
The title text uses the Badaboom BB font, which you can download for free from 1001 Fonts. Please take note of their licensing and pay the commercial use fees, if applicable.
Step 2: Type the Text HEROES OF THE and WILD FRONTIER as Two Seperate Text Layers.
Step 3: Resize the Text to the Desired Size.
You should also center align the two text layers, which is a step I forgot to do here. :(
Step 4: Duplicate the WILD FRONTIER Layer
Step 5: Hide the Top WILD FRONTIER Layer.
If your image has the same layer layout as mine does, it's the copy layer that you want to hide. Just click the eye icon next to the layer name to hide the layer.
Step 6: Select the All the Text in the Lower WILD FRONTIER Layer Using the Text Tool. Click the 3D Button in the Toolbar.
Make sure all the text for the layer is selected. You can do this by triple-clicking with the Text tool.
When Photoshop asks you if you want to go into 3D mode, say No. We're going to use the default 3D effects.
Step 7: Make All Layers Visible. Apply Styles to Each Layer.
Click the eye icon on the hidden layer again to make it visible. The Styles pane can be opened with the Windows/Styles menu option.
Click a layer and then click the style you want to apply to it. Each layer can have a different style.
BONUS! More Ways To Do Text Titles
There's always more than one way to do things. In the above image, the MARIAN MICHAELS AND THE WILD BUNCH text was done in 3D, imported into DAZ Studio, given an Emissive surface, and rendered in Iray. The rendered image was then added as a layer in Photoshop. You can create 3D text in Photoshop, or most 3D modeling software, including DAZ's free Hexagon software.
The musical notes are 3D models that were created using the technique described in my Kirby Krackle tutorial, on page 1 of this thread. They were imported, surfaced, and rendered along with the text.
The LOVE IN LAS VEGAS text was done using a professionally created package of fonts and styles purchased from GraphicsRiver, with only a few minor tweeks by me.
MORE BONUS! Free Music!
The above album cover was created for one of my characters, Butterfly, who's a singer in Las Vegas in her civilian life. I've also written three songs that are done by her band. They're the first songs I've ever written, so don't expect miracles, but you probably won't die if you listen to them.
Band: Marian Michaels And The Wild Bunch. Album: Love In Las Vegas Songs:
Love In Las Vegas
Down With The Brickhouse
I Got Something (For Your @$$)
You have to click on each link, the songs won't play through one after the other. While the songs have lyrics provided in the links, they're not actually sung on the recordings. Try as I may, I can't sing like a black woman. :(
Font squirrel is another place you can get free fonts https://www.fontsquirrel.com/
Thank you, @magicjava, for the very useful tutorial.
What you (general you) need to keep in mind when you are considering fonts is the commercial licensing. Not all font are available for commercial license, and many that have a free commectial license only alow usage in images or other print, but not if you want to use it for your website, or in an ebook.
I kicked out quite a few fonts because of that, and ultimately decided to use Komica's set for the main lettering, and bought several fonts that allow commercial usage, so I have a proper invoice in case I have to some day prove that I had the right to use the font as I did.
The same is also true when you use assests for rendering - freebies often don't allow commercial use.
Of course, one can always argue that "this is just a hobby", and "I never earn money with this", but when push comes to shove, you'll either have to re-render/reletter things, or even start from scratch.
Nice resource, Linwelly. I bookmarked it.
Yeah, I think the general rule is that if you think there's a possibility you may try to sell your stuff, treat it as a commercial project right from the beginning.
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Here's a poster for one of my characters. The render was done in Vue.
I have been going largely in the other direction when it comes to developing a comic styled look. I was looking to come up with something that looks like it's out of a black and white comic instead. I'm still not finished with my work, but I have made a few key strides.
The outlining style looks very good! How did you do it?
but I have made a few key strides.
Wonk wonk.
I think the first thing you should do is tweak your "font" so that it's no longer a font. Make enough edits so that it's new and original.
There are so many settings in the character palette that it pretty hard to use a font as is. If you title has enough other stuff going on, the font is of less importance, but the title should really stand out and go beyond the font level. It's really about designing a title more than choosing a font to use.
1) Gets around any legal concerns.
2) Limits other people to make your title or copy it (as a creative decision)
3) Pushes the Care and Control part of the three Cs of being an artist. The third is C is Content.
4) Whether or not you make books for yourself or purely for future readers, other graphic artists and comic makers will see your work and it always looks weak and hobbyist-level to use the basic effort in any part of your work. A regular artist doesn't really care that much, but that group always shifts the narrative.
You lost me here. Are we talking about adjusting character properties in Photoshop? Or something else? To get around legal concerns, I have a feeling we're talking about more than just character settings, but I don't know what that would be.
I have two words for you. Photoshop Actions. Basically, you can find photoshop actions that will apply different effects to images in order to produce a pencil like sketch or make a render look like a painting. You're going to have to do some experimenting to find the right action to suit your needs and experiement with rendering in order to achieve the results you desire. What I am doing mostly involves compositing various images in photoshop and blending layers in order to achieve the desired look. I haven't nailed down an exact process yet that yields a final result I'm happy with, but I'm makeing gains all the time. You have to approach it differently when you want the scene to end up looking more like a black and white drawing than when you are trying to achieve a color result.
I'm talking about fonts. The lettering set one would use in their comics.
Not so much, the inner text, but the text/characters an artist would use to make the title of their comic.
Instead of worrying what the font license says/was/was changed to/is/might be/what if someday.... you could a) Create your own font and or b) flip the font so it is no longer a font.
But instead your title/logo. There's a lot you can do with lettering once you rasterize it and turn it into a standard image.
You lose the ability to edit the 'character' but gain 1,000 more options.
You obviously, save the original lettering layers, and edit the new 'flattened' version.
Ah yes, I'm familar with actions. They're amazing. Good luck with finding the final mix you want, but what you've got so far looks great.
EDIT: I've got an example of the SketchIt action on Page 2 of this thread. It converts images to black and white. Perhaps it has an ingredient you're looking for in your mix.
I see. I like this idea. I may use it on my Wild Boy logo because, frankly, I think it needs a little sprucing up. Thanks. :)
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