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I made some tweaks to page two. Is the pacing of the inner dialogue better now? Or worse? Or about the same?
Also, the inner dialogue box colors - Better now? Worse? Or about the same? :)
Would the inner dialogue look better as balloons rather than boxes?
Feedback is very much appreciated! :D (Though of course, if you don't have the time or don't have anything you want to say, that's valid too! No stress, no pressure - if you feel like giving feedback, I'm all ears and ready to take mental notes. If you don't feel like it, that's totally understandable too and I wouldn't take it personally.)
haha Don't stress it. :) I totally understand. I hope you don't feel any pressure to give feedback - if you don't have time or just don't have anything you want to say about it, then that's ok too. I never want anyone to feel like they have to give feedback if they don't want to. :)
You're right, balance is important - and I do want to try and get it flowing ok on the first couple of pages for sure as those are often the most important and will usually be the difference between someone deciding to read on or "nope it" and decide to read something else instead. lol I think getting the first two pages "down" is good, as it will be kind of like the template for the rest of the issue. So tweaking these first two pages until they are as good as I can make them is important, I think. :)
@3Diva, for what it's worth, purely as a reader, I think you could lose the first thought panel in that third frame in the second row, the one that begins "three years". The amount of time she's spent there may not be as relevant as the fact that it feels more like home than her own home. (I'm guessing this is a set up to leading into the reader seeing a not-that-great homelife? Also, how much time per day is she spending at Hajime's? I guess it depends on what she's training for, exactly, but since she's still in school, it doesn't seem like it could be more than three or four hours per day, at the most.)
Also, boxes are fine for inner dialogue; I've seen that in comics a lot the past few years, usually but not always with light text on a dark backgrount to contrast with white speech balloons -- thought captions are usually colored boxes, in any event. What I haven't seen is dotted lines; that usually represents whispering in a regular speech balloon, so that may throw people at first.
@vwrangler Thank you for the feedback. It's very much appreciated. :D
I ended up making a few tweaks and changes based on everyone's feedback, so I really appreciate it! Thank you guys!
This one should be the final version of Page 2 (hopefully). If you see any issues with it PLEASE speak up - since this page is kind of like my "template" moving forward. I'll be going with this style of speech balloons, dialogue boxes, and art - so if you guys see any issues with it or if it's not very readable or ANYTHING that might be a problem or issue with it please let me know! Again, I'll be using this as the template for the style and format going forward so if there are any problems with it it would be best to know now, so that no real major changes will be needed going forward.
If you see anything wrong with it or if it's hard to follow/hard to read or if there are any other issues, please let me know. :)
Looking good @3Diva! I liked the balance of the wide shot with the houses on both sides of the road when she was thinking about finding a home. A very "ApplePie" moment. Everyone wants the dream. This new hand panel with the "lurking in the shadow" new addition certainly adds a sense of danger, but takes away from her moment and changes the image balance. I think The hand can be at the top of the next page. Thumbs up on the pacing improvements too.
Thanks, FirstBastion. :) I'm glad that the pacing is better with the changes.
For the hand in the last panel - I thought that adding that to the end of page two rather than waiting until page three to present the danger would create a better moment of suspense. I don't know - I'd love some more feedback on that from a couple of other people if possible. Is that last part better with just her walking away, allowing the weight of her words to "settle" for a bit, or is it better to end the page on a moment of suspense to help entice the reader to flip the page and keep reading to find out what happens? I think I like it equally either way, but my husband likes it better with the moment of suspense - so getting a couple of other opinions on it would be really helpful. :)
I wanted to take a break from the sequential art for a little bit so I decided to start thinking about the cover for fun. I did a cover mockup that I like, though I'm not sure if I'll be going with it or not. Feedback on it is welcome. :)
My first thought was who's hand is that? I took it as a cliffhanger of sorts - even it was only until the next page. FWIW, I'm not sure how effective it would be if it appeared on the same page as whatever reveal ends up taking place.
- Greg
So do you like it better with the hand in that last panel or do you think it would be better with the hand on the next page? Or does it depend on whether or not the next page has the "reveal" of who the hand belongs?
Not sure, but the great part is you can make a bunch of panels and play around with arranging them differently, right? Who says it can't be more like a movie making process where a ton of footage is shot without knowing exactly what will end up getting cut, or exactly how it ultimately gets arranged? <shrug>
- Greg
ETA: You already talked about wearing more than one hat, but only wearing one at a time so to speak. So maybe that decision is saved for the future - when you'll have more of the pieces available and you can get a better picture of how they'll flow when arranged different ways.
Hey there! I like what I'm seeing here. Sorry for not taking time to be more thorough, but I'm on deadline right now (and it's midnight), and I just wanted to toss a few quick notes your way.
GREAT WORK, but I've gotta run.
I got side-tracked when first looking at your cover last night and just now remembered to circle back. I like the gradient you used in the outlining of the letters, and the complementary colors. It seems like you gave yourself plenty of room to play with variations for different books while still maintaining the core look. Should also make it easier to ensure that it stands out against whatever the background may be - smart design!
- Greg
Thank you for taking time to give some feedback. The double periods are on purpose, I meant them to denote a slight pause. I suppose I could go with three periods rather than two, but I was going to use the triple period to denote a sentence continuation to another speech bubble or another thought box. I guess I could go with a double dash line for the continuation instead and use the triple period for the pauses if that would be less confusing to people.
The black box is just info the reader needs - mostly it will denote the time or the location or some other piece of information that the reader needs. The info couldn't really be delivered in one of the purple boxes as those are just her inner thoughts that she's having. "One hour later" doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an inner thought. :)
The composition can definitely be cleaner on the "walking away" panel, so post-work there would probably be helpful. Thank you for the recommendation. :D
Thank you, Greg! It took me a while to find some fonts that were available for commercial use that also fit the design theme I was looking for. In the end I found two fonts that fit very close to what I wanted. I made some minor modifications/tweaks but for the most part, got so lucky to find fonts that came that close to what I wanted for the design. I was worried that people might not be able to read what it says but so far I think people can read it ok. :)
In terms of what people are used to, an emdash/double-dash would work best for the continuation, if it was absolutely needed. The double periods just look like typos; that's actually what I thought they were, and I figured they'd be cleaned up in the final copy.
THAT said: almost every place you have a double period has a clean enough conceptual stop that you can just ... well, stop. Put in a single period, and let the next sentence begin. You don't need to have a visual marker that a thought/sentence is continued; your flow is clear enough. (That said, the one where she thinks, "This is going to be a long session" would actually work to have a triple-period/ellipsis to start the thought, maybe give a bit of emphasis to some weariness.)
(In one of my past lives, I edited academic prose. It is my firm conviction that when you get a PhD, the concepts of grammar, punctuation, and decent handwriting immediately generate a complex Somebody Else's Problem field, and the possessor of said PhD forgets everything they ever knew about any of it, because they no longer have room in the brain. But I digress.) (Also, your grammar and punctuation game are WAY better than theirs.)
Thank you, @vwrangler - that makes a lot of sense. I'll try and go with what people are more used to. I wouldn't want my comic to be difficult to follow right off the bat. I will wait until later to confuse people. lol Kidding. I always will shoot for clarity as nothing is more off-putting while reading a comic than being confused. Clarity is king when it comes to comics. Thank you for the advice, it's very much appreciated.
I like the placement of the hand at the end of the page because it is sort of a "hook" to make one turn the page. The only thing is, upon initially seeing it, I thought it was her hand and that she might be a werewolf. I just learned she has no real home, and then the hand, so I guess my mind filled in the blanks - she's training to keep her nature under control, but the reason she has no home is she is a monster lol. Then I noticed that she is also in the panel, and the werewolf or monster is looking at her. If there was a way to make her more noticable in the same panel, that would do the trick.
AHAHAH! Now THAT sounds like a cool comic - why didn't I think of that? lol :D Very cool story idea you have there! :) And yeah, she's probably a little too hard to see in that panel - Mike pointed out that she might be a bit too hard to see as well. Great suggestions, guys - I'll do what I can to make her more directly noticeable. :)
Thank you for the feedback. You all are a HUGE help! :D Getting a lot of feedback at the start is important so that I can get my workflow and style solidified. It's a big help and should make things easier going forward. Thank you, guys!
Another thought FWIW - if you're concerned about legibility, one thing you could try is to render (in the general sense of the word) each letter independently and have the various tails slipping in front of or behind the other letters next to it. This way, the outline for each letter would be un-interrupted, so to speak. Obviously, this comes into play most with the "C", but also with the top row dripping down into the bottom row as well.
- Greg
I had the same thought, @Worlds_Edge, but quickly noticed her walking away after having the thought. The previous panel showing her more prominently walking into the sunset helped. I rather enjoyed the fact that it made me wonder for a moment!
- Greg
This is SO COOL!!! I really, really, really enjoy the textures. They look cartoony, cell shaded, and they still have that 3D edge to them. It's very nice. So often I find that 3D comics feel sterile and because of that can be nonengaging right from the start. This cover would entice me to pick up the book and flip through the pages to see what the rest of the art looks like, and (in my book) that's goal number 1 when it comes to comics!
The font is cool, also. I'm embarrased by the titles and fonts I use for my own comics, because so often they are just cheezy fonts with some grittyness added to it, but the font for "Monster Crush" tells a story in and of itself. Add to it the gradient, and how the colors fit the vibrancy of the people, all in front of the dark background... you have a real knack for this.
I hope you're proud, and amped up, because you're off to a fantastic start here!
Thank you, Greg! I'll take a look at it and see if there are tweaks I can make that will help with legibility. While I probably don't want to have each letter rendered separately (as I like the title as a cohesive "whole entity"), I do think you're right that there are some tweaks that could be made to bring in a little more readability to the title. :)
hahah I'm glad that it wasn't so much a "frustrating" moment of confusion and maybe more of a moment of curiosity. :D I think she could definitely be clearer in the scene though, maybe a tad more visibility - as was suggested maybe a little lighter and perhaps slightly larger in the frame. I'll give it a try and see if that helps.
Reading your comment put a HUGE smile on my face. I was feeling a little down this week but you definitely helped me (as you said) feel more "amped"! I'm very happy to hear that you think it's off to a good start! I am excited about the comic! I'm having fun with it and really enjoying learning. My work before in comics was mainly just doing color work - I got the pages as scanned pencil drawings or scanned inked drawings, and I just did the color work then it was off to the next person in the chain. lol Doing an entire comic by yourself is just a BIG undertaking and there is a lot to learn along the way. But the journey is so fun! And it really feels good to be doing my own comic. It's something I've been wanting to do for a very long time and finally doing it feels very freeing! :)
hey guys,
I got into Daz as a side hobby to gaming in my free time, I am trying to make a free adventure story, one of my renders is attached.
I am just looking to add some speech bubbles for conversations to the still renders, I have tried different suggestions but they are too complicated I mean I dont even want all the other features these softwares have and learning them would mean learning daz studio again, plus they distort image quality. What is the most easy to use (price not an issue) software that will just take my render as is at its exact resolution and just add different types of customisable speech bubbles with a white background and text editor in comic font and then keep image detail and resolution and output my render as is just with speech bubbles for conversations added?
Thankyou guys in advance.
Edit: I also plan on learning photoshop after I complete all my renders, so I can add effects like motion blur which will give more depth to the stills for example the elf in this pic etc and other stuff like add smoke to the torches etc.
The render looks good!
If you plan on learning photoshop anyway, you might as well letter there as well. Here's a tutorial on how to use the Elipse Tool and Pen Tool in PS to create word balloons (which is how I do it too):
There's a fun comic creators stream going on right now:
Edit: Never mind. Looks like that channel might be promoting things that I do not want to help draw traffic to.
Thankyou so much this was really really super helpfull and maybe the best option for me too as you wisely point out learning photoshp anyway. I had previously gotten a headache trying to use comic life 3 trial version.
:)
You're welcome. And yeah, I'm using Photoshop for my layouts and lettering and all that. The workflow for me so far is just Daz Studio >> Photoshop. lol Keeps things simple that way. :)
Here are some great tips on lettering that can get you started: https://blambot.com/pages/lettering-tips
Hey there! Great discussions going on. Looks like some great work is going on, too. I'm really looking forward to seeing the evolution of these comics.
I haven't participated in a while now because of deadlines of stuff like that. So, please forgive me for doing another "drive-by critique" in such a hurry, so I hope this doesn't come off as harsh. For me, the black box does not work because it is too similar to her inner thoughts. Would you consider changing the type to something more mechanical, like Arial or Helvetica? Or using black text in a lighter colored box? Something to make it even more different than her thoughts. Something to emphasize that it is a change in tone or voice. At least consider it.
Please don't use the double dots to indicate a pause: it just reads as an error. Fortunately, the convention for using dashes verses an ellipses is fairly well established in modern comics and they are very easy to follow. Professional letterer Nate Piekos (he does a lot of work for DC and BOOM!) has some great tutorials on that at his site: https://blambot.com/pages/lettering-tips
Specifically, you should look at lesson #11, which I've included here:
When you have a chance, you should take a look at his whole series of tips. They're really good.
There are LOTS of free baloons online. Just doo a google search for free photoshop comic baloons and you'll find plenty. If you would like to buy some, this is a decent pack: https://graphixly.com/products/ultimate-speech-bubbles-pack
Even though it says they are for Clip Studio Paint, they are in PNG format and they will work in Photoshop (or any other image editor). And they are on sale right now for only $15.
Good luck!