Is about me sleeping through all of life and not changing even as an adult.
Irony My second one, cleaned up my art style experimenting a little. Is about me finding some level of irony in King of Men's complaints about the moderation on a different forum.
Basically the 'blog' portion of my webcomics which I'll upload to comic press when I find a server.
These are webcomics drown in the style of 'Order of the Stick' a D&D based webcomic that if your interested can for comparative purposes as as well as your own interest examine.
The only form of criticism I expect, require, or ask for is constructive criticism upon the topic of the comic itself not my posting style, behavior here etc, I apologize for anyone whose posts were lost and my lost my temper at some of you, lets try this again without the thread being clogged up arguing over things not relevant to the art.
In short keep it relevant this time and I will as well.
I will also state that many of the comics until I get into the swing of things may VERY WELL be aimed only at specific individuals regarding some very specific events possibly around either obscure tv shows, movies, video games, web originals, etc and that the references you may not get and that I am not trying to insult your intelligence, while you may not 'get' the comic or be its intended audience I still would like an appraisal of my style, grammar, timing, pacing, the size and placement of the individual panels and the artwork itself.
Example the suggestion that I had maybe too many I dunno what to call them lets say "4th wall narration edits" (where you cross out a word and replace it with something else to alter the text for humorous 4th wall painting effect) in the opening narration was an excellent suggestion and is something that over the long term I will try to do less of.
On the other hand I am stating right now that until I get some kind of pacing done and get into the actual habit of turning out comics once a week and get a good narrative they will fluctuate between "easily understood" and "need to use google" all creative works are developments in progress so don't be afraid to ask whats going on if my own explanation isn't sufficient as I will now try to append an explanation to every comic so I don't one day decide "this isn't obscure" when it actually is.
The point here is an exercise to learn to recognize and accept constructive criticism while hosting my hard work here for all on Hatrack to see, I worked very hard to learn how to use inkscape and feel that I could eventually get somewhere with this.
And to repeat I am sorry for nuking the previous thread but feel that it had to be deleted and start over for us to move on, and I am sorry for my behavior there, lets concede we all had good points and all made mistakes now let us move on and I am doubly sorry for those whose posts were deleted who had nothing to do with the argument.
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While I am not exactly a comic book expert, and would be much better off critiquing a screenplay or film or something, I'll take a shot:
For Consistency: The self-deprecating humor is... well, you're just sleeping in class. Where's the joke? I get what it's saying, "hey, look, in middle school I slept through class, in high school I slept through class, and I am in college too!" But the main problem is that there's nothing inherently funny about sleeping in class. I'm probably biased, but it's just not funny.
As for Irony: How is that ironic, exactly? The fact that the other person heard them laughing, was that it?
Actually, that probably wasn't. It probably had something to do with Pdox, probably with Rolfe. Was he being a hypocrite, complaining about "fascist moderators" while he himself was doing the same on another forum? I don't understand the context at all, but then that's not a big deal, this is obviously an in-joke. But without any attempt to open it up for the sake of others who don't "get it" there's really no appeal, or way for people to enjoy it. For if you wish people to enjoy it, you need to give them something they can at least understand at a basic level.
Furthermore, some of the dialogue is... weird. "This hopefully wasn't accidentally on." That sentence especially made me trip over myself. It's awkward, overlong and just plain weird. Something like "I hope I didn't accidentally leave it on" would at least not make me want to kill myself. "I hope I didn't leave it on" would be both faster and leave out an unnecessary word. Those are examples, though, and not something set in stone. What is set in stone is this: Fix that dialogue.
The whole "loudness" joke was inconsistent, as well. Earlier, there was no loud super-huge font size for when the person spoke. Later on, when the girl is there, there is. Furthermore, just commenting on something doesn't make it funny. What I mean is, just saying "wow, that's loud!" isn't a joke.
It really, really isn't. It's just a comment, and not a funny one either. At least, not without some sort of set up, which here is nonexistent.
Further, I have no idea what the source of the discomfort here is. I don't know what your character is doing, who the other people are, or what he's talking about in the end panel. I see where you are probably going with that last panel, but as it is it doesn't play, because I honestly have no clue what's going on. But then this is merely a variant of the criticism I mentioned earlier, about inaccessible in-jokes. Even if the joke IS funny, I can't enjoy it, because there's neither the context or clarity needed for a joke to be funny. At least in my situation.
Can someone who knows what he's talking about in this comic chime in, and tell me if it's funny?
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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However, forgive me for saying this, but deleting the previous thread and remaking it, with the demand that people DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME is kind of... childish, man.
Not cool.
I mean, even if they were terrible to you, go ahead and leave it up as evidence of their terrible-ness. At this point I can't tell, and the only action I see is that you deleted everything, including some useful links I wish I still had.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:And to repeat I am sorry for nuking the previous thread but feel that it had to be deleted and start over for us to move on
If the same thing happens in this thread that happened in the first one, do you think you'll be justified in deleting this thread like you did that one?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: While I am not exactly a comic book expert, and would be much better off critiquing a screenplay or film or something, I'll take a shot:
For Consistency: The self-deprecating humor is... well, you're just sleeping in class. Where's the joke? I get what it's saying, "hey, look, in middle school I slept through class, in high school I slept through class, and I am in college too!" But the main problem is that there's nothing inherently funny about sleeping in class. I'm probably biased, but it's just not funny.
As for Irony: How is that ironic, exactly? The fact that the other person heard them laughing, was that it?
Actually, that probably wasn't. It probably had something to do with Pdox, probably with Rolfe. Was he being a hypocrite, complaining about "fascist moderators" while he himself was doing the same on another forum? I don't understand the context at all, but then that's not a big deal, this is obviously an in-joke. But without any attempt to open it up for the sake of others who don't "get it" there's really no appeal, or way for people to enjoy it. For if you wish people to enjoy it, you need to give them something they can at least understand at a basic level.
Furthermore, some of the dialogue is... weird. "This hopefully wasn't accidentally on." That sentence especially made me trip over myself. It's awkward, overlong and just plain weird. Something like "I hope I didn't accidentally leave it on" would at least not make me want to kill myself. "I hope I didn't leave it on" would be both faster and leave out an unnecessary word. Those are examples, though, and not something set in stone. What is set in stone is this: Fix that dialogue.
The whole "loudness" joke was inconsistent, as well. Earlier, there was no loud super-huge font size for when the person spoke. Later on, when the girl is there, there is. Furthermore, just commenting on something doesn't make it funny. What I mean is, just saying "wow, that's loud!" isn't a joke.
It really, really isn't. It's just a comment, and not a funny one either. At least, not without some sort of set up, which here is nonexistent.
Further, I have no idea what the source of the discomfort here is. I don't know what your character is doing, who the other people are, or what he's talking about in the end panel. I see where you are probably going with that last panel, but as it is it doesn't play, because I honestly have no clue what's going on. But then this is merely a variant of the criticism I mentioned earlier, about inaccessible in-jokes. Even if the joke IS funny, I can't enjoy it, because there's neither the context or clarity needed for a joke to be funny. At least in my situation.
Can someone who knows what he's talking about in this comic chime in, and tell me if it's funny?
Firstly there's not really meant to be a joke per se its a blomic, it me in webcomic form retelling some particular event I felt was worth the effort to immortalize as a comic, the humor in it I felt was kinda funny was the sleeping and I wanted to set up as a running gag for future comics, life doesn't necessarily have a punchline, so I didn't really feel that every comic needs "3 panels to set up joke last panel to deliver".
I didn't want to fully reexplain it for fear of possibly treading on old ground and bulldozing it but basically a moderator at paradox deleted a thread of ours because after 3 months no game started which we kinda felt was a dick move and Rolf very loudly on a different forum complained about 'fascist moderators' to which because of his own GM moderation in regards to me which I and a few others believed unfair felt that it was to a degree hypocritical and ironic and that was the joke was about.
"This hopefully wasn't accidentally on" is kinda how I speak in real life, so its a bit difficult to proof read the non-obvious mistakes since it matches how I speak.
"Loudness" Well part of the problem is inkscape, the font and text manipulation ability is broken so its difficult for me to get the font the way it is so my intention is to switch to adobe illustrator once I find the right version.
The next part of the joke is that this is actually something in real life the headphones are LOUD why? Because someone standing next to me can clearly hear it, that is the evidence that they are loud, hasn't an ear doctor ever told you "if someone standing right next to you can hear your music your ipod is too loud"?
However the joke is in the randomness, I am a fan of absurdist humor and rather then be concerned over King of Men overhearing us snicker behind his back shes more concerned over the headphones, it was meant to setup that she's a "space case" or to use the tv tropes term a cloudcuckoolander.
The humor for that panel was her essentially getting distracted by something trivial to the plot.
The joke in the last humor I had tried to make it as close to D&D mechanics rather then our games mechanics as possible to increase accessibility to the joke, was KoM is saying is that the rolls dealing with my 'character' in the game will be fudged to my expense from now own saying that he can see the future about my die rolls.
And I said my piece about the thread deletion if you wish to discuss it take it to another thread.
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Blayne, a word of advice about taking constructive criticism:
Listen to the criticism (or read it, or whatever.) The pieces of it that make sense to you, and you can wrap your head around, you go ahead and you use those critiques, and you improve your work based on them. The parts that make no sense to you, that you just don't see where the critic is coming from, you ignore those bits for now. Whether they're right or not, you can't make changes you don't understand.
Whatever you do, don't debate over the criticism, or try to explain it away. You could be 100% right, but no other readers will have the luxury of you explaining why you did X or why you phrased Y the way you did. So don't bother. The critic is telling you their initial impressions based on the work alone. Take from that as much as you can, and ignore the rest. I recommend coming back to what you ignored some time later, months or years or however long it takes to gain some more perspective, to make sure the critiques still don't jive in your mind.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: New Hatrack meme: "I am not posting in this high-quality thread"!
As an aside, Blayne, it's "Rolf", not "Rolfe".
That was intentional. And do not give the trolls any ideas.
quote:Blayne, in Irony, why did you decide to have different sized panels?
Because I am standardizing my total comic size to Oots's size and that since I was just making stuff up as I went along I had extra space so I had to resize panels to take up the room.
quote:You may indeed ask.
It is a hypocritical dissonance for me to be expected to tolerate snarky sarcastic off center remarks that have zero relevance to the thread and at the same time others being allowed to make them, so please stop.
I will ask PJ to delete your posts if you continue, do you want to cause the moderator of the site additional work just can't leave me alone?
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You may ask, but he's not violating the TOS at all, so it would be you causing PJ extra work by making a childish request.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Blayne, a word of advice about taking constructive criticism:
Listen to the criticism (or read it, or whatever.) The pieces of it that make sense to you, and you can wrap your head around, you go ahead and you use those critiques, and you improve your work based on them. The parts that make no sense to you, that you just don't see where the critic is coming from, you ignore those bits for now. Whether they're right or not, you can't make changes you don't understand.
Whatever you do, don't debate over the criticism, or try to explain it away. You could be 100% right, but no other readers will have the luxury of you explaining why you did X or why you phrased Y the way you did. So don't bother. The critic is telling you their initial impressions based on the work alone. Take from that as much as you can, and ignore the rest. I recommend coming back to what you ignored some time later, months or years or however long it takes to gain some more perspective, to make sure the critiques still don't jive in your mind.
We'll see but it wouldn't be an equal exchange or honest if all I do is just nod my head mumbling encouraging while lying through my teeth and ignoring it, I would rather explain why and what I did (since most of the problems stem from people not understanding whats happening) so far my conclusion is that it isn't what I did in the comic its the execution, there's nothing wrong with the tropes I used but a combination of bad placement and bad pacing due to distractions by imperections with how the panels are aligned.
For example the joke about my headphones being was supposed to be random because that is who the character is, life isn't a perfect comedy routine afterall since I'm aiming for something along the lines of Seinfield or Lucky Star. But the joke probably would have gone better had people not already been confused over the context of the plot thus far.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: You may ask, but he's not violating the TOS at all, so it would be you causing PJ extra work by making a childish request.
It is not childish at all to expect others to respect some kind of minimal boundary, I do not want people coming in making snarky sarcastic remarks, I am expressing that it is upsetting to me, I asked for them politely to stop so if they refuse then its trolling and am within my right to request moderator intervention, as what recourse do I suggest I do to get you to stop?
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quote:Blayne, in Irony, why did you decide to have different sized panels?
Because I am standardizing my total comic size to Oots's size and that since I was just making stuff up as I went along I had extra space so I had to resize panels to take up the room.
I ask because the size of any given panel can pretty significantly impact the perceived "time" in the panel. In general (not always!) the bigger the panel, the more time we will think of as having passed in that panel. In some of the panels in Irony, this sizing is effective. I think it works best in the laughter-filled panel, and in your beat panel. (Incidentally the *Akward silence* text in that panel is wholly useless. I strongly recommend removing it.) In the last panel, though, and the "Hopefully this wasn't accidentally on" panel, though, there doesn't seem to be any need to indicate the extra passage of time.
And, no offense, but I don't think "I wanted my comic to be more like this other comic" is a very worthwhile artistic goal. There's nothing wrong with emulation, to a point, but sacrificing your narrative - now that you know that's what you're doing - so that the page size copies OotS isn't a great choice, in my opinion.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I haven't taken any art or any proper literary classes so delving into writing webcomics is a completely new experience for me so I have no frame of reference so copying certain details is just a temporary thing until I get a better feel for it, not helped by "webpage resolution" and "inkscape resolution" appear to be completely different.
(the size of how things appear in inkscape is completely different to how it appears on the web)
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: You may ask, but he's not violating the TOS at all, so it would be you causing PJ extra work by making a childish request.
It is not childish at all to expect others to respect some kind of minimal boundary, I do not want people coming in making snarky sarcastic remarks, I am expressing that it is upsetting to me, I asked for them politely to stop so if they refuse then its trolling and am within my right to request moderator intervention, as what recourse do I suggest I do to get you to stop?
There's no recourse for people who are being rude (in your eyes) but who aren't violating the TOS. I suggest you do what many of us have recommended you do and ignore them.
I do appreciate your efforts to remain civil in this thread thus far.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Blayne, a word of advice about taking constructive criticism:
Listen to the criticism (or read it, or whatever.) The pieces of it that make sense to you, and you can wrap your head around, you go ahead and you use those critiques, and you improve your work based on them. The parts that make no sense to you, that you just don't see where the critic is coming from, you ignore those bits for now. Whether they're right or not, you can't make changes you don't understand.
Whatever you do, don't debate over the criticism, or try to explain it away. You could be 100% right, but no other readers will have the luxury of you explaining why you did X or why you phrased Y the way you did. So don't bother. The critic is telling you their initial impressions based on the work alone. Take from that as much as you can, and ignore the rest. I recommend coming back to what you ignored some time later, months or years or however long it takes to gain some more perspective, to make sure the critiques still don't jive in your mind.
We'll see but it wouldn't be an equal exchange or honest if all I do is just nod my head mumbling encouraging while lying through my teeth and ignoring it, I would rather explain why and what I did (since most of the problems stem from people not understanding whats happening) so far my conclusion is that it isn't what I did in the comic its the execution, there's nothing wrong with the tropes I used but a combination of bad placement and bad pacing due to distractions by imperections with how the panels are aligned.
I understand that urge, Blayne, but what I'm trying to convey is that explaining why you did what you did doesn't change the work. At best, it changes the critic's perception. But that does not work to your advantage, because the critics original perception will be repeated by other people who don't have the luxury of a thorough explanation from the creator.
You don't need to lie to anyone, or "mumble encouraging." All you need to do is take what you can from the criticism and move on.
As an aside, "it's not what I did, it's the execution" sounds a lot like you're just making excuses to yourself. "What you did" is essentially synonymous with "execution," in this context.
The absolute worst thing you can do, when faced with criticism, is make excuses. Whether to yourself or to the critic.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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To expand a bit: In physics I often do internal-review of papers which are to be published by the collaboration. The custom is that the reviewers post "Such-and-such must be clarified, this-and-that needs changing", and then the analysts post their responses, and change the paper. The worst possible thing the analyst can do, in these circumstances, is to explain to the reviewer why X is done using Y. What's the use of making the reviewer understand it? It has to be understood by someone reading the paper without the luxury of being able to take the analyst by the scruff of the neck and shake him until an explanation drops out! A paper which can only be understood by talking to the writer is a weak paper, and a reviewer who accepts an explanation without some attempt at making it clearer in the paper is not doing his job. The correct response, the one that makes the reviewer nod in satisfaction and feel that the analyst is a good scientist, is "We changed the sentence [thus and so] to try to make this clearer."
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Well I'm not modifying the work thus far as I need it as a reference of what not to do and will keep in mind the advice for work to happen from now.
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I must say I do critiques all the time in my classes. My work is critiqued and I critique others' work. There is an etiquette to it. And none of us, by this point, would in any way believe something is better just because it's explained away. Our teachers have this habit of calling BS, and pointing out that whatever we "intended" the fact remains that what they said is still there. That something is unclear to the audience, and people won't magically get it just because you explained it to one critic. It stands as a work of art, beyond your intentions. For whatever those are, whatever thought went behind it is invisible. All that's there is what you made, and all that can be judged is the finished product.
They aren't always correct. In fact sometimes they're assholes. And I've been guilty of trying to defend my work as well, so I understand the impulse.
But Blayne, have you taken anything away from my post except to explain away everything I said? Have you taken any of it to heart, or are you just going to continue doing whatever with no effort to fix the mistakes or, more importantly, the things that simply do not work?
(Those are not the same thing in creative work, after all. In a horror film I did, while the protagonist was running through a house to hide, she passed by a working shotgun which we didn't notice, but showed up quite visibly on screen. Nobody on set noticed. But the viewers certainly did. They found it funny that she was so incompetent that she couldn't even notice her salvation. Which is lucky, as that was the kind of character she was, and it jived well. But that was just dumb luck, nothing more.)
For if you are going to do that, if you aren't REALLY going to take constructive criticism, then delete this thread right now and never make another asking for it. Okay?
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I didn't see your most recent post, right before my long one:
And that's fine! You don't need to modify them. But understanding what went wrong is important, and that's what I'm here for.
Now, to respond in detail:
"Firstly there's not really meant to be a joke per se its a blomic, it me in webcomic form retelling some particular event I felt was worth the effort to immortalize as a comic, the humor in it I felt was kinda funny was the sleeping and I wanted to set up as a running gag for future comics, life doesn't necessarily have a punchline, so I didn't really feel that every comic needs "3 panels to set up joke last panel to deliver". "
(Channeling my teachers now: Have fun.) That's nice. But you can do a blomic and be entertaining about it, can't you?
I mean... sleeping in class isn't inherently funny, and you did nothing to try and make it funny. At least nothing that worked.
If you are going to go to the trouble of immortalizing something about yourself, have the self-respect to make it into something people won't be utterly bored by.
Every panel doesn't need "three panels and a punchline" sure. But are you making these for other people at all? What's your audience? Who are you making it for, in other words? If it's just for yourself, and it honestly sounds like it, constructive criticism is pointless, for the reason that as long as you enjoy it, who else cares?
But if you want to make this for others... then you have work to do.
"I didn't want to fully reexplain it for fear of possibly treading on old ground and bulldozing it but basically a moderator at paradox deleted a thread of ours because after 3 months no game started which we kinda felt was a dick move and Rolf very loudly on a different forum complained about 'fascist moderators' to which because of his own GM moderation in regards to me which I and a few others believed unfair felt that it was to a degree hypocritical and ironic and that was the joke was about."
Great! Pity you didn't show any of that in the comic.
There are probably fifty ways to express that (though at least 45 would suck) and you chose none of them. Nobody knows, and nobody can know, based on the work as it exists. Once again, fine if it's just for yourself or your in-crowd. The kiss of death for showing it to anyone else.
" "This hopefully wasn't accidentally on" is kinda how I speak in real life, so its a bit difficult to proof read the non-obvious mistakes since it matches how I speak. "
Then buy a grammar book, or a style guide, or something. Various authors keep recommending The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Go to amazon.com and order it. Now.
Because in the real world, nobody cares why your grammar sucks. All they see is bad grammar. You cannot explain that away, and your work will stand as a testament you cannot erase. Good luck with that.
""Loudness" Well part of the problem is inkscape, the font and text manipulation ability is broken so its difficult for me to get the font the way it is so my intention is to switch to adobe illustrator once I find the right version. "
Okay. Mistakes happen, I guess. Do it properly next time.
"The next part of the joke is that this is actually something in real life the headphones are LOUD why? Because someone standing next to me can clearly hear it, that is the evidence that they are loud, hasn't an ear doctor ever told you "if someone standing right next to you can hear your music your ipod is too loud"?
However the joke is in the randomness, I am a fan of absurdist humor and rather then be concerned over King of Men overhearing us snicker behind his back shes more concerned over the headphones, it was meant to setup that she's a "space case" or to use the tv tropes term a cloudcuckoolander.
The humor for that panel was her essentially getting distracted by something trivial to the plot."
No, I get that it was loud. I understand how they get loud, you don't need to explain that to me.
However... that isn't absurdist humor. That isn't any humor at all. Being concerned over how loud something is doesn't at ALL indicate the trope you're going for, you definitely did not succeed, and I get the feeling she isn't a real person, is she? Yet in the few comics you've shown, the character of you always has this presumably interesting female companion you consider a kooky Dharma from Dharma and Greg type of girl.
Just the amount you have on panel says an interestingly large amount about you. And what you say about her here says even more. Fascinating.
But I digress: The humor is her getting distracted by something trivial to the plot? That's hard to distinguish when the entire thing seems trivial. Without meaning, without context or understanding or, most importantly, proper set up, how can we know? How can we know what part is important? We can't, and so your comic falls flat.
"The joke in the last humor I had tried to make it as close to D&D mechanics rather then our games mechanics as possible to increase accessibility to the joke, was KoM is saying is that the rolls dealing with my 'character' in the game will be fudged to my expense from now own saying that he can see the future about my die rolls."
See, D&D mechanics isn't all that accessible to begin with. If that's needed to increase it, then you have a problem. Further, and once more: I have no idea what you're even doing in the comic. I didn't know he was in a game. I don't know the relationships of the characters. I have literally no way to tell, there's nothing in the comic to indicate any of what you've said at all.
Proper set up would help. Even if the joke sucked, at least there would be a complete joke then.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: It is not childish at all to expect others to respect some kind of minimal boundary, I do not want people coming in making snarky sarcastic remarks
I think you're going to have an incredible amount of difficulty enforcing some sort of private space on a fairly public forum and as others have noted, your attempts to restrict people from making snarky sarcastic remarks very much encourage people to do so. You're just going to have to learn to tolerate it Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: if you aren't REALLY going to take constructive criticism, then delete this thread right now and never make another asking for it. Okay?
quote:I haven't taken any art or any proper literary classes so delving into writing webcomics is a completely new experience for me so I have no frame of reference so copying certain details is just a temporary thing until I get a better feel for it
Glad to hear it. There's nothing wrong with that.
Also, I WOULD encourage you to make changes to these works that you think would improve them. I'd also encourage you to save the original versions. Doing both will gain you the quickest improvement.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Blayne, have you read the book "Understanding comics" by Scott McCloud? I think it's an absolutely essential book for anyone serious about making comics.
I thought the first comic was mostly fine, but the dialogue in the last panel was largely unnecessary (if anything made it worse). It would work if the dialogue was genuinely funny in and of itself, but it's not, it's just there clarifying the joke, which was already clear.
The second one, I think has already been noted, isn't funny at all if you don't know exactly what's going on, and while you can do that kind of comic if you want, I'd highly recommend on focusing on things other people can appreciate.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I got illustrator installed gonna fiddle with it.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Samprimary your not helping or contributing.
If I give a real assessment of the comic and your aspirations, will you just call me a troll again? Or will you assume that my judgment is sincere?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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You're welcome to call me "Troll," if you wish (although I think that's a cop-out, a weak way of trying to deflect unwelcome arguments by besmirching the person advancing the arguments).
A lot of people here are expressing something about your behavior in this forum which I myself thought when I tried to give you valuable writing advice a few months ago on another thread. It has to do with taking criticism. You were pretty darn rude about it.
So take this for what it's worth, Blayne. (And you get to decide what it's worth! Is it advice worth exactly how much you paid for it -- zero$? Or is it sincere advice fom someone who's been working with pro writers and artists since before you were born?)
Your attitude is working against you. It's like watching someone try to swim ashore from two miles out while insisting they carry in their favorite bowling ball.
posted
Every once in a while I try to practice drawing; I can never stick with it consistently enough to get good.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
It looks like you're good enough that, with continued practice and guidance, you could get pretty decent. But make sure to be try and find real art manuals. Copying anime is only going to get you so far and eventually will start teaching you some bad lessons that you'll later need to unlearn.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Proper drawing pencils and draft paper would be good too.
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I think what Raymond's trying to say is that you don't necessarily need to figure it out, since there are lots of useful books on the subject. I know my own drawing improved immensely once I started studying it, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Blayne, try picking up a non-photo blue pencil, and using that for the early sketching. That way when you start fleshing out your image, the lines you used to measure proportions won't be as distracting, to you or to a viewer. Then, if you want to scan the image and edit it digitally, those lines are much easier to remove.
It's a simple thing to do, and I've found it really helpful.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I'd be satisfied with you getting a comprehensive manual on the anime style. But a major thing a lot of art students struggle with is focusing so much on learning the anime STYLE that they never learn basic things like doing a good, energetic gesture drawing. Learning the basics of drawing, period, will help you majorly with any kind of drawing you want to do. And if you find you want to try something other than manga, you'll have a much better jumping point to start from.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
rephrasing for clarity and emphasis: if you proceed on your own without a quality resource (be it a teacher or a comprehensive manual) you are going to learn a lot of bad habits and waste a lot o time. I know, because I've been there.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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