Blip And Radar Progress Thread

[FSi++]

It's funnier than my early ones, believe me.

p.s. No, I won't let you see 

[Renal Shutdown]

I got bored, and thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

[Mr Flibble]

The art and expressions there are just golden. Fluke, take notes.

[Nikolas]

I get defensive from time to time, but yes... Anyways... I'm posting in this thread... I love Fluke for some reason...

Shutdown: I love your comic. Not sure if, with no advice, or comments, it will help a 14 year old (with little experience that is, nothing to do with age really).

I doubt that fluke can make the art that you just did...

I'll try to analyse some things (in hopes that I get graphics myself...)

Fluke:

* Renal, changed the expressions and the bodies of the blips in every panel.
* he changed colour in the fonts
* he changed background cause he needed to add tention to that part
* he changed dynamics, by adding height and heavy expression to the left blip on panel 3.
* humour wise I'm not sure if it's not far off yours, and I had to think for a second in order to get it, but I do get it now... What could be a problem for me, is that in a 4 panel comic, arriving at the joke in panel 3, seems somewhat early to me. But I cannot be sure at all, as I lack the experience...



Fluke, try not to copy paste anything. After all the art is really simple, and you shouldn't waste more than 5-10 minutes additionally, to draw new blips in every panel. It could be worth, if you can add mor eexpressions to them, more than you already have added.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Since Fluke has gone ahead and actually started a full comic and webspace for this I don't really see him as actively looking for feedback anymore.  If you want actual feedback (and will listen to some of the criticisms) pm me and I will unlock this, Fluke.

Unlocked at Fluke's request, though I will be watching this thread to see if you pay attention to advice/criticisms, Fluke.  So far you seem to be ignoring a good deal of both.

[Renal Shutdown]

Nikolas, you're right on a few things.

I basically did that comic with very little effort, but I'll point out the key bits.

1. The bodies in every panel.  Yes, they were all different.  It might take you a bit longer, but it really is worth the effort of you doing each frame as a new picture, not just changing the speech bubbles for each frame.
This also refers to the art in general, you should try doing as much of it by hand as possible, so it doesn't look like someone using MSPaint for the very first time.

2. The expressions.  Again, drawn seperately for each panel.  It doesn't take much, but it makes all the difference.  To support this, I entirely skipped the mouths of the characters, and (not to blow my own trumpet, or to offend you) still had more emotion than the ones you've done.

3. The backgrounds were different for each panel.  One tip for drawing comics I've heard, is to treat the backgrounds with as much importance as your characters.  Reusing the same scene over and over is just lazy, but changing it adds more depth to the comic strip.

4. Like Nik' said. Dynamics.  The comic wasn't just a stardard rehash panel after panel.  The more diverse you can make it, the better.  New angles? Good.  New poses? Good.  Repetition? Bad, unless you know how to pull it off.  At the moment, you don't, so I'd suggest making the thing more interesting.

5. Fonts.  Sure, I used different colors.  Mostly so people could see who was talking.  I'm still not happy with the brown text, compared to the blue.  I mainly did this, because I didn't like how the speech bubbles I was trying turned out.
The speech bubbles and text in your comics seems lazy, though.  Arial for everything?  I'd suggest getting some different fonts, and looking at other comics for inspiration.  Unless you're doing very small comics, using Arial is just laziness.  It looks good if it's pixel by pixel stuff, but in the style and size you're aiming for, it just looks amateurish.

6. Composition.  There's nothing worse than bad composition.  You could be a fantastic artist, but if you didn't spread things out, it'd look like a mess.  This was the main reason people think my comic isn't the worst thing they've every seen.  The art was nothing to write home about, in fact, I was aiming for Bad Art.  The composition has saved it though.  The gaps between panels.  The wonky angles of the panels.  The bothering to add space for the title, the credits and the copyright notice.  It's just planning, and it's something I seriously suggest you take the time to think about.  At the moment, your comics just look like a bunch of similar pictures put together on a page, without the least bit of thought.
Take a moment to walk around your house, you've no doubt got some pictures on the wall somewhere.  They're not all bunched in one messy looking group, are they? Ask your parents why they've spread them out instead of putting them all together in a group.  Look at magazines and comics and newspapers.  Composition makes all the difference.

7. Humor.
This is a toughy.  I'm not going to criticise your style too much, as you might genuinely find it hilarious.  I went for the Limp Bizkit reference, because I was trying to imitate your humor.  Here's the thought process I used:

- Come up with a Pop Culture reference, that is either clichéd or just plain dated.
- How do I make a reference without doing to much art and/or changing the characters too much?
- Add a hat. A red hat.
- Fred Durst was famous for having the red baseball cap on backwards.

Not that great a comedic feat I admit, but I wasn't going for a joke in the cartoon as much as I was style and composition.

Note:
Nikolas: "What could be a problem for me, is that in a 4 panel comic, arriving at the joke in panel 3, seems somewhat early to me."

Where's the joke in panel 3?  I personally see the joke as panel 4, after the yellow blob flies off the handle, insulting the blue thing, everything is back to normal seconds later.  Also referencing Fluke's style of "Random and clichéd pop culture reference each week". (Again, no offence, Fluke).

Like the folk have said before, make stuff you find funny personally.  Not stuff you expect people to find funny, or imitating stuff that's already out there.  The point of comics, like all art, is not to please the masses but for you to look at and think "I'm proud of that.  I like it".

On to the main part of this post, again another quote from Nikolas:
"I doubt that fluke can make the art that you just did..."

This statement is total b*ll*cks.  If you believe it Fluke, you're doing yourself an injustice.  The comic I did was done with a combination of a mouse, an art program (PSP9, as I like having layers) and the repeated use of Ctrl-Z.  Anyone can make that comic, all they need is to do is to put in the effort.

Sometime tomorrow, I'll post again, with a step by step on how I did that cartoon, just to explain just how simple it is to improve a piece.  You just need to put some variety and effort into the art.



Personally, I dislike the style you've gone for.  It seems messy, and in all honesty, the cut and pasting is just plain lazy.  Most of the jokes you're making are either clichéd or too obscure to get without you explaining them (ie, the MGS and Pac Man strips, respectively).  The Mac jokes are just plain lame, they've been around for years.  Chances are, you've never really used a Mac enough to make a valid comment on it.  It's like the Sonic vs. Mario situation from the early nineties.

That said, I'm not going to say you don't have potential.  The erection comic actually made me chortle.  It wasn't the whole comic, just the idea of him being aroused, and shown in that way.  That was a clever idea, just poorly executed.

I also liked the jaw drop piece.  (The one place where you were right to keep the same expression on the character).  But, instead of "6 hours later" and "10 hours later", you could have showed the change in time by the use of the background.  Instead of just plain green, you could have had the first panel as day time, then night time.  Possibly even adding a 5 o'clock shadow to the character.



I hope I've come across as actually trying to help you with this post, even though most of it has been pretty negative criticism.  Hopefully, you'll take some of it on board, as you've got the basis of good comic idea, and if you put the effort in, the chance to make it something worth reading.  (The concept for the characters, tho not entirely original, is a pretty good one.  The less realistic they are, the more you can concentrate on making them seem real, if you know what I mean).

Good Luck, etc.

[PsychicHeart]

Okay, how's this :




Cheers,
Fluke.

[Nikolas]

Renal: Amazing post! Great post! Great help!

Note:
Nikolas: "What could be a problem for me, is that in a 4 panel comic, arriving at the joke in panel 3, seems somewhat early to me."

Where's the joke in panel 3?  I personally see the joke as panel 4, after the yellow blob flies off the handle, insulting the blue thing, everything is back to normal seconds later.  Also referencing Fluke's style of "Random and clichéd pop culture reference each week". (Again, no offence, Fluke).

I, personally, found much funnier the 3rd panel in your comic than the 4th. And I did state that I don't read THAT many webcomics to have experience, like you probably do. I foudn the joke, that in order to immitate limp bizkit, the yellow one started swearing and all that, and btw, telling the truth to the blue one. The back to normal 4th panel, came natural and as a closing panel, for me. I guess everyone to their taste...

On to the main part of this post, again another quote from Nikolas:
"I doubt that fluke can make the art that you just did..."

This statement is total b*ll*cks.  If you believe it Fluke, you're doing yourself an injustice.  The comic I did was done with a combination of a mouse, an art program (PSP9, as I like having layers) and the repeated use of Ctrl-Z.  Anyone can make that comic, all they need is to do is to put in the effort.

The main part of this post? I feel honoured. 

The idea of my post basically was that, although I liked your comic, a comic alone, to someone with little experience is kinda useless. So your post here today came as a great addition to your comic, and it's something to value. There is no reason to degrade or say anything bad, and while you may think that I'm "offending" somehow fluke, I'm simply not. I'm stating that the obvious difference in people (every person), might make it difficult to follow your comic and your good will intended help, by making yourself a comic, without the 2nd post.

"Fluke take notes...", is not helpful, as not everyone is as "insightful" as one would like them to be, and get everything from an example.

Your little effort could be great effort for someone else, that's the idea... :-/ I know what you meant, though, I really do...

Fluke: Hem...

In your last comic (don't know if you did it before or after Renals' post), but you didn't follow much of what he said... :-/ The BGs are the same, except for the cloud and the bird, which makes too little difference, the dyamics are still gone (although I do suspect an effort the first blue to be higher than the second, so kudos on that), and again 3,4 panels are the same... Expressions could be a little more exxagerated, I think. I'm not sure I understand the joke this time, sorry... :-/

[esper]

When making a comic, you have a certain space to tell a joke in. Imagine now if I told you this:

There was a guy walking up the street. His names was Galgafrancham Q. McFootiefoots, and he was 3'6 and had a dog named Yoshitoki Koninobu. What's black and white and red all over? A newspaper.

Get it?

Of course I mean the singing in the first panel. Apart from making me trying to guess the song (is that "I am the walrus?") it serves absolutely no point. And, while the strip is still kind of funny, it's like you're just saying "Appleseed is a good movie." It is, actually, and although I had seen a bunch of the Hayao Miyazaki movies already this was the first anime I'd ever seen that I actually knew was anime. But that's not the point. There's no real joke, it's just kinda saying Appleseed is a good movie in a funny way.

I think you should bone up on your "FoxTrot." It seems that comic is similar in form and function, although not material, to what you're doing with Blip and Radar. You could learn alot about joke delivery and timing from FoxTrot. In fact, here's a little exercise for you: think up a joke you would like to tell in your next Blip and Radar, then select a completely random FoxTrot. Take note of how their joke is delivered, and then try to work your joke in to fit in the same frame sequence.

You're doing really good here, Fluke. Keep it up, but don't stop trying to get better.

[cat]

I really liked the eyes in the 3rd and 4th panel. I didn't get the joke (probably because I don't know the movie) but those eyes really look like he has spent hours and hours on watching tv.

[Renal Shutdown]

Right, here comes that tutorial type thing I mentioned..

Program used:
Paint Shop Pro 9 - I like working with layers.Ã,  I can get around a lack of talent by taking my time and building up a picture piece by piece.

Tools used:
Paintbrush - 2x2 pixel.
Flood Fill/Paint Bucket.
Line tool - 2 pixel width.
Text tool.
Zoom tool.

Onwards, then..



Framing and layout.

You can do this in either at the very start, filling in the panels one by one to the preset pattern, or you could do this at the very end, cropping and positioning the seperate panels to fit.Ã,  Either way, the important thing is that you actually do this at some point.

So far, Fluke, your comics have just looked a mess because you've put no thought into how they're going to be displayed.Ã,  For this example, I'm drawing the panels first, as I wanted a set piece of 4 panels to work with.



Note, I've left space at the top left for a title, and on the top/bottom right, so I can write various info that's not part of the comic itself.Ã,  You don't have to go with the wonky angles, you don't have to make them thick black lines, but you DO need to spread your panels out in some way.



Next comes the outlines.Ã,  I'm only using a mouse, as I've no idea if you have a graphics tablet.Ã,  I'm not good at drawing with the mouse, I'm the first to admit that, and even these outlines took a while of trial and error until I was satisfied with their shapes.



The yellow one in panel 2 still looks to DOTT-like for my liking, but I got sick of try to fix it.

Note at this point, using the mouse, I've zoomed in to draw them, I means my lines are much more accurate than if I was at 1x1.Ã,  I'll come back to this point a little later, but for now, lets move on.



Shading.

Not all that a difficult section.Ã,  In fact, in all honesty, it's the paint bucket tool/flood fill/etc.



The technique isn't what matters, tho.Ã,  Even at this stage, I was analysing the comic as a whole, trying to get a color palette for the two characters that complimented each other well, but were also not harsh colors, not too bright, not too dark, not too saturated, etc.

Whilst blue and yellow do compliment each other, the actual shades you've been using aren't easy on the eye.



Above, I've filled in the details of the characters.Ã,  I've kept them as simple as possible, to demonstrate the point.Ã,  It's the expressions.Ã,  Just the eyes.

There's nothing worse than an comic, that has slacked on the expressions.Ã,  You don't even need text, if you do expressions right.Ã,  The majority of your comics have been lacking emotion, and at some points looking devoid of life.Ã,  If people don't get a sense of emotion from the character, then they won't enjoy the read very much.Ã,  You describe it as a comic about "two anthropomorphic blobs".Ã,  You've got to give them more life.

I can't teach how to draw expressions.Ã,  It comes from practice.Ã,  Buy a sketchbook and a pen, and doodle them whenever you have the chance.Ã,  The more you practice, the better you get.



I've removed the fills on the characters in the above stage, so I can explain the backgrounds a little easier.

Lets start with panels 1 and 4.Ã,  I'd already used blue and yellow, so I didn't want the backgrounds to clash, so I picked a 3 shades of green for the bulk of the image.Ã,  The darkest green outlines, to show the shape of the room, and then two very similar greens for the shading.Ã,  There's only a very subtle difference shaded greens, but it helps to add a little depth.

I didn't want the ceilings to be plain white, as I wanted the comic to have a full color look, I picked a very pale blue.Ã,  It needed to be a light color, as I'd already decided to have the text on the background itself, and not in speech bubbles.Ã,  As for the floor, I picked a dark red, to give the panels a solid bottom, as well as to contrast the text at the tops.

Panel 4 specifically, has more of the carpet in view.Ã,  This is for 2 reasons. Firstly, I didn't want it to be the same as the panel 1.Ã,  Secondly, as I look at it, the solid base makes it feel like that panel is the concluding one.



Panel 2 has no carpet in, as I felt that the dark red would take the attention off of the key feature, that being the red hat.Ã,  I wanted the backgrounds to draw the eyes into the main part of each panel, especially panel 3.Ã,  Much like Mr Flibble's comic, the dynamic background adds to the mood of the panel.Ã,  Unlike his, I wasn't aiming for excitement, so his method wouldn't be as appropriate, I found the spiral helped to draw peoples eyes into the expression of anger on the yellow character's face.

I went for green as it was the dominate color in the other backgrounds, and pink as I hadn't used it before.Ã,  Red's the color for anger, so I think in retrospect, the pink was a pretty good choice.



Lettering.Ã,  Something you've been very lazy in so far, Fluke.Ã,  Like I said, using Arial isn't a good idea for the size of the comic you draw.Ã,  It would suit the size I've drawn, either, so I avoided it as best I could.

A quick visit to Blambot and I'd found myself a couple of free fonts designed for use in comics.Ã,  The dialogue uses one called "Gorilla Milkshake".Ã,  Now, was that so difficult?Ã,  A little effort goes a long way in improving a piece.

I chose brown and blue for the text, as I wanted it to be obvious who was saying what.Ã,  Not only that, I also considered the placement and alignment of the text, too.Ã,  It's just a little touch that can improve the comic a lot.

As for panel 3, I didn't like how the brown was looking on top of the pink.Ã,  I tried various colors and styles.Ã,  I tried bolding the text. I tried enlarging the font.Ã,  Anything that I could do to try and make it slightly better, I did.

So, after this, I was finally done with the various individual panels.Ã,  It took me quite a while, even though I was keeping everything as simple as possible.Ã,  I was aiming for the art to look pretty bad, mostly as I was trying to point out the importance of composition more than anything, but I've probably spent more time on the comic so far than you have on any of yours, Fluke.Ã,  What's more, is the final piece is still unfinished..



Here, I've filled in the space outside of the actual panels, to clean up the image, and to spread things out.Ã,  I chose a mild gradient as it's another little flourish that detracts the reader from realising how sloppily drawn the art is, and makes it look like I've put a lot more effort in than I actually have.



Using the text tool again, I've added some words on the right, and added a title to the piece.Ã,  The font there is "Winter in Gotham", again from Blambot.Ã,  1 pixel outline, and a yellow-red gradient.Ã,  Only a few moments to create, but gives a much more professional look to the comic.

Now, just a final crop to the image, to remove the empty block on the right, and..

Whiz..
Bang..



A final comic, that was created with no real art skills or comedy, but still manages to dazzle the readers with a bunch of minor tweaks and tricks.

Style 1. Substance 0.





Since I've bothered to get this far, I might as well throw in some quick things you can hopefully use to scam your way through, on the art side of things..


The expressions.



You can see quite clearly there's no real detail in there.Ã,  It's just a 2x2 pixel brush.Ã,  I zoomed in the image in larger than this to draw it, though.Ã,  Probably twice that size.Ã,  The larger the zoom, the more accurate I can be with the mouse.



Notice how relatively smooth things look?Ã,  It's pretty scruffily drawn, but the larger outline manages to mask that flaw.Ã,  To explain this better, I've drawn two examples.Ã,  Firstly, is the same random character using a 2x2 brush and then a 1x1 brush.



Mr. Green has softened edges, and a nice feel to him.Ã,  It doesn't matter than he's badly drawn, as mostly, the lack of talent is masked.

Mr. Red, on the other hand, has rough and jerky edges.Ã,  His eye's are wrong.Ã,  He's got double pixels.Ã,  He's harsh and ugly looking.Ã,  A close up show how badly he needs cleaning up, whilst Mr. Green is ready to use.



In the second example, I've redrawn the blue thing from your Appleseed based comic, matching your style as best I could. I've then redrawn half in my style, to show you how big a difference a little effort makes.



For the comic, I would have stopped on the 3rd picture, but I decided to add a bit of shading in the 4th, and then a five o'clock shadow in the 5th to show the passage of time.Ã,  Not a whole lot of effort was needed, and the method is pretty simplistic.Ã,  It shouldn't take you long to improve your art, as long as you can find a method you can master easily.

I'm not saying use my style, by all means find your own.Ã,  Just find something, as recently you don't seem to be taking on any of the advice given by people.Ã,  With the aid of a tutorial and some examples of how simple changes can make all the difference, I hope you realise it's not a such great leap you need to make to improve.

Good Luck, etc.

[PsychicHeart]

Things I've Changed :

-Various backgrounds
-Bigger outline size (this wasn't based on your post, just something i thought i should add)
-Tried to vary the emotion (haven't really gotten this right yet though)
-Changed speech bubble shape
-Changed font

Things I've Kept (and why):
-Panel Shape: I really wanted to keep the square panel. It just makes it look a little more sophisticated, and a lot of webcomics use it [Penny Arcade, VGCats (sort of), CAD].
-No "Dynamic" background : Don't worry, i've taken this advice and will use it, but i didn't feel this strip justified any particular anger/happiness etc.

And that's about it.
Cheers,
Flukezy.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

You're making progress, but you might want to try and make the speech bubbles a clean, uniform shape.  For example, in the 4th frame the speech bubble on the purple guy cuts into some of his text, which is distracting.  You don't have to freehand everything, remember that.  There are circle and line tools for a very good reason!  Keep at it.

[InCreator]

Whoah, getting better!

But really, computer game jokes are well... old. Joke about Duke Nukem Forever not coming out yet is SO overdone that it wouldn't hurt to not see/hear any until 2412AD and no-one's going to miss those.

Pick a theme, Fluke. And stick with it.
Or even better, pick a story and continue the story. Story-driven comics leave people waiting for what happens next and are a bit more popular, as fas as I have noticed. Of course, if the story's funny and you are able to have a joke for each event/strip in the story.
And it would be better if theme/story was original, to be interesting, and characters had er- characters, nature. Like, the purple demon thingy was always pessimistic and green one was always angry or whatever. Also, keep the font same! Everywhere.

Personally, I liked your first, noobish art style more. It was somewhat cuter. You can draw nicely, but drawing nice blobs won't make them less blobs. Then again, the cleaner part of new style is somewhat better also. You should take the best from two styles and combine them into one.

[ManicMatt]

I am pleased to see you're taking the advice given to you!

I like the cleaner style!

Sadly, that is an old joke though.

Can I make a suggestion? When it comes to drawing their eyes, don't use the line tool, ever. Look again at Renal's strip. Those eyes are slanted, not utterly straight. This gives them more character. Your eyes look too computerised and don't fit in with the whole blobby theme.

[PsychicHeart]

Thought i'd post this before i put it up on the main site:


Yellow is so passeÃ, 

[Krysis]

I don't get it.

EDIT: Oh, right. I like this one. 

[Nikolas]

RMAO!

Honestly!

I'm actually laughing right now!

Possible problems though (which need attending):

I know that you are doing exactly as we did advice you but in this case, the joke is relavent only to the people who've read the thread! It is a lovely joke, but still it applies to a very limited audience.

It shows that you handled the thread well, took in all advice, and turned it into a joke which is brilliant! It is a completly mature approach! Useful and everything. Applied knowledge, more or less! GREAT STUFF!

Still most people won't get it (Krysis didn't for example).

2nd panel works great, but probably did need straight lines...

Other than that I'm really enthusiastic to what you're doing here!

[Mr Flibble]

Excellent! I love it! I'm laughing out loud!

Please hang on to such bloody marvellous phrases as "yellow and therefore hideous."

Gold, man!

I really am excited about this, I'm so glad you got it.

[ManicMatt]

I did actually laugh there mate! And the characters look way more lively now!

The joke might be understood by those who have seen your previous efforts, as the art is so notice-ably(sp) different. I'd rephrase the first speech bubble though! Steer clear of overly used internet speech, for example.

"WOW! Look at the new design! Clean outlines! Real speech bubbles! And we've been drawn better!"

Something a bit like that.

I like where this is going though! Keep it up!