Hello all. I'm new to the forum and I wanted to post some character's I did. Two actually - A human and an Ogre (Orc). I put 'em together in a short comic strip to let you see different expressions.
(http://www.hollowgrounds.net/horse.jpg)
Thank you,
~ StrangeDude
Not bad. I'd pay more attention to shapes
(Orc's bottom lip is way too long, right leg is bigger than left one, right hand looks like it's been torn off and glued back to body, knights hair shows too clearly line tool usage)
and, of course - shading. They're pretty nice characters, but extra shade color per body part would make them twice as nice.
Thanks!
I'll remember that!
Yours,
~ StrangeDude
There are plenty of minor glitches, which are quite annoying. Try to clean up your art before showing it here.
As for the "plot"...if the knight, by sighing, is reacting to the ogre's grin, you should have the ogre grin in the frame before. Since you read a comic from left to right, you sort of lose the cause-and-reaction in that last frame.
Otherwise it's fairly well done, the style is ok, although their expressions could be made more apparent.
Please upload more as you progress!
Thanks! Very good critz indeed. I'll try to clean it up abit more ;)
Also, thanks alot for helping to improve my comic skills.
Yours,
~ StrangeDude
Quote from: Andail on Sat 18/09/2004 16:01:13
As for the "plot"...if the knight, by sighing, is reacting to the ogre's grin, you should have the ogre grin in the frame before. Since you read a comic from left to right, you sort of lose the cause-and-reaction in that last frame.
Er... there I disagree, actually. The
words in a comic are read from left to right, but the
actions within a given panel are supposed to be happening pretty much simultaneously. (With some artistic license for the fact that characters are shown with their mouths open even though they're not actually supposed to be speaking at the same time.) Making the ogre grin in the previous panel would give the impression that he'd already been grinning for some time by the time the knight sighed. Having the grin and the sigh in the same panel, as here, is actually following long-established comic-strip methodologies, and really is the usual and accepted way of doing things.
But anyway, that has nothing to do with the artwork itself... ;)
Well then, I disagree with your disagreement.
You still read the images left to right, so it would be better to horizontally mirror the scene.
Quote from: SteveMcCrea on Sun 19/09/2004 02:05:28
You still read the images left to right, so it would be better to horizontally mirror the scene.
Perhaps
you "read the images left to right", but the convention in modern comic strips is that the images within a single panel aren't to be "read" in any particular order at all. The
word balloons are read from left to right and top to bottom, but the action within a given panel is assumed to be pretty much simultaneous. This is a very general assumption in the comic strip medium, and if you glance over the comics page you'll find that characters reacting to what other characters are doing to their right in the same panel, as in the last panel of StrangeDude's strip, is not at all an uncommon occurrence in professional comic strips. Here are just a few examples I found in a quick skim through some recent strips:
- In the last panel of this Drabble strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=17&stripId=200147), the wife rolls her eyes in response to what her husband is saying to her right. (Where by "to her right" I mean further right in the panel as the reader sees it, and similarly for the rest of these examples.)
- In the last panel of this For Better Or For Worse strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=22&stripId=198220), the parents tell their daughter to "cut out" something she is doing to their right
- In the third panel of this 9 Chickweed Lane strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=3&stripId=198215), the woman reacts to something the man says to her right
- In the second panel of this Non Sequitur strip (http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/2004/09/13/), the father reacts to his daughter screaming to his right
- In the last panel of this Ferd'nand strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=20&stripId=201239), the wife reacts to her husband's actions to her right
- In the last panel of this Broom Hilda strip (http://www.ucomics.com/broomhilda/2004/09/08/), the title character reacts to something a boy says to her right. Same in this one (http://www.ucomics.com/broomhilda/2004/09/06/).
- In the last panel of this Peanuts strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=57&stripId=200989), Snoopy reacts to something Charlie Brown says to his right. In the first panel of this one (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=57&stripId=200083), Charlie Brown is thrown out of bed because Sally yells to his right.
- The Wizard of Id does this particularly often... about one strip in three has a character in the last panel reacting to what another character says to his right. Here (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=87&stripId=201842) are (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=87&stripId=201840) just (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=87&stripId=201838) a (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=87&stripId=201839) few (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=87&stripId=201074) examples (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=87&stripId=201071).
It's even possible--and in fact fairly common--for a character to the right to have his dialogue come
before that of a character to the left in the same panel, as long as it's higher up to clearly show that it comes first. Examples are found in the second panel of this
Peanuts strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=57&stripId=198108), the second panel of this
Momma strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=46&stripId=200957), the first panel of this
9 Chickweed Lane strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=3&stripId=199035), the first panel of this
Rose is Rose strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=67&stripId=200610), the last panel of this
Jane's World strip (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=35&stripId=199084), and the first panel of this one (http://www.comics.com/basic/archive.do?comicId=35&stripId=198068).
And again, these are just a few examples I could find quickly in a brief search. There are plenty more. It's very common even in professional comic strips.
Of course, you're still free to argue against it, and say that it's unnatural or misleading. But it's not just me you're disagreeing with. It's a well-established convention of the comic medium.
I don't know if your going for it but there are a great deal of white 'holes' in the colouring. It looks sloppy but thats just me, also try to get some detail in the characters, like shading more and texture in the hair.
Other than that good work, and welcome to the forums :D
- Raider
Ok then, left to right and top to bottom. Jeez.
In most of those examples you give, there's dialog above, and a reaction below, or the events are supposed to be, as you say, simultaneous. The only counter example is perhaps the "For Better or Worse" strip, but then the flapping is supposed to be the punchline - something that's being going on offpanel for a while to undermine the father's little speech. And in that case the flapping is definitely the focus of the panel.
Here, the grin is a subtle change, and the eye is drawn to the speech balloon first, particularly since it cuts into the border.
Err, anyway, nice characters!
Quote from: SteveMcCrea on Sun 19/09/2004 07:44:54
Ok then, left to right and top to bottom. Jeez.
Er... that wasn't meant as a criticism of your mention of "left to right"; I was just being a little more specific. I wasn't trying to correct you. Sorry if it came across that way.
Anyway, true, none of the examples I gave may have been a
perfect parallel, but I still think they show that things to the right are often assumed to happen before things to the left in professional comic strips. Now, you might think there's enough different about the situation in StrangeDude's strip that it still doesn't work. I disagree, but admittedly I couldn't in my quick search find another comic strip that furnished an exact parallel (most of those I linked to, as you say, involved reaction to dialogue rather than to facial expressions or to actions). But anyway, obviously this is way off the intended topic of this forum, so let's just drop the subject and agree to disagree. ;)
Anyway, back on topic: StrangeDude, as Raider said, there are some white holes and fuzziness in your characters. You can generally get rid of that (depending on how you drew the characters) by scanning them at a significantly larger size than you need, converting the outlines to black-and-white bitmaps (
not grayscale), then filling them with color and resizing them. Of course, this assumes that you drew the pictures on paper and scanned them in; if not, then the above advice may not apply (and how to get rid of the fuzzies would depend on how you drew them). But if the outlines were scanned from pen-and-paper drawings, maybe try giving the above method a try and see if it gives you better results.
Hehe, intresting discussion...
Well, about the "holes". I don't know why they're there actually - In my drawing program (PhotoDraw) they look nice, but when I save them as a .jpg they look all messy with lot's a holes. Anyone know why..?
Yours,
~ StrangeDude
best, imo, is to save originals in formats .bmp, .tga, or .png. jpg usually results in 'artifacts' which just means imperfections. however, when you are putting them on the internet, jpg is usually best, due to it's compression. Also, anything with an indexed color pallete will usually be a pretty small file. So, indexed .gif's and .bmp's are also good for the internet, and while they may appear a bit grainy, they do not become 'smudgy' like jpg's.
Thanks, I'll do that in the future!
Yours,
~ StrangeDude