Check out my rubbish webcomic! Fall in love with it! Have its kids!

Trihan · Thu 05/02/2009 23:12:29

Do you guys think I should redo them as pngs so they're not so lossy?

Ryan Timothy B · Fri 06/02/2009 01:01:38

If I were to randomly come across these comics, this is what would happen:

I would lose interest in the fact that they are jpg's, thinking the author is an amateur and he's more than likely not smart enough to make something witty and mildly entertaining.

But that's just me.

Trihan · Fri 06/02/2009 01:10:56

Point taken. PNG it is.

Babar · Fri 06/02/2009 06:08:36

Quote from: MoodyBlues on Thu 05/02/2009 19:22:39
Quote from: Babar on Thu 05/02/2009 16:27:42
Quote from: MoodyBlues on Thu 05/02/2009 07:07:13
Rat is way cuter than Stickman. He (she?) should get top billing, not that two-bit, Blissymbolic character

Evelyn Waugh Syndrome?

Whatcha mean by that? (I looked up Evelyn Waugh, but Wikipedia is USELESS.)

Evelyn Waugh had a habit (or at least he did it twice) of killing of characters whose fans bothered him. You expressed an interest in the rat, and then Trihan apparently killed him off.

<AHEM>. Yes.

Dualnames · Mon 09/02/2009 14:05:49

The last comic reminds me of SSH, don't know why.. I'm just stupid.

Trihan · Tue 10/02/2009 04:08:09

We're now up to episode 8, and I'm using PNGs now.

InCreator · Tue 10/02/2009 10:01:04

Ugh! Your drawing is dirty!

I take PNG suggestion back - with such bad aliasing, there's no difference really. And I blamed it all on JPGs at first...

How about using Flash/any other vector-drawing thingy to draw? I think it would benefit both in style and looks. AND you could alias your lines to seventh layer or hell and it would look good.

Trihan · Tue 10/02/2009 18:28:03

I wouldn't know how to do that. Guess I'm just a crap artist.

InCreator · Tue 10/02/2009 18:44:23

Nah, I don't mean you're crap artist.

Simply, when you drew your comic, you had anti-aliasing turned on. It kind of turned out to look poor.

Seriously, to make this comic look better, drawing your stickmen in something similar to Flash would make gread difference, mainly because how freehanded lines are handled there. I believe many other programs can make such nice-looking strokes too, instead of semi-jagged semi-antialiased lines you have right now.

If I can find my Macromedia Flash CD somewhere, I might draw an example.

Trihan · Tue 10/02/2009 19:24:43

That'd be great if you could do that.

Episode 9 is up btw.

InCreator · Tue 10/02/2009 19:45:11

Ugh, it proved to be more difficult than to say I would...
But okay, here:

Example!

Viewing this requires Flash/shockwave player plugin installed on your browser, but I cannot imagine one without...

Both are freehanded, one in MSpaint + antialias (much like your comic), other freehanded in Flash. Notice the difference in line widths and shapes! Paint looks jagged and weird, Flash freehand curves look artsy and thinner/fatter as I drew them. A bit better example lies in labels below, notice that text drawn in flash looks considerably better even though I did not use any font and freehanded just like other one.

Posting a .swf is a bit of cheating: Right now, the image should be as big as your browser window is a and vector stickman/text never loses its quality in any size (you can resize browser to check), but when this image is converted to casual image format, such as PNG, this magic would not work. Still, I find freehand drawing, especially so simple figures, to turn out much better in Flash, Illustrator or any other vector-based/well supported brush system paint program.

Sorry if I failed to explain exactly what I meant, but I do not have willpower to give a bit more detailed example. If you can get your hands on something like/or Flash, you would simply see yourself.

Trihan · Tue 10/02/2009 20:10:01

Flash isn't free though, is it?

ALPHATT · Tue 10/02/2009 20:56:30

Painter X has some pretty cool brushes too and you don't need flash plugin to veiw, but it's not free nor is Flash MX.

Ghost · Tue 10/02/2009 20:56:46

You know, reading the strip is a bit like watching two cartoon characters building their own comic. It's like them discovering all sorts of stuff to improve, and on their way they even develop a little storyline. You could run a nice ikkle plot on that thought.
I love Reginald, btw.

As for free vector based programs, why not try out InkScape? Not my cup of coffee, but that's because I never got into vector based drawing- the program itself looks decent and has the benefit of being free.

ALPHATT · Tue 10/02/2009 21:18:33

At first glance it's just another crappy web-comic.
But this one is actually interesting, silly but interesting.

Trihan · Tue 10/02/2009 23:11:18

Thanks for pointing me to InkScape, Ghost. I'm just trying to get my head around it now.

Ghost · Tue 10/02/2009 23:15:11

Quote from: Trihan on Tue 10/02/2009 23:11:18
Thanks for pointing me to InkScape, Ghost. I'm just trying to get my head around it now.

My pleasure, double so if you find it useful

Y'can find some tutorials over at deviantArt, maybe they can help you a little.
http://www.deviantart.com/?loggedin=1#order=9&q=inkscape

Trihan · Wed 11/02/2009 01:10:34

Can you save a png in InkScape?

Edit: Dunno how successful this'll be, but I tried exporting as a png. Episode 10 is up.

SpacePirateCaine · Thu 12/02/2009 00:24:19

Hey Trihan,

The comic's coming along well. I think with a little more fine-tuning and working towards having some sort of cohesive plot, you're on the way to something good. I don't know if anyone else's sent anything just yet, but I had a bit of free time, so I threw together a quick "Stickman & Rat" piece of pixel fanart for you.

Keep up the good work.

Trihan · Thu 12/02/2009 00:35:34

That is fucking awesome, man.

I HAVE FANART!

*basks in glory*