(no subject)

[deckardcanine]

For possibly the first time ever, I have a New Year's resolution: I will start and maintain a webcomic of my own. The first episode will appear this month, after I find a good site to host it.

But while I've long known the basic themes and many of the jokes to come, I still have many details to sort out -- including the title. I was coming up with character names even as I drew the following introduction:



As you can see, I'm deviating from my past, er, deviations by using pens, markers, white-out, and tracing paper I got for Christmas. (I also got and am using plain paper for the sketches, so no more unintended texturing or smudging the table beneath.) It still doesn't look quite professional -- I even overestimated the margins of the scanner. But sometimes I like a little amateurity. When I accidentally made a discrepancy in Aspen's stripes, I thought, Oh well, I liked "Ren and Stimpy." Besides, she's supposed to be mysterious.

Some viewers elsewhere sound intrigued. The better to speed along my endeavor.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Good luck with it, one thing I've found, there's room on the web for every kind of comic imagineable. :)

[(Anonymous)]

webcomics nation would be an excellent host site. -billis

[billis.livejournal.com]

I am enthused about this development. Do you have Photoshop?

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Nope, no Photoshop. Maybe I should.

[billis.livejournal.com]

erm, let me see if I've still got your address around here. actually could you just email it to me again? billisbygosh (AT) gee-male.

[billis.livejournal.com]

And, no worries about piracy, I'm just going to send you their official free version 5.0 LE which is completely adequate to learn the basics on, and allow you to make the whites white, and possibly learn digital coloring.

[ruediix.livejournal.com]

Using graphic editing tools, such as Gimp or Photoshop is a great way to color, that way you can save work.

I've heard of people post-editing web comics with vector image editor programs, or even Adobe Flash. I've actually heard that Flash works real well when you open up the comic as a Still Frame, it's one of the best commercial vector editors out there.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

There's a thought. I know "21st Century Fox" uses Flash.

[ruediix.livejournal.com]

As does William Street Studios, OK bad example *laughs*

However, you also may want to try The GIMP. I recomend installing a lightweight Linux environment in VM if you have a full VM capable PC. (Intel Core Duo / Pentium 4 Duo, AMD Opteron or AMD Dual Core Athlon varieties. Some older Opterons predate the capability, and thus don't have it. They were the first to be hardware VM.

Hardware VM works well for graphics so long as you don't try to do too much 3D work. You need special drivers to either socket 3D or use shared hardware resources, as emulated 3D drivers are slow.

[ruediix.livejournal.com]

Evil SSSnakes are sssssilly.

BTW, I plan to help my wife with her comic strip. I shouldn't let out too much but it is a parody of a Prime Time soap. The snooty women of the community are replace snooty cats, to prove the point that humans aren't as evolved as we think.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Let me guess: "Desperate Housecats"?

[ruediix.livejournal.com]

Like it isn't obvious. *Laugh*

We're thinking we need to have them at wealthy homes where "their humans" are always out. Among the characters is the richest cat living in the mansion at the end of the street, the hulk of a feral male cat always being a home-wrecker, and the suave strays, both male and female, doing the same.

Of course, the help is never doing what they should, and they've learned never to speak of the stuff the cats do when the other humans aren't around for fear of being dragged off to the funny farm.