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Poll

What is your current mood?

Hyped
- 9 (21.4%)
Cozy
- 10 (23.8%)
A E S T H E T I C
- 6 (14.3%)
Strange
- 17 (40.5%)

Total Members Voted: 42


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Author Topic: Losing Is Fun - The Interactive Comic  (Read 415262 times)

dustywayfarer

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #300 on: July 21, 2017, 07:34:44 pm »

Hide behind the barrel on the left!
. . . shake head to clear it and look around; assess the situation.
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Sanctume

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #301 on: July 21, 2017, 08:00:50 pm »

Spin around the other way five time, then find a hiding spot until the siren shuts up.

Dunamisdeos

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #302 on: July 21, 2017, 08:46:10 pm »

Own it! Be stunning!

+1

After this, marvel at the structural improbability fine dwarven engineering of the ramp tower that you see before you.

Then, hide behind a barrel and try to overhear the location or path to our goal.

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FACT I: Post note art is best art.
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FACT III: "All life begins with Post-it notes and ends with Post-it notes. This is the truth! This is my belief!...At least for now."
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KittyTac

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #303 on: July 21, 2017, 09:25:41 pm »

Own it! Be stunning!

+1

After this, marvel at the structural improbability fine dwarven engineering of the ramp tower that you see before you.

Then, hide behind a barrel and try to overhear the location or path to our goal.

+1
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Don't trust this toaster that much, it could be a villain in disguise.
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VolcanoQueen

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #304 on: July 21, 2017, 10:13:08 pm »

Own it! Be stunning!

+1

After this, marvel at the structural improbability fine dwarven engineering of the ramp tower that you see before you.

Then, hide behind a barrel and try to overhear the location or path to our goal.

+1
+1 Also, maybe watch and see if you can figure out where the dwarves take Bembul if they don't just kill him.

MrLurkety

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #305 on: July 22, 2017, 10:14:59 am »

HIDE BEHIND THE BINS
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-snip-
I'm not an expert on the political climate but I'm pretty sure that politicians don't join armies and invade dwarven fortresses.

Maximum Spin

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #306 on: July 22, 2017, 10:53:37 am »

Own it! Be stunning!

+1

After this, marvel at the structural improbability fine dwarven engineering of the ramp tower that you see before you.

Then, hide behind a barrel and try to overhear the location or path to our goal.

+1
+1 Also, maybe watch and see if you can figure out where the dwarves take Bembul if they don't just kill him.
+1, but hide in the barrel! It's worked out well so far!

or hide inside the quote pyramid
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VolcanoQueen

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #307 on: August 06, 2017, 10:15:11 pm »

So, can I ask a question? I've wanted to make something like this for a while, but I really don't know where to start with the actual illustrations. I'm used to drawing stuff on paper and, most of the time, when I try to make anything on my laptop, it turns out pretty badly. I have almost no experience with MS Paint and I have no clue how to turn anything into a GIF. Do you have any advice on what to do to start making a web comic like this?

Maximum Spin

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #308 on: August 06, 2017, 11:56:25 pm »

Do you have any advice on what to do to start making a web comic like this?
I'm pretty sure the best advice you'll get from most anyone who has done it is "don't". But if you're some kind of masochist, you'll need better tools than MSPAINT anyway. GIMP is free and I like it, but most people seem to find it slightly more difficult to get a handle on than quantum mechanics. Photoshop is popular, but you have to sell your soul to Adobe, and they're worse than Satan. Everything comes with tradeoffs. There are a few other options that some people use, but those two are pretty much the big ones. I guess you could also just use MSPAINT if you're really masochistic; I hear the latest versions can even save in formats other than bmp. Speaking of formats, any decent tool - certainly both the above - can save to gif, but if you specifically mean making animated gifs, the process may be slightly more involved. In GIMP, you have to make each frame a separate layer ("layers" are a thing non-MSPAINT graphics tools have), then choose the "animated" option when exporting to gif, and it'll convert layers into frames. I imagine things are roughly similar in Photoshop, but I wouldn't know, I still have a soul. I'm assuming you're already drawing on a graphics tablet and not trying to use a mouse or something - if you aren't, get one; if you are, you probably just need a lot of practice to get used to it.
Aside from all of these technical details, the absolute most important thing is making sure you can withstand the soul-crushing (oh, now I see why the Adobe thing might help) hatred you will inevitably develop toward all forms of art. Right now you're probably enthusiastic and think that drawing will be so much fun that it'll never feel like a hellish grinding obligation you aren't even getting paid for. It will. If you are lucky, in the end it will be worth it, but it's important to be prepared for the part that comes in between. Other than all that, though, and the hours of repetitive work that will go into some minor details you thought would take like ten minutes tops to bang out, it's super easy. Well, there's also the writing. But I'm not trying to discourage you, seriously. It's just that a lot of people start with severely unrealistic expectations, then flounder help/hopelessly. That's why it's important to start out with maxed-out cynicism, so you can only exceed expectations later. So, uh, get your equipment in order, then get your "doesn't really care about anything anymore" thought-panel stat, and everything should be smooth sailing from there. Until you hit a forgotten beast with slade skin and deadly dust, but that sort of thing is always bound to happen with these DF metaphors. Good luck! Strike the earth!
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Bearskie

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #309 on: August 07, 2017, 01:06:26 am »

Paint.net for the simplicity of paint plus additional features.

RAM

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #310 on: August 07, 2017, 01:07:36 am »

I don't doubt that you want an answer from the exceedingly talented artist, and not from the artistically-vacant lost-causes that loiter under the endless font of nice pictures, but if you will excuse a bit of incompetent pedantry, please allow me to share a few thoughts...

A lot of professional computer artists use a touchscreen and a special stick to fake having a pencil and paper. Using a mouse is a different skill to using a pencil, and will likely take a similar amount of time to become competent with. It is also a bit less agile and convenient. Dots will be awkward, it will tend to obstruct rulers and even if you manage to use one the mouse can change orientation and mess up your straight line... Actually the orientation shifts will be all over you... people have successfully done truly astounding art with nothing but a mouse, but don't expect to just instantly make good art with one, it'll take getting used to.

Computers offer a lot of tools however. From the laziness of copypasting to the glorious undo button(doubly glorious when undoing removals as opposed to additions), select and move, rotate... Along with all manner of lines that can be pulled around after being placed... There is a reason why "collage" has largely been replaced by "shopped"(although I have no idea why both "shop" and "ship" are euphemisms...), combining bits and pieces of different images is a field in which mice excel! And then you get more direct tools like those demonstrated in this terror(which I found in this forum that I found by searching: best art "done with a mouse". My search-fu is weak...) which include fancy tools you won't see in basic paint such as "a transparent brush" and "a selection that isn't square" and "changing the shade of a region"...

Spo yes, gettign to know tools can be good. And getting creative with tools is also good, even something dead-simple like an oval or circle drawing tool can be centred in the image to make a round head, or centre outside of the image to make, say, and inward curve on a nose, or made massively huge to produce a very mild curve that can be copy-pasted to make a mildly-curved forehead. And the undo-delete options are also your friend. You can just spam line after line after line all day and if you don't like them exactly where they are, then spam a boatload of new lines all over because it still isn't quite right...

 Also consider multiple versions of the same image. You can do one stick-figure with circle and line tools to quickly get a hint of proportions. Then do another image with classical line-spam to get something more evocative than a bunch of lines and shapes. Even Paint will let you copy one picture over the top of another with a transparent background colour to compare your proportions from a stick-figure to a sketch. Then you can save your line-spam image and start doing heavy lines or whatever, and then copy/paste the final thing onto a background image that you prepared earlier...

However, ultimately, my advise would be as follows: Start with something very simple, like a straight-line tool, and make a ridiculously simple mockup of the elements involved. Then just start spamming and deleting lines where they vaguely seem appropriate until eventually you start accruing a few that actually ARE appropriate and a comprehensible image starts to emerge from the depths. And then accept that it isn't as good as you wanted, and go do another, and another, and another, because ultimately, drawing with a computer is a new skill and there is nothing for it except to grind out the skill levels like a hauler on a screw-pump... It is just like all those martial arts movies say "before you can learn The Three-fingered Decapitation Palm, you must master the basics. Go punch some laundry!"...

P.S.
 Hail Satan! May the ignorant be spared the horrors of Adobe's ink crucibles...
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VolcanoQueen

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #311 on: August 07, 2017, 01:49:14 am »

Thank for the advice. I downloaded GIMP and am about to try it out and draw some random crap. Hopefully I don't hate everything by the end of this.  :D

MadMonkey

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #312 on: August 07, 2017, 02:57:49 am »

So, can I ask a question? I've wanted to make something like this for a while, but I really don't know where to start with the actual illustrations. I'm used to drawing stuff on paper and, most of the time, when I try to make anything on my laptop, it turns out pretty badly. I have almost no experience with MS Paint and I have no clue how to turn anything into a GIF. Do you have any advice on what to do to start making a web comic like this?



Don't be discouraged! My main advice is about an approach called "general to specific". You start with a crude sketch that captures all of the elements of the composition but in as little detail as possible. Then you take a step back and figure out where you goofed up such as the major proportions and compositional unity. You fix that and then you do another sketch on top of with slightly more detail. You do many more passes of this before you have any details you could consider finalized. This works very well with digital art if you learn to utilize layer opacity, selection tools and transformation tools effectively. For example, sometimes I will realize mid drawing I drew Grawrs legs waaaay to long so I just select them and shrink them down until he is on model.

Another thing, use reference images from google. I ALWAYS have a second monitor with real life examples of the things I am drawing. You can also directly reference other peoples art you find inspirational. People in the film and video game industry do this all the time. As long as you are doing it in a transformative way it's okay! If you have characters and environments that showed up in previous panels, make sure to pull those up too so you can maintain a consistent design.

I myself use Photoshop CS6 although Gimp should work perfectly fine. You will also need a graphics tablet. The Intuos Draw is great for the price if you're just starting out. Sometimes you just need pressure sensitivity and the ability to get a natural line. Sometimes I do my first thumbnail sketches on a pad of paper before moving to digital stuff. Each sketch takes like 30 seconds so I can do a whole sequence before committing to anything. That might help while you are still getting the hang of the tablet.

Generally when you are doing digital art, you want a very large canvas, like 4000 pixels wide at the minimum. Otherwise everything looks all pixely and muddy. I was originally spent months developing a style for this comic that had very clean lines. In that case I would have started with a 4k canvas and downsampled it to 640x360 after I was finished. I ended up moving to this pixely style because I found it fit the mood of dwarf fortress better and it is VERY forgiving of mistakes. I can usually make a quick pixely blob, throw Grawrs face onto it and I'm pretty much done. For a webcomic be very careful to design main characters that you won't hate to draw after the thousandth time, especially if there is going to be animation involved. If you do get tired of drawing characters you can always kill them off in horific ways. ^_^
« Last Edit: August 07, 2017, 03:26:55 am by MadMonkey »
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VolcanoQueen

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #313 on: August 07, 2017, 04:46:30 am »

Quote
If you do get tired of drawing characters you can always kill them off in horific ways. ^_^
Got it.  >:D
In all seriousness, thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it.

MadMonkey

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Re: Losing Is Fun - Interactive Web Comic
« Reply #314 on: August 31, 2017, 06:05:05 pm »

I finally have a schedule again that will allow me to work on the comic!  :D I may not be able to update as fast as when I started but I will make sure the comic remains active! If I have to take a break in the future I will let everyone know. After the end of this chapter I will also be adding the table of contents and a website dedicated to crossposting past updates! That should make it easier for new readers to get involved. Look out for the next update this evening!
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