AID 5: Letters

Lettering is one of the toughest skill sets to learn in comics. Most people don't learn how to do it, leaving the job to Blambot or some unknown on 1001Fonts. It's the only skill I can forgive comics artists for avoiding. 

 You're fighting a life time of hand writing... or thumb typing depending upon your generation... and lettering is not writing. Lettering is drawing shapes that look like your alphabet.

Shapes that need a lot of consistency. Computers do that a lot better than people. 

Hand lettering or ransom demand. You decide. 

"...thirty thousand in unmarked bills behind the 7/11...

 But I see it as another tool in the kit that I need to work on if I want Project Git Gud to have any meaning. 

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Today I laid out some lines with the Ames Guide and got to work. Goal One was simply gaining more control over my lettering. Goal Two was figuring out how small I can make the lettering on the page while kindly keeping it tall enough to be readable on a phone screen.

Not gonna lie, I'm considering telling the phone-only audience to go kick rocks. Yeah, they're 99.99% of the comics readership in the 2020s, but I want to have more dialog in each panel and I can't do that and give them something easy to read on their baby screens at the same time.

It's actually a magical talisman only wizards understand.

 IYKYK- The above was mostly done with the guide set to 7 or 6. IIRC print comics like Spider-Man are usually around a 3 or 4. I think I'll settle with 6. 

We'll see.

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The things I learnt today while practicing that I'll keep in mind; 

 1. Calligraphy nibs lay down ink a lot faster than a g-nib or maru nib. 

I need to keep the nibs wet as I go or they dry out in the middle of a letter, creating a ragged look.

2. Laying out the dialog space and the word balloon dimensions is a vital first step. 

 I haven't been doing that simply because I could move things around in software to fit everything in. For this installment I'll be wedging dialog in awkwardly. 

3. G... o... s... l... o... w...~ 

Whenever I started speeding up I stopped drawing alphabet shapes and started just writing. I can see it up above and I assume everyone else can as well. It causes an inconsistent visual.

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p.s.

I think I need to adjust my scanner settings. A lot of smoothness is getting lost. It's probably just the threshold for what's considered white and what's considered black. A small tweak, but I just need to remember to do it. 

AID4: Gag a Day

 

A desk full of chaos

 

Looking Back

I'm constantly trying to figure out a format that can work as a page and a scroll... and as something I personally find visually appealing. The previous installment wasn't able to stick the landing with the scroll IMO. It needed taller gutters and taller page breaks and the result was too dense for the scroll format.

It worked better as a "page". 

Dialog also remained a bugaboo. Too big. Too few words. Too 3rd grade reading level. I don't like it. It overpowers the art. I'm making a comic, not a visual novel.

But the world insists on looking at things on a tiny phone screen and they need giant text. What can be done besides giving in and drawing in a Webtoon format?

I'll keep chewing on that one. 

Looking Forward  

Plan 1. As you can see above the next few pages will be two by two. Newspaper style gag strips historically work well online so I'm going to borrow from that format. 

I decided to abandon the 4-koma approach to the next installment simply because it required changing the cadence of some of the story and I wasn't happy with the additional panels needed to keep that beat up. 

Having them scroll by one panel of a time creates far too much empty space. It's one of the reasons I don't draw in Webtoon style. I just don't think it's a pleasing reading experience seeing more gutter than comic.  

Plan 2. I'm still thinking of making the reading experience smoother for phone scrollers. I've started making the horizontal gutters and the page breaks taller.

Plan 3. As always: Hands. I find that my pencils for hands do look okay. It's when I ink them it all goes haywire. That's when I need to increase my vigilance.

Plan 4. I'm going to attempt some hand lettering. It'll be limited to emotes and sound effects first going on. But I will hand letter the dialog with blue line pencil to get a good gauge of how big I should be making the text in relation to the art.

Status

Layouts are mostly done as of this writing. Three pages left. 

Finished pencils are next.

Art Improvement Diary 3: Random Musings As I Gear Up For Pt.4

Click to embiggen

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I decided that five to six traditional pages per installment is the format for Digby. I decided this after reading a lot of old Archie comics AND a lot of old 2000AD progs. 

While the 2000AD progs were segments of a longer story, they did tell a complete event in their five pages. Archie generally told a full tale within its limited page count. I admire the skill of being able to tell a story in such a economical way. The first John Wick was like that. Dead wife, dead puppy, stolen car. Fifteen minutes in and Russian mobsters start dying in entertaining ways.

 In theory it'll make the posting come faster, but I'm not leaving my "When it's done" schedule. Comics are too much work for the sole reward of knowing I finished it.

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Up above you see a three panel gag. I noticed in part 3 that a lot of the cadence of the story was very 4-Koma like. You might have seen the formula in manga like Azumanga Daioh and K-On! A comedic version of old newspaper adventure strips where a story was told in three or four panel chunks.

Part 4 had that cadence as well. I decided I was going to move out of my comfort zone with it and actually do it as a series of 4-Koma. Pushing yourself to do difficult things is all part of any Project Git Gud.

The thumbnails look good IMO. Next is the actual getting-it-drawn part, which I'll start next week.  

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I accept that keeping Digby a black and white comic is not going to get my comic eyeballs. Comics readers only like black and white comics if there's a ninja turtle or anime titties in it. Otherwise they hate it.

Personally, I always see a lot of excellent comic art marred by adding colour. I also see a lot of bad comic art being carried by the colours. I definitely need to keep working on how I do my black and white, but I feel that's the look that works best for the comic I'm making. Colour won't improve anything visually. 

Colour will pander to the limits of others, but if I'm going to do that, I might as well start drawing Digby as a big titty anime girl and tracing Clip Studio assets.

 Bah! to that! 

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However the saying "Know your audience" is a wise one. I find in 2020s the audience for comics online are generally weebs and Tumblr kiddies and they only like certain types of comic. No hate. The middle-aged Wednesday crowd at comic shops are the same way. It's just in the nature of fandoms.

I won't lie to myself about most of it being my fault. If I want those eyeballs I must draw in those styles. Even if it's done badly, it's like what they like and that's the important thing. When all is said and done, me not doing that is me kneecapping myself.

 On most platforms. 

When I look at the platforms I've been using since I started drawing comics again;

Site A - All of my love came from other artists.

Site B - All of my love came from site runners. 

Site C - All of my love came from readers. 

I do appreciate all of the folks who showed me love on sites A and B, but it makes sense to put all of my focus on Site C, doesn't it? In theory they're the ones doing the word of mouth.

Dare I put all of my eggs in one basket? 

Okay. Egg. I have one egg.  

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None of that matters until I can level up my skills to the point that it's undeniable the people not reading Digby are missing out! I will keep in mind every bad habit I uncovered drawing Part 3 and strive to not repeat them. 

Back to the grind next week.

Next week because I'm still sore from my return to swimming yesterday and I'm a giant ball of ouch.