Posts Tagged ‘PhotoShop’

4 items.
grimace

Progress

by the Ogre on July 6th, 2010
Posted In: Blog

I love playing WoW. Many of my friends do or did. No, it doesn’t help meeting women, but I’m not exactly out on the market. I’ve been playing for and hour or less a week for a while now (since starting this), but that’s okay. As I get faster, I’ll start expanding my repertoire of evening activities.

I am getting faster at doing the basic images and other step in producing a comic. The two hand-drawn images only took me twenty minutes or so. The secret is scale. I’m drawing bigger.  In fact, I reducing by more than 100%. That’s okay, the problem is the cost of paper over time. I’m still working the learning curve, though. Photoshop still blows my mind. One of things I am happy about is my trackball speed and keyboard shortcuts. I will be switching to one of those pen/touchpad things, but that’s going to take getting some loot.

The hard part of this comic was actually the writing. I had a clear concept of what I wanted and there are several directions I can take this idea, but the problem was the exact verbiage and what I can or can not do. I don’t think I’ll be posting many more prayers, but the concept of an opening prayer before WoW battleground is funny. The particular battleground is a meat grinder and on the server I use most often, we never win.

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anger

. . . arg . . .

by the Ogre on June 30th, 2010
Posted In: Blog

This was actually an easy image to create, but when it came time to upload the image I discovered I made a mistake naming the file (2010-06-29 Seoul Temple instead the proper 2010-06-30). Frustrating! It took four attempts and yelling at the computer to get it right. The thumbs still don’t generate properly. This is a planning problem. I outlined before, but I didn’t write in the file names during the planning phase. This won’t happen again.

This comic stages an explanation about how the guys became friends. Kwan is the lynchpin. That will become apparent later as will the relationships between the four of them. I love the Seoul Temple and I wanted to start here. The problem with the top shot is that missionaries do not go to the Seoul Temple until the end of their missions (Seoul West). So, this shot forces some of the story: when they go home and when they enter the MTC.

The second panel is one I will keep working on. I do not like how Kwan’s wife looks. She looks too much like horse-faced Nellie from the Home on the Prairie television show. Not that she’s ugly, it’s just that horse-facedness is not a noted Korean characteristic. I like the p1 from “District Meeting (06/23/2010)” better. My son likes this one better, because p1 in “District Meeting” looks like an evil, sniveling, emo manga character. That’s his opinion. Obviously, I need to work on her some more.

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dizzy

2 Experiments

by the Ogre on June 28th, 2010
Posted In: Blog

Yeah, the emoticon carries my basic emotion right now.

The first experiment is a new lettering pen. I discovered the paper I am using bleeds. This is a pain for two reasons:

1) I like to draw on graph paper. It’s like cheating, because I can draw my comic at work without hauling around a ruler. The one in my backpack is faded and notched.

2) Bristol board is more expensive than graph paper (and also unfamiliar).

Changing over is happening anyway. The classic comic artists used brushes for their lines and lighting. My line work needs help and lighting isn’t being attempted yet. Waterson used ink washes and watercolor and I’d like to as well. Ink more than watercolor. Brushing ink in graph paper would be disastrous. Eventually, I’ll graduate to bristol, but I don’t want to yet.

Besides, The new pen’s $5.99, so I’m not giving up on it yet.

The second experiment is layers and the transform tool. P2 was drawn beforehand and differently. I like how it looks and the subtle difference it shows. Difference is good as long as it is on purpose. In prose and poetry, I use differences in technique to emphasize something without being obvious (trochees in iambic verse). I’m not trying to emphasize something here, but I wanted to try it out. I learned a lot while using layers, the transform tool, the gradient tool, and the rectangle tool. I like the direction this option seems to be going and will keep working it.

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embarrass

Handwritten Dialogue

by the Ogre on June 23rd, 2010
Posted In: Blog

I want to try (at least for a while) handwritten dialogue. Narration will be in the Typed font. The reason is that I am just not that satisfied with the premade fonts. Okay there is one I really like, but it costs $70. It’s not that I’m cheap, rather I’m poor. Fonts are great and possibly I create my own, but that is quite far down the priority list. I have to learn photoshop better than I know now. I also want to start having a bit of buffer. Right now, I have no buffer and so on the days when I need to do something else or just feel dehydrated like today, then I can not take time off and recuperate.

Right now I’ve got to learn to better at the following:

1) Art. I need to improve. Todays is not to the standard I want.

2) Speed. I am still too slow.

3) Rest. I am running on empty way too much. That make me slow and I also sacrifice in areas I do not like.

4) PhotoShop. I need to get better at photoshop. I’m learning things all the time and I am never going to do the webcomic 100% in photoshop, but I still only know the basic of this industry standard.

5) Creative Process. I need to start having brainstorming sessions where I do nothing but create lists.

As you can see there is much that I still have to do, but given time, I will master all these areas so I can then focus on a few fun areas and move into the second phase of my plan.

The Ogre

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