[comic] Gabriel, pg.6 [02-08-'10]

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Here's the thing, Foxy. This is your thread. You're allowed to talk here. ;-]

[Lysander]

The sword design is nice. It may be part of the design so I don't know if this is valid, but the blade of the sword doesn't appear to be even with the hilt. Other than that he looks good to me.   

[Tapewolf]

The sword looks a little crooked if you ask me.  Other than that, it's all good.

Here's a suggestion - while your shading is better than mine, you might consider adding some texture to the blade.  What I usually do on metallic surfaces is mask the metal, and then overbrush it with an alternating pattern of dodge and burn.  It gives you an effect like the blade in this:

http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Armoured-Doberman-guy-98978505

[WhiteFox]

Here's the thing, Foxy. This is your thread. You're allowed to talk here. ;-]

Yeah, but I tend to ramble a lot. I'm gonna be starting a blog where I can do that.

The sword design is nice. It may be part of the design so I don't know if this is valid, but the blade of the sword doesn't appear to be even with the hilt. Other than that he looks good to me.   

The sword looks a little crooked if you ask me.  Other than that, it's all good.

Huh. The grip is a little off, but the cross guard is really bent. I'll have to fix that.

That right there is exactly what feedback is for. A second set of eyes to take an objective look at the work, and point out something I didn't notice. You don't really have to be  a good artist to give feedback, just observant.

The sword, btw, is pretty much a flamerge. The main difference is the brass section between the lug and the cross guard, and the blade being only partially serrated. I looked up swords, after I designed it, and I was kinda surprised at how similar in concept it was to a real weapon.

...you might consider adding some texture to the blade.

I've got a book somewhere that talks about realistic metal highlights and reflections... I should dig it up.

[WhiteFox]

And, finally, it's up. I was supposed to get it done this afternoon, but I had some guests show up earlier then they were expected.
DSOF #25: Now with pants!

Finally put some clothes on Jade. She's been running around naked since #11. I was going to put some clothes on her when she was cooling off in Theo's room, but then I realized she'd just incinerate them on page 21. And on page 22.

I was conflicted about Jade's nudity. I mean, I don't want to draw porn. I mean, if you draw porn you end up not drawing anything else. On the other hand, I'm a little more mature then to giggle over booo-bies. I can draw a naked female in all seriousness. In the end, I don't think it's pornographic.

Well, panel 3 might be fanservice. A little.

Man, I wanted to draw several ranks of soldiers in panel two, but cutting-and-pasting them just never really looked all that good. Besides, I really like the fortress I did in the background. Nothing fancy or complicated, but I like how it looks.

In the last panel, I cut and edited the conversation right up to the end. I think there was a bubble that should have made it in of Alianarra saying: "He's my son, can you blame me for looking after him?" I'm going to fix that in the morning.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Mmm. Did you want critique of the artwork?

btw, there's an extra . in the last sentence of the last panel.

[LionHeart]

There's also an extra "your" in the sentence before last. Just thought I'd mention it.

[WhiteFox]

Mmm. Did you want critique of the artwork?

Always appreciated.

There's also an extra "your" in the sentence before last. Just thought I'd mention it.

*Froth*

I think I forgot to shade Alia's hair in one or two panels.

[Tapewolf]

All in all this is a cool strip, though you might want to think of alternative ways of shading the jeans... they look a little scribbly.  It would probably work quite well if it was done in a higher-resolution and scaled down.

[WhiteFox]

DSOF #26: Druids are circuitous. Mages are not.

I'm not happy with the art in this one. It's sloppy and rushed. I always told myself that it's important to not be perfectionist, but this is really pushing it. After the late posting of #25, I didn't have as much time to work on this one as I'd liked. Furthermore, I got cought up, again, in working on the website and one or two other things that soaked up my time.

This page was drawn, inked, and mostly colored in a single day, and it really shows. Today i made myself take the time to slow down and do a half decent job of proofing and touching up the page, but there's problems here that are rooted in the drawing and inking stage that I can't photoshop away. (There are a few problems that I did; I drew Theolonius with bird wings instead of bat, since I hadn't drawn him in a long while, and had to digitally redraw 3/4ths of his head.

However, it's Friday and I've got a comic up. That really means something to me. I always hated the fact that I'd post a few pages for a week or two, and there'd be a month where nothing got done. I'm not just trying to improve my skills as an artist here, but improve my ability to produce in general. Art quality is only part of a comic strip. Professionalism on the part of the author is another part, and presentation is a big part of that. (Another part is Writing; I find good writing can make up for bad art, but bad art will not make up for bad writing) Regular updates and a good looking site are paramount, and although I've been steadily improving my art, and now I feel like I'm making progress on that front. So I feel good.

Besides, 27 is already mostly drawn and it looks a lot better.

Also: I put in something different with this update. I can't really do it properly until I get the new archive up, but the observant may notice it. Let me know if you notice. (Note: This is in addition to the fact that the overall page is a lot smaller now.)

[Edit] As usual, crits and comments are welcome.
[Edit the 2nd] Wow. For once I don't have to tag this NSFW.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Arcmagister? Or Archmagister?

Oh, and I note that in panels 1 and 2, the colours are varying. In the first, the yellow stripes have turned red. in the second, the whole dress is blue...

Other than that, I'm still waiting to see what happens next. So you're at least that far...

[WhiteFox]

Arcmagister? Or Archmagister?

That should be Archmagister. *edits profile*

Oh, and I note that in panels 1 and 2, the colours are varying. In the first, the yellow stripes have turned red. in the second, the whole dress is blue...

*Point* "It's a trait I inherited from my mother."

As for the blue... those are still the lines; the green areas aren't visible from that angle since the stripes aren't flat, they're raised. Well, actually, the green probably should be visible, but as I said I was rushed and couldn't lay it out properly in the time I had.

They change color on page 25 too.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

mm. Looking back, yes, that makes sense.

incidentally, I'd expect the "fire" aspect to be ignited outside the clothing, provided the clothing was tight. Loose clothing would be more problematical, but there's no reason you couldn't have either a) fireproof clothing, or b) sufficient control to avoid your shirt...

[WhiteFox]

The fire erupts directly out of her skin (There's specific reasoning why, but that wont show up till muuuch later). Hence, why her spots don't show up till comic 11: her fur gets burnt. I don't play nice with my characters when it comes to superpowers. If you set yourself on fire, your clothes are just not going to
survive.

Option A has been in the plans, plot-wise, for a while now, though.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Ouch.

Ok, I guess that would explain some of it. *wince*

[WhiteFox]

Ouch.

Aw, Jade is a demon. She can take it.

I finally have a finished mockup of the archive page I want to use. Posting here for comments and feedback.

DSOF Archive Page v2.1 beta

One or two production notes: ninety percent of the graphics were done in 3D and pasted together in Photoshop.

The DSOF logo was done in flash. I came up with it after I went to a calligraphy workshop a while back and they went over Gothic fonts. Here is a larger version I'm going to be using for the main page:

Might thicken the lines.

[Tapewolf]

Have you considered using the Gothic font for the buttons as well?  They look a little out of place compared to the logo.  I'm also assuming that the buttons aren't supposed to do anything yet...

[WhiteFox]

I thought about it, but gothic is really, really, hard to read. Especially at small sizes. The Gothic is only for the DSOF logo. All the titles and headers for the site will be in Copperplate Gothic, so the buttons shouldn't look  out of place when it's all put together.

Hrm. I might be able to find a better match tho. I'll have to check.

(Yeah, the buttons don't do anything yet. This is a final draft for comments before I copy/paste/edit all the pages. I don't have a front page yet either.)

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

FWIW, you might want to consider "greyed out" buttons, for use when there isn't an option leading in that direction. For example, on the first strip, the "first" link would be greyed out.

That way you don't have the page resizing itself when you have fewer buttons present.

[rt]

The web page opens and displays, and looks like the gif you had even on an old browser so 'that is a good thing' (tm).

You might try to see how the comic before that looks like in the code, because flipping through the archive it looks extra wide. Make sure it doesn't damage the castle graphics. Those graphics might need some centering for such cases (the bottom looks left-justified by my eye, but it is too close to tell)

[WhiteFox]

FWIW, you might want to consider "greyed out" buttons, for use when there isn't an option leading in that direction.

That... Is a very good point. I'll have to do that.

You might try to see how the comic before that looks like in the code, because flipping through the archive it looks extra wide. Make sure it doesn't damage the castle graphics. Those graphics might need some centering for such cases (the bottom looks left-justified by my eye, but it is too close to tell)

I did, actually. The whole page is one huge table (which is centered) with a table (also centered) inside it for the nav bar. Besides, I might be shrinking down the older comics since the text and art are just HUGE.
I'm glad to hear it works on an older browser: that's good to know, thanks.


DSOF #27: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they will talk politics for hours.
Old style archive. Not ready to completely rebuild the archives just yet. That should be done by Monday, and I might have the front page (which will be very compact, nothing fancy) mostly done too. Profile pages, if I'm lucky.

This page finally feels like I'm getting back into the swing of things, especially with the decent coloring instead of the slap-and-dash job the previous two had.

Also, I finally settled on a way to draw bat wings. For a while now I've been fussing about it. I'm using a new method for them, and working out how to do the struts was a pain. I held off drawing them, until I forgot about it, and went into the coloring phase. then I realized that not everything that is there must have a line, and it looks a lot better if the struts are implied with shading. (Another thing I should have picked up from Amber long before now)

As of this comic, almost all of the backstory I need to cover is over and done with, and I can start working forward.

I. Hate. Backstories.

[Edit] Checked the spelling and re uploaded it. Before the llearch came to get me.
[Edit2] Fixed the above link to actually go to page 27. Why do I keep doing that?

[Tapewolf]

You're still pointing to 26 in the URL.  Interesting page, though.  My one criticism is that now you've switched to a smaller format, the text is becoming hard to read.

[WhiteFox]

You're still pointing to 26 in the URL.  Interesting page, though.  My one criticism is that now you've switched to a smaller format, the text is becoming hard to read.

1)Fixed that, 2)Glad you're enjoying the show , and  3) and I will definitly be bumping the text up a few points.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

*cough* The last box in the last panel doesn't make much sense anymore....

[WhiteFox]

Yay for half-assed editing. I'll have to tweak that.

[Edit] Which I have.

BAD Maltorius! Stop making the artist look incompetent!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

There is a solution to that, you know.

Find someone and ask them to proofread the images before you post them...


BTW, I love the idea of "Applied Social Macro-Politics" - it's such a typically academic weasel-wording. ;-]

[WhiteFox]

Find someone and ask them to proofread the images before you post them...

Good idea.

BTW, I love the idea of "Applied Social Macro-Politics" - it's such a typically academic weasel-wording. ;-]

I was hoping that would make someone smile. Kind of like the "Inhuman Resources" sign on Maltorius' door.

[WhiteFox]

Well, no comic today.

However, I can declare my new archives are done. Yay!
http://www.northernelectric.ca/~whitefox/comics/dmfa/archive/dsof27.html
Finally did the thing in #26 done right, too.
The page is 90% 3D graphics cut up and spliced together in photoshop.

I'm going to hold off on 28. The past couple of pages have been uploaded on schedual, but the quality is suffering. On 28 I bit off a little more then I could chew. I could do a hack job and post it, but I really don't want to. I started this comic to get better at cartooning, and if all I post is half assed comics then I'll get better at half assed cartooning.

On to another story, my brother decided to "brush up" on his php. When he was at college, NSCC, they covered it and he promptly forgot about it for... 4 years, about. A couple months back I asked if he could do the PHP for an archive page, and he said he didn't think he could.

Well, on Thursday he went down to a book store and bought a PHP book for refrence. He took my HTML page and PHP'd it in less time then it took to pick out the book. It's pretty slick. All I have to do is upload an image with the correct numbering, and it does the rest. It even figures out the "current comic" for the "Today" link, and grays out buttons automatically. He says he could add in "flavor text" comments with little trouble. There's no database involved, but still.

Unfortunatly, it isn't working on my current webhosting so he put it on the first free host he could find that supported php. I'm not sure I'll start using it until I get it working on my space, but here it is.

http://mechanisto.110mb.com/webcomictest/archives.php

Freaking awesome.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Hrm.

Suggestion: Make the archive show the most recent strip first.

Other than that, I'd be interested in the code, if only to critique it. ;-]

[techmaster-glitch]

Your first couple of comics aren't showing up. Other than that, pretty sweet