holy shit dude that's...pretty awesome! makes me wish my comic were better lol. now i feel obligated to show it to you but i'm worried about "site-whoring" ooo! i'll put the link in my sig.

.Tripwire. wrote: »

Your character in the holla hoodie looks like my idiot friend in Vancouver who is stupid.

Haha, that is so spot on!

well does someone wanna let me in on it or am i the butt of the joke?

i was actually thinking exactly that because of some of the comments, but i dunno what the hell he looks like soooo...yeah.

anyway, finished that panel (more or less) i was working on in yet another style.



i'll smooth out the shading later, right now i just don't feel like it.

hey...where the hell did my pic go? and thanks for the help, i'll def do some work on it taking those into account.

edit: k, i think i fixed whatever made the pic disappear. about the elbows i was trying to make it so they're resting the one arm on the arm of the couch, but Lewis (green sweatshirt guy) in particular looks pretty fucked up and i'm not quite sure how to make em look right. any chance someone has - or can draw quick - a sketch of something like how they SHOULD look?

yep, ears are def outta line. prob because i skip that whole "drawing the skeleton and crossed lines on the face to make sure everything's proportional and lined up" step. i just draw this for fun in my spare time (i haven't taken an art class since high school) for my handful of friends that think my cartoons are funny, but i want them to look better, which is why i came here, so maybe i'll start doing that.

last thing, i was trying to make Lewis look like he's doing that one raised eyebrow look but i def screwed it up, so i'll try and fix that too.

THANKS GUYS!

edit...again: Lewis's hands don't look quite right, but i suck at hands in general. ideas?

there, i think i managed to hit up all the crits you guys mentioned. so whaddya think?

1st image to 2nd image: lowered left guy's ear to line up properly, added proper shadowing to right guy's shoulder, blended shadows on couch, right guy's sweatshirt and left guy's beard better.

still needed: lower/fix elbows. take care of "blonde guy's eyebrow bleeding into his eye" from things mentioned by other posters

2nd image to 3rd image: adjusted right guy's elbow so it looks like it's resting beside him and reaching forward instead of being held in front of him like he's flexing (urgh! Hulk smash!) and fixed all the shadows and highlights on arm and front of torso in accordance. rounded out right guy's head and moved eyebrow up to stop if from bleeding into eye.
the changes are def there if you look, especially if you look at them next to each other.

and thanks for the book recommendation beavotron but, like i said, i just do this for the 3 or 4 of my friend's who think my cartoon is funny. i don't really have to time or, more importantly, money to start investing into making this think look like a real artist drew it. I did bookmark that page though in case there comes a time were i have...the time...yeah that'll work.


anyway, now that i've gone through everything you guys mentioned looked wrong after the first post of it i don't look at it and immediately go "something doesn't look right," which is good enough for my purposes. SO thanks! and i'm sure i'll be back going "ok...so this is what i fucked up this time..."

o, damnit forgot: i'm getting HELLA better at using photoshop (which is probably my biggest hurdle, haha) by going back and looking at things per your recommendations so thanks for that too!

bombardier wrote: »

If you are not really looking to become a better and skilled artist, then why are you posting here?

just so i can get some tips on some of the more obvious things (to a more trained artist's eye anyway) that make my toons look off so i don't make those same mistakes EVERY time i draw them and have to sit there going "fuck...what IS it!?". Also so i can try and decide on the style i want to draw them in. And lastly so i can get a better handle on Photoshop in case the day comes where i do have the time and motivation to do some REAL artwork.

...although mostly because it was Penny Arcade that inspired me to draw a comic about me and my idiot friend playing videogames in the first place.

beavotron wrote: »

photoshop is like a giant puzzle
you just gotta play around with it a lot to get it, if you have specific photoshop questions, just ask, there are lots of people around here who can help you with that.

hey so...since you offered...
i still can't seem to get the same results off drawing with a tablet in Photshop that i do when i draw with just pencil and paper. is it just because i'm using a fairly cheap tablet, or did anyone else go through the same adjustment? anything special you did to close that gap, or does it just take time to adjust? as far as finding the tools i need in photoshop, i'm sure that i will get the hang of given enough time.

Metalbourne wrote: »

the_Willard wrote: »

just so i can get some tips on some of the more obvious things (to a more trained artist's eye anyway)

Hey, genius, why don't you go back and look at the post right under the one that started this whole fucking travesty. Or was that not what you wanted to hear?

You're a lazy fuck who just isn't going to get better. I've seen a million different webcomics come through here and I've heard every single excuse ever given for sucking so bad. Everything from "being shitty is my style" to "It doesn't matter because its just for my two loser-ass freinds to get a giggle out of."

So what the fuck makes you special enough to tell anything other than, "go take a fucking art class?"

maybe the fact that just because i'm not planning to make a career out of drawing shouldn't exclude me from getting some help on the art that i DO draw, nor should the fact that i don't have the time or money to be spending on art classes and digesting art books, you elitist douchetool. although this doesn't make me special, just like any average person who decided to get back to doing some doodling because i saw something that inspired me to do so. (but CLEARLY being too busy with my life outside of drawing makes me a lazy fuck.) considering that i did manage to get some tips there are obviously other people here that feel the same way.
no one's forcing you to come in here and post, if you're so terribly offended by my cartoons then just stay the fuck off the thread, it's not like it's sneaking up on you; "o hey, a new thread let's check that ou-Damnit! it's that Higher Technology thread again, sneaky bastard!" so tell me, is it that you are completely incapable of saying anything constructive, or just that you're incapable of NOT being a total fuckwad?

yeah, trying to get the same effect of traditional methods in photoshop is very difficult. There are brushes that can kind of replicate effects. Though i havnt really bothered to learn using them. last year at uni, i was wanting my digital paintings to look traditional. So to get a pencil look to my sketches, i grabbed a standard brush and screwed around with the brush settings until i created something that looked kinda traditional. In the end, when i showed the result to my tutor, he thought it was sketched on paper and i scanned it into the comp and digi coloured it.

Not a tutorial by any means, but here are the brushes i like to use, when trying to replicate a pencil look, digitally. Also there are the brush settings i mess around with.

so just screw around with setting till you find something you're comfortable with. With your comics, i think you should go with a more natural look. These just look too much like dodgy vector art. even try scanning you clean sketches in your computer, and colour them digitally like beavs said.

Im not a great artist, but seeing as you're new to photoshop, i hope this can help in some way

wasted pixels wrote: »

You're wasting people's time by demanding attention and feedback before learning even the bare basics of your craft. Imagine if I joined a music forum and posted an MP3 of myself clumsily strumming the chords G, C, and D on a guitar over and over. No song, no structure, just the three most basic chords in the world. What would they tell me?

• Hey, maybe you should learn to play the fucking guitar before you try to write a song
• Hey, maybe you should actually write something instead of strumming the same three chords for four minutes
• Hey, why are you wasting our time with this?

And what else are they supposed to tell me? I didn't bother to learn to play an instrument or write music before posting on the songwriter forum, so what feedback can they possibly give me beyond "why don't you learn how to make music before wasting our time?"

Good way to put the situation in perspective W.P. There's a time for advice and there's a time for practice. Ask questions if you want to learn, but be willing to absorb the feed back offered. You can't use advice as a shortcut, only to point you vaguely in the right direction.

winter_combat_knight wrote: »

With your comics, i think you should go with a more natural look. These just look too much like dodgy vector art. even try scanning you clean sketches in your computer, and colour them digitally like beavs said.

The computer is not your friend. Figure it out with a pencil first. Seriously, you're trying to learn two things at once. [Insert clever Analogy here].

No one is saying you have to spend a lot of money, (Google art tutorials, or something along those lines, to find free resources; drop $20 on A drawing book) but you've got to be willing to spend the time. If you don't have the time to practice drawing... well just re-read some of the above posts.

winter_combat_knight: ah, cool i try those. yeah, my scaneer died months ago...i don't have one anymore but since i'm starting to get the hang of photoshop, i think i will skip the vector art from now on.

wasted pixels: fair enough, but are you seriously going to invest time, money, and effort to learn all the ins and outs of the instrument if you just want to do a cover of one song? probably not. Higher Technology being the one and only thing i spend any time drawing, i see it much the same way. second, i wasn't looking for "unnearned praise" or validation, just some tips to improve what i had, which i managed to get from winter_combat_knight, Tam and NotACrook, so my drawings obviously aren't completely devoid of merit. i'm not "demanding" your attention and feedback, if you feel my art is so far beneath you that it's a waste of your time, you can just ignore me, it's not going to bother me any.

spellchrome: i can draw just fine with a pencil and paper, if i could get the same quality digitally...well i wouldn't be here. and since i couldn't maintain the same quality, i just skipped earlier steps to get it done quicker. considering Metalbourne's ONLY advice was "take a fucking art class" yes that IS asking to spend a lot of money. Since i am currently saving for a cross-country move coming up in July, ANY expenditure on something that is just a hobby is pretty much out of the question. (which is why i kept saying "at some point in the future when i can dedicate the time/effort")

t i m: THANK YOU!!!! (don't worry, your handwriting isn't any worse than mine) That is exactly the kind of help i was hoping for, i may even put that to use much sooner than i originally planned. it's especially ironic because i was just coming in here to ask about how to use layers to do...well...that. i'm kind of interested to see how you would have drawn the other guy, haha. i'll see if i can put together something that puts your tut to use and come back with it. it might be a little while though while i decide if i want to implement it now and interrupt the current episode with such a drastic change in style, or finish it the way it is now and draw the next one like that.

my comic is for the jokes, (mostly in-jokes with my friends, although if you know the games i'm talking about in the episode, you'd prob find it funny too) not the art. but since i'm the only one that can draw it...well, i'm the only one drawing it. so unless someone wants to take my stuff and do the art for it (be the Gabe to my Tycho) i just need some help getting photoshop to do what i want and an outside opinion when i KNOW something looks wrong.

and last, since you ALL managed to post without being the complete fuckstick that Metalbourne was, i maintain my opinion that he is a complete and utter tool. An opinion that at least winter shares, so i know i'm not alone in thinking this.

I used to borrow drawing books from the public library. They were often beat up and out of date, but hey, at least they were on a subject I liked.

But you can use pencil and paper, which is better than using Photoshop when you are trying to learn how to draw anyway.

To the original poster:

Nice work! Keep practicing and you are sure to improve by leaps and bounds!

Can I share one of my comics with everybody?

Ravenshadow wrote: »

wasted pixels wrote: »

winter_combat_knight wrote: »

man, i dont know if ive missed someting (and ive read the entire thread!), but i can't tell if Metalbourne is serious, or joking. Take a chill pill dude8-) the messages you're posting is not the way you should speak to other human beings.

Metalbourne is cutting the_Willard down to size so that the_Willard will dig deep and work harder than he's ever worked in his life just to prove Metalbourne wrong. the_Willard will then someday realize that Metalbourne wasn't being cruel, he was just lighting a fire under the_Willard's ass to get him moving. He'll look back fondly on Metalbourne with the same warm, nostalgic memories that a soldier has about his drill instructor; "He pushed me to be my best".

...or he's a huge asshole, one of the two.

You're assuming those two options are mutually exclusive. There's a reason my sig is, the way it is.

haha, i'll get on board with that line of thought. although, in all seriousness, i actually feel a lot better about Metalbourne now. if he wasn't such a huge assnugget i would have been perfectly happy continuing on with my comic "good enough" for my friends since they actually know less about drawing than i do, so it would have made no difference to them. but now i'm probably going to put far more work into bringing it up to snuff than i was ever planning to before jsut for my own personal satisfaction.

so

Metalbourne wrote: »

Well, if the cockdoubler is finally willing to visit the library and check out some books, someone tell him to check out Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Because we are not on speaking terms.

awww, Metal, don't be like that. i was hoping we could be BFFF's (that's best fuckin friends forever for the Pineapple Express impaired). and yeah, i'll see if i can find that book while i'm lookin around at the library, vagbooger.

and Shiboe. it's not that i "care but don't care" it's just that this webcomic is the only thing i draw (i haven't done any artwork in years, much to the chagrin of my high school art teachers) so i just wanted to learn things that pertained to that style of drawing. for example, taking the "i can't even pretend to afford it right now" argument off the table, i'm not going to go to an art class where they have me painting bowls of fruit and nude models when i just want to draw a cartoon about the stupid shit that goes on when me and my friends get together, usually to play videogames. i do care, it's just that i only care about learning stuff that i'm actually going to use.

anyway, i'm gonna do some good ol' pencil and paper sketching for practice while i'm sitting here at work. but, as i said earlier, i don't have a scanner so i'll have to figure out a way to post them here. maybe i'll just take pics with my digital camera...yeah that'll probably be it.

to S_O: i just have one thing to say to you; WTF!?

i appreciate it more like a nightmare i'm glad is over. it's just...disturbing, hahah. (and yes i get that he's mocking my comic...not that there's any material like that in mine)

so i'm studying t i m's tutorial and now i have a photoshop question. how do you guys do shadowing and highlights? i've been using the dodge/burn tool for it, but in t i m's thing at least it looks more like he copies the color with the eyedropper and then darkens it before applying. is one way better than the other, is it a matter of preference or was i just doing it wrong altogether?

the_Willard wrote: »

i appreciate it more like a nightmare i'm glad is over.

OVER???

odeargodno.

can everyone at least keep their pants on this time?:|

just did a little paintover of your skethc. I think if you bring everything a little more closer, it will look better. And try to get used to spotting subtle details. in the reference pic, he looks really focussed, almost angry, but in your pic, hes smiling
I just moved all your bits tighter together, and painted a few more higher contrasts.
though, my paintover doesnt really look like the reference, i think just being a little more aware of structure and adding more contrasts really help the likeness.


Also, your pic reminded me of the auto pilot on the film 'flying High', or as it was called in the U.S.A, 'Airplane'

I come bearing a gift, but we'll get to that in a minute.

I never came in here with the intention of "learning to draw the easy way" or any other douchy cries for attention/validation/praise. What i did come here for was some help from the source. i know i can't draw, i never claimed otherwise, but as i have said, i'm all we've got. I got my friends started reading Penny Arcade (rhombus has become synonymous with bitch and acts as the basis for an endless stream of jokes and shit-talking) and sometime after that we started thinking of some of the funnier shit that we come up with/happens to us in comic form. You know "hey, that would be hilarious if it was a comic where...and in the next panel..." you get the idea. However, none of us can draw, i am, quite literally, the best we've got.
And since it was Penny Arcade that started the shenanigans, i thought it would be the best place to seek out some help.

Let's look at the guitar analogy again. Say my friend's band needs to practice but their guitarist is sick, they've heard i can kind of play the song they need to practice and ask me to stand in. So if i decide that first i'm going to ask some actual guitarists for help with that one song, and only that one song that i can kind of play, i don't see how that's an excuse to morph into a complete douchetool (yes, that's my favorite product of my talent for creating new insults via amalgamation) and emit an endless stream of "fuck off, fuck off, fuck off..." until i give up. Not that i'm pointing fingers...this is the internet, i type names: Metalbourne. And while we're on the topic, i know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but stop trying to combine words into new insults...just...stop. See douchetool works because you are a douche and a tool, vagbooger works because having a booger in your vag would be disgusting and annoying, and assnugget...well that's just a turd. See how that works? But bitchburgler? Cockdoubler? How does one burgle bitches? You're just throwing random words together and it pales in comparison.

And anyone that is taking the stance of me being unreasonable, or responding poorly to criticism, go back and read through the thread. The only time i started slinging shit back at Metal was when he issued a personal attack. A comment that had nothing to do with anything other than insulting me and calling me "a lazy fuck." Yes, i'm SO lazy. So incredibly lazy because i moved across the country and am building a successful career as a game designer and don't want to switch gears completely and become a graphic designer so that i can better entertain my friends and other random people that happen by occassionally and get a giggle at our jokes.

My friends and i come up with so many comics that never make it to completion because i become so frustrated with my inability to draw and fighting with photoshop that i just don't finish them out of disgust. Where would Penny Arcade be if Tycho (Jerry) didn't have Gabe (Mike)? It never would have happened because either A) Jerry's inability to draw would have gotten it completely ignored or B) Jerry's inability to draw prevents him from even trying. (not that i'm claiming to be as funny as PA) I thought, at the time, that it would be a good idea to get some help from experienced people that i can actually interact with (books don't answer specific questions well very often) so i could at least stop yelling "fuck you wanglicker!" at photoshop while i'm trying to draw with what little artistic ability i have. yes, it is amateurish; i am an amateur who only ever took a single art class in high school. I would like to become a better artist so that can live up to my part of our little endeavor, but i'm not looking to dedicate my life to it.

And to S_O: what the hell man? I was so disappointed to have returned here after such a long absence and find nothing new from the world of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Yes, i do get it, by the way, you're mocking me, i just don't care. My jokingly asking how high you get when you write this stuff was commentary on the type of random "wtf!?" Adult Swim style humor your mockery has. Adult Swim, of course, the type of programming that generally caters to those stoned off their ass. I like how you mocked my question in the comic that followed by capitalizing random words, very clever...really. But it was pretty damn funny in it's randomness and i'm serious when i state my disappointment at it's apparent conclusion.

So yes, I am sorry. I'm sorry that i entered and asked for help without realizing this place is for professional and aspiring to be professional artists only. I'm sorry if i didn't explain my position early or clearly enough to avoid some of this douchestorm, even if that meant everyone just ignored me or i was booted. I'm even sorry i felt the need to defend myself when comments went from criticism of my drawing to an attack on me personally, i know better. I know a fuckstick (that would be a cock, dick, wiener, prick, etc.) who likes to make himself feel superior on an internet forum because he knows that forum is the only place where he will ever matter enough to get away with such antics and i know better than to play into their ego-stroking, but i faltered. So i am, in fact, sorry.

So i present to you a gift. My latest comic that i actually finished to mock and poke fun, or giggle at, whichever grants you the most satisfaction. It took me much longer to finish than i would have liked (even though i started trying out a "sketchy" style that actually works with my lack of artistic ability and lets me draw everything out faster than my others) and so the joke is not at the height of relevance i would have preferred. Why did it take me so long if it still looks like butt? Apparently you haven't been reading the thread...
The Prestige Edition comes with what!?