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Apr 2, 2013 5:30:25 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 2, 2013 5:30:25 GMT -5
I noticed the banner on the top of your page( its the hat one right now) changes. Do you hand change it or does it have a program that'll change it by it's self every now and then? The reason I'm asking is me and a friend are starting a web comic of our own and I was wanting the banner to change by it's self every now and then.
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Apr 2, 2013 10:09:39 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 2, 2013 10:09:39 GMT -5
If you have html capability it is possible to do what they call a rotating banner that changes with each page load, but unfortunately DD does not have that capability.... because the site sucks now. :T
So I have to change it manually each time because the html editing is off limits. Granted it's easier to do now that I'm not having to figure out the code myself, but yeah, not really optimal. My new site on the other hand... teeheehee!
But I'd say take a look into where you host your comic and see if they allow html editing at all. If you look up how-to's for "rotating banners" there's a few helpful threads that will give you the code, it looks like you have to store all the images in a bank and set it to select a random image. However I've also seen it mentioned that there are programs you can get that will simplify it for you, but I don't know if it is a free program or not.
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Apr 2, 2013 11:13:04 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 2, 2013 11:13:04 GMT -5
We're going to be doing it on comic furry, they have hml. My friend's just done a course on hml coding and has managed to get the rotating banner. I'm really glad I have him, my coding skills consist of beabling to mess up his for april fools. I didn't realise your were getting a new site, for CtV or another comic?
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Apr 2, 2013 11:30:23 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 2, 2013 11:30:23 GMT -5
Sweet! I'm glad to hear you got someone who knows html, mine is a little rusty due to not having it for almost 2 years now (Drunk duuuuuck!) Ah yes, Comic Fury... I unfortunately have a bad association with them since some of the worst people on DD immigrated there to continue being horrible/ badmouth comics that had more readers than theirs, so I've sort of avoided the site because of that. I'll still check yours out when it's up though Yup, a new site for CTV is in the works! And... some other stuff as well I'm working on a landing page for it right now! I've just been so fed up and frustrated with DD and all the problems it has... my comic updating is enough to crash the site, and I feel like it disadvantages everyone who updates the same day as me.
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Apr 2, 2013 17:27:27 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 2, 2013 17:27:27 GMT -5
It's very useful and he's up for a challange. How long ago was that? I hope it's changed since then. Thanks, I hope you like it. I can't wait to see it. That's the main reason we're not doing it on the duck, everyone I've followed on it seems to have problems with the site. Smack Jeeves has annoying limitations and rules and Comic Genesis has barely any promotion on it. :/
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Apr 3, 2013 21:56:47 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 3, 2013 21:56:47 GMT -5
They'd almost have to have changed in the 2 years since I read the thread, but I guess I have a long memory for negativity when it's directed at my friends and peers It wasn't that long ago that I was holding onto hope that DD would get better, but my patience and resolve have finally withered away when it became clear that we were going to get strung along indefinitely. It's depressing because DD used to be the BEST webcomics host out there. Some people with really dumb ideas got ahold of it and now it's practically the worst. And I know a lot of the reasons why, unfortunately. And as predicted, gateway error 502 because I updated today, grrr! But yes let me know when your comic is up!
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Apr 4, 2013 14:23:21 GMT -5
Post by nightreflection on Apr 4, 2013 14:23:21 GMT -5
The whole thing smelt bad from the getgo. I work for a big company and I recognised the signs, but I just hoped I was being subjective. No doubt sooner or later they will blame the artists and users for not supporting them. I doubt their management could actually tell us how their own site works. To them it's probably just another asset in the books. Actually, that people still talk about CTV outside the duck even when there is no TWC or other advertising support is a testament to what a monumental achievement it is.
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Apr 4, 2013 15:03:42 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 4, 2013 15:03:42 GMT -5
That doesn't sound good. Has it happened more that once? I know if it wasn't for knowing people who use it I would have picked DD, I'm glad I didn't. Aww. It should in theory be up around the 12th, but so far I only have two pages for it...
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Apr 4, 2013 15:57:03 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 4, 2013 15:57:03 GMT -5
Yep, we were trying to work with the company when they first got ahold of DD and they were like "those are great ideas, we had ideas like that too! But then decided to do something else" and kept turning the conversation to a pitch for their own website. :C What happened to that website? Gone. Yes it does definitely feel like DD is just another asset though, they keep stringing people along with promises that things are going to be fixed soon. They won't take money from users to fund a fix, they won't do a kickstarter even. And worst, whoever "owns" the site right now is not talking to the members, every scrap of info is filtered through 2 admins instead of being told to us right from the source, and even then they tell them to keep mum about everything. @fallenfantasy: You mean the site crashing when I update? Yep, consistently ever since, oh I don't even know but within the past several months, at least. I check the site every day multiple times (a habit I have never gotten out of from the days when I'd get 50 or more comments on every page which would trickle in until the next update...) so you could say I've gotten a pretty good idea of when the site chooses to crash, and it's just too much to be coincidence at this point. OH! and I forgot to add! It's a good idea that you're building up a buffer before starting!
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Apr 4, 2013 16:55:27 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 4, 2013 16:55:27 GMT -5
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Apr 4, 2013 17:09:13 GMT -5
Post by nightreflection on Apr 4, 2013 17:09:13 GMT -5
Two admins - yes - my boss does that. He's 'in a meeting' unless it's someone he wants to speak to. I feel sorry for those admins. They are probably taking flack from both sides, really want to help, but are just being told to shut up and do what they are told. I know at least some people in that position. (Although I also know some who really don't care! ) It's not just CTV that crashes the duck, I used to have it crash on me once every few days and have to wait a few minutes before I could access again. It seems to have gotten better, but that may be due to people bailing. I definitely know at least one other artist complaining of uploading woes. Not that I read much on the duck anymore. It seems hard times has spawned a plethora of good comics. I have found tons that are only a few years old or less. Let's hope they keep the faith. I've found loads of abandoned ones too. It rends my heart it does. You guys don't realise how much you give us. My life would be utterly miserable by comparison without comics to lighten my day and challenge my fading intellect. Addendum: Wow Fallen, that's some awesome artwork for a new comic. Do let us know when it's up. I hope it's not all that good! We will be wanting updates at least once a month!
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Apr 4, 2013 18:31:09 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 4, 2013 18:31:09 GMT -5
I agree, I love web comics. I probably watch over fifty of them, that's just the ones that update weekly. Thank you. ;D I'm going to try to update weekly, I'm a very slow artist though... The first few pages won't be anything like as good at that, I'm still working on balancing the level of goodness with time. Expect the first ones to be pretty random in style. Oh, also can you read the banner okay?
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Apr 6, 2013 2:15:13 GMT -5
Post by nightreflection on Apr 6, 2013 2:15:13 GMT -5
It is legible, but I'm worried that if the image is scaled down, as often is the case with web-sites, that people may have to think to realise it's text (heaven forbid they should have to!). You may want to take some of the swirls out. The problem is, you will lose effect if you do that. I dunno. Why can't I always have my cake and eat it? I don't think people will notice the stake/sword and blood spatter either at that size - remember, it's meant to get their attention. Of course, giving it that unnoticability will make it more intriguing for those who do notice. It's realism vs practicality again. Bright blood would probably not be true to the comic's style, but if you switched the background to hospital-white, it would be a different kind of creepy, but still creepy, and a little more eye-catching. That said, it is a refined piece of work, and many of the artists whose comics I read wouldn't be able to put something that realistic up. It will catch people's attention, and that will get you the click, which is what a banner is all about.
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Apr 6, 2013 4:27:01 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 6, 2013 4:27:01 GMT -5
I'm planning to, I've had a few people say that. Is there any specific arias that are harder to read? I've been told the A and first E. Well I've sort of made a downsized verson an it seems to be sitting on the test site fine. I will be working towards that level but as it is I'm doing nothing else but making it, so I really need to be able to work faster first. I think I'm going to keep it with the black background, I've made it with a lot of transparency and unless I redo alot of it it looks too washed out with a white background. I'll see if I can make it more eye catching though. Thank you. ;D Also does anyone know if it would be better to start of with a larger picture and then scale it down for the pages or to draw it at the size it will be when I stick it up?
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Apr 6, 2013 5:30:39 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 6, 2013 5:30:39 GMT -5
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Apr 7, 2013 16:56:00 GMT -5
Post by nightreflection on Apr 7, 2013 16:56:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I think that's a lot clearer. You are going more for a simple attention-grabby image. The proportions are also more banner-size. In retrospect, I should have asked if this is your page's banner, or the one you are going to offer to other sites as a link, but either way, I think the first one was a bit too tall. The words are also a lot clearer (for us simple folk). That said, I'd really hoped for other people to comment. I'm not an artist, just a rabid reader, and I'm never quite sure about the mechanics of these things.
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Apr 8, 2013 4:43:10 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 8, 2013 4:43:10 GMT -5
Good. Weither that's true or not nearly everyone else I've had look at it can't draw beyond stick figures. Also I need non artists to look at it, the majority of people who end up looking at it won't be artists so it's them that matter the most.
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Apr 8, 2013 13:20:06 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 8, 2013 13:20:06 GMT -5
I like that banner too! Speaking from experience, that's the kind that draws my attention when I see it! I'm not good at making banners myself, but I know what kind makes me click on them. As for the pages, I say always work larger and then size it down. You can get finer details in and things tend to always have a nice blend when you size them down. It will also give you more options in the future if you ever decided to go for print, and it makes editing easier when you have a larger piece to work with. I've tried editing old pages where I didn't keep the full size image, it's a nightmare! Also, I am so glad you brought up the point about non-artist's opinions. A lot of artists tend to act like an opinion doesn't matter unless it belongs to another artist, and a comic reader's opinion simply cannot be as well informed unless they have studied art. I could go on and on about the subject of art snobbery though! I'm just happy to see someone considering that their audience isn't going to be all artists! nightreflection: I'm glad you found some comics still living! I keep running into abandoned ones myself, and it's depressing when I remember how lively the site used to be. One thing I miss a lot is the comic rings, there used to be rotating banners for comics who joined "rings" to promote each other on Drunk Duck. If even in this sore state there was still a sense of community there, I would be having a harder time letting go, but the forums became rather clique-ish and a lot of the nice people I knew are long gone.
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Apr 8, 2013 16:44:41 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 8, 2013 16:44:41 GMT -5
Thanks. I know for me banners that make me want to know what's going on are the ones that catch my attention the most. That's what I'm doing right now, so that's good. Do you think it would techincally be faster to do it smaller though? That's ridiculous. Outside of the people I know( I know alot of artists) how many of them are likely to be artists? I could easily tell you if a pot's well made or not and what I like/ dislike about it and I'm no pot maker. Nearly any criticism good or bad is useful no matter who it comes from. Besides they're more likely to give you an even judgment, artist's will judge your work based on their own style. I very rarely come across dead comics actually. A few that have finnished but not very many that have been stopped in the middle of. Couldn't you do comic rings outside of DD? Or is there rules agains it? That's a shame.
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Apr 8, 2013 17:38:07 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 8, 2013 17:38:07 GMT -5
Hmm, I haven't noticed much difference between speed of work between sizes, I just know it's better in the long run to have a higher-res copy on hand. I'm terrible explaining stuff so I'll provide an old-page example of something: www.drunkduck.com/Charby_the_Vampirate/4787380/You might notice there the best panel right away is panel 12. I put the same amount of work into it as the rest, but it stands out more for one reason alone: The art was a full page that I colored, and shrank, then put into it's place amongst the other panels. It sticks out like a sore thumb because I did not take this measure with the rest of the panels, which I colored at regular size. But it does look better than the rest, does it not? I guess that's what I was getting at. As a general rule things appear more crisp when you size them down from a larger resolution. As for artists, oh yes I agree it is ridiculous, but I've run into so many posts from artists who act this way. I absolutely agree that it's based around their own style preferences too! Ohh, I am holding back on a rant about that, haha! The dead comics are all things that were in my favorite's and Quail's random on the front page. :C Comic rings outside of DD would be terribly worthless actually. The point was to have a little button on your comic that lead to another comic in the same genre/theme, but ever since they took HTML away (and the use of .gifs at that) and the edit widget lets you put one size of dinky buttons in only 2 different spots on the site (LAME!) it has rendered such things moot. All the changes were so we couldn't have our own paying ads anymore, which was terrible. There's no rule against it, just no way to implement it! They cut us off all web promotion tools with this idiotic change too, you can't be on list sites like Top Web Comics without the promotional button on the site, and people can't vote for you (because it isn't a static .jpeg from photobucket and requires html code). People got kicked out of ring/promotional sites like Palace in the Sky because they could no longer place their banners in the html. To say they really ruined the site is an understatement to say the least. :C
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Apr 10, 2013 14:40:09 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 10, 2013 14:40:09 GMT -5
So what do you do now? Do you work with a larger picture in general or resize each pannel? Also do you draw each pannel seperate or all in the space they are at in the end? That really sucks.
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Apr 10, 2013 15:37:21 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 10, 2013 15:37:21 GMT -5
It depends on which comic I'm working on, haha! I always start with a larger picture though (unless it's with markers but I'll scan that in large anyway!) I get an idea of how the panels are set up, and then do the art for each panel separately (though many panels are on one sheet of paper I'll scan in) and assemble them into their panels in photoshop, then color them. I work in *goes to look* about 600 dpi resolution, then re-size it to about 700 pixels across.
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Apr 12, 2013 17:54:31 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 12, 2013 17:54:31 GMT -5
Thanks, that's pretty much what I'm doing right now though I think my image I'm working with is too large, the paint program isn't happy to work with it. :/ Do you work with A4? Also here's my first pages of comic: antemortem.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/
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Apr 15, 2013 10:40:29 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 15, 2013 10:40:29 GMT -5
Wooooow, that looks amazing! I am envious of your architectural drawing skills, those buildings look incredible and must have indeed taken forever to detail out! And nothing like a little parkour/building climbing to start things off! Ah, that is something to take into consideration with the programs you are working with. Which one are you using again? Ah, I'm not sure what size A4 is off the top of my head, but I base it around a custom page template that I cropped from a scanned page (to keep consistent with when I draw pages in marker on 8.5X11) so if it's that size then probably yes, haha!
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Apr 15, 2013 16:48:54 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 15, 2013 16:48:54 GMT -5
Though notice I complatly ignored any perception, that just really seemed like too much work. I'm currently using gimp but I'm learning others, you? I can't remember what gimp makes it but it's nearly too big to for the program to work with and any layers irritate it.
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Apr 16, 2013 19:03:44 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 16, 2013 19:03:44 GMT -5
Wow, my compliments and respect doubles that you can do work this good in Gimp! I got gimp too to help a little with tutorials I was making for other artists and to try out other programs but I found the interface terribly hard to work with, and the lack of vectors, and some things simply didn't work the way they said they would... @_@ but hey it's free so you get what you pay for, haha! (I guess if the help function would have loaded properly on my computer like it was supposed to I would have a nicer opinion of Gimp, but I am always impressed when someone can make it work!) There are some functions on there that sound very promising though that I wish photoshop did. I've got MangaStudio for inks, which is a really good program for inking/paneling if you can get a copy for a good price (unlike photoshop I think the price for older versions may even go down) I've got version Ex3. I bought photoshop CS5 about a year ago and while it's good for photoshop stuff it kind of disappointed me that this "upgrade" removed functions/filters I liked (pattern maker) the other things I got it for (canvas rotation) stopped working for no good reason! Otherwise, photoshop is pretty good, though I might try out Paint Tool Sai someday.
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Apr 17, 2013 11:41:15 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 17, 2013 11:41:15 GMT -5
Thanks. Gimp's layout has actually updated resently which help alot though now my tablet's touch sensitivity doesn't work with it. I don't think the help function works for anyone actually, I know it doesn't for me. I'm starting to find gimp a bit limiting now though, mostly the touch sensitivity, so I've been looking around for other free ones, any ideas? Would you say mangastudio was better than photoshop? I've actually just got paint tool sai but I've not really had time to try it out.
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Apr 17, 2013 15:49:56 GMT -5
Post by Amelius on Apr 17, 2013 15:49:56 GMT -5
For compiling comics I'd say yes, since they let you do Vector lines and even the raster lines don't pixellate/anti-alias when you resize them like they do in photo editing programs like Photoshop and gimp. The newer versions have apparently updated their coloring capability, since it was a bit convoluted and simple in older versions (like the one I have!) But it's pretty good for panels and inks for black and white work, I do work there and then import it to PS for coloring. As for some other programs, I did find a decent list of opensource art programs: www.digitalartforall.com/96/list-of-free-and-open-source-digital-art-software-tools/ I might just have to try some of those out myself... when I get the time I want to play around with Blender!
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Apr 21, 2013 4:38:25 GMT -5
Post by fallenfantasy174 on Apr 21, 2013 4:38:25 GMT -5
I'm really tempted to get it now. What would you say were the bad things about it? I have a friend who uses blender and I've tried it a little, is seems very complex.
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Apr 21, 2013 20:23:02 GMT -5
Post by lilac on Apr 21, 2013 20:23:02 GMT -5
You should make a Daray banner. All Daray, all the time.
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