TWCL

[CHICKENS]

This webcomic covers the mis-adventures of Tim and Jim including chickens... and stuff. Tim is always on the left.

There is no purpose for this comic other than practice on my part and entertainment on all y'alls part. (There is not story line except on Sundays.)

It is updated daily so long as my creativity holds out.

It currently resides at www.albertlatham.com.

Hope y'all take a look and enjoy whats there.

-albert

[vulpeslibertas]

Interesting, if short. It's hard to judge a comic without a longer archive (15ish pages for a comic like yours).

I think your comic would be improved greatly by computer inking. It looks very scketch-like right now. The genre for weird gag comics is a bit competetive, I think, so polishing your style will help you go a long way.
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[CHICKENS]

Thank you!

Is there any way to maintain a bit of sketchyness while computer inking it? I would prefer (stylistically speaking) to keep some sketchyness in there.

I have taken an unused image of mine and run it through the hoops with different examples of post processing to see if I can achieve a more polished look.

(The image tags aren't working for me, whats up with that?)[edit]Fixed, see post below.[/edit]

The first image has a duplicate layer set to "multiply."


In the second image I tweaked first the contrast, then threshold, and then added a two pixel gaussian blur.


The third image is an example of my extreme sketchiness with only the contrast tweaked. Does this work styalistically?


The fourth image (a section of the impending Sunday edition) is an example of my full scale execution using the pen as a tool for everything from contour to shading (what can I say? I love ball-point).


This post handles the style of the lines that make up the comics. The shape of the characters is also in flux (as I practice more my ability to articulate form becomes better, so expect change in that department).

Thank you, Vulpeslibertas, I really appreciate the information (and, as you can tell, I'm alookin for more!).

Regards,
-albert

[vulpeslibertas]

The deal with scketchiness to me is that it looks hand drawn. Not that there's anything wrong with hand-crafted stuff, but scketchiness looks unpolished, amature. You really want the "hand made by a master craftsman look". I tend to be a fan of "This looks like CGI", so that's the rose tint on my glasses.

What I was talking about (and you probably want to ignore this part) is the double hatchy-looking lines instead of solid thick lines. The double hatchy look, to me, makes it look like the comic was drawn on a napkin, then scanned in. I get rid of double hachies in GIMP. I set up a new clear layer, then use my mouse to draw over a scanned pencil image. It's basically hand tracing a paper drawing onto a computer screen.

Also, make sure you get as much contrast as possible, IMO. I'm not an expert artist, but I think any gray-ing of the line work will be amplified by double hachy line work. That makes the work more like pencil (less pro) and less like ink (pro).

I like #2 and #4 the most, they're fairly close to my eye.

I really recommend enhancing your character form. A lot can be said with a simple stick figure. Your characters are already fairly expressive for circle-blocks with eyes. Simple characters can speak volumes.

I'm not sure what's up with the image tags, I always have to play with them to get them to work.
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[CHICKENS]

The issue with the image tags (I'm stoopid, so gimme a break) is you have to add the "http://" to any link for it to work... I just figured this out about two minutes ago.

Lines: So my post processing has stepped up to contrast. Initially I was just scanning in the pen drawings which worked ok, so from now on I will work with the contrast to insure, well, more contrast. Thank you for that.

I used to trace my drawings for work that was going to be published, but I haven't been doing that lately.

Character form is being worked on right now. Changes may be seen as soon as Friday (I have a line-up of comics, so changes I make now won't be evidenced until later...)

Thanks again for the input, vulpeslibertas! I appreciate it very much.

-albert

[GingerDead]

i like three and four of the samples you showed. i think you can retain sketchiness if that's your style and what you want and still have a 'finished' looking comic.

hard to judge with just two up so far, but the writing is humorous. the art isn't too faded or sketchy for me personally. a little darker would be nice and perhaps consider trying out another option for dividing the panels. i'm not sure about the cross hair approach. you're just starting so i'm sure as you keep doing more you will refine things and get into your groove.

you seem to be off to a good start. good luck with it.

how are you doing with comicpress? if you have any questions the support forum is really helpful or PM me and I'll try to help you along. i use it too, i think you'll love it.
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[CHICKENS]

...Now... Now I'm whoring my comic. Its been a total of four days since I started. And now I have four comics up and a set in guns waiting to be unleashed.

I update daily.

And... aside from bumping my thread... well, yeah.

-albert

[19013]

I like ths drawings very much. Pretty funny too.
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