This Blog Has Been a Success

In this, my final post on this blog, I am pleased to report that the original vision of the blog has been achieved!  The Current has agreed to publish Strip #2 in their senior issue.  If I'm not mistaken, the release date of that issue is Wednesday, May 12.  So, to my followers, keep your eyes peeled!

Thanks to everyone for making this possible.  Professors Grugel and Moore for forcing me to create something of this order, and Nick and Adam for commenting along, even if only because you had to.  I hope it was as entertaining for those of you who had to read it as it was for me to write it. 

If I ever find the time to continue this comic once the coursework ends, I may create one last blog post linking to a website where you may view the new comics.  Once again, thank you to all!

Comic 2 Complete

Alright!  Comic #2 has been colored and dialogue has been added.  I have been talking with a contact at The Current, which is why this image is the size it is--that is the size they need it if they decide to publish it.  My hope is that they'll include the semester-long fruits of this blog's labor in the senior issue this year.

You can click on the image to view the full-size image.  The Current also requires a horizontal layout, which is not my favorite but it's not a huge deal.  Not optimal for web viewing, but that's ok.

This will be the final comic produced on this blog, but hopefully I'll find the time to continue this hobby once I settle into a post-graduation routine.  Let me know what you think of it!

Strip 2 Inks

With the time crunch on, I have gone forward and completed the pencil and ink phase of creating Strip #2.  This one was a little tougher to draw since it included some action and a difficult pose with Birdbrain resting atop Mush's head.  But the challenge also made it more fun since there was more variety in the poses and images.

I also think the script is stronger this time around, but I'd love to hear the comments regarding that on the post below this one!

New Script!

It's a race against the clock this time around as I try to create a finished product in time to get it published in The Current before they take the summer off.  So, let's quickly go back to square one and come up with a script for Comic #2.

Panel 1
[Birdbrain asleep atop Mush's head, Mush looking up at him]

Panel 2
[Mush looking forward now, towards the "camera"]
Mush: He's been up there for 3 hours now..

Panel 3
[Same pose]
Mush: I'd move or shake him off but the last time I did that, he was so startled he tried to peck my eyes out.

Panel 4
[Same pose]
Mush: I'd rather have my eyes than my pride, I think.

Live Texting Poll!

Courtesy of www.polleverywhere.com, here is a live, open-text poll that you can participate in!

Build television sms voting polls at Poll Everywhere

Audio Aides for the Visually Impaired

A lot of popular webcomics will feature transcripts or audio versions of their comics to assist the visually impaired.  Especially considering the fonts of comics can often be very peculiar or small in this digital age, these audio aides are becoming more important in my opinion.

Thanks to the AudioPal tool we discussed in class this week, it is very easy to create these audio aides.  So to demo both the technology and the usefulness of these audio aides, I have created an AudioPal audio version of Comic #1.

Finished Product

So Comic #1 is at last complete.  With just a few minutes in Microsoft Paint, we can add dialogue and wrap up the process.  It would be nice to have some way to expedite the overall process.  Also, it is important for me to allot more space for text in my next drawing phase.  Alternatively, I could select a smaller font.  But our multi-week journey is at last over!

I will not be presenting this one to The Current.  I want to try for a bit cleaner final product during my second go-round.

Heroes and Dreams Comic Shop

As a bit of an extension of my Google Map this week, I wanted to highlight the local comic book shop that I go to when I need to update my Sonic the Hedgehog collection.  Heroes and Dreams is a pretty well-known establishment in the Kenosha area, mostly because of the impressive mural on the side of the building, seen in the image below.

Their website is updated weekly on Mondays to help keep you in the know about when your newest comic is on the shelves.  The shop owner is a very talkative guy who I'm convinced could make friends with an alligator: as soon as you walk in the place he'll act as if he's known you all his life.

They also have a dog in the shop as a sort of mascot.  Hershey, a beautiful chocolate lab, will become friends just as fast as the owner.  Should you ever make a return visit, she'll happily greet you as you enter, remembering you from before.

So if you're new to comics or have one you read regularly, check out Heroes and Dreams if you get the chance.  They have all the comics you could want and a friendly atmosphere that makes traveling all the way out to 30th and Roosevelt worth the mileage.

A Modest Destiny

Being at home for Easter Break and not having access to Adobe Illustrator, we'll have to postpone wrapping up the comic.  So, instead, I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss my favorite comic of all-time, be it comic strip, webcomic, or comic book, in order to give it a bit of exposure.

A Modest Destiny begins as a video-game inspired adventure comic, with elements of humor and suspense playing major roles.  Its primary story arc ran every day for a year, spanning 300+ comics.  It has since gone on into 3 other "chapters", with the story taking on darker undertones and subject matter while maintaining its simplistic yet endearing look and humorous aspects.

This website was responsible for inspiring me to launch my Great Limitations project back in the day.  It truly is one of the most captivating stories out there.  And some of the side projects on the site (such as "The Starship Destiny") are also good reads.

So, if you're bored this Easter break, take some time to get into this wonderful story that has had a major impact on some of my own comic-creating life.

I'd post a picture of one of the comics but the owner of the site is pretty particular about copyright rules, so I do not want to infringe upon his rights.

Google Maps: Comics in Kenosha

So, I have mapped out a couple of locations for the aspiring comic enthusiasts in the audience on a Google Map.  It features descriptions, pictures, and even videos about each of the 4 locations here in Kenosha that I frequent when I need my comic fix.  Enjoy!

Because the embedded version below may act a little funky, here is a direct link to the map as well.


View Comics in Kenosha in a larger map

Screencast

Unfortunately my laptop didn't seem to be strong enough to handle Camtasia, particularly during the editing process. During editing the playback was choppy and delayed, making it next to impossible to create accurate splits and zooms. But I did the best I could with what I had. Hopefully the low production quality created by my low-end laptop won't hurt my grade too much. 

How I Do It: Coloring

Now that our image is in digital form, we can use another Adobe Illustrator tool to allow us to color it in.  The Live Paint Bucket tool will convert our digital image into a series of vector paths that Adobe Illustrator can interpret and "paint" inside of.

Once your image is in Live Trace form, it is very easy to convert it to a colorable state.  Simply select the Live Paint Bucket Tool from the Toolbar, and click on your Live Trace image.  Once the process is complete, you can then select various colors and color in your comic.

Things are really starting to take shape now!  You probably can really see your comic coming to life and are getting pretty excited.  There are a few more minor details (adding text, cleaning up), which we will cover next week.

Below is the colored image of Comic 1.

How I Do It: Live Trace

We now move into the Adobe Illustrator portion of our program.  We had to ink our drawings in order to allow Adobe Illustrator's Live Trace tool to create a (relatively) crisp digital version of our hand-made drawings.  That is our next step.

Basically Live Trace can convert anything into a manipulable digital form, but I find it really shines in black and white situations.  Therefore, our black and white inking of Comic 1 is a perfect candidate to be Live Traced.

If ever you want to follow along, this is a very straightforward progress.  Take your scanned-in inking and do a File > Place... of it onto your Adobe Illustrator canvas.  Work with its size until you have it just as you want it, and then go to Object > Live Trace > Make.  Voila!  That will generate an image similar to the one below.  We'll clean it up a bit more before we get to the final product, but we have a pretty sharp digital image to work with now.

How I Do It: Video Form!

I have created a video podcast showing my "How I Do It" series in action!  If you prefer to learn via video, then this is the podcast for you!

Editor's Note: As of the time of posting, YouTube is still completing its Processing of this video.  So be patient if you see it as unavailable.  It should be live before long.

How I Do It: Inking

Once we have the pencils finished, it is time to ink those drawings.  This for me is the most nerve-wracking part of the process.  Whereas I can handle general imperfections in the final look, I cannot handle mistakes.  And if you make a mistake during the inking phase, it means starting over with the pencils.

Other concerns during this phase include smudging (I use an Ultra Fine Sharpie to ink, so I have to watch where I rest my hands on the paper) and the fact that my hand has never been the steadiest.  All of these factors added together can result in a lot of nerves.  But you have to persevere!

This process is required mainly for the next step, which uses Adobe Illustrator to detect the inked lines and convert the image into a digital and much more easy-to-edit format.  It will also smooth out some of the rougher lines.  So, here's the inking of Strip #1!

How I Do It: Pencils

Once we have a script for a strip (I'll be using the script from the previous blog post for this entry), we can move into the drawing phase of comic creation.  The first step in my process is to draw out the strip using pencils, providing the general shape of the action in each panel.  Since this particular strip is driven more by dialog, the pencils don't provide us anything overly entertaining to look at, but they're still very beneficial in the creation process.

Regarding the style of this comic in particular, I am not using tools like a ruler or t-square to get straight lines for my panels, etc.  Because this is more of a hobby than a professional endeavor, the imperfections generated through creating the comic by sight alone actually helps contribute a level of "charm" to the comic.  These drawings are done on a large index card (5'' x 8'') to give me guidelines regarding how large each panel should be.  It will get rearranged into a horizontal strip in its final iteration (especially if this or any other future strip are accepted by The Current for publishing).

How I Do It: Character Planning

An important part of the comic creation process is developing a set of characters from which your action, story, and dialogue can flow.  Rather than just put pencil to paper right away, it is often best to go through a character design phase, trying out a variety of poses and constructs to see which looks best and is easiest to duplicate multiple times.  It's also worthwhile to make sure your characters are expressive enough, because the more expressive they are, the easier it is to deliver punchlines and actions.

So, I am going to share a couple of my character planning images with you in order to give you a sense of the repetitive, but important phase of character planning.

Firstly, I wanted to update Mush's look for this new series, and so I spent a good deal of time planning out his new character shape, as well as some of his expressions.

Mushroom Man Character Planning

The other main character needed for Strip #1 was Birdbrain, who was also going to get a makeover for this new series.  So, featured on this second page is predominantly the character creation phase for Birdbrain.

Birdbrain Character Planning

So, there you have it.  Though there will be many more characters down the road, these were the two I will eventually need to complete Strip #1, which we can dive into a little bit further next week, now that this step is out of the way.

How Others Do It

The next series of posts I will be adding to the blog are going to regard how I myself go through the comic creation process, from start to finish.  I will be doing a lot of work by hand (basic drawing/outlining) and then transferring my images to digital form for editing (creating a digital version of my images, coloring, laying out, adding text).

But before I launch into that phase of the blog I wanted to give you a sense of how others might go through a similar process.  There are plenty of tutorials out there both on Youtube (for the visual learners in the audience) and throughout the web with a simple Google search.  But to get you started, here is a tutorial that discusses the process with a lot of steps that are similar to how I create a comic strip.

Other Sources of Inspiration: Comic Books

I was never a huge fan of comic books growing up.  I wasn't even a fan of the superhero Saturday morning cartoons growing up.  So where I got my fascination with comics is a little unclear.  But I can remember making my own comics as long ago as 4th grade (which is 12 years ago now!).  But after I started making comics, I then started to become interested in other comics that were out there.

I still do not keep up with comic books by and large, with one exception.  A few months ago my girlfriend talked me into going to the local comic shop.  I wasn't sure I'd find anything, but sure enough there was one series I was interested in.

Sonic the Hedgehog comics weds two of my great pasttimes: comics (in some form or another) and video games.  Growing up, a Sega Genesis was my first gaming system, so I grew up on the Blue Blur and his pals.  Being able to revisit their world now that I am much older has been an enjoyable experience.

Stay tuned in the future as I may do my videocast about Heroes and Dreams, the local comic book shop that I frequent to get my Sonic fix.

Scripting a Comic

One of the hardest parts of making a comic, for me, is writing a script.  Particularly for comedic comics, it can be very difficult to think of something funny in a matter of 4 panels.  Another challenge relating to this series in particular, is that it has never been a comedic comic before.  While it had humorous elements, previous iterations of Mush the Mushroom Man have been focused mainly on plots by various enemies to capture or eliminate Mush.

Another considerable hurdle in scripting out my first comic is the fact that the characters are not established.  It can become easier to write for a particular comic over time as characters gain a stronger sense of identity and the fans come to learn various endearing qualities about each.

That said, the first comic has to be gotten out of the way at some point, so I have a first draft of a script for Strip #1.

Featured Characters: Mush, Birdbrain

Panel 1
[Mush and Birdbrain standing outside, a typical pose]
Birdbrain: So Mush, do the different color of mushroom caps mean anything?

Panel 2
[A shot of 2 unidentified mushrooms, with different colored caps]
Birdbrain: I've seen all kinds of colors, but can't find any correlation as to what they might mean.

Panel 3
[Back to Mush and Birdbrain]
Mush: I'm glad you asked.  As a wearer of a red cap, it gives me an opportunity to tell you....

Panel 4
[Mush standing tall and waving his arms, Birdbrain with a deadpan expression]
Mush: ...that McDonald's is the proud sponsor of red-capped mushrooms everywhere!

A History

So before I launch my new project, I'd like to share that which I have created in the past.  For about 2 years, I was part of an online community known as Drshnaps Productions (currently undergoing rennovations).  While there, I created 3 comics known as sprite comics, a popular form of webcomic that uses graphics from old video games.  These projects were the ones I were most dedicated to during my comic-making career.

I'll share the link to the first comic of each now, where, if you so desire, yu may view the entire series.  I'll also talk a little about the aim of each series, as none were completed.

Great Limitations

Runs 84 comics

Contains violence

In this project, I edited images from the original Mega Man games to create the characters.  The backgrounds were all created by myself to try and match the blocky style of the sprites I was working with.  Though not graphically impressive, I was pleased with how a lot of the backgrounds came out.  This series was actually one of the only ones where I outlined the plots in advance, a strategy I should have employed more often and plan to do for the new Mushroom Man series (even though they will largely be one-shot comics).

Playing God

Runs 42 comics

Contains strong language

In this project, I had an artist designing custom sprites for me, and the backgrounds came from a game known as EarthBound.  This project was meant to be a parody of the world of Pokemon, but with a deeper sense of the consequences involved in forcing creatures to battle and genetically engineering them for maximum performance.  I had big plans for this series and would enjoy getting back into writing it, but I no longer have contact with the aritst from the project.

StarShadow

Runs 19 comics

More in the model of traditional sprite comics, this comic features art exclusively from one game: Kirby and the Amazing Mirror.  This comic, for me, was more about having fun when I wanted to get away from the largely serious storylines featured in my other 2 comics running at the time.  It didn't run as long as the other comics mainly because I had no clear vision for its storyline.

So, as they say, before you move forward, you have to look back.  I'll use these former experiences of mine to help avoid the motivational pitfalls that came up during them as I move forward with the new Mushroom Man comic.

A Reunion

There was a time in my life where I was working on several comic style projects, as part of an online community (maybe I'll share those projects on here some day).  But that has probably been 4 or 5 years ago now, and I really haven't done much comic-making since.  My leisure activities have shifted pretty drastically since coming to Carthage and I just never find myself wanting to sit down, away from the exciting social landscape, and just draw/design.

But a couple of events recently have gotten me interested once again in creating a comic.  First, I took a course this past fall titled Intro to Visual Communication.  While the class itself was not that thrilling, the software we used in it, Adobe Illustrator, had some interesting functionality that I thought lended itself perfectly to comic-making.  Second, my girlfriend recently disclosed a secret love for comic books of her own.  How fortuitous!  She encouraged me to come with her to a local comic book shop, Heroes & Dreams, where I found a Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, a character I loved growing up.  Reading these comics fired up my interest in creating my own.  Third, already anticipating trying to get back into making comics, I asked for a personal scanner for Christmas.  Ask and you shall receive.

Excluding some of the original Mushroom Man comics I drew in elementary and middle school I had never really made a comic by hand.  There is enough media on the web to make entirely digital comics, which is the realm I preferred throughout high school.  And knowing that I am not a very gifted drawer, the task of returning to that medium was a daunting one.  Still, with my new scanner and new knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, I at least wanted to try.

It didn't take me long to think of what that comic should be.  My old standby, Mushroom Man.  Fairly easy to draw and with an existing base of characters to work from, it made perfect sense.  So, I recently worked on and completed a sample page of the newest rendition of Mushroom Man.  It can be seen below:

The lines are not very clean and there are things about it I wish were better, but I also think the unpolished look helps give it some style and character.  And because I am not aiming to do this professionally, producing some sort of output is more important than the added effort cleaning it up would take.

My intent with this project is not to create a "serious" comic as I depicted in the sample page.  Rather, I want to create a humorous comic, much like the other comics featured in Carthage College's newspaper, The Current.  So, my next goal is to script out and create a funny strip--and I'll do my best to document the process on here as I go.

Welcome!

Because I do not like to stare at a blank blog, I am extending a hearty welcome to any and all who might come across this little project. More posts will appear as the details of the project are outlined to me.

This blog is being created to fulfill curriculum of the GNRL 271 Teaching with Web 2.0 Technology at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI.