sigune | More test thingies

I am, as you know, very busy experimenting with all sorts of techniques for the final version of the comic. Below are two pages from the storyboard that I used for testing Photoshop stuff on. The first page has been coloured digitally (it's Nekkid Ygraine from page 66, so you may possibly not want to click it at work, even though she's just sleeping, I dunno); the second one has been lettered digitally with a free font from Blambot.

Please let me know what you think!

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I coloured this in a very simple way, and relatively quickly. The result is not too bad, I think. But next, I tried to colour the page below and soon discovered that everything gets really complicated and time-consuming once there are several frames on one page :/. Part of the troubles originated from my use of vector paths as panel frames. I won't need to *draw* frames in Photoshop in the final version, so that's a bit of mess I wouldn't have to worry about, but still: my skills are not quite up to scratch.

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I rather like this font. It's not difficult to letter in Photoshop, and to be honest, I kind of enjoy getting neat letters in neat lines. I never draw lines when I hand-letter, just because it's too much of a bore. But the result tends to be a little bit ... well ... amateurish :). But ... do you like the digital version?

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Yes, I do.

Thank you for this straight answer :D!

The digital letters are fine, but they look like many letters in comics do. Your own letters are more individual.

Well ... yes. As an amateur calligrapher, I like writing, too. But this is very convenient. It's easy to correct mistakes, for example :). I also think that for web publishing, digital fonts are simply easier to read...

I do like the font! It's crisp and very familiar, of course, because it's so comic-book-looky. ;) The digital coloring is interesting and I'm excited to see what else you do!

Thank you for supporting me :)!

I tried a few fonts, but this came out as the most readable, and I like how it is designed too. It will look nicer in print than on screen, I think.

Maybe I really should follow the digital colour route. It has the advantage of keeping the inked/pencilled pages intact, and it would be technically possible to have two versions: b/w for the b/w lovers, and colour for the colour lovers. So far, though, my digital skills aren't up to scratch. Though I am thinking that if I colour all panels individually and then paste them together, that might actually be easier to manage than colouring an entire page. Hm. Clearly, there's more testing ahead :).

I also like your hand lettering, which makes it look unique rather than amateurish. :-) I like the digital font, too. My only concern is with words like 'withering' in the first pane, 'you' in the second panel and 'happens' in the third: I can't tell if they're just wobbly or they're meant to be in italics. The words that are bolded and in italics stand out better.

I also like the coloured panel. That looks great.

I like both examples. I didn't answer to your earlier post about the colour examples with Morgana, as I had already written something on the webcomic, but didn't someone suggest sticking to monochrome and having the odd coloured, larger image or highlight? Anyway, that is what would come to mind right now for me. I love your monochrome style very much, and the lettering example above is to my eyes just perfect like this, and would do great like this or in the maximum with some coloured highlights. The coloured panel is great like this, too, the colouring works very well and is very comic-styled, I think.
As to the letters: the digital lettering looks very good and also very familiar ;o). I must confess that in general, I prefer not-handwritten lettering in comics, except when it's extremely clear, as I often have difficulties deciphering it. It's all right if it's in my first language, but if I read a comic in French or English, it can get difficult, particularly with unknown words or names; even though I'm fluent in both languages.

Just took a break reading your comment on my comment on Morgana's colouring: now comparing it to the examples here, I must add that I would love the pencilled colouring in, ay, a picture book/illustrated book, but for a comic the more intense colouring like hiere probably works better. But I also findt that it's very, very difficult to answer objectively. I'm still seeing everything you draw as an "isolated" work of art and evaulate it like this, not a part of a larger project *g*.

You know, that is one of the difficulties for me too. It's one thing to judge a standalone image, but another to imagine what a page full of this kind of images will look like. That's why I think I can't be sure until I have made an entire page by way of test. That makes testing rather time-consuming, but it seems best to do it now, rather than when I'm well into the story. *g*

I like hand-lettered comics myself, but the most important thing about a font is that you can read it without problems, I would say. It seems to me that for on-screen reading, that issue is even more poignant. I tried a few fonts that would be perfectly fine in print, but weren't that comfy on screen. Since the comic's primary form is going to be that of a web comic, I feel that it is of major importance that its font is soft on the web reader's eyes.

I'm in for a trial-and-error process here, also with the colouring. The trick will be to make the best compromise between screen, print, skill and time management. Quite a few elements to take into account, heh...

In this case, I'd stick to the Red State, Blue State for the speech bubbles. The ale&wenches for captions could work well, but I'm afraid I can't judge from my imagination only. It's my experience form other medias, mainly fanfictoin or generally writing, that screenreaders tend to be hasty consumers who want to have it easy. And it's certainly wise to take the reflections you mention into consideration for the webcomic.

Thanks! Colouring this one thingy has already taught me a few things - such as that I need to keep track of the sequence of my layers. It's probably best to work from the background up... If only I could predict how quickly (or not) I will learn to use Photoshop!

As I said to Valis, above, digital colours would allow me to cater to two audiences because they make it possible to have a colour version while keeping my inks intact. (I think that the simple technique I used in this test would work better with inks than pencils.) But as it is now, if I manage to make something decent-looking in Photoshop, it's more a case of beginner's luck than a result of skill :/.

You are right about the italics. I bolded all the words in italics in another file, but I forgot to replace this jpeg. It's something I have to keep in mind for this font.

Colour looks OK, but I'm not terribly thrilled by it. Can't really say why, I don't think it's something technical.
The lettering is great. I figured Blambot would be the thing, and that looks about how I prefer lettering to look.

Be seeing you

Yep :).

As for the colour, you know I'm not likely to produce anything particularly thrilling. 'Acceptable' would already be something :/.

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