Fantasy Adventure Comic

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Just found this thread and I'm really enjoying it, thank you!

Back in prehistoric times, geological map were coloured with watercolour or soft pencil rubbed smooth with a piece of kitchen towel. The early colour photocopiers we used back then were horrific for showing EVERY brush or pencil line.

I thin mini acrylics with commercial flow improver - it really does help with a smooth finish, and I've used it with heavily thinned FW inks as a kind of flat colour filter on model tanks.

I am in no sense an artist, but if you do try it, don't lick your brush. It's unpleasant stuff.
 
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You're welcome.

Liquitex inks are thinner but more prone to blobbing in a pen. But the scans always look worse to me than the originals. I dunno, after Ral Partha paints everything tastes bad so I don't lick my brush anymore.
 
I'm wondering if I should go to a 3 x 2 landscape format instead of a 2 x 3 portrait format to accommodate the web page and screens. Sometimes, landscape splash pages would be nice.

FAC35.jpg
 
That would have been quite the moment for the young wizard to run by eh? Ah well, the secret joy of avoiding text is that I haven't had to name a single character.
 
Sometimes it's really tempting to add some captions. Here particularly:

"I can end this farce with a single spell."
"No wait, I want to see this!"
"Come at me bro!"
"No fair! I wasn't ready!"
"Shaboom, shaboom, yaddada yaddada, yaddada, yaddada!"
"I want my two dollars."
"Did you want that chicken southern fried or extra crispy?"
"Lemme kill I'm boss, can I, can I, can I, huh?"
 
For this page I've shifted to water color paper. It's softer and more absorbent though with this particular page I'm not sold either way yet.

FAC45.jpg
 
And so ends another chapter. I'm not sure how I'm going forward on this. Currently it's taking 3 - 4 hours a page and, I've got other things to do. I'm thinking I might do a sharpy scribble science fiction comic in black and white. It'd go a lot better and I think I'd be happier with the art. I always think my sketches looked better than my finished work.
 
And so ends another chapter. I'm not sure how I'm going forward on this. Currently it's taking 3 - 4 hours a page and, I've got other things to do. I'm thinking I might do a sharpy scribble science fiction comic in black and white. It'd go a lot better and I think I'd be happier with the art. I always think my sketches looked better than my finished work.

You should collect it in a pdf. I bet you could find an audience, maybe even through DriveThru. It's something that would have been a hit in Dragon back in the day I think
 
I'd be very tempted to redraw the first chapter in the same style as the second. I keep thinking the art's not up to snuff. Too rushed I guess. In my experience people are more forgiving of bad artwork when it's free. The dip pen doesn't flow over the inked areas very smoothly but it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools. Another option might be to go back to the Strathmore bristol board and do it in black and white with an eventual intent to computer color it.
 
I'd be very tempted to redraw the first chapter in the same style as the second. I keep thinking the art's not up to snuff. Too rushed I guess. In my experience people are more forgiving of bad artwork when it's free. The dip pen doesn't flow over the inked areas very smoothly but it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools. Another option might be to go back to the Strathmore bristol board and do it in black and white with an eventual intent to computer color it.
I never saw any dialogue with the comic. Is it meant to be there?
 
No, my lettering isn't great so I thought I'd try doing it without text. That's partially why everything is a bit archetypical. It makes it easy to convey the story without text. Complex characters would take a very long time to convey if it could be done at all. I could write some blurbs and dialog and paste it over top of less interesting parts of panels. I don't think I'd like it aesthetically. I could also widen the space between the panels and put the text in there.
 
So, things are slow at work right now and I had an unexpected day off. Here's a comic I was thinking about that didn't quite fit into the time-line. I did the final lines with a number four brush instead of the dip pen. It's a little less control but it never snags and drops a blob of ink.

FAC51.jpg
 
Another in fill page, which should probably go before the first page of the second issue though it might fit as page two or the last page. It gives some context to the king's position during the fight in the tower. Anyone who tried to introduce their old and new friends can probably identify with his position.
FAC26.5.jpg
 
Note that the pack horse, and assorted retainers didn't fit in the panel as is common in this kind of tale.
 
There's a program called comics life by Plasq. It does lettering and captions, panels. It certainly let's us poor amateurs produce something that looks more like a comic (I think it's about £10, maybe £20).
 
I keep thinking about doing text, I just don't really think it adds anything. Take the current page:

Ahmahla the warrior woman of Tzoldria and her paramour took their leave of King Godwyn and rode south west towards Sir Marcus's ancesteral home. There beneath the shadowy oaks the ancient manor house mouldered in the summer sun. Lila, the good knight's sister, upon seeing them set aside her studious avoidance of the loom and thimble and leapt the fence joyfully racing to met her beloved brother after his months long months.
 
I like it without text - pure visual storytelling
 
Me too.

I think it's archetypical enough that "The Young Knight" is sufficient. "Sir Marcus of Evenrude" doesn't really contribute too much unless I'm looking to trademark characters or something.
 
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