Looking for some advice on how to improve my comic.

[Peabody]

Hello, hello.
I started my webcomic, Peabody Comics, about a month ago, and I'm looking for some general advice on ways that I can improve anything about the comic or website before I put it up in the pitching forum.

As for a little introduction, Peabody Comics is a gag comic about a world of edible characters, mainly Peabody the pea. It's drawn and coloured completely in mspaint, which I'm not willing to change.

Any comments?

[Castle_Builder]

Hello, hello.
I started my webcomic, Peabody Comics, about a month ago, and I'm looking for some general advice on ways that I can improve anything about the comic or website before I put it up in the pitching forum.

As for a little introduction, Peabody Comics is a gag comic about a world of edible characters, mainly Peabody the pea. It's drawn and coloured completely in mspaint, which I'm not willing to change.

Any comments?

Yeah I have a comment, you probably won't like it, but I do have a comment. A couple in fact.

FIRST ~ You a) ask for ways in which you can improve "anything" your words not mine and then b) say you are "not willing to change" which ultimately means that what advice you get is absolutely useless so really what you want is for people to kiss your @$$. So, in two words my greatest advice has to be, "grow up." Or at least be honest with your agenda.

In any case . . .

SECOND ~ DON'T use mspaint. It looks like shit. It's an automatic turn off. Even if the writing is funny, take longer then 10 mins to lay out your comic. Unless this is just something "for you" and you "don't care" what other people think, which is what most people say when they get defensive about thier "art." And hey, that's fine, but seriously, there are thousands of web comics out there and most of them are really crappy. Yours just does not stand out.

I like the idea. I think it has potential. But MSPaint looks like shit. The lines are uncomfortable to look at. They are jagged and unpleasing to the eye and it looks like a 4 year old doodling with crayons.

If you did the exact same stuff in photoshop it would look cleaner and smoother and the coloring wouldn't be blotchy etc. This would make your comic much more appealing visually.

You clearly don't care about this, which makes me think your comic will never make it passed the new year.

THIRD ~ This just might be me, but I don't get it. I read about half your archives and just stopped because I didn't see the point in continuing.

I feel like either the comic has a buch of inside jokes I don't get, or its way too intellectual for me which I doubt, or it's just not really thought out that well, which might be closer to the point.

You have a cool concept in your description about a world where the "people" are edible. Explore that more. It has some amazing possabilities. I mean, look, say you're writting a story about a guy in a bar. WHY is it important that the guy is in a bar? What is it about the story that it demands that he be in the bar as opposed to gas station or a video game store?

This is how I feel about your comic. WHY is it important that these characters are edible. I REALLY liked the strip with the crane dunking the pea in chocolate. That was great. But now take it a step further. Doing strips where a pea does stuff like a person is funny up toa point but it does not explore the possabilities that there are characters that have a TOTALLY different outlook on life because they are edible.

Maybe they have a much shorter life span because they rot. Maybe they fear falling because they don't just get hurt but go splat. Maybe when they go splat they dont die but become an oozing mass like a ghost but only physically there and it makes the other uncomfprtable.

WHY is it NECESSARY that the main character is a pea? Why can't he be a dog or a person or a tree? And don't just say, "Duh uh well, cuz I like wanted him to be a pea."






On a side note. I don't know how old you are so I can't tell how much of this I would expect you to already know and understand. Your post makes me think you are really young which means really amature and thus I would not expect you to know anything cuz unfortunately you don't, which is indicated by your asking for advice and then black lining what advice you won't take. If you're older, say like 20 and up, then for shame.


EDIT:
A perfect example of what I was talking about:
http://www.reasonedcognition.com/index.html
Jump to the first strip and read the first few. The art is "poor" but it is necessary to the strip that it be poor, and the main character necessarily is what he is because if he wasn't the gags would not work. This creates an environment and personality for the character and strip that is unique. It is a "hook" that will keep readers comming back.

In anycase, I'm done talking now.

[Peabody]

Phew, Hefty comment.

As far as most of your advice goes, I hear you.
The reason I said that I'm not willing to change the medium (mspaint) is that it's part of my style. I don't plan on many people liking my comic or getting anywhere in life by making little comics, the way I look at it is it's something that I enjoy and I'm sharing it with an audience so that they may possibly enjoy and get some humour out of it, as well. I'm very willing to make improvements, like the one you mentioned about having more concepts in the comic dependent on them being edible, but I think when you lose the very basis of the style in your comic in response to the kind of style someone else would prefer, you lose the "you" put into the comic in the first place.

But thank you for your advice, there are parts you brought up that I will definitely work on.

[Kris X]

SECOND ~ DON'T use mspaint. It looks like shit. It's an automatic turn off. Even if the writing is funny, take longer then 10 mins to lay out your comic. Unless this is just something "for you" and you "don't care" what other people think, which is what most people say when they get defensive about thier "art." And hey, that's fine, but seriously, there are thousands of web comics out there and most of them are really crappy. Yours just does not stand out.

I like the idea. I think it has potential. But MSPaint looks like shit. The lines are uncomfortable to look at. They are jagged and unpleasing to the eye and it looks like a 4 year old doodling with crayons.

If you did the exact same stuff in photoshop it would look cleaner and smoother and the coloring wouldn't be blotchy etc. This would make your comic much more appealing visually.

You clearly don't care about this, which makes me think your comic will never make it passed the new year.

I beg to differ. I used MSPaint for a long time, and starting with it is not a bad idea. However, I now use GIMP which is far more easier and after using MSPaint it prepared me and gave me better control now.

So for better advice, just keep your options open. If you do decide to stick with Paint, then learn how to use it to your advantage. For example, in my comic IftP from here :

http://insanityforthepoor.keenspace.com/d/20040828.html

to here:

http://insanityforthepoor.keenspace.com/d/20040914.html

is all MSPaint. See? Just keep experimenting and please-please don't copy-paste or just lazy man scribble. It really gives us MSPainters a bad reputation as bad comic artists.

[Christwriter]

Ok. Lemme make a really lame comparison and explain why using MSpaint for the sake of a style can be kind of silly.

MSPaint is to Photoshop/Gimp/Painter/PaintshopPro what a sledhammer is to a set of carving tools. Make sense? No? Well...a sledgehammer is a great big tool used for taking large amounts of material off a larger brick of material. A set of carving tools has big tools, like a sledgehammer, to get the large amounts of waste off their carving, but then it has smaller tools for you to refine the carving down further and make your job easier. Photoshop has exactly the same tools that MSpaint does. It just has more settings for them and it has more tools on top of the tools it has in common with MSpaint.

Meaning, you can do what you're doing in MSpaint in Photoshop, or Gimp, or Painter and the only thing you'd have to do is learn where the tools went to and get used to having several thousand settings for the paintbrush. And then you can improve on it and make it a little more polished. You CAN get some very good results out of MSPaint, but by the time you do, you'll be streaching the limits of the tools about as far as they can go when you don't have to.

General advice:

Never, never, never use l33t or computer speak in a comic. No <3, no replacing-vowels-with-numbers, nothing that you could imagine confusing your Mom. If your mother could read it and understand it without struggling, it's ready for your audience. If she couldn't, then you need to replace the l33t speak with real english and try again. I know it doesn't sound very cool, but most people don't get computer speak. You only did it once, on the latest page, but for future reference don't do it again.

Don't cut and paste if the character is moving. Cut-and-paste looks lazy, even if you're not.

Add a reflection and a shadow to Peabody to let us know that he's a nice, round pea. I'd also suggest you not draw his mouth from ear to ear and instead draw a nice little smile-frown curve. Ear-to-ear makes it look like when he opens his mouth he's going to do a pac-man, and he doesn't. Giving him a little smily curve would make him very cute.

Add panel lines to the multi-panel pages. They're a bit too confusing without them.

That's most of what I have to add. I think the comic's cute, though the humor misses me a few times. If you added more detail to it, like reflections and shadows and such, and then used clearer panel markers, it'd be pretty good.

CW

[Castle_Builder]

SECOND ~ DON'T use mspaint. It looks like shit. It's an automatic turn off. Even if the writing is funny, take longer then 10 mins to lay out your comic. Unless this is just something "for you" and you "don't care" what other people think, which is what most people say when they get defensive about thier "art." And hey, that's fine, but seriously, there are thousands of web comics out there and most of them are really crappy. Yours just does not stand out.

I like the idea. I think it has potential. But MSPaint looks like shit. The lines are uncomfortable to look at. They are jagged and unpleasing to the eye and it looks like a 4 year old doodling with crayons.

If you did the exact same stuff in photoshop it would look cleaner and smoother and the coloring wouldn't be blotchy etc. This would make your comic much more appealing visually.

You clearly don't care about this, which makes me think your comic will never make it passed the new year.

I beg to differ. I used MSPaint for a long time, and starting with it is not a bad idea. However, I now use GIMP which is far more easier and after using MSPaint it prepared me and gave me better control now.

So for better advice, just keep your options open. If you do decide to stick with Paint, then learn how to use it to your advantage. For example, in my comic IftP from here :

http://insanityforthepoor.keenspace.com/d/20040828.html

to here:

http://insanityforthepoor.keenspace.com/d/20040914.html

is all MSPaint. See? Just keep experimenting and please-please don't copy-paste or just lazy man scribble. It really gives us MSPainters a bad reputation as bad comic artists.

Still . . .

I like the example "christwriter" used and I think it fits.

Let me give you another one.

You want to color something:
You have Crayons
You have Berol Prismacolor markers

The FACT is, that at the end of the day the Prismacolor markers look the best. Now yes, style can be taken into account, but only so much. Even GREAT work with crayons looks childish and poor. Where as poor work with Prismacolor markers looks good. (yes there are exceptions but this is the generality)

MSPaint is the same. Even if you are a MASTER of the program you can only go so far. It has limits. Many limits and no matter how much you want to deny it these limits ultimately dictates what your work will look like.

And no offense "Kris X" but your stuff still looks jagged and choppy. You don't want to see the pixels of a circle. You want to see a circle not a bunch of squares that kind of end up looking like a circle when put together. THAT is the problem with mspaint. It's like cave wall paintings to a canvas and oils.

If you used the same "tools" and did it in Photoshop, the SAME process but did it in Photoshop you would have a much cleaner and altogether "better" drawing.

I just don't understand how people can honestly sit as say it's a "style" choice etc. Bad artwork is bad artwork. Granted people have differing opinions and what not but ultimately mspaint is a BAD tool to use and not wanting to use a more effective program without having some sort of logical reason makes no sense to me.

This is of course just my opinion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peabody

Just wanted to say that your response to my post was mature and more understanding then I expected. (of course you could be patronizing me but meh).

When people ask for crits I tend to open the box on them because thats how I personally learn the most. Some people take offense because they take it personally. It's hard not to, as ones art IS personal, but I think you understand.

In all sincerity, good luck with your strip. I hope you keep with it and prove me wrong about not lasting through the new year.

[IVstudios]

I'll just jump in quickly to say that ANY medium can be used to create beautiful art.

(Don't belittle the crayons man. I've seen some kickass stuff done with crayons.)

And if executed well MS paint can make some really nice stuff too. Yes it will be jaggy, but some stuff looks good like that.

As for the comic, it think it's pretty interesting, weird, but interesting. And I think the art fits it nicely. I don't think it would have the same charm if it were done with Photoshop.

[Peabody]

I'm very, very new to photoshop so I don't expect it to be great, but I'm re-making #15 How Peabody Accidentally Sold Herself Into Slavery in photoshop (just as a test) with shadows, reflections, frame lines, and all that jazz. I'll post it here when I finish.

I'll make sure not to use l33t speak or copy-pasting again.

[Peabody]

Original is here: http://peabody.comicgenesis.com/d/20050916.html
(note: I made that original when I was still saving things as jpg instead of bmp or png, so pretend it's slightly better image quality.)

I only did the first three panels, stopped halfway because it was so time consuming for just a test. I probably used gradients too much and made everything too shiny, but this is only maybe the second or third time I've ever used photoshop for anything but resizing images. I also just realized that I only put ground shadows in the first panel. Oops.

So, do you think photoshop makes it that much better?

(I am pretty inexperienced with photoshop, but it just seems like I'm making a simplistic image fancy to the point of being just.. wrong. Eh..)

[Kris X]

I just don't understand how people can honestly sit as say it's a "style" choice etc. Bad artwork is bad artwork. Granted people have differing opinions and what not but ultimately mspaint is a BAD tool to use and not wanting to use a more effective program without having some sort of logical reason makes no sense to me.

If that's the way you think, I'm glad I haven't read your comic.

I believe if you're trying your hardest you're doing something, then there is NOTHING that can be labeled "bad artwork." It's people who talk like this that shoot down people in their beginnings who could possibly continue on as art gods.

MSPaint isn't the poor creator, it's the person working in it and more over it's a great program to start with. Sure there's other stuff, and I work in that now, but I wouldn't go out and label MSPaint work as BAD ARTWORK.

That is just ignorant and close-minded. You might be overlooking some great pieces. Being bias solves nothing.

[Dutch!]

What has that comment got to do with you reading his comic? Just sounds like a bit of an over reaction there.

Anyway...copy and paste, Peabody. Don't be fooled. There's a time and a place for it. Don't remove it form your arsenal completely.

[Kris X]

What has that comment got to do with you reading his comic? Just sounds like a bit of an over reaction there.

Overreaction is telling someone never to use MSPaint ever because it's all bad artwork all around. That, my friend, is overreacting.

EDIT: Just proving the point. (Must defend MSPainters. Some people just don't understand the difficulty MSPaint can give you and how much of an effort it is to use at times.) Nothing against Mr. Castle's opinion, but I'd rather people be more open-minded to new things. If that came across as an insult...Well so did your comments.

[K-Dawg]

Kris you need to calm down. Castle Builder has done nothing but give good advice in here, heck peabody even took the advice and seems to be using it. He has made good points and you do seem to be overreacting a bit.

[KittyKatBlack]

I can sympathise with KrisX in the fact that MSPaint, though lacking in the functionality and usefulness of Gimp or Photoshop, might actually help starting computer artists work on their raw skill. If someone who has little art experiance is given Photoshop right away they may tend to try to make photoshop do all the work by using filters, lensflares, and various other tools that if not used properly, can do more harm than good. More or less, if you give a new recruit a rocketlauncher on the first day, chances are he's going to end up blowing himself up.

That's just my take on the subject.

[LibertyCabbage]

Ok need to clarify something about Peabody's style (btw SHE is my little sister, lawl to everyone who assumed she's a guy =x):

Peabody can actually draw very well. She draws way better than me at least. However, she intentionally makes these silly MSPaint comics instead of utilizing her abilities. I don't get it but whatever. What I'm saying is she can do a lot better but she CHOOSES to make her comic in MSPaint. Most of the responses have been suggestions on how to make her comic look better but she's definitely capable and she wants to use MSPaint as a medium.

She should've explained this but she didn't so I had to =/ But I think it'll give a better understand of what she's doing if you consider her to be a good artist who's doing something experimental. She probably has some pics to show but she just hasn't drawn much in the last few years. It's annoying to me cuz I draw all day trying to get decent and she pwns my bones at drawing but she never does anything besides these Peabodys =/ Although it's her comic, if she wants to draw it silly then whatever.

P.S. I ask her to draw fan art for people and she always says no

WTF APPLESAUCE

[Black Sparrow]

Ok need to clarify something about Peabody's style (btw SHE is my little sister, lawl to everyone who assumed she's a guy =x):

Peabody can actually draw very well. She draws way better than me at least. However, she intentionally makes these silly MSPaint comics instead of utilizing her abilities. I don't get it but whatever. What I'm saying is she can do a lot better but she CHOOSES to make her comic in MSPaint. Most of the responses have been suggestions on how to make her comic look better but she's definitely capable and she wants to use MSPaint as a medium.

She should've explained this but she didn't so I had to =/ But I think it'll give a better understand of what she's doing if you consider her to be a good artist who's doing something experimental. She probably has some pics to show but she just hasn't drawn much in the last few years. It's annoying to me cuz I draw all day trying to get decent and she pwns my bones at drawing but she never does anything besides these Peabodys =/ Although it's her comic, if she wants to draw it silly then whatever.

P.S. I ask her to draw fan art for people and she always says no

WTF APPLESAUCE

*Gives LibertyCabbage kudos for being a cool older brother*

I have no preference on the MSPaint thing... Maybe we should start thinking about the content rather than the art, since she's not changing it?

[KittyKatBlack]

In that case, talk to Soap. She's done things with MS Paint that will make you wet yourself.

[Warofwinds]

Very reminiscent of White Ninja. Their cactus one still cracks me up. Anywho, your 1st grade journal entries are the funniest thing on this entire planet. Letter Land? Good feeling ducks?

...



Um, yeah. Not much crit, sorry. I love the banner though ^^

[LibertyCabbage]

i do what i can =/
SHE IS A PEA BECAUSE SHE IS SHORT HAHAHAHA

[Sam_Charette]

There's nothing wrong with choosing to use MSPaint, if you reallyreallyreally want to, but you have to understand that the style turns people off. Want to do a sprite comic? Some people will never touch it. Anime? Makes some people gag.

Whatever artistic choices you make will affect your readership. MSPaint does give a certain noobish quality to your work, and it's very difficult to overcome. If you can overcome it, then you're probably good enough to do some real quality work, so most people are going to look at you funny for unnecessarily limiting yourself.

As a stylistic choice, I doubt she'd be making it pretty enough for that, even if purposefully, but then you're stuck with the "it looks like all of the other crappy MSPaint comics" stigma.

Draw with MSPaint and expect people to think it looks like crap. You can try to bitch and moan about it all you want, but you're not going to change that.