Critique on comic, please?

[Chaoticneutral]

Any general comments on how I can improve things would be greatly appreciated. Specifically on the design of the website, the writing, and the photoshop effects (I don't draw it, I just write it and pretty up the drawings in photoshop). I did just find some neat tutorials on coloring and photoshopping in general in these forums, so I'll be giving them a try next time around.
Thanks

[Jen_Babcock]

Any general comments on how I can improve things would be greatly appreciated. Specifically on the design of the website, the writing, and the photoshop effects (I don't draw it, I just write it and pretty up the drawings in photoshop). I did just find some neat tutorials on coloring and photoshopping in general in these forums, so I'll be giving them a try next time around.
Thanks

Personally, I would go easy on the Photoshop until you get a better grasp on how to use it. At this point I think it's more important for you to improve your drawing skills rather than your photoshops skills as well. I recommend some life drawing or drawing from books. I think you'll get a better grasp of anatomy and form that way.

I don't particularly like the background textures in the comi- I think it looks TOO Photoshoppy and does not blend in w/ the rest of your art very well. I would practice your textures by hand.

Your writing is fine for now, and will improve as you keep going. My only critique is that some comics could stand to be more concise.

[Kris X]

I'm with Jen on the texture...Personally I find texture using show laziness. Plus it looks poor when everything else is drawn.

Jpeg saving compresses odd and gets fuzzy. Try saving in PNG format and it will look sharper and clean.

If anything else, keep playing around with Photoshop and practice, practice, practice. You will improve if you practice.

[Chaoticneutral]

I definetly see your point(s) on the background textures. I'll see what I can do about getting my artist to give me some backgrounds to work with. Heh, I suppose it probably is rather too soon to get much more than that for commentary on the comic. If anybody has any advice on how to make drawing go faster, I suppose that would be about the most helpful thing right now. Though I don't suppose there's terribly much that can be said on that point, either. Thanks for your help. I'll probably be back here when the comic is a bit more established.

[Jen_Babcock]

The only way to make drawing go faster is to practice.

Or cut and paste frames, but I'm not an advocate of that at all (unless it works for that particular comic)

[[AlmightyPyro]]

Not too bad. Same with the B/G texture. If you ever don't want to draw a Back ground, make it blend well, I like to use a gradient that fits to the mood of that comic page, and I stick with that. never constantly switch between backgrounds unless there's a purpose.

I have no comment on writing because I just skimmed through it.

My main issue though seems to be the site itself. For some reason I'm not liking the bottom heavy page. skinny title, then comic then alotta crap at the bottom. Mybe try and putting that navigation at the top or something. I don't know, I think you just need to 'even it out' more, if that makes since.

EDIT: One thing I also noticed, you seem to have alot of big name sites in you links. I don't really know the rules to this or anything but did you ask to link to them or anything. Like I said, I'm not saying its bad or anything I just don't think I've seen anyone linked to HomeStar and such.

[Gengar003]

... The tagboard makes popups.

Try a saybox instead?

The more you do by hand, the better it will be UNTIL you're a photoshop PRO.

'least that's what I say.

[Chaoticneutral]

Not too bad. Same with the B/G texture. If you ever don't want to draw a Back ground, make it blend well, I like to use a gradient that fits to the mood of that comic page, and I stick with that. never constantly switch between backgrounds unless there's a purpose.

I have no comment on writing because I just skimmed through it.

My main issue though seems to be the site itself. For some reason I'm not liking the bottom heavy page. skinny title, then comic then alotta crap at the bottom. Mybe try and putting that navigation at the top or something. I don't know, I think you just need to 'even it out' more, if that makes since.

EDIT: One thing I also noticed, you seem to have alot of big name sites in you links. I don't really know the rules to this or anything but did you ask to link to them or anything. Like I said, I'm not saying its bad or anything I just don't think I've seen anyone linked to HomeStar and such.

As far as my website, I actually used to have the links and tagboard (will be switching to sayboard soon, thanks gengar) up surrounding the comic, but that was a little crowded (and required 1024X768 or so res.) I wanted to shift the focus more toward the comic, and put all the other unnecissaries (rant, tagboard, links, etc.) down out of focus under the comic. I could play with putting the tagboard or links or something up beside the comic again, but the top of the page is only skinny if you're using hi-res and have the browser taking up the whole screen. I was trying to go for a more scaleable page, but I guess I didn't think about how that would look on hi-res machines. Thanks for the advice, though. I'll play with it some more, see what I can do. There's also some content on the bottom part of the page (mainly a java applet I've got there) that I've been planning on moving to a secondary page.
As far as the links go, at this point they're really just substitutes for putting all the stuff I check on a regular basis in my bookmarks (it's just slightly more convinient for me). If/when I get any kind of regular readership, I'll probably change that, but at the moment they're more for me than anybody else (as with the rest of the site/comic, but I'm trying to change that). And if you find out for sure that I shouldn't have those links on there, please let me know and I'll be sure to take them down.

Thanks for the advice.

[Mo]

As for the website design, I'd like to point out that the combination of that purple-blue with that green tone hurts my eyes. The green and the light yellow look fine together, but the blue tone just seems... wrong in that combination. Maybe try a darker shade of the same green color instead? The fewer different color tones you use in your webdesign, the better.

[Chaoticneutral]

As for the website design, I'd like to point out that the combination of that purple-blue with that green tone hurts my eyes. The green and the light yellow look fine together, but the blue tone just seems... wrong in that combination. Maybe try a darker shade of the same green color instead? The fewer different color tones you use in your webdesign, the better.

I see what you mean about the green being too bright. The only darker option that I have in the html color palatte is rather too dark, in my opinion. I've made the switch (for now), so you can go see what it looks like if you want, but I'll probably either switch back or find some other solution in the near future. I know I want to keep the purple background, and I am quite fond of the purple/green color combination in general (and as a background for my webcomic in particular) but, unfortunately internet standards don't give me much to work with. Without majorly redesigning my site, I will have to keep the three-color theme (including the text color). I have taken the yellow out of everything but the text, so hopefully it won't get in the way so much. I'll keep playing with it, and see what I can come up with.
Thanks for the advice.

[Zanzarra]

What do you mean "the only alternative in the html color palette is too dark" ? Aren't you using hexadecimal numbers?

[Mo]

I don't like the new color combo that much either... I made a few samples for you to understand what I'm talking about.

Sample 1 -> The green I was talking about to begin with
Sample 2 -> The purple (this one I like the least, but it's still friendlier to the eye than your current colors imo)
Sample 3 -> A slightly brighter version where I played with a three color combo
Sample 4 -> This is the most neutral one, I like it the best because with a header like that, all the other color combos still look like color overload to me in a way.
(hosted on imageshack)

Just my 50 cents. If you want to use any of the above color combinations (that's of course totally up to you), I'll give you the hexcode to use for your webdesign.

And that's all.

[DGC]

Overall, I like it. Some of it made me laugh, other jokes I didn't get, but that was probably because they were targeted at a certain audience. The pattern on the kilt is kind of cheap looking because it goes in it's own direction, and is an obvious PS texture. It sort of works for now in a cheap south park kind of way, but as the art progresses, you'll probably end up discarding that method.

As for the backgrounds, one of the cheats I abuse constantly is going out with my digital camera and taking pics that are approximately what the background will be. Then I do the typical pallette knife/blur fx in paint shop pro to blend it with the art. I find it looks better than just using the built in textures in graphics programs.