GIVEAWAY! Makin’ comics!

Thought I’d make a comprehensive comicsy blog post, for those budding graphics enthusiasts! Comics don’t need to be sexy/erotic (you heard it here first), they can just be fun one-page stories! Yay!

3D stuff

• If you want to do it in 3D, here’s how I do it
• Giveaway: Templates are below  ↓

I mean sure, they can be sexy too, that’s fine as well. Depends on your own personal story, doesn’t it?

Process
I use a different animation timeline frame within Poser for each rendered frame, which means I can retrace my steps if I need to re-render something. I send a batch of renders to Poser’s render Queue (a great tool that comes with Poser, that probably nobody uses), which I can leave to render overnight. Then I put them in the page template ~ using either Photoshop, or Affinity Photo (which is cheaper and has some very cool features) ~ and add speech bubbles 🙂

Fonts and Templates
Fonts I use: Market Deco for major titles, Back Issues for speech text and Badaboom for sound effects. Pick two or three fonts (maximum) and stick to them, I reckon.

Templates make page creation much quicker – the more you standardise layout and proportions and file naming, the faster you’ll be! On the right are a few PNGs of the page template I use – click it and save the full-size version (it’s black on a transparent background …) – just stick the renders behind the black lines layer and BOOM! Your first Sindy Anna Jones comic! Duplicate the black lines if you want the page layout to get more complex – some comics have like ten images per page, mine tend to have two or three (because I’m lazy). Which brings me on to …

Laziness

Don’t be afraid to cut corners. Heck, this is only graphics, it’s not like you’re someone’s electrician or fixing the brakes on someone’s rocket ship – the principle of ‘good enough’ definitely applies here. If it looks good from one angle, don’t worry about the other angles. I also make lots of little mistakes and cover them with a bit of photoshopping; that’s much quicker than sorting it all out in the 3D scene and making everything perfect.

I also use macros in Photoshop or Affinity – to create my speech bubbles. So I select where I want to create the speech bubble, then hit the Macro, and it fills the speech bubble in black, then reduces the selection by 3 pixels, then fills the remains in white … hey presto! Speech bubble. Saves me about 15 clicks, makes everything quicker.

Subtlety
This is what everyone normally gets wrong. Be subtle. Expressions, poses, subtlety’s what it’s all about. Pay attention to every finger, every slight eyebrow-raise. Make expressions asymetrical and subtle – because that’s how faces work.

In that kissing example pictured, Laryn is pointing at the graphic on the wall that she’s about to reference – probably nobody spots these sorts of tiny Easter Eggs, but heck it’s how I work and it’s fun 🙂

Theme
Some people work off a theme. I start with the Star Trek universe (ish; the 0HB lore involves the crew inspiring the start of the Federation but it all kinda fits together), but everything I’ve written has also fitted within the Space Trek Fleet Wars universe too – because I loved those comics and I thought I’d fit my stuff in. You can do this too!

Fit your stories in with Battlestar Galacticca or Star Wars or Buffy or whatever, it’s so fun! Heck, join in with Space Trek Fleet Wars, it’s easy to put in those Easter Eggs >>>>>>

Finally, a little tiny word of warning:
I started with the desire to get good at 3d and maybe work through a few ideas, and I’m glad I did because it has been helpful in my life (to process a few things); but then it’s also been risky; there’s a fine line between hobby and obsession.

I decided I would never make content which dishonoured either men nor women, which fuelled neither misogyny nor misandry. And that decision has guided my work for years, and it has led me to understand equality and my own real-life relationships in a better way. So your early decisions are important.

Don’t do it:
If all you want to do is create a booby female character and tear her apart and create gruesome scenes of destruction with her as the pinata in your misogynist rant work, do me a favour: don’t.

Don’t do it. That won’t help your issues, it will make them worse and that message will affect others online. You’ll become increasingly addicted to your own (and others’) dead-end pornos. It will affect your relationships: firstly with yourself, then with all … other … humans. Destruction might feel cathartic, but it is also a bit of a warning flag within you: seek help to address root anger issues or it’ll get worse.

I mean … working through the trauma stuff is part of getting free, for sure, but if you’re then posting it online then you’re maybe contributing to something rather than solving something, know what I mean? We need to be careful what we contribute to, is all.

Fun hobbies are fun!

Destructive hobbies are destructive!

How we play with our toys is important!

… here are some happy things:

 

 

 

 

(playing with dongers)

(playing with outfits)

 

(playing with memes)

 

 

 

(^ completely unintentional copying of this True Lies scene haha)

 

 

(^ I managed to get this onto Urban Dictionary! hahahaha!)

 

(Just a lighting test …)

(… oh myyyy … why did I delete this character?!!! WHYYYY)

Ah well, too late. RAINBOWS FOR EVERYONE!