/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.4533351]

ITT : Webcomic advice

Hey. I make a webcomic. It generally gets panned as being a pile of steaming shit, so I was wondering if we can workshop it a little to make some long term improvements.

I'm not going to completely overhaul the art style in one go and I'm not going to stop making comics for months while I upskill. I just want a path to making it better over time.

Any thoughts or ideas of where I should focus on improving would be appreciated. Feel free to draw all over this image to illustrate your points - I think I learn better when there is something to look at. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.4533371]

Seems fine

[Sage No.4533383]

>>4533351
Shill

[Anonymous No.4534199]

>>4533351
>It generally gets panned as being a pile of steaming shit
does it? do you mean elsewhere or just on 4chan?

[Anonymous No.4534217]

>>4533351
well, that looks great, you just need to find your audience, also NEVER take advice from 4chan, I saw sick webcomics on /co/ getting trash'd for trolls and the artists believe that trolls are saying the truth, fucking ridiculous

[Anonymous No.4534225]

>>4534217
Always do the opposite of what /ic/ says

[Anonymous No.4534226]

>>4533351
With webcomics and comics in general story/action is much more critical than quality of the art. As long as the art clearly conveys the story, which your art does, it should be okay. Now if the story is a steaming pile of shit than no amount of art skill will help you.

[Anonymous No.4534228]

>>4534225
Including this advice?

[Anonymous No.4534977]

>>4533351
The problem isn't the art its that you need to improve your joke writing. Like with comic for example, I get it, but it's not that funny. It's just a mild pun and the characters just kinda stand there and talk at each other.

[Anonymous No.4535004]

>>4533351
smbc makes truckloads of money, so there's no problem with your art being a steaming pile of shit as long as you're funny/interesting

>>4533383
this

[Anonymous No.4535015]

>>4533351
You found so much jokes based around swords I'm honestly impressed. Your webcomic is fine anon

[Anonymous No.4535107]

>>4535015
Kek. I like this one.

[Anonymous No.4535129]

>>4533351
I love Harpe the lake knight

[Anonymous No.4535134]

>>4535015
this one is good

[Anonymous No.4535168]

>>4534199
Mostly /co/, Reddit and Imgur, but yeah, people complain that the art/jokes/writing aren't quite good enough all the time. I'm always working on a bit of a time crunch, it's not my full time job or anything, so I guess I'm really hoping for some small insights to do things more efficiently?

>>4534217
/co/ generally dislikes my comic, yes.

>>4534226
The story is a steaming pile of shit. But I'm trying to work on that by focusing on fewer characters now.

>>4534977
As an example, do you think this comic would have been significantly better if the third panel was the Salt Knight being lit on fire and the "I've bought a friend to spice things up" line was in the last panel? I think I see what you're getting at.

>>4535015
Thankyou. I just don't want it to get stale or anything, so if I can make "fine" in to "good", that would be... good!

[Anonymous No.4535194]

>>4535168
>/co/ generally dislikes my comic, yes.
It's one of the best webcomic I've seen honestly. I especially love the callbacks you've been doing.
/co/ loves trash like "scali schoolie" or anything as long as it's contrarian, honestly.

[Anonymous No.4535372]

>>4535015
I laughed

[Anonymous No.4537236]

>>4533351
How you guys drow in the paper your idea?

[Anonymous No.4537245]

>>4537236
Starting with a written script helps a lot

[Anonymous No.4537265]

>>4535194
this is cute

[Anonymous No.4537285]

>>4533351
>It generally gets panned as being a pile of steaming shit
I've never seen it get panned on /ic/. It's good anon, I like your comic. However it is true that I am not very likely to visit your site because it is just "fine" mostly because of the art, I think you can be a bit "cooler" with the aesthetic since it is about swords after all.

[Anonymous No.4537745]

I've seen and enjoyed some of your comics already. Tbh only aspect that bothers me is the sometimes overly simplistic artstyle. Not that you need extra complicated backgrounds and such, but you'd benefit greatly from having more "set" scenes, more coherent backgrounds etc. The whole idea of your webcomic is good, it's all about swords. You could just add a level of eyecandy by shapening a little bit your universe and making its settings more coherent.

Idk you could start fleshing out some more props details, vegetation, variety of backgrounds, characters, etc.

K6bd comes to mind, that one webcomic with the dirty jokes set in medieval times got it right too.

[Anonymous No.4537937]

>>4537285
The art style has changed a bit over time, I don't know if you're specifically referring to the early stuff which was a bit simpler, but I can keep 'cool' in mind more. A lot of the really popular episodes are visually very simple though, because it makes it easier to process the joke. There is a give and take, I feel.

>>4537745
The vertical shape of the panels doesn't really lend itself well to huge, sprawling fantasy landscapes, but I see what you mean. I can see how that is a draw card for people wanting to invest in the world-building side of things. Maybe I'll think about having more double-panel spreads to occasionally flesh that out a bit?

[Anonymous No.4538119]

>>4537245
Do you have one?

[Anonymous No.4538335]

Lol yeah I have no idea why we insult you so hard on co I like our comic but to be fair it is worse then any of the other webcomics that get update threads so it must be pushback that you shill yourself there I mean many big name comics don't get brought up at all and you post alongside threads for unsounded and ksbd not much market for comedy there anyway don't expect love on 4 chan

[Anonymous No.4538568]

>>4533351
this is humor targeted for people who are over the age of 70
just write better, theres no issue with the art it's entirely your content

[Anonymous No.4539398]

>>4533351
>Hey. I make a webcomic. It generally gets panned as being a pile of steaming shit

Are you kidding? I follow r/comics and I love Swords. It's perfect.

[Anonymous No.4539406]

>>4535194
Do some more of this, OP. Judging by the webcomic generals, /co/'s opinion isn't worth much.

[Anonymous No.4540447]

Op, its a well established fact in history that /co/ is full of shit.
Do you remember the pony wars? I was there, i can confirm you its all true.
Your comic is fine, don't worry. Shill yourself a bit and you'll get more views

[Anonymous No.4540456]

/co/ is shit but they're not wrong to pan your comic. To me it comes across as inferior oglaf, you can't do much with thousands of four panel comics about swords. I also remember you to be an annoying shilling faggot.

[Anonymous No.4540462]

>>4538568
I'm not aware of a single reader in their 70s.

>>4539398
Thanks buddy. But could it be... MORE perfect?

>>4540447
I dunno man, I've been going to /co/ forever and it's all a blur to me. I'm not explicitly here to prove /co/ wrong or anything, I just want to get some ideas about how I can make better comics. People on /co/ got angry and told me to start over once I had better material/talent/timing/etc because they live in a mental prison where you keep redrawing the first 5 pages of your dream comic and quitting. I've tried that method with other comic ideas and it's obviously not how it works in the real world.

[Anonymous No.4540466]

>>4540456
>co/ is shit but they're not wrong to pan your comic.
Yeah, that's why I'm here asking for advice. I'm not going to abandon the series as a whole because its too similar to Oglaf, but if I need to do more to set it apart, sure, that is advice I can work with.

[Anonymous No.4540482]

>>4533351
I've seen a lot of your stuff on /co/. Overall you have some pretty funny ideas for comics but the impact gets a little lost because of framing and composition.
>>4537937
For example the flow is a bit off because of the third panel here. The relation between the two characters is unclear and doesn't read immediately. If the lady is taking the sword from the tongue man, then show that.
A lot of panels in your comic seem like they have the characters super close to the camera and bunched up against the edges of the frame. A lot of the swords end up looking like theyre drawn short or held super close against the characters' bodies just to fit in the frame.
I say don't be afraid to pull back and show more of your characters and backgrounds in your comics. If you can do that, then you can play around with framing things in ways that are clearer and funnier.
You're also using a pretty thick line weight which compresses the space in your drawings and limits your ability to make things smaller in the frame.

[Anonymous No.4541223]

>>4540462
>Thanks buddy. But could it be... MORE perfect?

I don't know. I've read all "CDI" of them over the last year.

Swords hits me with lots of feels, because it's successfully pure to its form and I enjoy all the references to classic RPGs. It's virtually un-corrupted by modern politics and other bs. This strip would have been wildly successful in the back section of TSRs Dragon magazine right along with Larry Elmore's SnarfQuest

I like that Swords is consistent in style and tone: always a lighthearted (sometimes absurd) little moment in the day.

I'd say one thing you could do is more occasional episodics. Oglaf does a pretty good job with those sometimes.

[Anonymous No.4541984]

>>4535168
>imgur
Ignore those anon, they're genuine normalfags, to the point where the jokes would go over their heads

[Anonymous No.4542047]

Dude your comics great, I think maybe you've hit the point where there's diminishing returns on the sword jokes though so might be time to try and move to a different kind of way to tell the story

But honestly man your comic impresses the shit out of me and as a dude thats made 0 progress towards doing anything with my comic ideas i dont really feel like anything i say means a whole bunch here

[Anonymous No.4542279]

Tl;dr:
>/co/ is trash as usual
>your art is fine, beware of crabs
>The bad ones are not that bad and the good ones are great
You've made it OP, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Once people start reposting your comics know that you've become famous

[Anonymous No.4542722]

>>4540482
>finally, some good fucking food

Just to verify that I am actually here for some advice, I followed yours and pulled further back on one of my panels. It involved redrawing the whole thing with thinner lineart, but it was worth the extra effort. Thankyou.
A lot of the reason I'm here is to set better standards for myself now that I'm working at a higher resolution than I was before.

>>4541223
I'd like to do longer plotlines released all at once sometimes, but it just requires a bit of extra time and energy. It is something I think about all the time. The Kronar the Barbarian storyline was great.

>>4541984
>>4542279
I'm not focusing too hard on the haters. I just wanna make good shit.

>>4542047
It's that sort of juggle where you have to treat every comic as someones first episode. Sometimes I make jokes that just happen to have a swordsman in them and I usually get called out if the sword isn't the subject matter of the joke. Can't win 'em all. But I suppose I can try other kinds of jokes before I start repeating too many old ones.

[Anonymous No.4543668]

>>4542722
I like the new, the old was too cramped

I noticed when drawing out of the frame, I tend to construct my stuff better. You should give it a try

[Anonymous No.4543695]

>>4533351
Was that supposed to be funny? If not, what the point of the strip?

[Anonymous No.4543700]

>>4543695
I dunno man, you tell me. Post some webcomics you enjoy.

[Anonymous No.4543713]

>>4534228
Especially this advice.

[Anonymous No.4543717]

>>4543700
I'm not much into webcomics, but I do read sometimes oglaf, stonetoss, and order of the stick.

[Anonymous No.4543732]

>>4535168
Honestly this is a lot better than most amateur webcomics I see floating around. Sounds to me like /co/ is just envious because they all suck and reddit has no sense of humor so they don't matter.

[Anonymous No.4543798]

>>4533351
I have told you the same thing on 4chan, on imgur, everywhere you pop up. Your schtick is fucking boring. It isn’t your art, your jokes, your delivery, your creativity, all that is fine. Stop making comics about swords. Sword jokes/humor/situations were great the first few comics I suppose, never found them that funny, but there was novelty. Now it’s just so boring that I immediately avoid your comics if ever I come across them. I don’t give a shit how you manage to bludgeon in a sword, I never see a new comic of yours that makes me feel like there is any creativity left. It’s like Nathan Pyle’s strange planet. Pretty good premise, but got stale as the artist clearly was running low on ideas and just had to shoehorn the jokes in. Keep the fantasy, whatever. It’s done to death, but fresh takes are always welcome. Write a goddamn story, have a plot to some comics. There is so much you can do, if you just let go of the fucking idea that all 9000 of your comics have to be centered around a sword.
Honestly, I question whether or not you actually give a shit about our input. I have said this to you before as nicely and constructively as I could, and I’ve seen many other people offer their two cents, and I’ve never seen any changes that people have suggested. If you just wanna keep doing you, cool, at the end of the day, it’s nobody’s art to change but your own, and you have your ideas and convictions. But why the hell come asking for critiques if you promptly throw them in the trash? You ask for input and opinions all the time, using new platforms, etc. Do you actually give a shit and want to change it, or are you just posting links to your material in hopes that it’ll start to spread if you plug it enough?

[Anonymous No.4543962]

>>4543798
Lmaoooo OP just got BTFO

[Anonymous No.4543979]

>>4543798
Like I outlined in the original post, I'm not looking for the kind of feedback you're offering. "I never enjoyed them, drop the sword shtick, do long-form story-telling" isn't constructive criticism, it's asking for me to throw everything out and do something else entirely.

It's like walking in to McDonalds and throwing a fit because you can't order the lobster. I'm not the bad guy because you want all artists to make Sandman.

[Anonymous No.4543995]

>>4533351
Hey OP, like I've said before, you need to take a comedy class and creative writing course or something. But you're not going to accept this, will you?

Also please learn composition. You can learn it by thumbnailing out shots from movies or shows. You could watch something with well composed shots and pause it when it's interesting, or you could check out screengrabs and just shit some out every once in a while.

Read framed ink and Scott Robertson's books on comics.

Idk what other effort I really want to put into you, since you never give us the same effort into at least active listening and accepting some of the really good crits you've gotten. :( If your attitude changed I might care more to give thorough advice and be nice about it.

[Anonymous No.4543997]

>>4543995
>Scott McCloud's books on comics
I had a brain fart sorry

[Anonymous No.4544035]

>>4543995
>Scott Robertson's books on comics
Would unironically read.

[Anonymous No.4544066]

>>4533351
My take on the joke

[Anonymous No.4544508]

>>4544066
Not bad but kind of a different joke

[Anonymous No.4544534]

>>4544066
>>4544508
Although first 2 panels are much more colourful than OP's so I give you that being a straight up improvement

[Art docs No.4544952]

>>4543979
You said literally none of that in the OP, fuckhead. Furthermore, as I had pointed out in my post, you don’t wanna change your formula, then go ahead and do you. But you didn’t just come here and say “hey, how do I improve my drawing skills?” Did you? Don’t come on here whining about your comic not being liked by most people and asking how to fix it, then saying “lol no” when people tell you why it’s boring. Remember a good while ago when your comics were being front paged on imgur? I wonder why nobody upvotes, posts, or shares your comics anymore. Is it because the focus on your comics is far too narrow, leaving you with bland, boring material after you’ve burned through all your decent ideas? No! It’s just your art style, surely! Maybe if you frame your shit ideas as if Denis Villeneuve made them, people will like them more!

Nobody gave a shit about your artistic capabilities when you were still a novelty, I assure you they still don’t care. You’re good enough to make a comic series. Gary fucking Larson made a boatload of money off of some of the shittiest drawings ever, because he had ideas. Stop trying to shill your boring comic all over the internet. You reached popularity, didn’t keep up with your fan base, and fizzled out. Maybe next week you can make a comic about a sword that does people’s’ tax returns.

[Anonymous No.4544969]

>>4544952
I've already done a comic about a sword that can do peoples tax returns. Also one of my comics was on the front page of Imgur yesterday.

[Anonymous No.4544975]

>>4543995
I tried looking on YouTube for 'how to write comedy' and I couldn't find much. If anyone knows a good one, link me.

I have Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics but I've only read a bit of the second one. I'll put some time aside when I can and actually finish them.

[Anonymous No.4544987]

>>4544952
>>4544969
>You reached popularity, didn’t keep up with your fan base, and fizzled out. Maybe next week you can make a comic about a sword that does people’s’ tax returns.
>I've already done a comic about a sword that can do peoples tax returns.
kek

[Anonymous No.4544990]

>>4544969
>>4544987
Yeah, I'm thinking the artist is based

[Anonymous No.4545002]

>>4535194
>inb4 loss edit

[Anonymous No.4545312]

I'd love to see you try some actual page composition. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Look at the paneling variations between pages of Oglaf for example.

McCloud tells us that panel size and placement can be used to control the sense of time on a page, and in comedy, timing is everything. Allowing yourself to change up the compositions of your pages would add additional kick to your joke delivery and help keep things from getting stale, while also letting you stay true to your niche.

[Anonymous No.4545518]

>>4535129
last panel completely destroys what the previous 3 panels built.

[Anonymous No.4547097]

>>4535168
>/co/ generally dislikes my comic, yes.
Well /co/ is an irredeemable tumblr shithole so whatever they hate is automatically amazing.

[Anonymous No.4548476]

>>4545312
For long form story telling, that's obviously the way to go, but Swords is made to be shared and stuff - I think unless I changed to landscape like Oglaf, there's less real estate to shuffle things around.

I've definitely read that stuff from Scott McCloud. Something I can probably get better at before I start the epic story-driven series everyone keeps yelling at me to make, maybe.

[Anonymous No.4548639]

>>4548476
it doesnt have to be long-form. you can still make pages with 4-ish panels, just try to do more interesting shit with them instead of composing every single page exactly the same. They wouldn't be any less shareable either. you just sound like you're making excuses

[Anonymous No.4551383]

>>4548639
Don't get me wrong, its good advice. Maybe for longer episodes like I did with Swords #100, but not for my regular releases.

[Anonymous No.4551922]

this whole thread has me in hysterics.

I've actually never liked the swords comic because of its format (so strict and blocky, never any variation in panel size or even perspective, really) but I must admit the comics posted in this thread made me chuckle. keep it up, OP. you've got a pretty good webcomic, good job yadda yadda.

keep it as is or just make a new one with a different format. doesn't have to be longform, I'd just like to see you work differently proportioned panels lol

[Anonymous No.4551943]

>>4533351
i see your comics on reddit all the time and everybody likes them, fuck off shill

[Anonymous No.4554604]

I like them OP, keep it up

[Anonymous No.4554818]

Is this a "hows your webcomic" general?

[Anonymous No.4554822]

>>4554818
Cuz I'm trying to bang out a couple of them but they're not gaining momentum (because I'm not grinding hard enough I guess)

[Anonymous No.4554827]

>>4554822

[Anonymous No.4554847]

>>4554827
I think I need another page between these two to introduce both Shuma Gorath and Doctor Strange

[Anonymous No.4555064]

>>4554847
not really feeling the hierarchy in this one. you could easily split this into two or even three pages

[Anonymous No.4555121]

>>4533351
i honestly really like your comics dude, there's some hit or miss jokes here and there but for the most part i have a bit of a laugh with it. This one was kind of a miss for me, but like >>4535015 said you impress me with how much jokes you can do around swords
/co/ is trash my dude, there used to be a general for Questionable Content ffs, they praise shit comics all the time, don't sweat it

[Anonymous No.4555130]

>>4543798
>Comic is named "swords"
>WHAAAAAAAAAAAH WHY DO YOU ONLY DO JOKES AROUND SWORDS
fuck off dude, that's not criticism, that's you trying to change something because it doesn't suit your taste

[Anonymous No.4555134]

>>4544066
kek, i really like this one

[Anonymous No.4555737]

Draw more of the Demon King. He's fun and hot.

[Anonymous No.4558581]

Just making a circle >>4558556

[Anonymous No.4560715]

>>4558581
what was that post
?

[Anonymous No.4563077]

>>4558581
Huh?

[Anonymous No.4563118]

>>4533351
hey, how long does it usually take you to finish one comic? from start to finish.
do you write down your ideas before hand? are you using any software, that helps you write and plan stuff?

[Anonymous No.4565853]

>>4560715
>>4563077
Probably some low effort/off-topic troll thread that got reported and then deleted, it's not even in the archive anymore

[Anonymous No.4566145]

>>4555064
It looks like we're both on the same page

[Anonymous No.4566319]

>>4533351
I am not qualified, but it reeks of reddit, split in top seems completely redundant - why not one panel? Art is fine.

[Anonymous No.4566324]

>>4566319
also seems too short. You barely start to read and it's over already.

[Anonymous No.4566329]

>>4566319
also their poses look more like sweeping web off of the ceiling rather than a "battle pose"