Trollbabe comics: old story down, new story up

[Colin the Riot]

Colin,

I have been enjoying your work in the latest Trollbabe strip.   I like the pseudo woodcut look of it.  I recall thinking that either the first or second strip was a little too uniformly dark, but I cannot double-check that because they have rotated off the site.  By far my favorite is strip no. 4, with the face kicking panel.  I agree with Ron about the angles, but I also like the way you incorporated background talk, foreground talk, story commentary (the "Holy Mackerel" line), and sound effects.  

Julie

I noticed the darkness in strip 2 as well.  Only not until it went up and I saw it from work.  I guess my monitor is just bright at home.  I'd like to host the whole story on my site as well once it's complete, and I intend to correct the brightness level in the strip then.

Strip 4 was the most complex stip in the story, so I'm glad it came out well.  Thanks for the feedback!

[Valamir]

Hey Ron, was Rhetta's last line about the god's name to demonstrate what a rube these wannabe cultists are, or was that a reference/homage to someone I'm not aware of.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ralph,

The story still has three or four strips to run; all will be revealed.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Colin,

I just wanted to compliment your work as well.  The woodcut look, while still retaining a solid feel of mass, was fantastic.  (My favorite bit -- the "blurred" chain rushing past me in the foreground.... You really nailed an amazing sense of motion there.)

This might of been brought up before, but what did you use?  It looks like colored markers of different values, but I can't be sure.

Best,
Christopher

[Colin the Riot]

Hi Colin,

I just wanted to compliment your work as well.  The woodcut look, while still retaining a solid feel of mass, was fantastic.  (My favorite bit -- the "blurred" chain rushing past me in the foreground.... You really nailed an amazing sense of motion there.)

This might of been brought up before, but what did you use?  It looks like colored markers of different values, but I can't be sure.

Best,
Christopher

Thank you very much.  I'm glad that blur came out okay.  It looked weird before I added it, like the chain was just hanging there.

As for what I use, it's all done digitally with a Wacom Graphire tablet and Photoshop.  I haven't used real art supplies in about 6 years, and I find it really freeing.  It's not for everyone, but if not for this way of working, I wouldn't be making art at all.  With this way of working, I've been published four times, and have a (fairly) long runnning comic strip of my own.

If you want more detail on my work methods, I'd be happy to discuss it if you want to PM me.  Thanks again for the compliments.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Wow.

Thanks a lot.  When I have an intelligent question I'll make sure to get back to you.  Thanks for the offer.

Christopher

[ejh]

I've got a question, intelligent or not -- what kind of machine?  What kind of processor/whatever do you find necessary to be comfortable for drawing?  Apple or Wintel?  And what resolution do you work at?

Danke. :)

[Bob McNamee]

Ok, I'm not Colin (love the art by the way Colin!)

But I do some art on the Computer too.

Both machines are fine for computer art...and the same programs are now available for both machines, more or less.

I use Painter, myself. Usually I work at 300 dpi, then downsize for strictly on-computer uses (like webgraphics)[edit downsize to 72 dpi-websize]

Wacom tablets are available for both computers.
Both  Photoshop (Adobe) and Painter (Corel -lately) are available for both machines. They originated on the Mac and migrated to the PC in the mid 90's. They are a bit pricey, but very good.($200-$500? haven't priced them lately)

The programs?
Painter was much more for duplicating natural-media artworking (watercolor, oils,ink etc) looks and feel,while Photoshop was more well suited to adjusting and manipulating Photographic material...

But, now they both are capable of doing many of the same things, with a bit practice.

I use a PC, due to cost more a than anything. Pentium 3 and 4 work great...you can't ever have enough RAM, or disk space. But I used to do things with Painter 4 on a Pentium(1) 133 with 16 megs of RAM...

I'm the slow part of the system...deciding what to do next  :)