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re: John Kenyon. – Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m still preferential to white dialogue balloons, but I can see how colored ones make it easier for readers to know who’s talking. So, if it helps you, then I’m cool with trying it out for awhile. I probably won’t use them in every situation, reserving it primarily for when the room is full of Spartan-class warriors of similar colors.
The only real modifications I make to these screenshots are adding the Poster Edges filter and then slapping dialogue and balloons on top. The muzzle flashes appear just find in the screenshots themselves. Makes my job that much easier.
re: John Kenyon. – No, no – Elnea writes Halo Action Figure Theatre (a.k.a. HAFT). Both she and Zzombie13 use the technique to good effect. Oh, and we’ll never tell about our grand plans to takeover the webcomic community…
Shhh… no one is supposed to know about those plans!
I’ve tried a bunch of different things: different fonts, square vs round balloons, different colors… Colored balloons seems to work over different fonts for me. They use different fonts in Marvel Comics all the time (as in Doctor Strange and Thor have their own fonts) but in a little 4-6 frame comic I think more than 2 fonts start to get too busy. Deadpool uses yellow balloons, and I think that looks good and keeps characters straight, especially since that series is so dialogue-heavy.
Since folks are talking about style rather than substance today, I have to ask, do you use preset balloons in photoshop or do you draw them yourself? They look really spiffy. I love the way this comic looks overall. Just… awesome.
And I wish your comic WERE a full 22-page spread… the suspense is killing me!!
re: Elnea – Yeah, I use one font for regular dialogue and it’s toss-up between two others for sound effects, depending on what I’m going for. And then I introduced a new font for the machine’s dialogue. I try to keep it simple because, like you said, otherwise it gets too busy.
I use a series of tools in Photoshop to custom-tailor every dialogue. It lets me be as versatile as I need to be with each frame. And I’m glad you like the look so much. I’m continually tweaking things, but I think I’m much closer to finding that ‘final’ result that looks perfect.
A 22-page spread would definitely be fun to put together. If the Halo content wasn’t under copyright, I’d seriously consider putting one together for publication as a chapbook. I keep half-hoping that someone at Bungie will notice Reclaimer and like it enough to hire to me write something ‘official.’ Wishful thinking, I know. :)
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December 17th, 2007 at 5:56 am
Wow, that looks rather good Jim. I like it, do you?
Aaaaand, shooting! Yay! guns going off! Did you haft to paint in the mussle flash? Or does it show up in the saved films properly?
December 17th, 2007 at 11:31 am
re: John Kenyon. – Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m still preferential to white dialogue balloons, but I can see how colored ones make it easier for readers to know who’s talking. So, if it helps you, then I’m cool with trying it out for awhile. I probably won’t use them in every situation, reserving it primarily for when the room is full of Spartan-class warriors of similar colors.
The only real modifications I make to these screenshots are adding the Poster Edges filter and then slapping dialogue and balloons on top. The muzzle flashes appear just find in the screenshots themselves. Makes my job that much easier.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I think the colored balloons really helps the “flow” of the story. It worked out for Zzombie13, guess it cant do any bad.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
re: YamiR – I know Elnea uses the technique, as well, so there’s a good precedent for the practice.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Elnea? Is that Zzombie13 name? Wow, dident know that you halo comic artist where so close… Must go spread the news of the WebComic Mafia!
December 17th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
re: John Kenyon. – No, no – Elnea writes Halo Action Figure Theatre (a.k.a. HAFT). Both she and Zzombie13 use the technique to good effect. Oh, and we’ll never tell about our grand plans to takeover the webcomic community…
December 18th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Shhh… no one is supposed to know about those plans!
I’ve tried a bunch of different things: different fonts, square vs round balloons, different colors… Colored balloons seems to work over different fonts for me. They use different fonts in Marvel Comics all the time (as in Doctor Strange and Thor have their own fonts) but in a little 4-6 frame comic I think more than 2 fonts start to get too busy. Deadpool uses yellow balloons, and I think that looks good and keeps characters straight, especially since that series is so dialogue-heavy.
Since folks are talking about style rather than substance today, I have to ask, do you use preset balloons in photoshop or do you draw them yourself? They look really spiffy. I love the way this comic looks overall. Just… awesome.
And I wish your comic WERE a full 22-page spread… the suspense is killing me!!
December 18th, 2007 at 10:22 am
re: Elnea – Yeah, I use one font for regular dialogue and it’s toss-up between two others for sound effects, depending on what I’m going for. And then I introduced a new font for the machine’s dialogue. I try to keep it simple because, like you said, otherwise it gets too busy.
I use a series of tools in Photoshop to custom-tailor every dialogue. It lets me be as versatile as I need to be with each frame. And I’m glad you like the look so much. I’m continually tweaking things, but I think I’m much closer to finding that ‘final’ result that looks perfect.
A 22-page spread would definitely be fun to put together. If the Halo content wasn’t under copyright, I’d seriously consider putting one together for publication as a chapbook. I keep half-hoping that someone at Bungie will notice Reclaimer and like it enough to hire to me write something ‘official.’ Wishful thinking, I know. :)