New Oots Style comic (should I do it?)

[Caracol]

I'm an old fan of Oots, but I joined the forum recently. I started to draw Oots-styled stuff since then, and I must say I enjoy it really much. The idea of making my own comic came up into my mind yesterday, but I'm still a bit unsecure about my drawing and writing skills and about how much time I can actually dedicate to this task.
What should I do? It's not bad to try, or there are too much oots comics already?
Also, any suggestions about how should it be? I was oriented to a DnD based comic, but I'm worried about the fact that it could be too similar to OOTS, if not a bad rip-off. Advices anyone?

[Tiffanie Lirle]

Go for it, whats the worst thing that could happen? Even if it doesn't get allot of readers you'll still get in quite a bit of practice, Which is always good. Just make sure to actually make it interesting, you know?

Throw in a few few jokes here and there instead of foreshadowing for a storyline that might never exist. Can't stand reading those comics that are nothing but story and no humor.

[Chronicled]

It's not bad to try, or there are too much oots comics already?

There can never be too many OotS style comics. Look at the two in my sig if you want examples of really great ones; Failing Saves is also very well done.

Keep in mind, making a webcomic requires a LOT of time put into it. If you want an idea of what to expect, try PMing the creators of Anti-Heroes, Natural One, or Failing Saves.

[Dallas-Dakota]

but I'm still a bit unsecure about my drawing and writing skills
Don´t worry about that, I have seen some of your works(most of it in the HoH) and its good enough to start with. It´l improve vastly, partly becouse a comic is a lot of drawing so lots of practice. So it´l improve, just look at some comics like CAD and even OOTS(if you look closely you can see his style changed a little bit, don´t know if anybody else noticed it, around 200/230 I think it was)


and about how much time I can actually dedicate to this task.
Don´t then. Making comics takes loads of time. Rather wait until you have a bit more free time for it. And tip : Make a few comics before you post anything, regular updates is what fans want and gets the fans there.(also keeps it up on the top of the page)


What should I do?
That is your decision, I can merely give advice and point things out.


It's not bad to try, or there are too much oots comics already?
No, its not bad to try, but please try making a comic or two before you post anything, see if you like it. And there are and never will be to much oots comics.


Also, any suggestions about how should it be? I was oriented to a DnD based comic, but I'm worried about the fact that it could be too similar to OOTS, if not a bad rip-off. Advices anyone?
A DnD based comic might be easier, due to all the rules you have as guidelines that you can sometimes easily break. Look at the comics around, most of the are DnD based to, but not rip-offs. So I´d say go for DnD based.


All in all, I´m looking forward too seeing your comic if you decide to make one. If I haven´t posted in your comic thread, PM me please, I´l read the comic.

But one more advice thingy : Do the art-style the way it suits you and your story.

And the last advice(really) : Have fun with it, otherwise don´t do it.

[someonenonotyou]

o sure go ahead just dont make like three and then give up you gotta be comitted i was going to do one the i drew like five and gave up. i hope you have better lucky and have fun with it

[BRC]

In my opinion, you should do a webcomic because you want to tell a story/some jokes/show off mad art skillz. Don't say "All the cool kids are doing webcomics, I want to do one too!" (Although we are, that is irrelevant, we'd be just as cool without webcomics) then draw up some characters, start a webcomic, and give up after two comics because Webcomicing isn't as fun as you thought it would be. Don't expect yourself to instantally become the next Anti-heroes, with buckets of praise being dumped upon you after each comic. However, that said, if you know where your going with somthing, go right ahead, I'll be glad to read it. Just don't do a webcomic simply because you want to have a webcomic. but don't worry about there being too many, it's not like the internet is going to run out of funny anytime soon.

[Flickerdart]

FYI, if you're half-decent at drawing and know your programs well, a properly-drawn comic won't take you longer than maybe 3 hours per edition, and will do a lot to set you aside from the stick figure crowd. A good test of whether you have what it takes is to just draw a character. Make him as cartoony as you like, any style you want (not stick figures though, we're gauging your alternatives), and see how long it takes you to make a "complete piece". Anything under an hour means you can likely handle an Erfworld-quality style without too much difficulty, since most character art will be recycled with alterations. Sure, this might mean, say, weekly updates instead of twice a week, but with a much more interesting comic.

Having said that, not even the best artwork, and especially not animu art that people turn to as a "step up" from sticks, can save a bad story or stale jokes. If you're even the least bit unsure about your tentative story, I would consider looking for a writer to partner up with. Who knows, maybe there's a wonderful one on these forums that just can't do the art necessary for a comic?

[banjo1985]

Yeah go for it I say. It's practice if nothing else, and if you get a fair few readers then all is good!

They can take a while though. I had to stop my webcomic because the way that I drew was horribly slow, literally 6 hours a strip. I would suggest using a style that lets you create a strip in two hours max, it'll let you update more often and keep you motivated.

[Caracol]

Thanks a lot for all the encouragement you guys are giving to me. I will start the comic after all, but not before taking a little vacation back to my hometown (I'm at university, but not in the city where I was born).

I will probably contact the creators of the other OOTS-styled webcomics, and I have already received a collaboration propose.
I'm still concerned about the time needed, but I will probably be able to find an hour or two a day. Of course, I will make more comics before to start, hoping to do enough stuff in advance to guarantee close updates.

The problem of making a webcomic with another non- oots style is the fact that, as I said before, I'm studying in another city than my hometown, so I don't have a scanner here. I'm not bad at regular drawings, but I don't think I have the required skills to make a whole comic, and even if I had them, I can't scan the drawings, nor I have a graphic tablet. The idea of making an Oots styled comic, istead, sound fun, not so difficult given the present conditions, and a sort of tribute to The Giant's work.

The main problem I'm concerned about it's the fact that I'm not a native speaker, so I won't probably be able to write the story properly. Or coming up with good jokes. I don't want the comic to be too slow or simply boring.
Anyway, thanks a bunch for the support.

[Emperor Ing]

nothing wrong with varying art styles. :smallamused:

[Lyinginbedmon]

Sometimes the smallest variations can make a significant difference. For example, Remember tends to use more saturated colours than OotS, and the character designs have a lot more detail to them than most in OotS. For example, Rain's design includes a purple shirt, despite it being usually covered with her hoody (Which in and of itself is quite complex), and the Eversmoking Bottle she found earlier in the comic is kept in the hood thereof.

Zarah's anti-Heroes features less saturated colours and certainly a lot less detail on average (No offense to Zarah, it works well). Simplistic clothing designs and a notable lack of faces period on two characters is a staple feature.

[Brickwall]

Ugh, not another OotS style comic. I'm sure you're a fine artist. Give the threads some variety.

Personally, I dislike the various OotS style comics for two reasons. The first is redundancy. OotS style was meant for, oddly enough, OotS. It doesn't work as well with anything else. Every comic needs its own style. The second is that OotS style comics tend to be dramatically off the style. Too complex, or just not even trying to get anything like OotS. It goes from the marvelously simple yet expressive style found in Rich's work to just...bad art, in most cases. I know of one person who managed to pull the art shift well, and he doesn't do the comic here anymore. Hasn't for a while.

Point is, if you want to do a comic, please, no more OotS style comics. :smallyuk:

[Flickerdart]

Ugh, not another OotS style comic. I'm sure you're a fine artist. Give the threads some variety.

Personally, I dislike the various OotS style comics for two reasons. The first is redundancy. OotS style was meant for, oddly enough, OotS. It doesn't work as well with anything else. Every comic needs its own style. The second is that OotS style comics tend to be dramatically off the style. Too complex, or just not even trying to get anything like OotS. It goes from the marvelously simple yet expressive style found in Rich's work to just...bad art, in most cases. I know of one person who managed to pull the art shift well, and he doesn't do the comic here anymore. Hasn't for a while.

Point is, if you want to do a comic, please, no more OotS style comics. :smallyuk:

A person that agrees with me? This is the happiest day of my life!

[Catharsis]

Point is, if you want to do a comic, please, no more OotS style comics. :smallyuk:
Obviously, I can't agree with that. :smalltongue:

I find the OotS style just perfect for an amateur webcomic. While it still takes several hours per page to do well, the effort is still minor compared to a more realistic style such as Erf (which, due to its dramatically varying points-of-view and perspectives, is not copy/paste-friendly at all). Nevertheless, it allows a surprising amount of characterization and dramatic enactment. I'll even go as far as claiming that it's more expressive than the average manga. But then again, I viscerally dislike the manga style.

Do stay away from "realistic" three-dimensional drawing styles unless you are a gifted artist. The average amateur artist who attempts this often gets the proportions wrong, the faces fall apart, the world wobbles on its skewed-perspective knees. The effect is jarring and creepy, even if (or maybe especially if) the mistakes are subtle.

The human mind excels at abstraction; we have no trouble at all to look at the circle, blob and lines that consitutes Haley and mentally translate them into a sexy rogue. A photo-realistic drawing of a sexy rogue would of course work too, but it would represent the artist's idea of a sexy rogue rather than the reader's, so stick-figure Haley might actually end up sexier in our minds. That's quite an achievement for a few blobs and lines.

On the other hand, a pseudo-realistic but botched drawing of the same character is likely to look repulsive rather than sexy. It's the reason why zombies, people with birth defects or disfiguring scars or even clowns can be downright shocking, as opposed to less humanoid figures. It's called the uncanny valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley).


Back on topic, Caracol, do give your comic a trial run, see how people like it, and more importantly, how you like making it. I'm happy to give a few pointers about the technique. I'm using PowerPoint, and so far haven't encountered any aspect of OotS-style art that can't be readily reproduced that way.

I use the following settings:
- 1.5 point line thickness for most purposes (especially outlines)
- 1 point line thickness for finer ornaments etc
- 8 point Comic Sans font for dialogs
- 7 point Comic Sans font for muttered remarks or sound effects

The resulting image will look pixelly and the lines uneven when viewed at 100%. Instead, I display it at 200%, take screenshots, paste them together in Paint and finally scale them back down by 50%.

If you're wondering how to make speech bubbles:
- Make an ellipse with double line thickness (3 point).
- Duplicate it and place it exactly on the same location. This time, fill it with white, and do not give it a line color. Click on this ellipse and type in order to fill in the speech text.
- Draw a triangle with white fill color and normal line thickness (1.5 points) to point the bubble towards the speaker.
- Send the triangle backwards by one step (Draw menu -> Order -> Send backwards) such that it overlaps the background ellipse, but is in turn overlapped by the foreground ellipse.

[Chronicled]

Ugh, not another OotS style comic. I'm sure you're a fine artist. Give the threads some variety.

Personally, I dislike the various OotS style comics for two reasons. The first is redundancy. OotS style was meant for, oddly enough, OotS. It doesn't work as well with anything else. Every comic needs its own style. The second is that OotS style comics tend to be dramatically off the style. Too complex, or just not even trying to get anything like OotS. It goes from the marvelously simple yet expressive style found in Rich's work to just...bad art, in most cases. I know of one person who managed to pull the art shift well, and he doesn't do the comic here anymore. Hasn't for a while.

Point is, if you want to do a comic, please, no more OotS style comics. :smallyuk:

I disagree thoroughly.

[mockingbyrd7]

Well, judging by the work I've seen you do in the "Request an Avatar" thread and the work you did on my current avatar and sigatar, you're an amazing OotS-style avatarist, especially since you've only been here for a couple months. I've seen people who worked for a year to get to half your skill level. We'll have to wait and see if you can draw intriguing angles, backgrounds, etc. etc., but I'm confident that you won't have much trouble with the artistic part.

You say you aren't a native speaker, but your sentence structure is still very good (better than a lot of the people on these boards, even :smallamused:). There's no way to know if you're a good writer or not, but I think you should give this a test run and see if you enjoy it. If so, go for it!

Good luck,
mockingbyrd7

(P.S. Check out my avatar and first spoiler tag to see some of this guy's art. He's amazing!)

[Bayar]

@^ heh, I did your =other sigatar :smallbiggrin:

@ Caracol: Go for it ! This is no webcomic contest, so there is no problem :smallbiggrin: . And dont worry if you dont get comments, it takes a while for it to pick up. Usually 4-5 thread pages.

[SoD]

I've seen his skill...just...please, nothing with tentacles...well, tentacles are fine, just don't mix them with girls.

Anyway, go for it, you've already got my support.

[Dallas-Dakota]

I've seen his skill...just...please, nothing with tentacles...well, tentacles are fine, just don't mix them with girls.

Anyway, go for it, you've already got my support.

Scared by his work in the HoH? MUHAHAHAHAHA!

[Chronicled]

Scared by his work in the HoH? MUHAHAHAHAHA!

To be fair, that was pretty funny.

[Goats_o_Mjolnir]

I didnt now how to react to the HoH peice, its funny now

[Mee]

Do it, just, don't combine girls and tentacles. Please. :smalltongue:
You do it, and I shall read it.

[Caracol]

Oh, thanks to everybody, I don't even started doing it and I already have some support!

As I said before, I don't know if I have the skills to do an hand - drawed comic, and even if I had them, I still don't have a graphic tablet or a scanner where I am. I'm new at vectorial art programs, and I got some familiarity with the OOTS style only, I don't think I can draw in a different style with the same familiarity. So, I basically have two options:

- do the comic in OOTS style;
- not doing it.

Luckily, I found that drawing in OOTS style is extremely funny and rather easy enough to give me the motivation I need to lose lot of hours on editing a single strip, not to mention that it goes very well with the comic I had in mind (I hope, at least).

Catharsis explained very well why the OOTS style works so fine (I didn't think about that, but seems so true). Thanks a lot for the advices about the PP, but I've started in Inkscape and I think I will stick with it. Thanks again anyway.

I promise I will try to vary my art to get my personal style, and I will also "experiment" a bit with other art styles, when possible.

No tentacles-girl combos, so don't worry (at least for a while:smallbiggrin: )

I'm back in my hometown now, far from the uni and incoming exams, so I will probably have enough time to edit the first strips. I won't start posting them unless I have at least 10 ready, so expect this comic to start in 2-3 weeks at least, but with some updates already made.

[Holammer]

Give it a shot Caracol. Don't care too much about writing skills or artwork, it's an "OOTS style comic" for crying out loud. There's a high degree of leeway posting it here as nobody will expect "The Last Supper" style artwork on writing that is up to the standards of Émile Zola or Victor Hugo.
Hope to see your works soon.

[Caracol]

Quick update! I've started to make the comic and I already made the first two strips. Goats of Mjolnir is giving me a great help in coming up with my problems, so we will manage to make it run (I hope). We won't post it until I have some updates in advance, since I can't really be sure to make a strip or even two evry week, but I don't want to update it regurarly.
I'm still busy as hell by now, but I could start to edit the following strips even tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!

[Lyinginbedmon]

It must be good if you're having to come up with problems :smalltongue:

[Caracol]

Finally it starts!!! I hope that you people like it, or at least take a look.

Click here:
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/1278/titlekm9.png (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76983)

[lothofkalroth]

Not to burst your bubble caracol, but there's nothing there...but it's a real pretty nothing! :smallsmile:

[lothofkalroth]

yay! now there is!