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How to Make Comics Part 2

 Using Photoshop or another piece of image manipulation software to colour or letter your comics is an entirely optional step.

At some point, you will probably benefit from getting your drawings into a digital format if you want to reproduce them at some point, but this can be a straight forward case of scanning them in and sending them on.

I’ve met plenty of comic creators who still use inks and paints to colour their comics and they produce some beautiful work.

On the other hand, I’m a digital junkie and also use my cartoons on this site, so I need mine uploaded to a web-publishable format and so it makes sense for me to colour them in Photoshop.

In this post, I am going to take you through the steps that I go through to get my tortoises coloured in.

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I have picked up my fair share of “how to draw comics” books that purport to tell you all there is to know about making comics in the vain hope that by reading about making comics, I will become really good at it.  These are the type of Teach Yourslef books that instruct you in the manner of creating sequential art and tend to start with the materials that you need and build from there.

Although I have several books that vary in quality, they all have something in common:  They have all universally intimidated me in terms of the materials needed to the point that it has often scared me away from doing any significant practise.

My message to anyone who wants to draw cartoons, comics or just general illustrations is to follow the only piece of advice that I have found works for me.  Practise.  Just get on and draw something.

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To add another footnote to the “games are actually quite good for you” argument, read the last part of this news post from Penny Arcade headed “Dad Stuff”.

I am fully aware that Minecraft is a fairly unique game and equally aware that if I had it at a younger age, there would probably be a lot less Lego in my attic, but this is a beautiful example of how children can benefit from playing games.

Penny Arcade are probably the most incredible example of a force for good in gaming culture and from the content of a lot of their comics, I doubt many people saw it coming.  They truly are amazing people and whenever I hear someone criticise a webcomic of “just trying to be like Penny Arcade” I fail to see the criticism.  If the world was more like Penny Arcade, it would quite frankly be a better world.

by ·Comments Off on iPad/iPhone Game: Dream Track Nation

Uncomplicated mechanics and controls seem to be essential in iPhone and iPad games due to the limitations of the interface.  Games that forget they are being played through a touch screen and try to overcomplicate their gameplay with elements that would be happier in a PC or console environment can render themselves unplayable.  With this in mind, when something comes along that has a simple control interface, it is not only a pleasure to play but more importantly, something that you are happy to keep going back to.

Today I’m looking at Dream Track Nation which is one of these titles that is effective in its simplicity.

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With the meteoric rise of Facebook and the stealth invasion of the smart-phone that now has some iteration of its species lurking in every other pocket across the country, there was equally been an explosion in the number casual games aimed at non-gamers to try and grab the attention of this burgeoning neo-gamer demographic.  Games along the lines of Bejeweled or Diner Dash have become hugely popular by being well polished and being incredibly easy to pick up for anyone who hasn’t grown up with a mouse, keyboard or control pad near welded to their hands.

There has been a lot of anger and resentment from traditional gamers towards this kind of development as they see their hobby being invaded by what they might describe as “ordinary people” or at the least, non-gamers, but really it can only do good.  Introducing people to gaming who don’t know that they like it yet is something I personally approve of and something that can only ultimately benefit the industry as a whole, even in light of reports of some shady business practises by certain casual game publishers.

There is however one type of game that aggravates me and I think is an awful introduction to the medium and could do a lot to put off new gamers.  This is the type of game where it artificially delays the gameplay and limits you to a certain number of actions per day.  This means if you have a virtual tower to build in something like iOS title Tiny Tower, then you’re not going to be able to play it when you want to and you will have to wait until the game decides you’re allowed to play.

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