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Here is Spread 14 along with a few of the steps of my process. The only stage I'm missing is the thumbnail because I'm to lazy to scan it. Click to enlarge.
This week was pretty productive with reMIND. I almost finished coloring 4 pages (2 spreads) and I sketched some thumbnails for my Flight submission. I also think I figured out how I want my word balloons to look finally. This spread is an example of what I'm thinking so far. It's more of a hand drawn look to match my art and lettering. I'm also toying with the idea of making each characters word balloon a unique color. I'm not sure if this will help or just make the pages look more colorful. We will see as the pages go. I'll try to incorporate the color balloons from now on.
So, we are approaching the end of the first chapter finally. I think there will be 7 chapters total divided into 2 hard cover books about 130 pages each. It's my attempt at bridging the gap between European and American comics. European comics are cool because they a treated more like books from what I've seen. They are around 40 to 64 pages and they come out whenever the artist finishes, sometimes taking a year or two. There's just something I really like about that. It's more about getting it right then hitting a monthly deadline. My only difference is printing in dimensions of standard American comics and having more pages so it's a nice thick hard bound book. Anyway, enough of my idealistic daydreaming babble, there are several things I want to share today so I better begin.
First of all, notice the new advertisement that is on the left hand side of the blog. I just started this Saturday to see the results. If anyone has a graphic novel related blog then please join Project Wonderful and put your ad up here. It's free until someone else outbids you. Plus if I end up getting a few bucks a month from it then I could use that to advertise on other sites. Allowing others to advertise on my site brought up an interesting strategy. If you do a search on Project Wonderful for smaller sites without others bidding yet, then you can potentially put ads up on several sites without paying for any advertising. Just have your maximum bid at $0 and if no one else is bidding then your ad will pop up. It's just an idea based on a few people doing that with my site. Another thing I've noticed is how inflated the numbers seem to be in the site statistics for my site on Project Wonderful. This makes me question how accurate the numbers are for some of the other sites I'm buying ad space on. It might just be a glitch so I'll keep my eye on it and let you know how it goes.
Second, I wanted to say thanks for all your feedback last week with the ads. It's been really helpful and has worked wonders for bringing in new viewers. Saturday was my best day yet. I placed an ad for $2 and brought in almost 200 unique viewers with a very low bounce rate. It looks like quite a few people subscribed as well. Advertising on other webcomics really works for bringing traffic to an online graphic novel.
Third, I wanted to point at a few people out there who are making some interesting comics and blogging about it . I'm going to add these guys to my list of Comic Creator Blogs at the top left of this site. Please note that this list might change solely on how I feel about it. Later on I plan on making a giant list of links on my links page.
Other Good Comic Creator Blogs:
Shane M. Vidaurri
SMVidaurri.blogspot.com - Blog
SMVidaurri.com - Illustration site
I met this guy on the Flight Forum and have been following him ever since. Shane has been making a beautiful water colored comic and posting pages on his blog. Check it out and show him some love. He does some neat compositions and has a great style.
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Yaxin the Faun – Man Arenas
I don't know to much about this guy because I can't read his blog but his graphic novel "Yaxin the Faun" is so beautiful that I just had to share it with anyone wanting inspiration. He also has a artist blog with other amazing art. His page layouts and compositions are really cool. His colors and character designs are quite good too.
yacinfields.blogspot.com - Yaxin the Faun
man-arenas-news.blogspot.com - Art blog
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Sam Mooney – a Manga Addict
Sam is living in Japan and drawing lots of short Manga stories on the side. He has some interesting compositions and stories techniques. I hope Sam keeps making progress on these and keeps sharing his artistic journey.
amangaaddict.blogspot.com - Manga Blog
nihonniiru.blogspot.com - Main Blog
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I have a few friends who are also starting a graphic novel blog. I'll share them when they have some stuff to show. If you have a blog specifically about making a graphic novel, showing your progress or techniques then please send it my way. I'd love to check it out and and maybe even list it here.
I have to say I’m of two minds about the colored balloons. It certainly makes the dialogue easier to sort out, but it’s pretty sparing as it is, so it wasn’t terribly confusing for all that. Tying a specific color to a character can be a good way of setting the mood, though. Worth a shot, anyhow.
As to Project Wonderful, I’ve been looking into it myself, and beyond the hyped up sales doubletalk, which you’ll find anywhere, I think I’m going to take a crack at it myself. It’s good to boost readership even a little, I think, and the outlay seems pretty low.
Keep on rollin’!
–M
The colored word balloons will be more important later on in the story when it gets a bit more complex. But I still can decide if I like it or not. Some pages might have a completely different color pallet then the balloons so this might become problematic. I think I’ll keep trying it until something screwed up happens. If nothing screwed up happens then I’ll just keep it. ha. How that for a strategy.
So far I’m pretty happy with Project Wonderful. It really gave a boost to my subscribers this last week from about 50 to 90 so I can’t complain about that. I just bought an ad on another site (not part of PW) so I’ll let you know more about it too after I get some stats from it. Anyway, I’d definitely give it a try.
Yeah, I’m putting together a suite of banners, etc. right now, much like you did. Reminds me of my feelance days, advertising and such. I remember doing a newspaper layout back when they still used diazo machines for pasteup proofs! God that was a while back…
By the way, the point about contrast is key – once you set a “theme” for the colored word balloons it could be hard to change it, so that’s a consideration. But it could be an interesting thing to throw in as an occasional accent, cool colors for negative characters and warm ones for protagonists, for example.
And also, the “album” style of comic os very near and dear to my heart, being as how I grew up on Tintin and Quick et Flupke. It’s a tried and true method, and I think it would suit this style very well. And thanks for taking a look at my own comics effort, as well – it’s rather a different kind of story, no?
–M
I’m jealous of the fact that you are going to Switzerland on Vacation. I’d love to visit there myself. I have to apologize, because I never read online comics. I just look at the art. The only comic I’ve tried to read online so far is Requiem Phenix, just because I was advertising there for a bit.
So I went back and read through 6-Commando and I’m very impressed by your writing. My only concern is sometimes getting lost as to where to go next while reading. For instance page 3, after the first panel I’m not sure if I’m suppose to go down or to the right. There are simple things you might try in the future in these cases to pull the readers eyes on way or another. The word balloon that says “Alpha. No sighting” pulls my eyes to the right since it breaks into the first panel but at the same time the large panel spacing between the bottom two panels makes me think I need to finish the left side of the page before moving to the right. Maybe pushing the first word balloon on the bottom left to break the top of the frame would help lead the eyes down. Just my two cents.
Sorry to just be picky here. I just hate to be pulled out of a story because of not knowing which way to go. Your art and colors and writing is really great though. I’ll definitely be checking back to see your progress. Thanks again for mentioning me in your blog too. It’s MUCH appreciated!
2 hard cover books about 130 pages each?!
Attempting to bridge the gap between European and American comics?!?!
…you’re a mad mad man. I’m rooting for you. ^_^!
…and thanks so much for the shout out. (If I ever develop a following I’ll be sure and return the favor). ;)
sam
No problem Sam. Keep it up!
As far as bridging gaps, I think I should have added in the Manga format to the mix in my article because I like the longer page count of Manga and that’s part of the reason for wanting to make a 130 pager. Not to mention, my characters have a bit of Japanese animation influence. I think anyway.
Thanks for rooting for me!
holy crap dude!! those are awesome behind the scenes!..thanks for showing..very educational!!
people will definitely pick up on your site in the days to come..just like what amangaaddict said..im rooting for you!
Thanks Lloyd! I’m glad you like the behind the scenes. I’d do it more often but It’s so hard to collect all the “making of art” for a post. I’ll try to show progressions like this at least once a month though. Thanks for your support!
Lookin great my friend!!
And yea, Yaxin is fantastic. Those other links you gave are great too!
Thanks for those.
No problem!
outstanding!!! thank you so much for sharing these links truly helpful and inspirational!
Hey Jason, For some reason your comment was thrown into my spam folder. Sorry about that. Glad you liked the links.