Ryan Summers
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Thanks for this one @cboatner, I’ve been toying around with the b&w + one tone, but I’ve been struggling. This is another great example (and one I hadn’t thought of at all) on how to use it creatively!
Waking up early has been one of my go to methods for getting more done creatively. I used to romanticize the idea of not working until the late, late night hours and burning the midnight oil. Not that I don’t still stay up late on occassion, but I’m way more rested and surprisingly more creative in the AM hours. Any writing or idea-generating sketching seems to flow a lot more easily when I’m barely coherent in the morning versus exhausted into the night.
Inking, emailing, ruling out panels — all that is perfect for the late night bouts of insomnia, as well as flipping through art books for inspiration. That’s a good engine for some crazy dreams.
Oh, another Kickstarter I backed and love is the Sketch Wallet — those cahier Moleskine’s are great but they don’t travel the best, at least in my back pocket. The leather wallet is a great little carry all and you can swap out sketchbooks as you fill them up.
I found using smaller sketchbooks kept me loose, and I got a nice little boost of pride whenever I filled one up with ideas!
Thanks for the recommend @cboatner! Love the straightforward shading on Dirtnap Tales.
Sam & Fuzzy looks nicely polished @bobglass63 — I need to dive in and read some of the early strips and see how it’s grown.
I’ll be honest, one of the things I’m surprised by is just how busy so many of the webcomic sites tend to be — even here on Sam & Fuzzy, there’s just so much for a viewer to parse!
On mobile the comic strip is almost the same width as the right column, and that right column has so many images and bold type in it, it really pulls my attention away from everything, including the strip itself!
I need to do some more research to see if this is the expected amount of density, or if there’s room for some more “quiet” layouts as well.
Thanks @drakkheim! I love the artwork on Go Get A Roomie! — great example of B&W + one color. I only wish the website background color was a cool color to help the strip pull up and separate from the rest of the page.
What I do love is the RSS feed button in the middle of the strip navigation “playhead”. Is that a convention of most webcomic sites, or an invention of this strip alone? Is it a good idea? It’s definitely in an optimal place to be seen — and maybe accidentally pressed a couple times?
Raymond and Mark, thanks a ton for the responses! I’m going to keep going down the path of shaded B&W for now, but I’m really digging the idea of an additional single color to help break from the monotony of B&W. If I feel like my coloring skills just aren’t there when I get to the part where the story is looking for it, even just swapping the single color I’m using could help signify the change in “location” I’m hoping for.
It may not be as dramatic as the Wizard of Oz effect, but it could definitely work. Thanks again!
I’d like to go B&W with tones, like the ‘Hidden’ shaded image I linked to minus the red and gold. As much as I love B&W comics, completely stark black and white inkwork like the link you mentioned (even if I spotted in some blacks) probably wouldn’t play all that well these days. It looks unfinished.
There’s also a little bit of a Wizard of Oz angle to be played in the story I’m working up, or better yet, a bit of a Matrix-style cinematography/color correction trick to be had. The lead character exists in two worlds, and I’m thinking of the previously mentioned “shaded B&W” for one world — and later on when we see him in the other world, full color.
Partially for storytelling, partially to let me get up to speed with my coloring chops — I’m considering the “shaded B&W” look; particularly for the first story arc.
