your oppinion

looks like angelfire doesnt like displaying images
I just get an "image hosted by angelfire" image

Angelfire, along with many free website hosts don't allow hotlinking. (Linking directly to an image)

You will have to add the image onto a html document so we can see it.

Thats strange. I can see it just by clicking on the link. hmm..
-dk

weird, i can see it fine.
well i will try to fix it here, but i might not be able to untill i get home.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/comictest/
ok there we go. shouldnt have a problem anymore
i forgot angelfire did that to images

Trouble with anything like this on the net is that they have to be very good quality to be able to read them and then you have very large file sizes. I can't comment on it other than the fact that yours was almost impossible to read!

well sorry about that, i did mention it was made in paint didnt i?
i am gonna redraw it, but i need to either get someone to be the artist, or learn to use something other than paint.( i cant draw worth crap)

Learn to use a couple of graphics like Fireworks and Paintshop Pro.

Then, once you've decided on characters and stuff, make a few sets of each character in a different pose/angle - just a few variations, in high quality PNG/PSD/TIFF lossless format. They should serve as a guide for you when you draw new strips. You might even be able to re-use some of these drawings.

If it's a "simple" character that's 2D and made up of a few lines and maybe a little fill colour, try saving those sets of poses in vector format. That should make it easier for you to draw new strips by re-using the character, especially with the ability to make minor changes without much hassle.

It's not too hard if you start simple.

Just my 2 cents.

i just rip the sprites from a rom of the game when i need them, but i found someone well versed with psp and adobe who will help me out.

hopefully i can learn something about them, and the only advanced paint program i have is mgi photosuite. but i dont like it that much and i am very cheap and not very willing to buy a paint program, so are there any free image editors out there that you can reccomend?

well, there are some that i hear are ok, but i can't recommend them because im not cheap.

If you want to learn graphics, you need to fork out for Photoshop 6+ or PSP7 or Fireworks. They're not *that* expensive, and after awhile you'll wonder how you lived without them.

lol, I think its rather nice with the exception that I had to look rateher closely to read it

But its nice
With seeable words and a little betetr graphics it work be nice

Quote: They're not *that* expensive

they are when u dont got any money and no job. although i am looking for a job, this would be my first one, and it is hard to find entry level jobs around here

I believe Paint Shop Pro is much cheaper than Photoshop - a fraction of the price. I just can't remember the numbers...

I think Paint shop pro is about 3rd the price of PhotoShop

Most graphic programs offer 30 day trails, its hard to grasp the programs fill power within that time but do try before you buy.

If I remember righty, I think PSP (paint shop pro) version 3 or 4 is still avaible on the web free somewhere, could even be at jasc.com (psp's makers). version 3 is old by todays standards but it is a steping stone if you need one. also check out places like downloads.com, tucows.com etc for other graphic programs that might be free or cheaper.

yes yes... but you see i have no money zip, nadda, zero,... oh wait... a quarter... so i got .25... well its a start i guess.

It would probably be a lot better for you to do cartoons like this in a vector program - Flash is good because it's so easy to use, and, of course, also allows you to animate things. Unfortunately there aren't any good, affordable vector programs out there (Adobe Illustrator & Macromedia Freehand are two other options - those are full fledged vector drawing programs).

Benefits of vectors:

1. Cleaner lines
2. Easy to scale elements up or down without losing quality
3. Easy to move or rotate elements without losing quality
4. In Flash, you can save certain elements as symbols, which makes them easy to manage (i.e. you could keep a library of all your commonly used character parts, nicely organized and easy to drag & drop into your scene)
5. Everything is stored as objects rather than pixels, which makes it easy to move things around and reshape them
6. Vector programs were created for illustration, wheras raster programs were created for either photo manipulation (Photoshop) or web graphics (Fireworks) so they do have more features and capabilities for illustration work, which is what you're trying to do.

I think that PaintShop Pro sells for about $100 US, Flash is about $500, Photoshop is $600, Illustrator is, I think around $450. YOu can also buy bundle packs of 3+ titles from Adobe or Macromedia for big savings, and if you're a student at a college or University you can purchase educational versions for much less as well.

It really is too bad that quality programs are so expensive You could use your limited softwarwe budget to your advantage by using a cheap program to crate sort of a grungy type of style (think South Park).

... i have flash 5.0, no clue how to use it though.

Great! Use that! You can always export still images from flash until your animation skills get going. Take a look at the tutorials under the Help menu of the program for a starter. Keep playing around with the drawing tools - it takes awhile to get used to how they work but once you get the hang of it it's pretty good. Flashkit.com is a good place to go for flash tutorials. Take a special look at the "getting started" area and "animation" for specific stuff on making cartoons.

i went through all the tutorials, but they dont actually "teach" anything, they just list what all the buttons do.

Okay, well, check out Flashkit.com and see what you can find. Or think about buying a book - they tend to be more helpful then little bits of tutorials all over the place. Oh, wait, you're broke Maybe that's something you can save up for, or put on your Christmas list

ok i redid it in flash, what do you think now?

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/comictest/

i know some of the text is kinda small but since it is in flash i can fix that later.

Better. I can read the text, anyway. I don't get it, but I can read it.

I don't know exactly what you're trying to do here, but I'm thinking it would be a good idea if you started drawing your own backgrounds. I think that what's on there now is really scratchy looking and visually gets in the way of what's happening.

... im really not good with graphic arts, it has taken me almost a week just to learn how to copy and paste that stuff on there right... but yeah i do agree, the backgrounds do need to be changed.

I agree that the text is better now and it might just be me (not really in to this type of cartoon thing) but you can't tell what anything is supposed to be. Might help with a clearer background but the rocks & people look the same!

Well, one step at a time. Backgrounds should be easy to start out with. Remember, you don't have to be perfect. Some cartoons can be successful with a less than beautiful drawing style. You just have to adopt that sort of rough style as something that makes your cartoon unique. Again, South Park is a good example.

I think Megan is on to something with the south park thing, try it. comic book style is to intense for the web

cant see the picture. try some other servers

the image shows up for everyone else now, and unless your borwser has issues with the img tag i think you might have just clicked on the wrong link.

you can get cheaper educational versions of software if you are a college student most college bookstores sell educational versions. My personal experience has been they have been the same as full retail versions just without fancy artwork boxes and user manuals. I have these versions of Photoshop 5.5 and 6, Fireworks, Flash 5 and Flash MX, Homesite 4.5 and 5, MS Windows XP Pro $69, Office 2000 $59 and Office XP Pro $68. You can also check the software companies websites for educational products.

hehehehe, too bad im not a college student now isnt it. besides. im too cheap even for those prices.. well im off to go apply at some jobs... hope i get one soon...