2012-04-04: The One Where Poe Makes an Domestic Abuse Joke

[emo samurai]

She has Poe's hair... blech.

[Labrat]

If Jordan ever starts taking happy pills the world is fucked. Fucked more than would even come out of a Happy Kat catgirl blow up doll.

The color is fine for regular comics: Its already better than 95% of all webcomics... and I don't think the comic would benefit from the level of artistic insanity found in Girl Genius or its ilk. Perfection is the mortal enemy of good enough. I know that I put more weight on keeping you sane(ish) and the comic semi-regular.

[Imp-Chan]

I don't think the colours look that good. But I also don't think that the colours look that bad. Practice makes perfect? Or perhaps they just need some more cel-shading, since the colours in the banner image look just fine. That's just a little extra work, right? Like... and hour or two... or three? Well, how would I know? I'm not an artist!

Uh... *blush* The banner image was me. It would have been just a little more work, if Poe had followed instructions while making it. As it is, it took quite a while.

Poe is struggling with the color technique. Partly I am insisting on very clean color, and partly he thinks differently and didn't study cell coloring at age twelve or something the way I did. It's easier for me to think in the necessary layers, but I can't define a light source for beans, while he's the other way around. Also, his monitor is very clearly not calibrated, and he could do with assembling a custom palette to make his life a lot easier.

We'll get it. It's growing pains.

^-^'

[Viking-Sensei]

Maybe you should let Poe color a few the way Poe wants to color them, just to see how people react. Obviously this new style has some detractors, and I will admit that certain elements (like the waitress in panel 2) take away from the comic more than add to it. He might be happer doing it his way, and if he is, it might show through the artwork. Besides, it's not like the master line work isn't saved and you couldn't re-do the color later if you had to.

[Imp-Chan]

That's a totally reasonable suggestion, though an unnecessary one since it's exactly what I was already doing. I'm a perfectionist, not a monster.

In fact, doing the color now was Poe's idea, and I definitely didn't say that's what it should look like (especially since I don't like it, either). Basically, the only thing I told him about color was about technique, like telling him not to use the bucket tool because it produces shitty quality fills with too many artifacts for printing, and to make sure there weren't any "blank spots" under the lines or around the lines that would create basically the same problem. I also suggested he use a quick cell-shading technique that I picked up from another artist at a con, primarily because I thought it'd make his life easier and the file size smaller. He can make the page in general look like whatever he wants, that's totally up to him, I just want it to be able to print cleanly when the time comes. The Old Testament comic is a lot closer to what I'd expected to be seeing.

As for me redoing the color... please, no. Never suggest that. Did I mention I'm now having to recolor all of Exploitation Now because we changed print formats for Done With It All? 'Cause that's more than 300 pages that I now have to do new layouts, new lettering, and new color for, while still trying to preserve the feel and style from the original colorist and the original black and white comics. In my current condition, it's going to take me a year. Not to mention I still have to reletter all of Errant Story. If we're waiting for me to color all of Does Not Play Well With Others, too, that comic is just never going to print.

^-^'

[taltamir]

Oh god todays comic, i just can't stop laughing!