starting a GNOME/FOSS-centered webcomic

[kiddo]

Hi folks, I have been toying around the idea of starting my own modest webcomic one day, but never got around to do it because I lack inspiration, mainly.

I thought I might try to make a webcomic that revolves around the GNOME desktop environment, Linux and FOSS. I have fairly decent drawing skills (http://kiddo.ecchi.ca/?e=dessins), but very, very few ideas.

Would anyone be interested in doing this together? Someone who wants to express the "joys" of gnome, foss, ubuntu, and also the weird things happening in the community.

Anyway I'll keep this short, I tried brainstorming for a few hours tonight and I'm pretty convinced that if I do this alone, I would then need to base it entirely from events happening on news sites (slashdot) and planet gnome. The idea behind that is to ensure that the comic can be self-sustaining from a content perspective. At least maybe until I get some good sense of humor :)

edit: by the way, the comic would not be one of the usual "strict schedule, once a week". Would most likely be once a month or something like that. Whenever I/we could feel a sudden urge of inspiration/something worth mentioning.

[:::]

This reminds me on OS Tan Girls (http://ostan-collections.net/wiki/Main_Page). (because you seem to draw in an anime-ish style AND you want to make a comic about software). So my starting point would be "personification of software".

We could then "mix" them with real people: So we have Linus accompanied with the "Kernel Godess", Richard Stallman riding on a gnu and Shuttleworth together with the "ubuntu girl" ....


As for participation: I don't know yet. I, too, plan to start a webcomic but didn't come up with a good concept for it yet. On the other side, I have quite a lot of other things to do, so I don't know wheter I will find the time to work on this...
But If at all, I would probably apply for a line-art-job, because I am no good with color at all.



Oh, and before I forget: NEVER DRAW ON LINDED PAPER! EVER! And if you still do, at least don't put those pictures online in your portfolio

[kiddo]

yeah, representing some of our FOSS figureheads like our Bearded Guru and our benevolent kernel dictator for life and Mark would be fun. We can play a lot on themes too, like BROOOOOOOOOOOOOWN! :) (I am one of the ubuntu users who love its brown)

Anyway, don't worry I am not doing anything on lined paper for a webcomic, no way in hell ! I do have a wacom tablet waiting to be used though.

For the moment, I think it could be best to plan the webcomic as lineart only, not colored. This would make it simpler. Also, some ideas in my head that are not clarified yet, but are somewhat secondary:

maybe make it fully in SVG with inkscape (especially if it's not colored)
more than one language? actually with the power of SVG I think it could be done
publish it in blog format? or inside my blog entirely? or on picasa? Picasa has the advantage of being fast, clean, and having RSS feeds and comments and tags


I could make it a colored webcomic I guess, but that would certainly limit me into using the GIMP instead of inkscape, which may or may not be a bad thing. I mean the GIMP is much easier to use for drawing and coloring, *but* the images are not vectors, so I am always fearing that my drawings are too low resolution to be "future-proof".

Example sketch I can do in the gimp with the tablet (my domain name is ecchi.ca by the way ;)):
http://kiddo.ecchi.ca/galerie/nimportequoi/2007/2007%2007%2024.png

[ghevan]

MAybe I could colour them in inkscape.

here are some attemps
http://ghevan.deviantart.com/art/muziz-03-52778043
http://ghevan.deviantart.com/art/nekoi-1024x768-61471370 (this one bg is made on the GIMP)

And by maybe Im saying,i tdepends if the project and the thesis doesn't eat all of my time.

Anyways average Joe should be a character =p

[kiddo]

That would be great! Your vector coloring is much better than mine, I wonder how you could do something so nice. Must have taken hours for the Boy :shock: and I don't think you used a tablet, did you? Might be even worse if I do! Your coloring talent motivates me though :) this needs talking!

Ideally what we would need now would be a separate script/joke writer/reviewer, but I guess that can be done without in the worst cases/the beginning.

I'm not a really good story maker, but the most important is to try and get that comic up and running. It would be a first time for me. I thought maybe «garden gnome» could be a good name :) I'll try to think of 2-3 strip ideas today (fingers crossed) and see if I can make sample storyboards or strips when back at home.

Oh and yeah, Average Joe should be a recurring character. We could even make some strips dedicated to him, you know, "Average Joe!" sounds so much like a superhero name that I want to scream it out loud with a spiky speech bubble :)

[ghevan]

THinking in anime-like characters for the comic is good for me, I can handle it, but mabe adopting an unique style no so anime-like would be better (www.vgcats.com comes to my mind).

And as you are imaginating the comic is it ocurring inside a computer? (like "reboot" animation) or like "personifications in the real world of the FOSS projects ?

THe only thing that comes to my mind as an idea for a script is "something has to happen and Character A invokes it, the problem is that it doesn't meet the dependencies, so character B something" . It doesn't sounds very nice, but the idea im trying to express is, to use the comic as a way of knowing what the linux and FOSS is all about. trough gags and all.

Anyways as for the boy it did took a while to finish like 6 hours, mainly bexause it was my first vector so mainyl it was experimenting with inkscape. As for th elineart I did use a tablet and for the I used alot more of tablet trough it.

"Averge joe is at the terminal" lol I wonder what will happen with this "hero" xD

[kiddo]

THinking in anime-like characters for the comic is good for me, I can handle it, but mabe adopting an unique style no so anime-like would be better (www.vgcats.com (http://www.vgcats.com) comes to my mind).
I absolutely LOVE vgcats. Let's do something ressembling that to some extent, I would like it a lot :) and it is easier to draw.

Also, for your inspiration, I just discovered a french webcomic yesterday that is similar, it is gorgeous. I will definitely be taking some drawing style from that (if I can match it at all): Maliki (http://maliki.com). Especially, this strip here (http://maliki.com/strips/strip_japex.jpg) has a nice style that I would like to (try to) imitate; nice expressions, poses, and it does not have those "rigid" cartoon frames/squares like most comics.

And as you are imaginating the comic is it ocurring inside a computer? (like "reboot" animation) or like "personifications in the real world of the FOSS projects ? No, more real-life. It is less limited than being stuck inside Mainframe. I have been thinking of comics while on the road tonight, maybe I should try a very sketchy storyboard to make a proof of concept out of one of them.

THe only thing that comes to my mind as an idea for a script is "something has to happen and Character A invokes it, the problem is that it doesn't meet the dependencies, so character B something" . It doesn't sounds very nice, but the idea im trying to express is, to use the comic as a way of knowing what the linux and FOSS is all about. trough gags and all.
This could be a good idea. I did not even think of the dependency gag :)

Anyways as for the boy it did took a while to finish like 6 hours, mainly bexause it was my first vector so mainyl it was experimenting with inkscape. Whoa. Six hours is a lot, my guess is that we need a way to optimize our/your techniques for more efficiency, or switch to bitmap drawing with the GIMP (I realized that with a tablet, I can do coloring in an hour or less in the GIMP, which used to take me hours and hours with the mouse or in Inkscape).

[ghevan]

Ok, I Like how it sounds, and the examples you are proposing as an aesthetic guide. mmm i woule like to see the "pilot" that way we can start sketching ideas and maybe do a color test.

AS for the speed, yeah, that one was very slow mainly because of 2 points. It was my first vector (in all my life) and second, the objectve was to resemble at some extent the GIMP way of coloring I was sing at that moment.

As for gimp I can work much faster on coloring, like the web comic you adressed if could be done in about 1 hour all. Its quite simple the coloring :].
2 examples forthe GIMP
http://ghevan.deviantart.com/art/After-all-45869995
http://ghevan.deviantart.com/art/ds-0707-29-60953039
http://ghevan.deviantart.com/art/WIP-no-name-62858529 (this is the last one im working on)

Anyme like coloring isn't posted there, but I used to paint a lot as the comic strip you linked.

Work on some proof concepts for the comic. MAybe I could hepl you from time to time on the lineart.

:]

[kiddo]

There are still those technical dilemmas that block my thinking however:

bitmap (gimp) or vectors (inkscape)?
lineart or color? (being vector, unless you want to spend a lot of time for the colors, would mostly mean lineart I suppose)
blog or picasa? (I would most likely choose picasa because it is easy, very fast, and has mostly all the features of a blog)
if bitmapped, what size/formats should the webcomic be?
should we make it available in multiple languages?


I just saw your latest reply, so I will try to make a pilot comic, a bit funny and simple. Think of it as a draft, so I will just try to sketch it out in inkscape (doing it in the gimp would be a bit easier, but I want to see what it would look like in inkscape, and if you could manipulate that file easily or not). We could always redo it properly or redo it in bitmap afterwards with full colors (if we decided to use colors), anyway this would just be a test. ALSO, don't hesitate to draw a variation of my pilot if you have a better sense of drawing than me :)

[ghevan]

-bitmaps or vector? I dunno also, I like both. for details i would go for bitmaps, for quick colors Ill take vectors anytime.

-lineart is fine as lig as th edrawing is emotive enough, if not color can add the missing gaps. also for web color is more appelaing. Theat should be decided as the project goes on.

-I don't kwno what picassa is (other than an image viewer) so I would go for blog here.

-size? if you want to be displayed on pc just make it dobule of what you want at final sizes. As for printed version 200% is good enough also. the bigger the better. as long as you pc can handle it. :]

-english. source available for translation? xD dunno. but I could try to translate to my language.

cool! ILl sketch some ideas, if I can, if not Ill just think the over and get back here to comment them out. :]

[kiddo]

For an example of what picasaweb (I said picasa, but I meant picasaweb actually, which is the 1 GiB image hosting by google, you can export to it directly from f-spot) can do, here is a "reduced set" of my drawing gallery that I put there for testing: http://picasaweb.google.com/nekohayo/Dessins

I like being able to navigate with the keyboard arrow keys :)

Anyway, I tried making a pilot drawing in inkscape.

wow. it is weird.
damnit, it always always ends up so much uglier after I draw it :)
well, merging Mark Shuttleworth with king Leonidas was not so easy I guess. That shows a partial limitation of this webcomic: if we represent people from the FOSS community sometimes, we will have a hard time making them look real, no? (well, except if it's richard stallman)
I can provide the SVG file for this if you are interested, I doubt something really good could be done from it though
I'm not convinced yet of one way or another, but I think I will begin leaning towards the gimp as it seems so much faster than vectors. I mean, this pilot strip is not as visually impressive as I hoped it *could* be
on the other hand, this is my very first try at making a "cartoon strip", as you can see, it's quite chaotic
there is so much missing details, this strip feels empty. I guess I've seen a bit too much megatokyo and maliki :)

[kiddo]

I think I killed ghevan... Anyone interested? For writing scenarios and all that.. might motivate me :)

[ghevan]

OH boy you mademe laugh xD. Im not death, just unnavailable to do something good. Sorry Ive got a litte busy with the thesis and the social service.

I was hoping more posts over the idea. more visual tests and all that.

[kiddo]

Just for the sake of trying to define the style, I have drawn that same strip again from scratch using the GIMP. Result is much better so far, I guess.

I am hesitating wether this should be using color, or if i should just keep the comic line-art only, as it oftentimes looks better imho.

In any case, I figured out that drawing with a tablet in the gimp, although you lose the advantages of vectors, is much easier, because you can use the back of the stylus as a "real" eraser. So what happens is that you are not forced to do clean drawings on the first try: you can clean it up afterwards just like you would with real physical paper (except that it is cleaner).

[ghevan]

I like the stye. its simple. just adding some dialog ballons and it would be taking more shape.

Ill give it a shot at some ideas, ill post them monday probably. :]