starting a GNOME/FOSS-centered webcomic

[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. :]