Rambling Asides…
February 7th, 2010 |Hi, Folks!
Benita and I have made big plans for selling T-shirts. We’ll be selling funny shirts, inspirational shirts, fantasy art shirts, and (of course) Johnny Saturn shirts. To this end I’m looking at some new store plugins, and I think I’ve found what we want. I should even be able to sell digital versions of the comic again off this site, which is great because anything you buy from us earns us more money.
EvilSupahFly has pointed out that we need to update our character listing, as well as guides for Spire City itself and a new readers section. I’m combining this task with finally filling out our media kit, and quite possibly a printed reader’s guide to “Johnny Saturn.”
For those who don’t know, we are fast closing in on the end of issues 11, which concludes the first part of the second story arc called “Homeland Insecurity.” Finishing this story arc is a pretty momentous occasion for Benita and me. I’m very proud of it, because this is when Benita and I really worked out the plot lines, and we finally learned how to write something that reads well as a web comic. We’ve both been writing for years (mostly prose stuff, but occasionally magazine articles too), but learning how to maximize our writing for sequential art was still a challenge.
On a personal note, I’m pretty pleased with myself this evening because I adapted my Belkin game controller, which I use in Photoshop, to change brush/pencil size, opacity, and mode all in a very fast, efficient way. I endorse the use of a game controller (whatever brand you buy) to make your coloring easier.
This week, I’ve got several things on my “To Do” list. I’m contributing “Johnny Saturn” pages to the Indy Webcomic Group’s forthcoming sampler. I’m formatting our comics for the Amazon Kindle. I’ve got some code to install on the website from the Webcomic Planet Collective and Palace in the Sky. And, I’m going to wrap up the media kit I mentioned before. This media kit will also go nicely on numerous wikis and websites, so I’m pretty excited about it.
In addition to this, I’ll be creating two more episodes of “Johnny Saturn” for next week. Once, a few years back, I had a buffer of comic pages that were pre-loaded and ready to go. That day has come and gone, and now I’m on a weekly cycle to make new episodes every week. This arrangement has worked out pretty well, to be honest.
“But,” you interject, “Two penciled, inked, colored, and lettered episodes a week, the equivalent of a single comic page, is that all you can do?” Well, no. Running the publishing side of Story Studios takes a good chunk of my time, as does promotion, and other less common elements like interviews, art for this site or that, and interaction. When we were doing three episodes a week then all the extra stuff was neglected, and that’s why I had to cut back. That worked out well, and our audience has grown since then.
Scott.
quick question from a fan and an amateur artist,
how the heck are you using a game controller to do your coloring? can you describe the technique a little?
thanks!
Sure, Johnny. Several professional colorists are doing it this way, but not all.
First up, I still use the Wacom and Stylus on my right hand, and put the game controller under my left. Mine is a Belkin game controller, widely available.
Anyway, the game controller can be programmed where certain keys or buttons equals specific functions in Photoshop. You basically assign your Photoshop actions and shortcuts to the game controller. This becomes very second nature quickly, and speeds up the process a bit.
The beauty of these generic game controllers is they have lots of buttons and wheels and options, but they can adapt to pretty much any program–Illustrator, Gimp, Manga Studio, etc.