I hope this doesn't seem like a cop-out answer, but I find that it honestly depends on the project. I myself tend to default to storyboarding (both long and short form), but there have been projects that I scripted, just because that made more sense / felt right for that work, and one long-form comic somehow came into being as an oral recitation that I held in my memory and edited by repeating it back to myself. That was a weird one. Most comics don't get created by verbalization, and I wouldn't recommend it. But hey, that was the baby left by that particular stork.

I would go with whatever allows you to create your work most efficiently. If you're a storyboarder, develop your storyboards. If scripting comes naturally, work with that. And don't forget, you can combo up techniques - write a script, with storyboarded sections where, say, staging is important, or there's a lot of action. Or rely mostly on storyboards, but take written notes on the side to keep larger lore details straight. I'm a big believer in the Church of Whatever Works.

Thanks for getting back to me. I checked your page to see if your Portal works were getting more views than your comic, but you're right, it's hard to tell. Still, if it's acceptable to do both, then I shall make a thread for it in the forums once I have something to post!

Since this is a webcomics forum, I have a webcomics question, and hopefully a visitor here can help me.

I want to start another comic, and I'd like to get it in front of the greatest number of eyes possible. Do you think it would do better in a personal webcomic thread here in the art forum, instead of posted in chunks to the Portal? Or is the Portal better? Is doing both against the rules, or is it not against the rules but still considered a dick move? If anybody has thoughts, kindly help another striver out.

Thank you for your kindness!

Replying to this thread is likely a terrible idea, but what the hey, "new year new me" or something. I just finished a webcomic a few weeks ago. It's an FNF fan comic.

If you don't like FNF, you probably won't like it.

If you're averse to the (debated) canon of Pico being at least bi-curious, you probably won't like it.

If you don't wanna see things get kind of gay sometimes (literally,) you probably won't like it.

If you're just looking for fap fodder with no involved plot, you probably won't like it.

But if all of that wasn't enough to scare you away . . . well, you might just get something out of it, so maybe give it a try?

Here, I made a playlist: When We Were Strangers

Definitely an option!

I'll keep practicing. You walk long enough, you're bound to get somewhere.

You have my respect for being able to pull it off on a cell phone!

Thank you for doing these experiments on my behalf, Yukosuno, and I know the images you posted are small, but even at that size, I can definitely see differences between the techniques you mentioned. I'm glad you listed the pros/cons - it's good stuff to think about and I can consider your points while fine-tuning my process!

What you say is true, there will be limitations I can't surpass without digital. But part of the issue is that my digital rig is pretty primitive, and even taking cost out of the equation, figuring out the right equipment for my specs, ordering and waiting for it and installing it and getting up to speed on it takes time and, well, time is a bit of a factor for me. I can do a piece or two with my current tablet, but it would be absolute murder to do, say, one hundred pages from scratch with it. And while you're absolutely correct that retracing all my lines creates the cleanest look, if I'm going to do that, I may as well be drawing it in digital from scratch in the first place. I like hand drawing, even if my ability isn't quite up to snuff, so I want to be able to keep doing it and just keep as much as possible from being lost in the digital transference process.

So, I'll keep trying, but I definitely appreciate your thoughts on this matter and will be using your post as a point of reference going forward.

Cheers,

NLH

Glad you got some use out of the thing I found. I do love me some Speedball ink with brushes, but I'm pretty bad with fountain pens and hard on nibs. Still, I will find a set to practice with - if the lines they make transfer that much better than soft-tip pens, that's a good incentive.

For some people, doing extended amounts of work in digital just isn't a good option for them. Maybe you've got a primitive digital setup that works for one or two small pieces, but would make larger projects an absolute grind. Maybe you travel a lot or have limited access to outlets and carrying around a laptop or a monitor tablet at all times, while feasible, is very inconvenient compared to carrying a pad of paper and some pens. Or maybe, as I said, you genuinely enjoy using analog art tools much more than digital ones. The digital tools do have their own advantages, but if you're not enjoying doing what you do, and you're not earning money for it, then why even do it - community service?

I disagree with the idea that digital is the only path to creating nice art that can be posted online. And while it is possible to improve your lines in real life, even the nicest art is frequently prone to pixelation when scanned. You can take a photo of it and upload that, but that comes with its own editing difficulties, and phone cameras are highly limited and certainly not built for stuff like this.

Anyway, I went off on my own and found an online guide that offers some general helpful techniques - it's not the same as drawing directly in digital, but it's enough to shrink the amount of cleanup for scans of hand drawn artwork to more reasonable levels. I've posted it to this thread so that anyone else who comes here with this problem finds something other than several variations of "lol git gud scrub."

Lesson learned I guess. I will do all my own research from now on and not bother people here by asking for help again.

Okay! So, if anyone wanted an answer other than "just switch to digital, dummy," I found a great PS cheatsheet for anyone who draws analog and wants their scanned lines to look nicer!

You might have legit reasons to need to do this. Maybe your digital setup is a Wacom tablet from 2002 with no monitor and all the stylus grip of an ice sheet and the idea of trying to create a 100-page project with it is making you break out in hives and your Onlyfans isn't pulling in enough for that $700 Cintaq Pro you wanted. Maybe you just like drawing analog like the crazy person everyone on Newgrounds seems to think you are. Doesn't matter!

I found a great document that was written for Photoshop CS 5, but also applies to CS6, probably applies to most later iterations of Pshop and honestly should also work for Clip Studio Paint since it's roughly a 1:1 on CS6, just with the functions renamed. Anyone who wants to piggyback onto this with suggestions for other software is welcome.

The document is here: http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/gimp/KPT/KPT4/KPT4.html

The basic quicktip for the TL:DR crowd is: before you do anything else like color or shading, while all you have is black pen lines, use the Gaussian blur function (the document author recommends 1.5, but I'm personally finding success as low as 1, or even 0.7), and then open Image -> Adjustments -> Levels. At the top will be a screen with three sliders at the bottom - a black one set to 0, a gray one set to 1.00 and a white one set to 255. To make your lines darker and better defined, slowly move the black slider up towards the 255 end. You can watch the lines on your screen darken and smooth in real time! If you feel like the lines are getting too blocky and detail is getting lost, move the white slider down from 255 towards the black slider. The gray one will stay in the middle, there is no need to mess with it. Then it's just a matter of moving your sliders around until you've got the exact balance between dark smooth lines and visible detail that you want.

Will some cleanup be required after the fact? Of course, nothing is perfect! But you did just cut down your workload by at least 85% Using this technique, I managed to get Pico here from this:

To this:

In literally five minutes, and even at 200% magnification, there's a marked improvement.

I honestly recommend the document - there's other stuff in there too like Unsharp tips, how to soften edges without rounding corners, all sorts of stuff.

Best of luck to all my fellow Luddites out there, and to all you impatient technophiles, remember, being nice costs nothing!

It's okay if you don't know any ways to smooth hand drawn lines in post-production, but there's no need to be contentious about it.

Ain't that the truth.

I would say it's more like I don't want to do something that would improve my work, because it would cause me to enjoy the process less. I like drawing. I don't enjoy drawing nearly as much with hand-eye separation.

I have officially hit the limit of my ability. Whenever I scan in a piece, no matter how smooth it looked when I was drawing it, it looks so CHOPPY. Everyone else's lines look so smooth! And I know most of them are using a stylus with smoothing abilities built in, by way of the art software.

But I really, really don't like digital drawing. The act of separating hand and eye has always felt so unnatural to me and I don't have one of those high-end tablets where it's like you're just drawing straight onto it. Honestly, I'd like to keep doing my lines in analog if I can. Does anyone have any recommendations for tools or filters that can be found in either Adobe Photoshop CS6 or Clip Studio Paint to help my lines look nicer? Or is the only solution to just scan it in at an ungodly high resolution? Currently using 300 dpi, which I figured would be enough but I guess it's not. :(

I dislike digital linework myself, but it looks like I'm going to have to drag myself into the 21st Century kicking and screaming. -_-

That said, if we must do it the hard way . . . .

1) Mechanical pencils - I just checked and my pencils have been in use for so long that all idenfiers have been rubbed clean away. Oh dear. Anyway, they're the plain black ones with colored clips. You can probably find 'em in a drug store or something. I prefer .07 lead to .05, since I'm heavy-handed.

2) Pens. I beat my pens to death, so Sakura Microns give me both the greatest variety of line weights and the best use-to-cost ratio. That said, if you can get ahold of LePen or Deleter Pens, go for it. I also like Faber Castell for their grayscale brush markers, but they never last long for me.

3) Filler pens / colors: Copics if you can afford them, Ohuhu markers if you can't. You will never go back. They blend like PAINT.

4) PAPER. You're probably just using regular printer paper, which is perfectly fine. But if you ever want to drop for some heavier weight paper that can take some real use, like bristol or watercolor paper, I think you'll have fun. :) I don't like vellum because I don't think media sticks to it well, but you might. Worth a try.

Comic Fury looks good! I guess I never realized that places like this still existed - takes me back to the old DrunkDuck and ComicsPanda days.

Okay, so the instinct to not spam NG was correct! Unfortunately, LINE Manga does not appear to be available for use outside of Japan. I'll look at other venues.

So, I'm working on a serial comic. I'd like to put it on Newgrounds, but I'm worried that if updates are frequent enough, it'll just result in me annoyingly spamming the hell out of the Portal. What's the best way to present something like that on this site? Should I just post it to my own NG and leave it out of the Portal? Put it on the Portal anyway? Make a thread for it here in the Art forum? I'm trying to figure out 1) the best etiquette and 2) the best way to get people who want to see this thing to see this thing, while not bugging people who don't.

Not ready to share it yet, all I'll say is that it's a fan comic (uses licensed intellectual property, but hey, I'm not here to make money) and has NO pornographic content. Has some violence. Definitely gonna have a lot of swearing. Thanks for the help.

. . . . how about drawing a dog?

It still works! Madness paper dolls, haha, I love it! Sanford in particular looks very charming here.

Well, dang . . . . you sure showed me!

Despite being unfinished, I particularly like this sketch page. I think it's because of the sheer variety of poses and outfits. Especially love the "non-Converse" Converse!

Draw your least-favorite character, doing one of your least-favorite things. Extra points for visible hands and feet.

CHALLENGE MODE ACTIVATED

This is a good illustration, I'm saving this.

And I'll try to take your advice about the lips, but I feel like I'm in just as much trouble with an underdrawn contact point as I am with an overdrawn one. I think I'll have to trial-and-error that part out. But you've given me a lot to think about, and thanks for taking the time to try and help me.

Thanks for the warning. I think your work is very high quality and yeah, one eye is hidden, but you actually draw LIPS! You have no idea how rare that can be. As for angles, I don't really have a particular one in mind, I'm just generally looking for angles that look plausible and attractive, and aggressiveness can be nice, but not, like, Baby's First Cannibalism.

That is actually a very good resource that I completely overlooked. I will do that! Thank you!

Okay, so I need to expand my repertoire, and I'd like to get better at drawing people / characters kissing (this may come in handy for future projects.) I figured on Twitter, I'd find lots of examples of kissing to study and learn from. Well, people do draw kissing a lot there, but I find that either the heads are angled to hide most of the faces, the manga-style artists frequently omit mouths entirely, or simply, bless their hearts, they're just not very good. :(

So, I'd like to submit a request for anyone to link to either good online resources for this, or even just images that feature good kissing scenes, even here on Newgrounds. I don't mind if they happen to be rated "A", so long as they're clearly forewarned so this thread doesn't get detonated and we all get banned. Remember, this isn't about organ manipulation, we're here to learn!

(What you do on your own time is your business!)

Well, I don't know you personally, but when drawing stops being fun for me, it's usually because I'm putting too much pressure on myself to make something great, and I feel like I can't measure up. So when that happens, I usually switch from nice drawing materials to junkier ones, and then try to pick a random unimpressive object in my room and sketch it. And then I'm like, "What are you worrying about? You're drawing a picture of a jar of Planter's peanuts on airmail paper with a pen you stole from a hotel three years ago, this isn't going into a museum!" That often loosens me up.