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Project Code: ADC-1 + Digital Comics Workflow

I’m a great one for coming up with ideas but then never finishing them.  So I’m throwing down the gauntlet to myself this year *KA-TUK* (that’s what a gauntlet throwdown sounds like) with my so called Project Code: ADC-1.

Note: ADC stands for Artloader Digital Comic – my attempt to sound mysterious (I’m a bit nutty – what can I say?  And no – I’ve not been drinking).

In order to give myself a bit of structure as I create my digital comics, I have put together a little Digital Comics Workflow.  It’s always good to have a defined process – whether you follow it or not is another matter.

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Fictional World Map V3

I’ve been going round in circles with my fictional world map and in the end have decided to simplify a little.  Bump mapping wasn’t really in tune with the feel I wanted so I took that off, added some contour type areas and some text.  I don’t think the text is quite right so I will tweak that a bit, add a border and other embellishments.

UndomeaMap3.2Text

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Fictional World Map V2 Mountain Base

I’m still working on a world map for my digital comic.  I’ve re-done the mountain bases to run along tectonic fault lines and also added a grain effect bump map to the land masses (thanks Phil).

I’m in the middle of a wrestling match with Gimp to generate the mountain ridges that I want but I’m not winning at the moment.

Anyway here’s what I have so far:

UndomeaMap3.1MountainBase

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A definition of Digital Comics

Since I’m aiming to create one, I thought I’d get clear in my head what a digital comic is.  So I’ve written a definition.

Rest assured I did do a little bit of research so that I didn’t go off on a complete tangent with this but please feel free to agree or disagree.

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Comics Section Added

I’ve just added a Comics section to this website.  Some day I hope to have my own digital comics available here but for now I will just be reviewing graphic novels and comics.

I have also included an affiliate link to an online comic book shop:  The Forbidden Planet.  This was a shop that I used to visit back in my student days so holds fond memories for me.

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Fictional World Map Tectonic Plates

My new pals at Gimp Chat gave some valuable feedback about the location of my mountains – they are rarely at the centre of land masses and should be determined by the location of tectonic plates.

So I’ve gone back to the drawing board and decided where my tectonic plates are going to be:

UndomeaMap3.1Tectonics

I can now see where my mountains should go 🙂

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Fictional World Map Prototype Using GIMP

I have been tinkering about in GIMP trying to create a World Map for my digital comic.

The settings I have played about with are:

  1. Gaussian Blur to create greyscale image layers that will then be fed into the GIMP Bump Mapping tool.
  2. The GIMP Bump Mapping tool.

Anyway after 3 hours of pottering about on the laptop this is what I have:

UndomeaMap2.1

 

Next I’m going to tweak the top ridges on the mountains and also add some text.

 

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Plotting My Digital Comic In 1 Hour

One of my eventual aims with this website is to complete a digital comic and distribute it online.  However, I am still only in the planning stages.  I have been for several years!

Searching for inspiration to help me get past the planning stages, I found an article by an author called M. D. Lachlan entitled “Plot your novel in an hour!”

The whole article is excellent in my opinion, but the main point for me is that I must tell myself:  It’s going to be rubbish!

Taking this approach I completed a draft plot in about 15 minutes!  It very probably is rubbish but it felt good to complete a task.

I reckon this technique will also work for my digital painting.  Thinking back, that is how I completed this digital painting in round about 4 hours.

Muscleman
Muscleman

It’s not a perfect reproduction of the reference image I used, but it’s done.

Now that I’ve got a basic plot I’m going to draw a map of the fictional world – it’s going to be rubbish but it should be done by this time next week 🙂