What I have learned from making webcomics

I learned if you want something done always do it yourself.
Mostly for the print making for me. TPCTH print was delayed a year because one of my friends insisted that he do all the page conversions and it ended up he wasn't doing any of it. So during last winter break I did all the work and nearly went crazy ,but it was worth it.

Webcomics are not money makers.
You can make much more money by simply having a low paying job than selling anything related to your webcomic, BUT you get a lot more fame from making a webcomic. Internet fame that is.

You get better over time.

-You will become more confident in your work. Less hiding it whenever someone walks by if you draw in public. Less hiding it from the people you know.

-Less feeling like your work is crap after you read really skillful pro comics like CLAMP manga.

-You will also get in that "drawing mood" easier after you do it so much.

If your real life friends/family weren't interested from the beginning in your comic, don't expect them to become interested.
I got into webcomics through some IRL friends. I originally made a webcomic to impress them. Even though they loved webcomics dearly doesn't mean they liked my comics.

When writing a story go with what interests you.
Half of it's instinct really. If the plot (or an added scenario) makes you excited there's a good chance your readers will think it's exciting too. And it keeps you interested in continuing the comic.

A progression in style

My old and new work for your amusement.

First is my giant dog character, Bienfang. Didn't want people to always compare him to the wolves in Princess Mononoke. Made him more puffy and smaller eyes like a dog. Anatomy looks better too. Owning a real dog for a year helps.Starla and Scout. Working with these characters I really got to know their personalities and how they would react to situations. The expressions I think are the biggest change other than the obvious improvements overall.

Nameless(right) and Faceless(left) This is an inking of an old drawing. The biggest changes are in Nameless' anatomy and face. The hair was really messed up when I first draw this character. Now the hairline looks like it fits to a real person.

Darcie. Starla and Scout's older sister ten years before the present setting of the story. (She would be 12 years old in these pictures.) I really used to hate drawing children and didn't care much for the overly huge eyes. I was (actually from the beginning) going for a realistic manga style. It was really hard to draw children with out making them look like an adult with out the very big eyes. Now years later, I decided to drop the very big eyes and still manage to make kid characters look like kids.

Similar concept as Darcie. It's Starla as a seven year old. (The picture of her as a 17 year old is above) I used a photo of one of the 1st graders I taught this year a reference.

This character Chase changed the most. He's supposed to be 12-14 year old, not quite a kid not quite a guy. He goofs off sometimes ,but for the most part he's a serious supporting character. He knows a good amount of the secrets of the story, but is forced to keep it to himself due to his master and thus he feels bad about it. I do like the smaller eyes and more teenage look in the recent picture(it fits more with what kind of character he is), but he seems to look too attractive for a supporting character. (Looks like one of those emo yaoi bishies.) Much more cute than the main characters(my poor ugly Scout...).
So thus I both love and hate Chase.

(Oh yeah... I got Chase's hair part wrong... Either I change it or say it was always like that. Hahaha!)

Kinda funny ads I've found.

This one really cracks me up... World of Warcraft MMORPG becomes your life when you join. It's either WOW or the degree. Not both. Seriously.

Ok the drawing's very skillful but it also is...Learn how to draw the human figure very ugly! We at Leading Entertainment Studios pride ourselves in drawing figures very ugly. With our training course we will have you drawing the human figure very ugly in no time!

The Planet Closest to Heaven book is ready to buy.

Click here to get to the store. Just in time for Anime Detour too.

Future Webcomic Guild?

Tried to ask people about it on a few forums way back in December 2006. Not much luck at all. Thought I'd post it here. Perhaps I can get more into this after I graduate.

Are you from Minnesota or near the Twin Cities and interested in meeting fellow webcomic makers/fans in real life?
I want to start a webcomic meet up group if there is enough people interested( http://www.meetup.com/). If it happens the meetings would be in a neutral public location I'm thinking The Source ( http://www.sourcecandg.com/). I go there on Saturdays for card league and RP. I can talk with the owner to start up the meetings.

I'm thinking of calling the group the Minnesota Webcomic Guild. Sounds cool and official.
Who?
Don't have to be from Minnesota ,but close enough to drive to the Source in Falcon Heights, MN.

Why?
The reason is I don't really know any webcomic creators in real life. Webcomics tend to be a internet and (maybe a few anime conventions)only social life. I want the webcomic hobby to expand a little more outside the internet.

What would we do?
I'm thinking of going to local cons(Anime Detour, Fall Con?). Printing and selling our own webcomics as a group sharing a table. Maybe some tutorial meetings. Critique meetings. Hang out meetings. That's kinda what I got so far.

I have experience with club organizations. I started and still am an officer of the Anime Fan Club at Mankato State University since fall 2003.

Please reply or pm me if you are interested.

Older comics and images

Going to post some newer stuff later.

Famous People Interviews #1: Kristen Gudsnuk

This is the result of not having the Drunkduck interviews updated. I decided to conduct my own interviews for the enjoyment of hearing what people have to say about their art. In future issues I hope to interview local artists, illustrators, as well as webcomic artists.

Our first interviewed famous person is Kristen Gudsnuk. She creates webcomics at drunkduck.com, is an anime fan, and loves to make fun of emos. Her webcomic Misfit Assassins is about five psychotic yet goofy teenagers trying to straighten out their pasts as members of the Party of Peace's Assassin squad.

Real Name: Kristen Gudsnuk
Age: 19
Creator of the webcomic: Misfit Assassins

Jillyfoo: How long have you been into webcomics?

Kristen: Well, I didn't even know that they existed until last October. I had been working on my comic just for fun, and forcing all of my friends to read it, when someone said, "You should make this into a webcomic." Misfit Assassins isn't the first comic I've ever drawn, but it's my first webcomic.

Jillyfoo: What's the webcomic that got you into webcomics or (comics or manga?)

Kristen: I'll have to blame everything on my little brother. He made me watch anime, and I'm probably genetically predisposed to otakudom, so it just seemed a natural step to make my own manga. But the deciding factor was (get ready, I'm a nerd) watching Naruto. I thought, "wow! This show is well-written, beautifully animated, and it makes me cry a lot! I shall aspire to this amazingness!"

Jillyfoo: WHAT is your quest!?
(what's the goal of your comic makingness? Why are you doing what you do?)

Kristen: Well, I sort of view Misfit Assassins as a training-ground. I've already learned so much about making comics, and about writing and pacing, and there's a lot more for me to learn. So I'm doing this to solidify my skills and to improve at drawing and stuff. When I finish (which will be in a really long time; the story is pretty complicated in my mind), I plan on winning Rising Stars Of Manga (yeah! WINNING!!!) and then skyrocketing to worldwide acclaim and fame.

Jillyfoo: WHAT is your favorite color?
(Do you prefer black and white or color comics? and why?)

Kristen: My favorite color is SPARKLE!
I personally like to do my comics in black and white because it's faster, and because there's a higher margin of error when using color. Ok, so mostly because I'm lazy! ^^!!

Jillyfoo: I know assassin stories are real common place in the webcomic world, Misfit Assassins feels different though. It's hilarious. How did you come up with Misfit Assassins? How do you come up with stories in general?

Kristen: Well, before I rediscovered anime, I was toying with the idea of writing a short story about friends who get driven by evil old society to rob a restaurant and try to run away, and the story was going to be all about the naivete of childhood and the whole "the best laid plans of mice and men" kind of theme. (It's still in there, though, vaguely! That's Tom and Bertha's past, although they rob a convenience store!) But then I was bored at work and thought, "what if I made my story into a comic?" I thought that if it was going to be a manga, it needed to be over-the-top rather than really introspective, so I threw in superpowers, a futuristic setting, and assassins! And voila!
The story itself isn't really about assassinating people. It's more focused on the "Misfit" part ^_-! In other words, I've been trying to make character development a priority!
Although further along in the comic, there will be more "assassin" business... deep down, this comic is (well... more like, "will aim to be") about the ineffectiveness of government, and yet the pointlessness of revolt. I don't want to spoil anything though!!! (But some major, crazily unexpected plot twists are ahead, in the distant future, and you'd have to be reading my comic with a microscope to pick up on the vague foreshadowing.)

Jillyfoo: I love Eve and Flipper! How did you come up with those pair?

Kristen: I figured that everyone has their tragic pasts in Misfit Assassins, and it would get really dull if everyone wandered around like Tom, clutching their broken emo-hearts. So I wanted Eve to be non-scarred, buoyant and hardy; to recover easily, etc. Even though she doesn't have parents, she's not too bothered by it, because she has Flipper!!!! They're BFFs!!

Jillyfoo: What's with the emo jokes? Where did they come from?

Kristen: Well, when I decided to make a comic, it was in the middle of watching the Haku/Zabuza arc of Naruto. And that story arc was so depressing. Like, it makes your soul bleed. And I thought, "So that's the key to awesomeness! Maudlin, shameless emotionality!" I decided to make my comic as EMO AS POSSIBLE! Tom's got a dead girlfriend and a dead family that he may or may not have killed, King has a cursed eye that has caused lots of problems in his life, Leif and Erika have tragipasts that I shall not disclose... Zombie? I can't even go there! And much later (after the CRAZY PLOT TWIST!) there will be this other character whose sole passion was playing the piano... and whose arms are severed and replaced with giant metal claw things. (I'm a mean author!) But even though while brainstorming I literally thought, "What's the most depressing thing... ever? Dead babies? hmm..." I wanted my comic to be kinda funny too. So I sometimes give it a self-mocking, silly tone.
Jillyfoo: Your work has changed a lot since the beginning... many different materials. Any favorites you use?

Kristen: Well, I really like using my Wacom tablet in Photoshop. I used to not even have a mouse or drawing program other than MS Paint on my computer, so digital art was out of the question then. If I could grasp screentoning I would do it... in fact, my goal for this next plot arc is to do it all in Manga Studio.

Jillyfoo: Top favorite webcomic?

Kristen: HARD QUESTION!!! I have a lot of favorites! Here are some: Rainbow Carousel, Lola, I Come From Mars, Am I Still Here, and of course, the greatest one-paged webcomic ever made, The Killer Reaper!!!

Jillyfoo: Top favorite newspaper comic strip?

Kristen: ... .. I used to like Fox Trot... *cries*

Jillyfoo: Top Favorite country-of-origin comic?

Kristen: probably... Ghost World or something. ALTHOUGH! My brother's friend's mom's cousin is the guy who makes "Bone"! Isn't that COOOOL?

Jillyfoo: Top Favorite manga?

Kristen: ooh, hard one. I really liked Midori Days, and Gravitation, Deathnote, OnePiece, and FMA. Oh, and Ouran High School Host Club!