• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Izza me!

CarsonFire

CarsonFire

Acolyte
I forget if I ever introduced myself, I may have just been a long-time lurker. My name is Eric Gustafson, and I've always done comics and writing under the name of Carson Fire, mostly to eliminate confusion because there are a lot more Eric Gustafsons out there than you'd think.

I'm the one who got on board with webcomics pretty early, then floundered around for a while. You might say that I've been writing humorous fantasy for a portion of the last 10 years or so, but mostly writing for comics.

Now I find I need to get more serious about writing in prose. So I really should spend more time hanging around with other writers in order to steal ideas, er, I mean, to pick up ideas on how to make my writing better. :)

I'm also interested in seeing what people are doing in the field of webfiction, and if anybody is making use of the Wattpad site. My roommate already has some ebooks on Amazon, but we've found it's almost impossible to break through the crowd and make sales. Better networking and promotion seems to be in order.

So anyway, howdy y'all!
 
PlotHolio

PlotHolio

Sage
Welcome to Mystic Scribbles, where there shall soon be war. The armies of the Dark Lady Nihal shall break free from Kill This Thread and sweep across the entire forum. You can either fight with us and survive, or fight against us and drown in an unstoppable tide of random .jpeg and .gif images.
 
CarsonFire

CarsonFire

Acolyte
War! I'll bring the popcorn, sit on the sidelines, and root for whoever looks like they're winning. :)
 
A

advait98

Sage
Hey Carson,
Trust me, he's serious about the drowning part. I wound up with hypothermia and scratches all over when it all started (Damn uncropped images!).
And don't worry about the nachos. There is bound to be some in a stray ... image file... brrrr.

June 2012! You've been a long lurker indeed! Anyway, no time like the present to get your thoughts across, and I'm sure the community can help you with whatever bothers you.

Welcome to the forum.
 
Nihal

Nihal

Vala
Welcome! It's nice to see a webcomic author here. I have the desire but not the courage to start one. To keep writing for 10 years... that's a hell of an achievement.



Oh, yeah. *ahem* I'm an the Dark Lady Nihal.

*looks from head to toe then turns away, throwing the hair back*
Okay, you can stick around. Let's go, my minion.
 
CarsonFire

CarsonFire

Acolyte
I wish I could say I've been writing solid for those ten years, but there have been some major interruptions. My webcomic was probably going strongest between 1999-2005, and I've just been trying to get going again ever since.

Part of it's because the production of the comic is a big, time-consuming, resource-imperative affair. If you're doing the comics on paper, you use bristol board if you're doing decent art, ink, pens, etc--and then you have the time and expense of processing the art on computer--scanning, and lots of post-production work, especially if you're doing computer lettering. If you're doing the work digitally, then you're still not off the hook, I've found. You need the equipment, you need the software upgrades (I no longer have access to Photoshop, which is a big blow), and you need a computer that isn't crashing on you all the time (I have had too many incidents where my computer crashes, and zeroes out the art I'm working on).

Mike Allred, the creator of Madman, was just dropped into a nightmare--all his art over the years was stored locally on computers at home, and have just been *all stolen*--so his life's work is essentially gone. He should had a remote backup--but in any case, it's a lot easier to manage backing up text and wordprocessing docs than mammoth art files.

Then many cartoonists also double as webmasters, and must also manage PR and promotion.

So, anyway, I can't do that anymore--I have to scale back, a lot. Although I've had some critical acclaim for my art (and also plenty of people who say it sucks hamster balls), readers who really got into my old comics know that it's the writing that really made it. So I've been trying for some time to figure out how to shift gears from comics into prose, and I don't think I've really done it satisfactorily until I let some of my characters take over the narration, instead of trying to do that omniscient voice thing.

So what I'm doing now is essentially a *continuation* of the old comics, but as webfiction.
 
Last edited:
Nihal

Nihal

Vala
Yeah, I know how time consuming it is, that's why I don't have the courage... yet.

I know this feeling of wanting to try to write something instead of drawing. You'll find some differences, specially the focus and pacing, but I think you'll get used to it. =P

Concerning workflow when drawing I particularly like to sketch in cyan pencil then work with mechanical pencils, skipping the inking. With some few adjustments after scanning it looks really good, and it's less messy and time-consuming.

--
Anyway, I may be able to help with your Photoshop problem - if you still wish to draw something. There is a software I often use called Paint Tool SAI. You can test using the trial. Lineart looks amazing using this program, it's lighter than photoshop (being naturally portable!), but it's not focused on image editing and doesn't come with a text tool. It also doesn't handle print size (+10kpx) really well.

However, it's a tool often used by mangakás to do digital inking. I use it to paint. It costs +- $55.
 
CarsonFire

CarsonFire

Acolyte
Not according to the Something Awful forums! :)

Being able to sketch is a help, one thing that's helping me lately is that I'm spending some time drawing "sets" and costumes. I didn't really spend enough time on this when I was drawing the *comic*--but by drawing some of these things, it helps me better visualize the space and scenes for when I'm writing.

I don't think you have to be an art whiz to do that. Tolkien did a lot of drawings and paintings for his Middle Earth, and most of them were very rudimentary, but it's good to have that stuff in your head.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top