I'd like to have a stupid idiot boy listening to an ipod, preferably one who appears to be in the middle of an air guitar solo. I promise to make 10 immediate comics if someone draws it and brad approves it.

I don't see an incentive....

quote:

---

Cre8tive13 wrote:

I don't see an incentive....

 

---

and by "incentive" you mean boobs?

Yeah Chicka, we want to see your incentives.

i'll settle for a bikini. assuming there are a couple of friends over and you're all wrestling in mud

Is this close to what you're looking for? I can change the color of his hair and clothes if you want; I just patterned it on what I was wearing when I made it. I could also try to change the hairstyle and/or make his shirt short sleeved if desired. This is the first time I've tried to make a character for SC, so any tips for improvement (from anyone, not just attitudechicka) are welcome as well.

quote:

---

kane2742 wrote:
Is this close to what you're looking for? I can change the color of his hair and clothes if you want; I just patterned it on what I was wearing when I made it. I could also try to change the hairstyle and/or make his shirt short sleeved if desired. This is the first time I've tried to make a character for SC, so any tips for improvement (from anyone, not just attitudechicka) are welcome as well.

 

 

---

That's actually pretty good. I don't like the jaggies around the character, but that can be fixed.

How about just having two eyes and a row of smiling white teeth underneath it. You know, for racist strips etc.

It would look cool on the black background. You could have angry eyes, scared eyes etc.

Actually, I like how he's so random, he could be the psycho I was planning to use him as or just a regular guy who loves his air guitar in someone else's strip.

Also I'd like to remind you guys that I have posed in a bikini and hard hat for this website.

I take my "stripper" title very seriously.

quote:

---

boloboffin wrote:

quote:

---

kane2742 wrote:

---

That's actually pretty good.

---

I'm trying to smooth out the jaggies, but I can't really figure out a good way to do it. I went back to the original, large, bmp file, and depending on the type of dithering I choose when I scale and the order of indexing, scaling, and setting transparency, I either end up with jagged edges or a weird "glow" around the character (traces of the flouro green background - even if I switch it to white or gray or something, I just get a glow in that color bleeding into the edges instead if I don't have jaggies). Any suggestions? I'm using GIMP, by the way.

mandingo: It's still available somewhere online. It doesn't take a lot of work to find it either. I'd link it here but I'm feeling selfconcious after viewing it.

kane: In Photoshop Valley, injokester was kind enough to include lots of helpful hints about creating characters. Not that I've actually tried; I'm artistically challenged. He might have already found a solution to your problem there.

quote:

---

attitudechicka wrote:
In Photoshop Valley, injokester was kind enough to include lots of helpful hints about creating characters.

---

I assume you mean this thread? I've been using that to learn to draw characters while simultaneously teaching myself to use GIMP - and I've only been doing both for about the past 10 days, so I don't completely know what I'm doing yet. Injokester's instructions for making GIFs are for Photoshop; I can't afford the full version and I already tried the trial version a while ago, so it won't let me run it now. (I even tried reinstalling.) I followed Injokester's instructions as closely as I could, but a few things were different in GIMP, and it might handle the edges differently.

I have noticed that GIFs come out more jagged than other formats, but that's what it needs to be for SC. Here's a comparison (PNG on the left, GIF on the right), as well as a fake iPod ad I made it into for fun:

The second post in that thread is about making characters in MSpaint for stripcreator.

quote:

---

attitudechicka wrote:
The second post in that thread is about making characters in MSpaint for stripcreator.

---

That thread's where I learned to draw characters. I make the character in Paint, and then save it as a BMP, then use GIMP for converting to GIF (it's even more pixelated when I save as GIF in Paint). I've been looking back at that thread any time I'm having trouble with something; it's mainly the saving as GIFs part that I'm having some trouble with now (and getting the hands right, but I think I'll try to just trace those from photos of my own hands).

That character looks like he's from a Spanish textbook.

Rodrigo: Oye, Juan, ?que escuchas?

Juan: !Hola, Rodrigo! !Escucho las gritas de su madre!

Rodrigo: ?De veras?

Juan: No. Escucho Britney Spears.

The character looks cool, though a little shading wouldn't hurt- even a basic two-tone shadow along one edge. The jagged edges can't be avoided when you're using transparencies, though photoshop does a better job of converting it than anything else. His left elbow needs a pixel shaved from the corner, but otherwise it looks alright.

The other thing I'd suggest is to re-draw parts like his right leg- having it on a slight angle looks way better on the png than having it go straight down, but for the gif it'd look much better the other way. I'd also extend the sweater on his right side so it either lines up with the pants or goes out 1 pixel further (it generally looks better that way). The black line at the top of his right thigh also dips in then comes back out, I'd pad that part of the leg out a little on the original. These are all very minor things though, and when you put the character onto a background the minor flaws aren't so obvious.

I've posted some links in my old topic on how to get the keygens for photoshop if you want them as well.

Thanks for all the tips. I've fixed the things you pointed out. I'm going to work on the hands a little more before I post a new pic - probably tomorrow or the next day.

I tried to get Photoshop and the keygens, but the keygen links didn't work for me. Now that I'm home for the holiday break, though, I can install the Photoshop trial on my parents' computer to convert my drawing to GIF.

Here's my latest version. I think I got everything fixed that I noticed or that others pointed out, and I saved it with Photoshop this time, so it's a bit less jagged. Does anyone have further suggestions for improvement (or notice anything that I forgot to fix), or is it ready to submit to Brad - along with a flipped version, of course - so that attitudechicka and others can use it in their strips?

I forgot to post this here earlier, but I emailed the character to Brad a couple weeks ago and am waiting to see if it is accepted. Brad, if you're reading this and didn't get the email, please let me know and I'll resend it.