Does anyone know of a website or piece of software (preferably freeware - open source would be best) that lets you create and pose characters with different clothes, facial expressions, etc. to choose from? The best I've found so far is HeroMachine; it has a lot of options for clothes, hair, facial features, accessories, etc. - including the ability to choose the color of each - but only one pose. I was looking for something like that, but with multiple poses to choose from or maybe even the ability to drag the character's limbs into position.

Such an app, if it exists, would be a great way to create new characters to use in strips and to easily make multiple versions of a character with different facial expressions and body language. If there's an open-source app like this, maybe it'd even be possible to incorporate it directly into Stripcreator; you could either choose pre-made characters (like the ones available now) or create your own on the fly. Does anyone have any suggestions for where to look for such an app/website, or is HeroMachine currently the best option?

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"Laughter is the language of the soul." - Pablo Neruda, as quoted by Lisa Simpson

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Poop.

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Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.

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Shovel Ready

I've played around with Photoshop's layer function to get posable characters, but never went that deep into it. It could be used that way (right arm in one layer, left in another, head in yet another). Kinda like the Hanna-Barbara assembly line they built for the Flintstones, et al.

If you're serious about it, that is. You still have to draw the parts, and each character requires a lot of upfront time to get to a quick production turn-around. But if I was actually serious abot starting a web comic, that's what I'd probably do.

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You can take the heart out of the hooker but you can't take the hooker out of the heart. -- Frankenhooker

Those are some good ideas, too., especially boloboffin's. Unfortunately for me, I have no artistic talent at all; I have trouble drawing a decent stick figure, due at least in part to damage to the right side of my brain - that MRI picture below my name isn't my own, but it's pretty close. The people who submit art to the site do a great job; I just thought a character creation tool would be good for making specialized characters or multiple facial expressions for a character when the person needing them can't draw, like the people who I sometimes see making character requests in the "Regarding Stripcreator" forum. It could also allow each user to have their own custom characters if they wanted a continuing series that was distinctly theirs.

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"Laughter is the language of the soul." - Pablo Neruda, as quoted by Lisa Simpson

No artistic talent at all -- it never stopped Brant Parker.

Check out this thread:

How to use Paint

Before you write yourself off, give this a try.

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You can take the heart out of the hooker but you can't take the hooker out of the heart. -- Frankenhooker

i'd even suggest pm'ing Injokester and asking him if there's anything like that. if anyone would know if there was, it's him. or he. or he/him.

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what if nigger meant kite

Thanks, guys. I'm checking out the Paint tutorial right now. It looks like it could be pretty useful. I think I'll also follow mandingo's advice and PM Injokester.

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"Laughter is the language of the soul." - Pablo Neruda, as quoted by Lisa Simpson

I saw a puppet tool was included in the latest version of after effects, and that can be used with still images, it works by you creating a skeleton of joints and it does the rest apparantly. Personally though I think the layer thing in photoshop (or if you want a free one, google for gimp) would work the best, as you could group by body part (left arm, different expressions etc). You'd still have to do the work though, but once you had a basic character it wouldn't be too hard to swap things around and modify your character to however it suited you.

zwinkies.

bonobo conspiracy is a good example of a sprite comic made with zwinkies. i don't expect you'll talk brad into having them here tho.

poser is a whole nothing universe of computer made art, but it's relatively harder to learn.

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woof

Unfortunately I've never found anything like that out there- there are similar things, mostly flash based, that have a very very limited selection of characters and such, but certainly nothing I've found in any way useful (hero machine was probably the best I've seen). And even if you do find anything I'll bet it both costs a fortune and the artwork is still subject to copyright, which will effectively stop you putting it to any good use.

As for stripcreator application I've tried a few times to convince Brad to add a third layer to the images so I could make up overlays with multiple expressions, but he never went for it. I did a few experiments a while back with my own maker engine, but never got it to the point where it could be used without a screen dump. I can hook you up with the code to make your own version of that if you want to supply the artwork.

Alternately, if you don't want to spend countless hours learning to draw and countless more drawing after you learn then I'd invest in a camera and some toys. The expressions are still limited, but that can be fixed with a bit of paint.

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.

http://zwinky.smileycentral.com/download/index.jhtml?partner=ZJxdm035&&siteid=16337

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woof

Injokesteri always thought a third layer would be nice with splitter. each half could be any of the backgrounds we already have

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what if nigger meant kite

I went through Injokester's paint tutorial a few days ago and I think I'm starting to get the hang of drawing in Paint. It taught me a different way of looking at things, breaking them up into small curves. I did a couple of drawings without tracing once I was done, and they turned out decent. One other thing I thought of (related to the camera and toys suggestion) is to take photos of myself and/or friends/family and use them as a guide to make characters in Paint. I experimented on a photo of myself. The result isn't bad, but it does creep me out a little bit.

I'll have to check out zwinkies when I go home for winter break. (I'm a college student and the zwinkies site is blocked by the campus filter for some reason.) My 'net connection has been kind of intermittent the past couple of days, so I might not be on SC much for the next few days, but thanks for all the help.

I had two main reasons for trying to find a way to make my own characters. One wasn't for myself; I saw a character request in Regarding Stripcreator and thought that other people could use help making characters, too. The other reason is that I'm thinking of submitting comics to some local newspapers. I already make strips for my college newspaper and people seem to like them. (According to the FAQ, "threereasons, dexx, kaddar, kaddar2, props, forumusers, holiday and submitted are okay to use" outside of SC, so I stick to those sets when making strips for the paper.) It's not a paying gig, though, and I'm a senior in college with no idea what to do for a career, so I thought maybe I could try to get a start in comics, at least for a little extra money even if it's not enough to live on. If I started making comics for pay, I might want to make my own characters and have a variety of poses/expressions for them.

I know this is pretty long, but I wanted to get everything said before my 'net connection cuts out again. Thanks again for all the help.

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"Laughter is the language of the soul." - Pablo Neruda, as quoted by Lisa Simpson

zwinkies are the root of all evil

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The dictator of love and his weapon of mass destruction

kane2742

I've done that a lot (mainly from images I found with google) to get an outline before I add eyes, nose and ears in my style. Generally though the result doesn't look right as a cartoon and has to be re-drawn anyway.

kane2742

Everything in Office and Injokester are fine also, as well as any backgrounds I've done. I retain likeness rights though, pm for details. Also be aware that I use them on my own rather controversial webcomic and if the newspaper's readers get wind of the connection it'll probably only take a couple of complaints to get your strip dropped.

I can also hook you up with the originals of the stuff I've done
if you want it, they're much easier to edit if you want to add new expressions and can be assembled at 400% then shrunk to make a higher quality comic. Drop me a pm if you want them, I just started a new job this week though, so it'll be a while before I can collect it all together.

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.

I think with the photos I'll mainly use the bodies for poses and draw the head/face separate since the faces do look a little weird.

Thanks for the offer of the original art. I think I'm going to keep trying to draw on my own, though; if I had your originals I think I'd be too tempted to just trace those with only minor changes. Not having them will force me to develop my own style. I'm going to work on developing my cartooning skills over the next few months before I submit anything to a paper other than my school paper. And I do have the one from the Paint tutorial to give me a guideline on size.

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"Laughter is the language of the soul." - Pablo Neruda, as quoted by Lisa Simpson