I just finished changing a bit around for the site: There’s a new permalink structure, since I finally got around to making the header play nice with it. Also, there’s a new cache system, which should speed up the site loading a bit, even though it might slow down the updating by a minute or two.
Translation: Faster loading. New comics will be a minute late (assuming they’re on time to begin with. Ha.)
As for the “apartments” side of this post, enjoy:
I was asked what combination of tools and setup do I use for the comic… and that made me laugh. This is the first site overhaul I’ve done where I didn’t immediately throw up some documentation on the tools I’m using. So, you know, figures! Either that or, yeah, I get asked because I didn’t post up the tool list that I normally do. I dunno, either way, I really should post all this stuff up again! (Normally, this information is available on the “About” page, by the way. Once I finish overhauling that, the current setup will usually be listed there.)
I use two different computers for making the comic, so I’ll list of equipment and stuff first, then jump into settings from there:
The Toshiba Satellite Tablet PC (Courtesy of the Chinchilla):
Windows XP Professional
Adobe Photoshop CS3 (For almost everything)
Sketchbook Pro 2.0 (For quick sketches / some fillers)
The Undead Desktop (Also known as 108):
Windows XP Professional
Adobe Photoshop 7 (!) (For texting the comic / facemarks)
Microsoft Office 2003 (For the books)
Adobe Acrobat/Distiller (For packaging things into PDF)
Wacom Sapphire Tablet (They stopped making these like… 5 years ago.)
Now, on to Photoshop settings!!
Base_Template: 1605 x 2700 Pixels @ 300 Pixels per inch (5.35″x9″) in RGB (Converted to CMYK during distillation to PDF)
Normal Drawing Brush: 9 Pixel Hard Round, Normal Mode, Full Opacity and Flow
Normal Eraser Tool: 19 Pixel Hard Round, Normal Mode, Full Opacity and Flow
Notes!!
- As you can see, I don’t work in Mac Environments.
- Pages are resized to 600x1009px, bilinear resampling, jpg, quality 8
- The thinner grey lines/shading are done with the pressure sensivity. I rarely change the brush size.
- Fonts used: DIGITALSTRIP @ 24px (Standard Font), Space Toaster, Curlz MT, Stencil STD, Lithos Pro. I don’t text with CS3, so I can’t tell you what the font sizes are in pts.
- Method for achieving that “SED look” is to draw with basic shapes, then subtract from them with the eraser. So rather than drawing say, ears, on a character, just draw a black blob then eraser until you have what you want. After that, then you sketch shading on top.
- The Tablet PC and everything on it is courtesy of The Chinchilla. He’s been trying to help me get everything back on the tracks again, and he more or less gave me the Tablet PC after he loaned it to me for a week. In his words, I used it more in that week than he did in the like, 4 years he had it. It was good timing too, because the Wacom Sapphire had more or less decided to start going through its final death throes.
- But it meant I had a new tool I needed to learn how to use. And while now I can see what I’m drawing with the TabletPC, it also lags in a way that the wacom never did, so as I’m drawing I have to think ahead and just imagine that I drew the line… Then wait a second or two and pop! the line appears.
- So, Wacom: Doesn’t Lag, but can’t see what you’re drawing. TabletPC: Lags, but you can see what you’re drawing. …Either way, I need to get a Cintiq.
Services Used:
Lulu.com for PrintOnDemand and digital book sales
Printfection.com for PrintOnDemand shirt sales
Projectwonderful.com for Ad Services
Imagekind.com for Posters
JustHost.com for webhosting
wordpress with comicpress for the main site
SMF 1.1.xx for the forums
And that’s pretty much everything I can think of offhand. I feel like I’m forgetting something important though…
