Green Pile Poll

Okee... who liked what better? majority will win and I'll change the comics.

are you talking about the old comics or future comics?

Whatever chomps your teeth.

mewse said:

are you talking about the old comics or future comics?

Future ones. I just receieved alot of complaints for going to color.

maybe you should just ink your comics into a pure b+w format, it would look a lot cleaner.. the dithering on your color strips isn't very nice

edit: i thought i'd include what bill watterson (from calvin and hobbes) used, this is from the tenth anniversary book:

I lightly pencil in the dialogue first, as that determines the space left for drawing. Next, I sketch in the characters very loosely, establishing the composition of each panel. I frequently make revisions, so I use a light pencil and I erase as needed. If the picture is unusually complex, I'll render the difficult parts completely, but generally, I try to do as little pencil work as possible. That way, the inking stays spontaneous and fun, because I'm not simply tracing pencil lines. Inking mistakes and accidents are whited out.

I draw the strip with a small sable brush and waterproof India ink on Strathmore bristol board. I letter the dialogue with a Rapidograph fountain pen, and I use a crowquill pen for odds and ends. It's about as low-tech as you can get.

Where's the colour option? :-P (j/k)

I prefer the coloured version. It looks more like a professional comic artist did it when there's colour on it.

Instead of coloring it in using a graphics program or whatever, have you ever considered drawing them with colored pencils?

Silverwyvern said:

Okee... who liked what better? majority will win and I'll change the comics.

B&W :)

Well, I like the style of the black and white comics. I love them. :)

I cant color! But since you can ya should start coloring. Put the b&w and colored comics on the site. That every one gets there way.

Black and White! Black and whiite!!

If you choose to colour them you should use the colours from the doom palette to ensure that Scratch will be the right shade of brown and the nukage will be the right shade of green and such.

Inking? Sepia? Hand coloring?

;) I don't have the time or the money to make the comics look like gold ;)

I'll describe my two techniques

1) I sketch it all out in a blue pencil. I put the words there. Ink, add words with phtoshop. done

2) I draw and color it in flash. The last comic had so much dithering because I always try to keep the images under 150k. A gif was the only way.


If I take longer on the comic, the characters might change from too much effort ;)

If you look closely (or glance from any distance quickly;) you will noticed the characters are constantly missing spikes, wrong in perspective, etc.

If you guys want a more detailed comic, I could try I suppose. Just let me know in this thread.

More detail = clutter = 60%less funny. You want to absorb the jokes, not the art. The art is a means to convey.

Silverwyvern said:

If you guys want a more detailed comic, I could try I suppose. Just let me know in this thread.

Screw details - the simple cartoonish art of The Green Pile is part of what makes it great and fun.

I only want the colours in it, but it seems that I have to bow to the wishes of the majority (Another example of why I don't get people) >:-[

Peronally, I think the colour made it lose a lot of it's origonal flavor. It felt kind of like George Lucasing it. But that wouldn't be entirely true unless we used a previous strip. Also, To keep the file within the target range to keep 56Kers happy, the colour REALLY gets grainy, and makes it unappealing to be honest. but that is my opinion.

'Color that puppy up, this is 03!' - I want colors.

Whichever of the options is okay for me, but maybe cleaning up the levels a bit would be good if you stay with the B/W format ;)
Why that dissagreement for color??? The advantage of it is that you can differentiate(sp?) the characters from the background/other characters faster, in my opinion :P

Skelethal said:

Why that dissagreement for color??? The advantage of it is that you can differentiate(sp?) the characters from the background/other characters faster, in my opinion :P

It's like watching a classic Charile Chaplain film in colour, or a Pink Panther where he's allowed to talk. It loses it origonal charm and flavor. And in the case of the PP, it sucks up the place.

Hey guess what, it's a tie now. :) (as of 21:21 GMT (telefragged time))

For the second time too ;) This is kind of a hot contest.

Maybe settle this mano 'e' mano, with a B&W Hiss v.s Colour Hiss episode.

Prefer Black and white.

Do both ;) (But please use REAL pencils for the color)

The very essence of the green pile is, to me, the great humor and timing and the adorable characters :) I don't think any of that'll change if you decide to start coloring. I voted for colors because it looks cleaner, and it's easier to tell stuff apart. However, you could accomplish the same thing in grayscale. It would look better as a GIF, and it would feel more like the original.

The color comic looked great, and the dithering wasn't a problem IMO.

One thing I have to recommend is that, if you're going to keep them B&W, be sure to boost the contrast significantly on the final product. As it is, there's all kind of sketch lines under the final drawing and it really does look sloppy at times :\

Lüt said:

One thing I have to recommend is that, if you're going to keep them B&W, be sure to boost the contrast significantly on the final product. As it is, there's all kind of sketch lines under the final drawing and it really does look sloppy at times :\

Ditto and that's why I prefer the colour version.

Awww.. I purposefully leave the sketchlines in.... well... live and learn ;)

Thanks to everyone who commented on this :)
Im getting a good idea of what people want.