Jerry (need suggestions)

[Ra Havok]

***update in this post***


The text is temporary.

(Quick translation of a 'joke' in the first three panels:
Panel 1: So Jerry, how was your date last night?
Panel 2: Fun.
Panel 3: Oh my God, you are SUCH a loser. This is the last time I went on a date with someone I met on the internet.)



Hey folks, this is the first page of a 4 pager. Any c and c is welcome, but I've got one important question:

Where can I get good lettering fonts and how do I apply them?



thanks.



So, what do you guys think of the changes?

[Crimson Spider]

Honestly, Ra? This is top notch. I love the storytelling. But I will say that the second and fifth panels could benefit from some kind of background, especially the latter panel. But I guess it can be more of a personal preference as I can see how you might not want to crowd those panels.

As for fonts, I'm sure others are more knowledgeable on this subject, but you can easily find lots of sites that offer free fonts with a quick Google search. And applying them takes nothing more than unzipping them into C>WINDOWS>FONTS. You will then find them along with the default fonts in any program you use.

[F!]

Try to stack your dialogue so the balloons are rounder and less elongated, otherwise it seriously detracts from the professional look of the art.

Try Comicraft or Blambot for fonts. It's worth investing in some professional quality fonts if you're going to be doing a lot of your own lettering. Blambot also have free fonts, but they're so widely used now that they can sometimes just compound the amateur feel of beginner lettering.

There's a font titled LYBinkyFont, available for free from the AiT/Planet Lar website. It's not great (the character set is pretty much limited to the alphabet and basic punctuation) but it's not as ubiquitous as the Blambot fonts. Could give your pages a more individual look.

[ScottEwen]

Blambot has the best comic fonts around in my opinion. Some are pay, some are free (the best ones are pay, sadly), but you should be able to find something usable there.

Disagree with Crimson Spider on the two panels needing backgrounds. I'm of the opinion that once you establish a setting, you can trust your reader to fill in the blanks every now and again.

And what language are they speaking? It's enough like English that I can kinda understand what they're saying.

[Karim]

Those are very well done.
Beautiful work. Like the colors.
Storytelling is very good also.

Removing the background in panel 2 makes complete sense in that shot.
However in the last panel, because it is so similar to the previous one, my reaction was; where did that background disapear to?

I find that it would work better with a background for the last shot, as in here (don't mind the bad scale and placement of the train):
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7...kgroundca6.jpg

[Crimson Spider]

Disagree with Crimson Spider on the two panels needing backgrounds. I'm of the opinion that once you establish a setting, you can trust your reader to fill in the blanks every now and again.

True, but blank backgrounds are neither interesting nor appealing in such cases. It's not a matter of showing more of the surroundings in the above panels, it's that the page seems incomplete without some kind of background hint present. It looks bland. As I mentioned, and as Karim elaborated, it's really the last panel's lack of a background that's most apparent.

[bindlestitch]

And what language are they speaking? It's enough like English that I can kinda understand what they're saying.

I just wanted to guess on this, I really have no idea but I'm guessing it's a Germanic language of some sort? Which is what English is derived from, so that's why we English speakers can sort of understand it.
Pure guess, but how close am I Ra?
As for the pages, they are really nicely done. I'm glad to see you producing so much work lately. You're to good a talent to not do something in this field.
On a side note, I had never really thought about what Finch said about the word balloons but it makes total sense. I don't know why rounder looks more professional but I think that crit was right on.

[Karim]

my guess is dutch.

[Popninja]

True, but blank backgrounds are neither interesting nor appealing in such cases. It's not a matter of showing more of the surroundings in the above panels, it's that the page seems incomplete without some kind of background hint present. It looks bland. As I mentioned, and as Karim elaborated, it's really the last panel's lack of a background that's most apparent.

I disagree with you. You say it looks bland, but a background in that second panel especially is not going to add anything to the page at all...aside from some extra background. Most importantly, the background that you say would benefit panel 5 is established in the previous panel. In this case, repeating that background isn't necessary. We just saw it.

Ra, I don't know what kind of problems you were having in the past, but I'm glad to see you're drawing again. This page looks great. I can't wait to see the rest of this 4-pager.

[Nerdface]

my guess is dutch.

You are correct.