The Ace of Threes (Handdrawn OOTS-style non-D&D comic)

Hi, I'm writing a comic here. Updates sporadically who knows when. The next update might be a month from now, or I might suddenly start updating every other day. (OH WAIT THAT JUST HAPPENED)

Enjoy what's there!

Archives:

--Year One (yes it's only seven pages in one year, deal with it.):
Page One: Chapter One: Start!
Page Two: Art is Difficult...
Page Three: Subtly Introducing Names
Page Four: Exotic Architecture
Page Five: Cliffside Manner
Page Six: Lloyd Wright
Page Seven: Totally Not Because Faces Are The Hardest Part

--Late First Anniversary Comic Sketch Outline Something:
Page Eight: Who Says April Isn't Sledding Season??

--Year Two Text Updates:
Page Nine: A Lot of Words For No-One Actually Talking
Page Ten: Oh, It's That Guy

Page Eleven: MIDTERMS!!!!! (angrily shakes fist at the heavens)

However, I found a scanner, and it's free to use, so the page after eleven will be art again.

Any and all comments and criticisms are absolutely welcome, and I am in fact now explicitly requesting them! I'm always willing to listen to and consider advice, even if I won't necessarily follow it.

After you've scanned the comic, you can use www.imgur.com as a quick and easy way to upload the images to the internet.

Thank you, Oppolo.

First Page : http://i.imgur.com/rbOgb.jpg

Might want to look up something on how to darken scanned lines.

There used to be a magna-site that had good adviue on how to render a scan...

And how to resize it to a more sane size. After that you can use IMG and SPOILER tags to post the link to them here as images. :smallsmile:

(First impression: Apart from technical craft this is not terrible. Good start.)

Alright, I finally got the second page done!

http://i.imgur.com/4UcJD.jpg

And the third page is DONE!!!

http://i.imgur.com/D89Cz.jpg

I advise getting a set of felt-tipped illustration pens, to go over and darken your lines with. I bought some from Micheal's, and they work great at making drawings highly visible on scanners.

If you have Photoshop, GIMP or Paint.NET go into Levels and drag the sliders around to make your lines darker.

Hey, thanks for the advice!

I generally try to stay away from pens, because you can't erase them and I tend to need to erase a lot, but I'll look into trying it.

As far as image editing programs go, I have Microsoft Paint, which is... not exactly great as far as editing images goes?

The method with pens is, after you are done with the pencils, go back over the same lines with the pen. So you already did all your erasing.

Black fine liner is considerably better than pen, so if you're going to trace over your pencil I reccomend that.

That would make considerable sense about the pens....

I'll definitely look into getting some sort of pencil-tracing-over device when I get the chance.

Voila! Page four: http://i.imgur.com/97LCT.jpg

My hand hurts like something that hurts a lot. Ow.

This stuff is BRILLIANT. If you were shooting for OOTS-style, you certainly overshot the mark. And I mean that as a compliment.

Just tighten up the art, and it could easily be a masterpiece! You obviously have a lot of technical skill. I see nothing to improve as far as writing is concerned, but then, we know next to nothing about the plot (which you already lampshaded in the Chapter title, so no complaints here!)

I'll keep an eye on this thread!

It's nice to hear that you like it!

...Ah, the art, though. I knew from the start that the art was going to be the hard part, because I had next to no drawing experience. That's mostly just going to take practice. And pens?

And don't worry, there ARE things happening, they just won't be explained for a while.

And the title probably won't make sense for years.



Spring break's coming up next week for me, so page five should be done soon, and maybe page six?

Huzzah! Page five is done, despite Imgur's intentions to the contrary.

http://i.imgur.com/4Spuq.jpg

It's not in pen, but I think the next one probably will. Which might lead to a delay, but oh well. It's not like I have a schedule to be late on :P


Oh, also, I do keep track in the OP of how the next page is coming along, in case you ever want proof that I'm not dead and this is still happening.
Which it is. This might go slowly, but it'll go.

Also I have pretty much nothing else planned to do for all of summer break. So when that comes around, I'll be able to get some real updating in. I hope.

And here's page six!

Lloyd Wright

Bonus points if you can figure out the reference.

It's not in pen. I got a pen, but it exploded. Ink is messy. No pens.
Whatever. I'm used to pencil. Pencil is good.

I'm experimenting with the art a little bit though. I'll see how it goes, I'm not sure if I like it like this.

And yes, I finally figured out how to give the pages titles. I think it looks a lot nicer that way.

State Latin Convention is this weekend, but I should be able to get quite a bit of work in during classes because I'm more or less done school for all practical intents and purposes.

A possesion? Why hello there!

Also, how the hell is glasses-guy gonna get down? Land on him?

Shazam! Another page!
http://i.imgur.com/M4mxN.jpg

Maybe someday I'll actually get some sort of update schedule going.
Someday. For now, whatever happens, happens. Although I've finished most of whatever else I was planning to achieve this summer, so... we'll have to see, I suppose. It's hard for me to sit still drawing for too long, but I guess I just need more practice.

(And that's how he gets down.)
(All he needs is some snow and it'll be a perfect sledding ramp.)

Aaaaand, page eight, five days and two hours late for the anniversary but oh well.

Who Says April Isn't Sledding Season??

You will notice that this is not pictures. This is a bunch of words that describe pictures. You see, today I was going to draw some pictures for you. And then I realized, I'm at college. I'm not at home.

My scanner is at home. There's bound to be one on campus somewhere, but I have no idea, and I'd bet you dollars to donuts it costs money to use. And I don't want to bring money into this. I sure as <insert something really sure here> aren't going to be making any money off of this, and I'd much rather not spend any on it either.

So I wrote a thing saying what I would have drawn if I had a way to show you people what I would have drawn. And I put it in a picture, to be ironic. Any failure of that event to actually meet the definition of irony should simply be considered as making it more ironic.

For the part of the future which is going to be happening before the rest of it does, I'm going to take a page from Erfworld's book (if you haven't read Erfworld, there's a link right over on the left somewhere, you should probably go read it. Make sure you get past the inital weird bit to where the plot really starts before you judge. (It'll let you know when the plot starts, don't worry.)) Anyway, sometimes they do a thing where, instead of updating their comic with pictures, they update it with walls of text, which not only contain more words than the pictures, but are much longer than the pictures themselves. So prepare for words. I don't really know how I'd draw the next bit anyway, and I got in most of the visual bits I really needed to, so prepare for words.

The next page will introduce a new character. It feels wrong having a character without some sort of picture, so I'll see what I can do about that. I might be able to draw a quick sketch of them and get it to the scanner during parents' weekend? Heck, I'll do it in horrible handtyped ASCII art if I have to. This is still a comic even if it's just going to be words for a while.

College's homework pattern still hasn't settled in yet, so I'll see when I get opportunities. But I mean, I can type stuff during awkward fifteen minute breaks between classes and whenever. It's a lot easier to find time to type than draw, at least for me.

I mean look at this, it's a gigantic post and it's like two in the morning here. I don't even know why I'm awake, and there's no way I could draw so much as a single straight line at the moment, but the words don't stop from coming. The grammar is a little iffy, but if I actually edited it would come out pretty nicely I think?

Whatever. We shall see. (Or I'll see, at least. I have no idea whether or not anyone actually reads the stuff I write here.)

Well. Here goes. Page 9, Text Update One. I decided, rather than editing or anything, to just run stream of consciousness and see what would come out. I think I did alright. (I reserve the right to edit grammars and stuff, but I will not retcon a thing, no matter how convoluted an explanation I need to create to incorporate my plot fumble.) The tone might be a bit different from the art pages, though. THIS IS A TIME WHEN I COULD REALLY REALLY USE CRITICISMS OR WHATEVERS. I don't know what people on the internet want to read, and I am willing to make style adjustments based on that. The plot is all mine, but having a set style isn't my style. Anyhoo, I may I present:

The Ace of Threes, Page Nine: A Lot Of Words For No-One Actually Talking

Scott fell through the door, and eventually landed in a room. A very large, fancy room. Ornate would probably be a good word to describe it. This room would be the big important one in the center of the big ol’ X. Scott was in much better shape than he could have been, because he landed particularly high up the slope of one wall, and rolled down to where the wall met the floor. Granted, he could barely stand, but he wasn’t dead or dying.

There was only one real object of note in the room. In the center of what used to be the floor was a large pedestal. On that pedestal was a ludicrously oversized trophy, made of what appeared to be solid gold.

Scott stared at the trophy. His jaw dropped. This was the first time one of those maps actually led to something worth more than about fifty cents, not that money was really useful anymore. As he climbed over to the trophy, the building shook. Frank fell out of the hole above and rolled to where the wall met the floor, and suddenly woke up! was still utterly asleep.

Scott eyed the trophy warily. With the building in this state, there was no way he’d be able to drag the trophy out alive. Frank was supposed to be the one doing the heavy lifting. That was when Scott saw the other person in the room.

The other person was gagged, and tied to the trophy’s pedestal with an absurd number of ropes. A truly absurd number. Think of a large number of ropes. This was more ropes than however many you just thought of. Granted, they were fairly short and thin ropes tied together, but it was still enough rope to make any scoutmaster proud. Well, if the ropes were helping an old lady cross the street or something. The scoutmaster probably wouldn’t agree with tying people to trophy pedestals. Unless it was an old lady tied to a pedestal which crossed streets on a regular basis.

This pedestal was not crossing any streets anytime soon (though it would eventually), and the person tied to it was not going to be an old lady anytime soon (though she would be eventually). Not that anyone could really tell behind all those ropes. Scott could just barely see her eyes, and maybe a bit of hair and a nose?

The eyes glared at Scott, then at the ropes. Scott looked at the eyes, then at the ropes. And then he realized what he had to do.

Scott began tying the trophy to the ropes. See, the ropes sort of made a ball. He could probably roll all this stuff out. He thanked whoever it was inside the ropes. The eyes just glared back, and then focused all the wrath they could muster on the trophy.

Scott got the ropes off of the pedestal, but a twelve-foot tall solid gold trophy is heavy. It wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how much the ball of rope looked like a snowball. He followed the glaring of the eyes, and he noticed a small panel on the base of the trophy. Some sort of inscription, in some language he couldn’t read and probably didn’t say anything anyway. But the plaque was screwed on to the trophy. And sounded hollow. The only problem was, the screws were those annoying newfangled pentalobe screws, the kind they put on fancy technology to stop you from getting inside and fiddling with the innards without taking it to an authorized repairman or whatever.

This was a problem. While Scott did actually carry a screwdriver with him everywhere just in case he needed one, it was a flathead. Luckily for Scott, this is (in case you hadn’t realized) some sort of weird fantasy setting trying to work in opportunities for the main characters to exploit their various abilities while entirely neglecting to provide any explanation at all whatsoever until the second chapter.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fourth wall, Scott had finished replacing the screws with Phillips-head screws by means of one of said abilities, and was a good way through unscrewing them.

Behind the plaque was a small, ornate box, about two inches on each side. But before Scott could try to open the box, the page ended.

END PAGE 9

(Don’t worry, the box is locked anyway, and he has neither a lockpicking kit nor the skills to use one, and also lacks mystery magic powers applicable to the situation at hand. If, after I explain how the magic system works, you think you've come up with some way he could have opened the box, just assume he didn’t think of it until after the box was already opened.)

Page 10, Text Update 2 (I've totally got this every other day thing down. I think I might stick with it.)

The Ace of Threes, Page 10: Oh, It's That Guy

Scott attempted to open the box. Unfortunately for him, it was locked, and he did not have a set of lockpicking tools, nor the skills to use them if he had one. In fact, the box did not appear to have a visible lock to use the tools on, anyway. Scott stuck the box in his pocket. Frank usually covered opening things; he’d be able to take care of it.

Scott dragged Frank (still asleep) over to the pile of rope, and tied him up in it. He proceeded to roll the rope around the pedestal. It sort of half-rolled, half-slid down to the bottom of the room. From there, Scott just continued to roll, slide, and push it to the lowest point, through the holes and cracks that filled the structure. Eventually, he reached the bottom, and popped the rope out.

Wordlessly, Scott prepared to roll the ball back to hq. Now, of course, this page has an even number, so you know what that means. That fellow with the moustache and the shirt and the pointing and the shouting and the goatee had made his way down from the cliff at some point, and was evidently lying in ambush at the base of the structure. The man caught sight of Scott, walked up to him, turned around, crouched behind a nearby boulder, and jumped out at Scott.

“Halt!” he shouted.

“Ok, listen, and listen good,” Scott began, “I have no idea who you are. I have no idea what you want. Honestly, I don’t even care. I don’t. Even. Care. Go back to wherever it is you came from, go bug someone you can actually outwit. Oh wait, they all died in the first three months. Heh. What the heck are you even from, anyway?”

The man wrung his hands nervously. “That’s actually a pretty embarrassing story… Anyway, I have a contract, and I can’t back out now. I just have some threats or something to read at you, on this date, and then I get paid, and you do your whatever, and then my employer probably kills you or whatever they’re planning, and… lost my train of thought for a second there. Anyway, I have the papers right… here… somewhere… um… oh, shoot. I know I had them around somewhere! Hold on, I’ll go retrace my steps, I think I left them up at the top of the cliff there.”

Scott just stood there, palm on forehead, slowly shaking his head. He watched the man leave. “And yet, somehow, someone like him manages to survive. And here I wouldn’t have bet on him to last two weeks. Hmph.” He got out a piece of paper, wrote “Will be back shortly” on it, propped it up where he was standing, deliberately marked some shoeprints going around in a circle, and got back to rolling what might have been the world’s largest ball of twine, if it was made of twine instead of rope. Twine is sort of rope, so if anyone was still keeping track of world records and things, he would have stood a decent shot at some sort of award for his ball of twine. Although I guess it would have been disqualified on account of having people in it? By this point, it was getting pretty late, and the mystery girl whom Scott had, at this point, technically rescued, had fallen asleep, having given up on trying to communicate with Scott by eye gestures.

Town was only a couple of miles away, but that’s a pretty long way to push a giant pile of rope. Scott managed to put in a decent mile or so, but then he parked the ball under a tree and pitched camp.

END OF PAGE 10

Quote:

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Originally Posted by InvertedVoid

Alright, I finally got the second page done!

http://i.imgur.com/4UcJD.jpg

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How can you do it easily.. How it is possible.. Do help me. I am little confuse to do it.. Any site to do some practice. I am unable to do neatly.