Verisimilitude: A D&D webcomic in OotS style

[The Neoclassic]

... Because clearly there are not enough such webcomics already.

I update on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm doing this for fun, not because I think I am brilliant, extraordinarily funny, or the best artist. If I produce a moderately amusing comic that a few people enjoy reading, I will be happy.

Constructive criticism is always welcome!

Archive

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#1

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#2

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#3

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#4

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#5

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#6

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#7

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#8

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#9

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#10

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#11

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#12

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#13

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#14

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#15

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Additional Notes and Questions for You

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As you may've noticed, the barbarian is of a race not found in mainstream D&D; he's from a homebrew race. I'm using elements of my homebrew setting in this for a few reasons:

• Because I like my homebrew setting.
• Many of the standard D&D races are quite well-covered by other comics already, I think. This gives me some new territory to cover.
• Working from my homebrew setting gives me a bit of an established world to work with so I can maintain some elements of verisimilitude.

I'm not going to say too much more about my plans, if only because I'm afraid I'll end up changing my mind later! Without further ado...

Questions for You!
What was your favorite part/element of the comic?
Which part/element do you think needs the most improvement?
What, if anything, would maintain your interest in this comic?

Thanks very much, everyone!

[Green-Shirt Q]

Questions for You!
1.What was your favorite part/element of the comic?
2.Which part/element do you think needs the most improvement?
3.Would you like to see a cast of characters with a bit about each of them?
4.What, if anything, would maintain your interest in this comic?

1. I think the "I'm a pink man" was a pretty well timed punch line when all along I thought it was just an artistic choice. Made me chuckle.
2. Well I was just skimming the comic, so I might not have paid enough attention to it, but some parts of the text kinda sneaked up on me and confused me a little.
3. Not just yet, actually. It may be just me, but I feel I don't want to read a whole bunch of stuff unless I care about the characters enough first. It is a personal pet peeve of mine when a comic starts and immediately churns long character bios I feel like I have to read (because once you've said it in the bios you have no need to say it in comic form) which are usually boring when the comic just started and, to me ad least, makes me unpleasently feel like the comic is pretentious. Plus most comics don't get over the ten-comic hurdle, so I feel like it's a waste of time. I recommend that you hold off the character bios for a little bit and make people desire to read them, build intrest, and built enough steam so that the comic isn't going to end any time soon. It would make the comic all the more interesting.
4. My intrest in this comic is already maintained by the decent art and humor, so I recommend keeping or improving the quality of both. The main thing that would keep me interested is if you continued making comics and made an epic plot that forced me to keep coming back out of curiousity.

I'm getting a really good feeling about this comic. Keep up the good work.

[Szilard]

By biweekly, do you mean twice a week, or once every two weeks?

The comic is good overall.

[Lyinginbedmon]

By biweekly, do you mean twice a week, or once every two weeks?

The comic is good overall.

Biweekly means once every fortnight (two weeks). "Bi" meaning two.

However, in the UK and increasingly everywhere else, it means twice-weekly. I think Queenfange probably means twice-weekly.

[The Neoclassic]

Ooh, very good point. I should have written twice-a-week. *Goes off to fix*

[Tiffanie Lirle]

What was your favorite part/element of the comic?
I like the general art, the characters could use some cleaning up. But it's fairly solid and colorful.
Which part/element do you think needs the most improvement?
The text is somewhat rough at points, could use a bit of work. Slight lack of the funny.

Would you like to see a cast of characters with a bit about each of them?
Not yet, establish the characters a bit more. So that people actually care about learning about them.
What, if anything, would maintain your interest in this comic?
Noticing that more then a decent amount of effort was put into the strips, even if it takes longer.

I suppose I'll check every once in a while for an update. There's nothing here at the moment that'll really "hook" someone though.

[The Neoclassic]

Thanks for the honest responses thus far.

I was leaning away from doing a cast of characters just yet, so I'm glad to hear that people agree. I don't think it would be helpful just yet, as you two have pointed out that an attachment to the characters through the comic should come first.

I did put a lot of effort into these (I didn't churn out all three in one night), though I understand how it may not look that way since I am not talented in art nor humor.

By nothing that will hook people yet.... I assume that's because it's not amazingly funny and nothing to yet clearly distinguish it from the other masses of OotS-style D&D webcomics? I shall work on both of those. Creating an excellent webcomic is something I'd love to do, and I readily accept that I am still in the learning/OK-but-nothing-special-webcomic stage (though I know that is no excuse to not try hard to improve!). Constructive criticism helps me improve, and so I do appreciate it, even when it is unflatteringly blunt.

[Tiffanie Lirle]

I did put a lot of effort into these (I didn't churn out all three in one night), though I understand how it may not look that way since I am not talented in art nor humor.

If that was in response to me, I didn't mean to imply that these seemed that way.

I was just saying that you shouldn't go down the road of quick comics like so many artists before you did.

[The Neoclassic]

If that was in response to me, I didn't mean to imply that these seemed that way.

I was just saying that you shouldn't go down the road of quick comics like so many artists before you did.

Ah, OK. Thanks for the clarification. I plan on neither rushing nor getting too lazy with this.

[Wreckingrocc]

Excellent! I almost groaned when I saw the title, but your modesty and knowledge that it seemed quite generic made me smile... It's not something you see often. In addition, the art is excellent, and the text fits very well with the bubbles. I can't see any errors as of yet, and none of the characters feel very two dimensional. There are a couple who seem quite stereotypical, but that's OK when they're just two-comic NPCs.

If I were to suggest one change or improvement, it would be the end of the second comic. The line "I am a bright pink man" seems like it's an answer to the lady's question, but Prosper's line seemed to cut it up a little bit, throwing the tempo slightly off. That's about it with suggestions, though.

The pink man was pretty cool... I was trying to figure out what he was, and I couldn't place my finger on it. It's nice to see some creativity every now and then.

The humor is decent and more lighthearted, and it doesn't feel like you're doing it solely for laughs. There's nothing that bugs me more in a new comic than a badly placed joke that takes away from the storyline. This seems to flow very well, and many elements of the first three comics are excellent/ridiculous enough to be awesome, fitting, and, in a more general sense, funny.

It's obvious that you plan it out a lot more than most people do, so I can see this comic going places. Good luck on maintaining it. You're off to an excellent start, and I'm looking forward to more.

[Panabelle]

I enjoyed it. I'll be checking back regularly for updates. My main comment for improvement would be about the layout of the strip--but as time goes on, you'll get more adept at placing speech bubbles and that sort of thing.

Good luck!

[The Neoclassic]

Thanks for the responses!

New comic time...

#4

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[Szilard]

So Amarel'neve are the pink people? Cool.

I like the fifth panel.

[Eita]

Conjunctions aren't evil you know...

[The Neoclassic]

Conjunctions aren't evil you know...

Oh, of course not! I very much like contractions. Whenever I don't use them, it's quite on purpose and used to provide a contrasting pattern of speech (in other words, most characters will use them, but a few don't). I'm also working on being more aware as to how the lack of contractions may interrupt flow (flow is on my to-work-on list!). I just counted and in the first three comics, I used nine contractions. The only character who has not used them is the barbarian, though Prosper tends to go with "I am" rather than "I'm." So, purposeful choice here, though I appreciate your input.

OH WAIT! You said "Conjunctions"... But my mind immediately lept to "Contractions" because that's what my friends pointed out to me. M'bad. Could you let me know where I am doing poorly with conjunctions? I know the flow wasn't great at first, but I didn't think it was that choppy or I left out words like "and," "or," etc...

@ Szilard: Indeed! Homebrew race (as if that wasn't obvious). Hopefully I shall slowly flesh them out in later comics, without doing any boring telling-not-showing chunks of exposition. And I had fun making the fifth panel! Glad you enjoyed it too.

[Panabelle]

Conjunctions aren't evil you know...

Conjunctions = and, or, but
Contractions = shortened forms of words using apostrophes like can't or shouldn't



(I like new comic too)

[Assassin89]

Very interesting comic. The goblin is not a prick like many others of his race, and several characters already have defined personalities.

[The Neoclassic]

Very interesting comic. The goblin is not a prick like many others of his race, and several characters already have defined personalities.

Yay! Glad you like the goblin thus far. My main challenge with him will make him being not too much like Redcloak, of whom I'm a big fan.

EDIT: So that I don't get into the terrible habit of double-posting on my own thread.

I've made two banners thus far. I plan on making three more in the near future (so that there's one for each PC). Hopefully these are mildly amusing, though I realize I will probably need better ones in the future. Ideally, each banner will reflect each character's personality by their response to the comic's title.

Banners:

[Panabelle]

Aww, cute! I don't DnD so I don't have much of a concept of how low 8 is for a stat, but single digits can't be good. =P

Love Prosper's expression too. He looks like he's an actual actor in the comic who's been roped into doing a stupid promo. XD Despite the fact that he actually does a good job!

[The Neoclassic]

Single digits are bad. Short story, an Intelligence of 8 is a bit less than the average human. Not really stupid, or unable to function intellectually, but certainly not bright or prone to having a large vocabulary.

New comic today!

#5

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[Threeshades]

Single digits are bad. Short story, an Intelligence of 8 is a bit less than the average human. Not really stupid, or unable to function intellectually, but certainly not bright or prone to having a large vocabulary.

New comic today!

#5

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I'm so converting right now!

[CrimsonAngel]

All hail Spes!

[Wreckingrocc]

Dern is the definition of irony... He's a joyful and loyal barbarian... Who is very loyal to his religion simply because of cupcake fridays...

Keep up the grand work.

[The Neoclassic]

Thank you for the lovely comments!

I've decided to update on Mondays and Thursdays for now. I'm now two comics ahead of schedule, and hope to keep building up a bit of a buffer so that I never fall behind.

If anyone is interested enough to put this comic on a RSS feed, I've put the comic up on Drunk Duck and there should be a button near the top to RSS feed it. It may also be an easier way to look through archived comics. Your choice; just throwing that out there!

[WillWolf]

I think it's a nice little story that you have going on. I think you have two main problems in terms of the writing, both of which can be fixed if you place the correct amount of time into it.

1) Your characters sound very, very similar to each other. I can tell by what they say that their are differences; however, the way that they speak sounds a little too contrived and similar to each other.

2) Exposition is important for a story to help it move along, and it occurs regularly during the beginning; however, too much exposition creates a talking head syndrome. This is particularly bad when the two characters already know what the other is talking about.

[Tiffanie Lirle]

I finally figured out what bothered me about the characters. It's their mouths, they're somewhat out of shape.

Looking at panel 1 of comic 5, Purple Dress's mouth is on the wrong side of her head. Or panel 2, Pinky's mouth is somewhat boxy, could be rounded on the top instead of beign a flat line, etc etc.

[The Neoclassic]

Tiffanie: You're entirely right; making better mouth shapes is something on which I certainly need to work. I think they've gotten better since the first couple comics, but I will keep an eye on that and practice making some that look better. It's one of the things I find more challenging to draw.

WillWolf: Ah, yes, the writing. Again, something which (while I think I've again shown improvement in it since the first three comics) I need to seriously continue to work on. The flow of some sections of the comic is choppy, I agree, hence the contrived speaking. That's probably one of my greatest difficulties. As far as their similarities, any accent would have been out of place for them, but I will be striving to set their speech patterns apart more in the future. I also agree that I need less exposition and more plot. I've been trying not to have any character tell something to the other that they already know, but it's possible I've slipped up with that in places.

My only problem is that I'm keeping the latest couple of comics for future postings, so it may take a little while after comments come in for me to notably improve. It's just a matter of practicality to make sure I don't miss an update.

[Person1123]

Very funny. *Goes to Free Cupcake Friday*

The only thing that irks me a bit is something about the text bubbles. Otherwise, this is great!

[The Neoclassic]

Very funny. *Goes to Free Cupcake Friday*

The only thing that irks me a bit is something about the text bubbles. Otherwise, this is great!

Thanks! Formatting the text bubbles is a bit of a pain, but in later comics I've been messing with the size and putting the characters in better positions, so hopefully they will look much improved from here on out!

[Panabelle]

It would probably help if you storyboarded the panels out beforehand, rearranging characters in some panels so that the speech bubbles don't have to be contorted around the art. Not that they are now--I think you've gotten a lot better at it since the first few. =)

(when will the next comic be up)