1069 replies to this topic

[KiloTango]

The logo is cool though if I didn't already know the name I might think it was called 'nglebaum' as the e looks less of a part of the word and more a decoration. It's very striking though. Have you tried seeing what it looks like with the E in black? I think that would tie it together better. The silhouettes of the logo is nice and that's key, but the colour makes it less clear than it could be and that's important too.

(Sorry, I know you don't like crit, but considering how important logos are I thought it might be worth suggesting.)

[Wolf]

I think I'm possibly an idiot. Where is this Engelbaum logo? I wanna see. ;o; Everyone else gets to see...

[ayamemaiden]

I think I'm possibly an idiot. Where is this Engelbaum logo? I wanna see. ;o; Everyone else gets to see...

The logo is viewable in the Cafe Press store. ^^

[KiloTango]

It's okay Aaron, it took me a while to find it as well. There's a badge with it on on the Cafe Press store.

[DiGi Valentine]

Sapphire dream diary is almost finished so be on the look out for that. The doodles inside are cuter than what the Orange diary had in it. XD
Great stuff, trust me.

After that, i believe it's back to working on the other dreamers that need uploading, a promo leaflet and then it's on to work on the comic itself. Things are moving quite smoothly in terms of iMAGNi projects.

[Meggiemaccat]

I... um... was also temporarily confused by the logo. XPPPP It does look very nice, but it takes a while to realize that the e's an e. XPPPP *smacks self* I don't see changing the color really doing anything for it, though, but people will realize what it says eventually through various indicators. ^^;

[TRiPPY]

I am quickly remembering why i hate using open office. Also quickly remembering the stress i went through the first time since microsoft works on vista is a useless piece of sh!t.

edit-
Got so angry i uninstalled all my malfunctioning programs and replaced them with WORKING ones. WOW WORKING STUFF. Seriously, i spend most of my creative time trying to get stupid computers or programs to work! I whined about my Open Office woes in the Lulu forums and was pointed to this AMAZING free DTP program that i cannot reccoemd enough for people doing full bleed comic pages-
http://www.freeserif...us/default1.asp

What was taking me 30 minutes per 10 pages is now something like 5 in ten!!! It's so simple, quick and NICE to use. Dear GOD why did i waste hours of my life using that other crappy program with it always deleting my work and crashing the pc!? gah!

Serif i love you! <3

[DiGi Valentine]

...and wow, a good few hours later and we're biting our tongues again. Seems this amazing new program we own is giving us a whole new heap of sh!t to deal with regarding the fact that although it's very quick to use it has some unknown trouble exporting the final file and thus today was a very f*!*ing ugly day indeed.

Sapphire Diary on hold until something f*!*ing works with Windows f*!*ing Vista without giving us an error message.

[Jof]

...and wow, a good few hours later and we're biting our tongues again. Seems this amazing new program we own is giving us a whole new heap of sh!t to deal with regarding the fact that although it's very quick to use it has some unknown trouble exporting the final file and thus today was a very f*!*ing ugly day indeed.

Sapphire Diary on hold until something f*!*ing works with Windows f*!*ing Vista without giving us an error message.

Hey TRiPPY, what exactly is it you're trying to do ? Combine all your pages into a single PDF file ?

[TRiPPY]

Yeah, publishing a pdf of my collective files. Pageplus worked just GREAT until on trying to export my work as a pdf it stops half way and tells me its out of memory :/ I know there's a way to make a pdf using the print command into cutepdf instead but i just paid 9 bollocking quid i can't spare to USE the pdf feature and now it doesnt work >_______________<
I've been sat here all day working on 104 pages one by one by one by one 3 times now. Each time has sucked.

Does anyone know how much Adobe Distiller is?

[Jof]

Well, assuming you are using an pretty up to date Adobe Photoshop, I think this might come in handy..

http://creativebits.org/acrobat/create_a_p..._from_photoshop

I've used this technique a few times for piecing together my school yearbook. It'll take a while for it to piece together 104 pages in one go, sure, but I don't see why it wouldn't work...

[TRiPPY]

I use photoshop 7 it only does the pdf to psd thing not the other way around

[Jof]

I use photoshop 7 it only does the pdf to psd thing not the other way around

Download CS2 or above and get a crack code or such, rather than shelling out any more mulas.

[TRiPPY]

Tsk tsk, lol.

I'm looking into free legal options right now XD; I spent all of today making that stupid PagePlus file and I'm determined I'm NOT going to do all that layout and formatting work again. I bet it's vista related. Everything is vista related. God im starting to hate it.

[KiloTango]

Can you just do print to pdf in Vista, or is that a mac thing? (When you print you have the option of rather than actually printing, having the mac make a PDF instead.)

Something to bear in mind when looking for software though, some older stuff might not work on Vista. Though I expect you've already run into that issue.

[Murasaki Doku]

It's starting to sound like the best (and cheapest?) way to deal with this problem is to get another operating system.

I've heard nothing but horrible things about Vista.

[Wolf]

I'm not completely sure... but I think I may be able to get you a copy of Adobe for pretty cheap. Let me look at the technology-store thing at school, and I might be able to buy the Adobe Suite or just Adobe Professional or whatever it is that makes pdf files for some ridiculously discounted price (and I will send it to you free of charge). I will get back to you later today.

[DiGi Valentine]

Ah, appreciated Wolf but you don't need to do that. We can sort this out ourselves. Thanks for the offer though.

[Nyx]

I'm looking into free legal options right now XD; I spent all of today making that stupid PagePlus file and I'm determined I'm NOT going to do all that layout and formatting work again. I bet it's vista related. Everything is vista related. God im starting to hate it.

A lot of it might be Vista. Windows Vista is known to be a resource hog -- it wants most of your system's processing power for itself, and never leaves any for the rest of the programs. Kind of like a rude house guest.

I use Photoshop 7 -- and mine does save as PDF. Once you're finished your work in Photoshop, you go to 'Save As', and it's listed as 'Photoshop PDF (*.PDF)' with the star indicating your filename.

If that doesn't work, I know of a freeware PDF conversion software, but it's not Adobe, and I've never tried it, as I haven't needed to use the format before.

Link is here for the PDF software -- but again, I've never used it, so I don't know if it works!

Hope that helped you!

[Maki Izumii]

Hm, but wouldn't photoshop save each page as a seperate pdf?

[TRiPPY]

I was wondering the same thing... though Mel said she saved each page as a seperate pdf file and uploaded them all to Lulu one by one. I guess if youre saving the actual IMAGE as the page you dont have to dick around with putting the image on an actual page layout, which is great! I'm going to experiment using PS7 today using this method to see if it actualy comes out the right size and can be joined on and stuff. After the past 2 days of technical bawwz I'd like today to be a bit better.

And lol in the end it turns out the program wasn't compatible with Vista but IT DIDNT TELL YOU THIS on the WEBSITE until AFTER you'd got it :| rrrrrrrrrrrgh i thought it was a new version of the software! I didnt know there had been like 30 upgrades since T_T

Anyhoo, I'll report back on the pdf thing.

Thanks for the help guys.


edit- ok so far I've been uploading each page as a single pdf one by one and it then takes those (provided they are in correct number order) and makes it into one big PDF file. I'm up to page 7...

*cry*


EDIt 2-
Just discovered a song on my brothers music collection by 'Within Temptation' called 'See who i Am'. I am OBSESSED with this song for iMAGNi right now. I was doodling the begining of comic zero again yesterday and this song is just totaly setting the mood for me. One day I'll do some sort of animation using this song i think. God it's lovely. I should listen to the rest of their music since i have all their albums.. theyre kind of like Evanescence but... not them (WHEE). More upbeat and less screamy cut yourself etc. Nice lyrics.
<a href="http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/withintem...entforce.html#2" target="_blank">http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/withintem...entforce.html#2</a>

epic songgggggs

edit 3-
Up to page 30 now with the pdfs
Also went looking on youtube to see if my fave song had a video, but apparently it doesn't. Found this funny fan one instead XD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=636546BAt0U
Makes me teehee. Still neat though.


edit 4:
Ok i officialy love these guys.

I think I'll base bits of that fictional band that appears in the Englebaum comics on these guys XD
*goes back to work*

[Maki Izumii]

..there's a symphonic metal band in Engelbaum now? XD Winnar.
..nice song though, might acquire an album or two..

[TRiPPY]

Page 80.... ARGH brain disolving.... this takes so much patience and repetitive actions. Just like making thumbnails but slower.
*skuttles off to find lunch*

[MidgitLD]

Nice pick for music. <3

[TRiPPY]

Ok that's the Sapphire book done and dusted. Had so many problems with it I hope it prints ok. Ordered my proof, should get it in about a week and a bit. So it'll be on sale after i check it for quality.

Man i need a rest T_T
*flops off*

[KiloTango]

Future reference... you know about 'actions', right? It's a way of recording a particular set of things you do on photoshop, so you can just play it back with a few keystrokes or through a menu. Using those you can make a 'droplet', which is like a mini program outside of photoshop, that when you drag a file onto, it opens photoshop and does the action. You can drag multiple files on, so in future if you have to do this again you could make something that saves it as pdf then closes it, make a droplet out of that, drag all your images onto the droplet then go play computer games while it does all the tedious grind work for you.

Sorry it's a bit late to suggest now, but maybe it could help in future. You can do all sorts of neat stuff with actions.

[Maki Izumii]

Knowling Lynne's luck with computers, actions would probably make her compy crash - it did it to mine >.<

[KiloTango]

Ah good point, Vista. Though even without using a droplet, using them in program would still be handy. Droplets are just cool cause you can set them going and then bugger off to do something else while it does the work.

[TRiPPY]

Droplets sound awesome, i will have to investigate when doing more work. Thanks for the heads up.
In other news i am burrying my head and praying to all that is holy that the sapphire diary gets to me not looking like CRAP. Apparently i saved all the pdfs as jpgs instead of ZIP and thats a big no no... also you cant do full bleed pages on lulu with seperate files So i done all that work for nothing most probably and i'll have to do it all again for a 4rth time. MMRRRRGHHHHHHHHGHGHGHG *tries to supress rage*

Cant do much drawing today, accidentaly jammed my finger in kitchen drawer.

Biteage.

I hope it turns out looking half decent so i dont have to do it all over again. *grumbles*

edit-
woes somewhat lessened thismorning after email from mel. Plus I'm working on Bruce, should be done by end of tonight. Good good.

[infractus]

hah, dumb. I actually .. yes, actually.. got tracking info for my CafePress order this time, but it did no good for me at all. Seriously -- I'll draw out my interpretation of what happened across the country later.
(plus, pix of tasty iMAGNi merch, too... that Zel badge rawks!~~ I forgot to pick up Tatsuo... ah well, next order.)

*eats Orange cupcake badge in the meantime and pokes some inspiration over to TRiP*

[TRiPPY]

bweeeee. Yesterday i was at my drunken drawing the comics, got to page 9 or something. Was slightly drunk, don't do drink drawing kids! And messed up the order of the storyline *lmao* It took DiGi and a notepad to iron me out on details. That man is so useful! He's like a half editor half manager half writer. He does more storyline outline than me, i work on dialogues (I's good at the talking). Going to be working on the giant chunk i missed out lastnight today. It's so fun starting things from the very very begining. (and i MEAN begining). WTAHM was neat n'all but its timeframe was all over the place! stupid bloody flashbacks. Not so many in this because it all happens realtime (well after 0 ) Zero is sort of like the part in a movie where the intro credits are still rolling. Not one razorblade in sight! Hahaah. Man I'm happy.
Just popped out of the shower lemony fresh, nearly finished coloring Brucebruce the manmuffin. Will work on completing him (just working on his trousers and shoes) then add him THEN get back to work on the comic. Wargh.

This entire comic however has reminded why i don't draw trees much. TREES AN ARTISTS ENEMY... yet great tool of madness.

[KiloTango]

Eeeee you're drawing pages! *glee*

BTW, I was pondering making a tutorial on making quick but decent straight and radial speedlines on photo shop (or more, a brush and presets for doing this with), would that be useful to you? If people are interested, it's more of an incentive for me to do it. I think you mentioned you're toning on photoshop at the moment...

[TRiPPY]

YES because it's a pain in the arse switching back through programs when i just want to sit around in photoshoppe! Mels going to teach me how to use manga Studio but i prefer Adobe because its easy on my brain. I was also thinking of taking some photos of big trees and making them into brushes perhaps. Or maybe i could trace some photos of trees with the pen tool... hmm... sodding branches.

[Maki Izumii]

why not take photos and make them into tones? I can't remember how you do that, but there's a tutorial floating around somewhere that lets you do it..

[DiGi Valentine]

iMAGNi update. New dreamer added - Bruce Hunter. Sorry for delay on that update, we ran into a few problems regarding the net dying on us. Weeeee!

www.iMAGNi.com

[MidgitLD]

...Dude. Bruce is awesome in that non-flashy, non-standing out kinda way. : D

*does not mention is weakness for blondes*

[KiloTango]

Nice, he's a lot more low key than a lot of your stuff and it's great to see you draw someone a bit more muscle-bound.

I'll post the tutorial in my blog and my art topic when it's done then. As for making tones from photos, how I've been making my own tones is I take a greyscale image, turn it to bitmap set to halftone screen (round, 45 degrees, experiment with the amount of rows maybe), turn it back to greyscale then in a few stages shrink it back to around 300-400 dpi for use in the image I'm working on. This means you get a nice fine grain, and the dots stay ROUND (whereas if you just drop their size while working at a lower dpi by adding more rows, they get more square.)

[Maki Izumii]

bwahaha, he looks awesome. He has to be the new PiNK *obsessed with the idea of a male PiNK now D:*

[Nickbot]

Was slightly drunk, don't do drink drawing kids!

*puts the jager, whiskey and pencil down*

......... Huh?

[Wolf]

D: I... love... Bruce. Oh em gee. And I can already see the naughty fanfiction starring Bruce and Tatsuo.
He has to be Pink... Surely. Unless he's... I dunno, Aqua. But that shirt looks more Periwinkle than Aqua... I bet he's Pink.