MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 5/5, it's finished)

[TPG (2)]

MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 1/5)

MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 1)

On the first day of 2016, I found Userpedia and saw the comics that the community had created, particularly Dragon Problem. Having absentmindedly created an account there a few months prior, I thought I could get my own thing going. So, I asked Walkazo for some help about the general history of the community and later about drawing, writing and permissions for using characters. Confident that I could do something with it, I had started a thread pitching the concept I had about a two-part story regarding a user vs troll thing. The comic's name was "How the Wiki was Probably Actually Made", or "HwPam". Back then, I had very little experience with drawing, I had only recently moved on from MSPaint, and drew with a shaky mouse. So, the art wasn't the best.

However, people signed up! About 15 people, I believe. I was happy with that, and I went along making a chapter every week for three weeks. The fourth week was when I slowed down, only presenting a panel. Fifth week, I cancelled, saying:

I think what makes me reluctant to make more is the art style being really uncomfortable and cramped. A format with an easier set up would be better than the comic strip thing I'm trying for now.

I'm not abandoning this; I still enjoy the concept and still have a general plot planned out for part two. However, my lack of organization from the beginning led to the current style feeling like a chore.

In the post I talked about a new comic called MarioWiki: Saga (plus another one), and the next bloody day I posted a new comic thread, which is this one. While the last comic, HwPam, tried to mimic the format of sprite comics, this one was closer in format to Edo's Space Pizzas Ate Monday comic, with animated gifs and text boxes for dialogue separate from the image, even having the same image dimensions for a period of time. That was just over a year ago.

While not originally asking for any sign ups, I went around putting various users in as characters without asking (while this does seem like a dick move looking back, I was told it was the best thing to do, as if they didn't want to be in it they would tell me). I received only two or three sign ups, which is unsurprising considering the mess that was HwPam. I started doing weekly chapters alternating between Stories and Saga (Stories being a recreation of the first part of HwPam and Saga being a userfic about a troll uprising), and later stopped the Stories segment so I could focus on the much more interesting Saga.

Despite my feelings towards the overall comic, I still think Saga had a strong start. The art was decent, the dialogue was believable and the plot seemed to interest some people. And then... this. Or this. Or this. As you can tell, it was rushed and cringey. I started work towards a Sunday deadline on Saturday, and I constantly made this mistake when I did regular updates, which caused the lack of polish. If I had all the time I needed, would it have gone this way? Who knows.

Anyway, I pressed on, ditching deadlines and doing chapters without a schedule. The plot advanced, the art got better (unfortunately, the last chapter still has the 'paintbrush' style I was trying out, but I'll talk about that later). During the early Summer, I took a 50-day break to focus on planning out the plot, and came up with a 25-chapter outline of the story. Then, instead of increased progress, it slowed down. Chapters became higher quality with more cohesive writing, but near the end it ended up being monthly updates. The last chapter ended with this image, with the planet's moon about to collide with the Trolls' meteor, and the antagonist, Mayor Willy, creating a laser which would start to destroy the structure of the whole planet.

That was October 9th, eight months after I started. For the next two months, I made panels at a snail's pace while refining the overall plot, before losing all motivation and posting the last message on this thread which you can read above. Claiming I just never felt like doing it, I put the project down for a few weeks.

But, I was a little bit more stubborn than I thought. I followed more of Walkazo's advice, drawing up storyboards first, doing sketches on paper and writing the dialogue before the panels to make sure it'd work. Come Christmas I got a new laptop, but I had saved my entire images folder onto a memory stick, so there was no issue with losing work... so I thought. One of my biggest mistakes was moving the folder into my new laptop, not copying it. I no longer had any backup if I lost my work.


And that brings us to Tuesday, February 7th. I had a good thing going before then, with stuff I was proud of, but not worth showing since I wanted to limit my posting to chapters only. I had caught some kind of illness and couldn't go to school, so I decided to watch Up in bed with my dog, on my laptop. Oh, boy. The pre-installed DVD player was incompatible with Windows 10, so I followed HP Support's instructions and uninstalled/reinstalled it. I then restarted my laptop, fearing nothing. When it turned back on, it essentially was a blue-screen. No way to access my desktop or programs, just instructions on how to factory reset it. Luckily it had insurance, but the line we called just confirmed that a factory reset was the only option. I was okay with that, as I was under the impression that I had a backup from Christmas and I would only be losing a month's work.

Nope. The only images I have left are this month's 'Shroom sections, which I did after the indecent. This was the last straw, really. Everything I had done, gone. Of course, I could download everything I uploaded here back into my images, but I never uploaded any of the work I put towards Chapters 16 onwards. Once I knew that a good 30-40 hours of work had just been irreversibly erased, I was done with the comic.


But, like I said last post, I want to finish the plot. However, I won't be doing any more chapters. This post here, as well as other ones focusing on different aspects of the comic, will provide the kind of closure I'll be happy with, and I hope you will be satisfied with it too.


So, first up is: What actually happened?

Prologue
-Mayor Willy is established as the first Troll on the SMW planet, and is an exile; he was banished to the meteor ten years ago.
-He wants revenge, and claims that he will bring every troll back onto the planet.

Chapter 1-2
-It is shown that the world the story takes place in is a version of the SMW that had Oculus Rift support. Everyone has an Oculus, and the wiki functions as a large, museum-like planet.
-M. Willy kidnaps Lakituthequick, forcing him to lead a group of users to a supply building on the wiki planet. He is told to find the Sysword of Son of Suns, a retired admin. He reveals he has taken Wayoshi (originally Paper Jorge but that got retconned) under control and threatens to use him to destroy the whole area.
-I (TPG) log into the forum area of the planet, and notice that the meteor housing the trolls is seemingly getting larger.
-TPG alerts Porple and Ghost Jam via a note, and they prepare to battle the trolls.

Chapter 3-5
-The users and trolls fight, and more characters join in as the battle progresses.
-LTQ leads Roy and Crocodile Dippy to the supply room, and finds the sword. An unseen troll then renders the three unconscious, and takes them back to Willy so he can mind-control them.
-The battle proves to be meaningless, as the opposing forces are equal in strength. Willy uses LTQ, Roy and Dippy to set up a laser containing the power of the Sysword, which enables it to effectively 'ban' any user regardless of rank.
-Porple is angered at the sight of users being controlled and rushes to kill Willy.
-The laser is used on him, and he dies.
-Willy takes Porple's Sysword, becoming ruler of the planet. He effortlessly gets rid of the cast, distributing them to various areas:
-Walkazo and MCD are sent to the planet's moon (which represents Userpedia)
-Roy, Dippy and LTQ are released from the control but are sent to a prison on the meteor.
-TPG, Ghost Jam and Glitchy decide it is best to protect the world from any invading troll army by stopping them at their base, and head to the meteor's impact site to try and stop them.
-Viper26, Yoshi876 and Anton flee and head off to protect the buildings (articles) from the army.

Chapter 6-10
-The groups' situations are developed.
-Anton's group are attacked by a Fidel, but Viper26 unleashes his secret base's technologies to save them. He drives a spaceship directly to the heat of the vandalism.
-Yoshi876 spots Wayoshi and Willy at the base of the... base, and drops from the ship to fight them.
-Ghost Jam's group realise that there is a giant cliff face at the crater that prevents the troll army from escaping the meteor. Looking for 'where stuff to do is at', TPG storms off in search of action.

-Ghost Jam explains to Glitchy that every user has a star deep inside them. They vary in colour (these represent the forum's profile stars btw), but when the stars are united they can make miracles happen. He notes that Porple was very vague about the specific miracles, but he knows deep down that it will help them stop Willy.

-TPG finds himself looking at the fight between Yoshi876 and Willy. Yoshi876 had already beaten Wayoshi off camera, but allowed him to escape.
-As Willy is about to be knocked out by '876, TPG attempts to steal the victory via flamethrower, but Willy is able to teleport away.
-He orders the trolls to ascend to the top of the meteor, which he then moves over to another area of the planet; the forum area.
-Many users here have used this as a safe haven, but they are presumably crushed by the meteor landing again.
-The impact of the meteor causes huge amounts of rock to block the exit to LTQ's group's jail.

Chapter 11-15
-Roy begrudgingly shapeshifts into Donkey Kong, and uses his new strength to break his way out of the jail. LTQ and Dippy follow him, disappointed that their much more intricate plan was made redundant.
-Viper and Anton try and take on a whole troll army, but are forced to escape via one of the troll's portals back to the meteor.
-They are intercepted by LTQ's group, who explain that they are trying to infiltrate the jail.
-Dippy calls Walkazo, who explains that they have a plan to put enough force on the moon to send it into the meteor.
-Walkazo and MCD perform their plan without problem by raiding the abandoned nearby city for explosives, and creating a giant enough explosion to offset the moon's orbit.
-Willy is informed of their plan, and responds by starting to wither the planet away.

That's where I stopped, but I know what happens next!

Chapter 16-25
-Ghost Jam and Glitchy have started moving towards a nearby town in search of help. They are attacked by both the land tearing apart and Wayoshi, who came back to redeem himself to Willy after losing a fight to '876.
-Ghost Jam manages to kill Wayoshi, sending him falling into the planet's core for him to be reduced to just code. They make their way onwards to the town.
-There, they meet three new users who survived the meteor impact- Lord Bowser, Puddin and NEX; their survival was incredibly ridiculous. -They offer their help as soldiers and Glitchy takes them to the new meteor to establish a base. Ghost Jam leaves them, in search of the old admin castle. Later in the plot, as the final battle begins, he uses his connections with the rest of the wikis to summon a gigantic NIWA army, which ultimately finishes the war.
-TPG apologises to '876 for potentially letting Willy survive and offers to help him take Willy down. They head towards the meteor.
-'876, TPG, Roy, Anton, Dippy, LTQ, and Viper all meet up by chance at different ends of Willy's throne room. They launch a simultaneous attack on him, but Willy manages to take over Viper26's mind and use him as a body-shield. Dippy mercilessly kills Viper and weakens Willy.
-After dealing some damage to Willy, the group are forced to leave so they can survive the moon's impact on the meteor. Dippy, fueled with determination to prove killing Viper was worth it, stays behind to finish Willy off.
-Glitchy sacrifices herself to help the others escape using a wind spell which consumes the rest of her power. Dippy, Willy and Glitchy are killed by the moon's impact. Walkazo and MCD are able to survive the landing, and join the rest of the gang.
-Everyone alive forms a group and prepares for the remaining trolls to start a final battle.
-The battle is won by the group with the help of the NIWA army. Celebrating, many users leave, but the main cast stay to mourn the losses of their friends, especially Porple.
-The last dying troll raises his grey star, and creates a giant cluster of grey stars from the entire troll army.
-The cluster of stars becomes a large, robot-like Willy. It fires a laser at the remains of the moon, destroying it.
-The users try to fight it individually using their own 'thing', but Ghost Jam recalls the Miracle Star's prophecy. He tells the group to fight as one.
-The users launch one combined attack, having enough force to knock the robot over. This attack allows each user's star to rise up, and they combine to form a flashing, massive star- the Miracle Star. The star pulls Porple's/Willy's Sysword into itself, as well as the weakened stars of Viper, Dippy and Glitchy.
-The Miracle Star ejects the three stars, which reform as the revived Viper, Dippy and Glitchy, whose stars then rejoin the Miracle.
-The Mircale Star then morphs into Porple, as his Blue Bowser Form. He takes the Sysword and challenges the robot.
-Instead of fighting, Porple uses his powers to restore the world to before the incident, including the revival of the trolls.
-The group is conflicted about this decision. Some start planning to kill the trolls once and for all and walk off, while Ghost Jam and Wayoshi make up.
-The remaining users resume work lightheartedly, while the camera pans out to give a view of the planet.
-A rocket is seen flying towards the meteor, but the fate of the trolls is left to your imagination. Like a Schrodinger's Willy.

*cue a ton of likes for all my posts*

So, that was the plan. It's written a lot better than it was drawn! Anyway, I hope you found that interesting at least; Part 2 will focus on clearing up the canon of the setting. I'll define characters, locations and context, to prevent confusion. I'll also be reflecting slightly on visual communication, but that will be reviewed more in detail later on.

Thanks for reading. It's been quite the long run, but it will be over soon.

 

[TPG (2)]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 2/5)

MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 2)

The next thing I'd like to talk about is the setting and characters of the story.

The Characters

• Mayor Willy- The main antagonist of the story. He was the first troll to attack the Wiki planet 11 years prior to the plot, and was therefore the first to be exiled to a meteor orbiting the planet. Any later exiles would be sent to the same meteor, and when he had enough for an army he directed an attack on the planet, taking over as proprietor. He would later be killed and resurrected as the amalgamation of every slain troll.
• Wayoshi- Mayor Willy's goon. Being controlled by Willy, he assisted the Mayor with the attack, and later was set loose to hunt down any alive users. He and Willy tried to fight Yoshi876, but Willy was nearly defeated and Wayoshi ran away, only to encounter Ghost Jam and Glitchy. He died fighting the two, falling into the core of the planet.
• fidel- A large, corrupted troll residing in a lake. It attempted to attack a group of users, but was avoided.
• The trolls- Simple, mindless creatures that were exiled at some point in the planet's lifetime. While weak on their own, they are formidable when part of a large army like in the comic.
• Porplemontage- Former proprietor of the planet. He was destroyed early on in the comic by Willy, but with the power of the Miracle Star formed by the wiki people, he was resurrected in his Blue Bowser form.
• Ghost Jam- A strait-laced ghost who often joined Porple on his missions. He devised the plan to create the Miracle Star, and later established connections with other planets in the NIWA system to call for help.
• The Pyro Guy- A dubious Shy Guy with little concern for self-preservation. He drifted between groups looking for things to do before settling with 876 on a mission to destroy Willy.
• Glitchy- Accompanied Ghost Jam for the majority of the story before splitting off and gathered stray users to join the fight. Carries out the plan to create the Miracle Star, as she was the only one to hear Ghost Jam talk about it.
• Anton- The pizzakinetic leader of a trio. He took charge of Viper26 and Yoshi876 to attempt to create a group to protect the cities of the planet, but after losing '876 he and Viper retreated into a portal leading to a meteor.
• Yoshi876- A Yoshi focused on saving the planet on his own terms. He left Anton's group after finding Willy, and after Willy ran away he made it his personal quest to finish the job.
• Viper26- Owner of the Dark Lair. He reconstructed the lair to assist the group with a fight against a Fidel, and was later possessed and killed inside the Troll's meteor.
• Walkazo- After MCD and her were cast away to the moon, she decided to create an explosion powerful enough to alter its orbit to ensure it would crash into the meteor.
• MrConcreteDonkey- He located and raided a city full of explosives on the moon to help with Walkazo's plan, and despite having a permanently flaming back, avoided triggering an explosion prematurely.
• Lakituthequick- The first user to know about Willy's plan, he was forced to help set it up and was then sent to a prison on the meteor, along with the two other users he gathered along the way.
• Roy Koopa/GSYoshi- Distancing himself from Ltq and Dippy, he used his time behind bars to think of his own way to break out of prison. 'Shapeshifting into an ape and punching the walls down' was a lot less complicated than Ltq's plan.
• Crocodile Dippy- The most active user of the Prison Trio. While contributing little to the initial escape, she managed to contact other users to co-ordinate a way of destroying Willy. She kills both Viper26 and Willy during the plan, and does not manage to escape the moon's impact.
• Nyrie, Stargazing, Lord Bowser, Freakworld and NEXandGBX- Some of the users that escaped Willy's attacks. They were left clueless until Glitchy directed them towards the meteor.

Some characters were definitely more relevant than others, which is a problem I had when trying to manage a large cast. One of the ways I tried to solve it was by splitting them off into groups doing everything together, but even then I ended up giving the spotlight to a particular few, including myself. I'll talk about this in more detail in Part 5.

The Setting

Originally, the story was set in a version of the SMW website that had gained Virtual Reality support. Various structures of the Wiki were represented as buildings or areas. This was silently changed later on into a fictional world based on the website, but not a real-world version of it. Ideas like promotion were shown through Syswords, which had colour changes based on the rank of the user.

The planet also had aspects of the Boards too; the stars on our profiles are key to the plot. These stars are deep inside the user, and will only take a physical form when reacting with other stars. When all the different stars are gathered, they come together to form a Miracle Star, which performs convenient miracles.

The yellow moon is based on Userpedia. If it had more development, it would have been revealed that an earlier community managed to reside in it, but after many civil wars regarding the ownership of the moon, it was abandoned, leaving the weapons of destruction behind for Walkazo and MCD to use.

The purple meteor is the home of the trolls. Unlike the moon's society, the trolls lived in harmony and equality, with one goal for all: to invade the planet. It crashes into the planet during the plot, but the hazardous impact site prevented the trolls from escaping. When the meteor is moved to a different location, it allows some of the users to invade it.

The areas on the planet are:

• The Boards City
• Fortress of Administration
• Garden of the Guardian Poochy
• Museum of Featured Articalia
• Lake Bajdon
• Community Centre
• Various Cities
• Core

While the setting did evolve from a blank white plane to a more interesting planet, moon and meteor, I feel that it could have been expanded a lot more. But, I was too focused on action and cool gifs to do that when I was still making it.

The Message, and a word on Visual Communication

I suppose if anything, the story was about teamwork. While there were no conflicts between users, there were a lot of instances of characters wanting to do things according to them, with little consideration of the others. In fact, the only way to bring back Porple was to assemble the diverse community needed for the creation of the Miracle Star.

Of course, if it weren't for my appalling visual communication, I wouldn't have needed to make this post. Things like this could have easily been explained through better dialogue, or more effective drawings. The reason why the planet is so white and barren was because I didn't experiment with backgrounds with my earlier drawings, and left it blank so I could just draw characters. I did end up adding in a sky, a moon and a meteor, but the landscape was still just plain white. I just wasn't thinking about backgrounds at the time. One thing related to this was a comment I received from an IRL friend some of you have met, but again, I will go into details later.



Well, that's it for Part 2; I hope you enjoyed this lesson on context. The next update will be a discussion of the criticism I've received about this. However, I currently only have a handful of things to discuss coming only from a few users, so I encourage you to read through this and tell me what you think so I can talk about it next time. Until then!

 

[Starkuss]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 2/5)

 

[TPG (2)]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 3/5)

ok

MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 3)

This one's going to be a bit shorter, since I only received a few criticisms from one person (thank you Roy). Anyway, let's get right into it.

Dialogue
Character lines were written outside of panels, in talk boxes accompanied by sprites. I still like this idea; however, the way I wrote the dialogue was not very good. The speech was very unnatural, with either robotic lines or overly cliched ones. Unless the character had some kind of gimmick to their speech (such as lack of punctuation, or forced 'accents'), I found it hard looking back to tell who was talking if I ignored the sprites. Secondly, I found the talk boxes to be poorly spaced out. Some panels had too many, some had barely any. This was due to rushing the chapters, cramming too many events into a small amount of space, and I would then have to use lots of dialogue to explain the scene. One thing Roy mentioned was that there was no verbal clutter- no 'ums' or 'yeahs', etc. If a character can flawlessly execute lines without any natural error, this can create a disconnect between the character and the reader, as they would seem too inhuman.

Spotlight
This was definitely one I noticed when rereading it. Characters had very uneven focuses, with people like Viper26 or myself having loads of time on-screen, whereas MCD or Glitchy had little to no focus. Part of this was trying to have a large cast all doing important things, and not being able to create enough content to cover everyone evenly. Even characters that had lots of screen time never actually ended up significantly contributing to the plot, such as Roy. Like, you guys create your characters as having all these cool abilities and gimmicks, and I barely even acknowledge that.

Wait, did that really just happen?
The earlier parts of the comic were written as they were drawn, and if I hadn't planned a solution to a problem, I would just cram it in as I got to it. This led to some scenes feeling really slapped on or badly communicated. For example, in the Fidel scene, I only knew two things;
*Fidel was going to appear as a corrupted .jpg fiddle, like in Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.
*Viper was going to create his Dark Lair.
So, I threw in a lake for Fidel to appear (I guess he was a sea monster for some reason) and I crapped out a scene where Viper would get an opportunity to shoot an arrow, which would hit a button on a screen, undoing an edit that destroyed his lair? Yeah, it sounds pretty terrible when reading that through. I never even showed how the lair saved the trio.

Tropes
This plot and its characters were cliched. There's no denying that. The villain was an exile, who came back to overthrow the leading good guy and split up the protagonists. The protagonists learn that they must work together to stop the villain, and revive the leading good guy and any other deaths because everyone needed a happy ending. To quote Roy, "With a villain like the one you had, I feel like you could have done so much more with him, and yet he felt really cliched."

There was barely any subplot. No internal conflict. No character development or even any plot progression. That may sound like an exaggeration, but that's how I sometimes feel about it.


It wasn't all bad though; some parts I really enjoyed rereading, and I think if it was finished it would look like a good first attempt. I'm impressed with some of my animation work even in the earlier stages, and some parts of the comic I think looked great. But it wasn't enough, and maybe if I restarted the comic with this hindsight and artistic talent, it would be finished. But no, I'm not finishing this. Sorry if you really wanted that.

Anyway, the penultimate section will be a section on the art. That should come out faster than the monthly updates I have been doing now, so maybe a few weeks? See you then.

 

[Natalie J.]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 3/5)

since I only received a few criticisms from one person (thank you Roy).

ur weclome

 

[TPG (2)]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 4/5)

MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 4)

It turns out that 'a few weeks' was the biggest jape in Mario Boards history. I'm motivated to finish this by/during May, so I should probably get these last few bits out now.

Anyway, art. This is the part of the comic that had significantly changed by the end, which makes it pretty important to me.

The Beginning
I started Saga using the program paint.NET, and used a mouse to draw. If you know what you're doing, this doesn't end up being a problem. Sure, you can do better with say, a drawing pad, but the results with .NET can look great. And in my opinion, the prologue looked decent, even impressive by some standards. I'll just throw in some examples of the highlights:

I put effort into my first chapter because I wanted to make a good first impression, but I think my reputation may have already been affected by the HwPam strips.

After that, I learnt about using blur filters to create depth, and released my next chapter. This one was noticeably more shoddy, which I assume was due to me having to draw more complex characters (myself) rather than legged circles and squiggly lines.

Inconsistency was everywhere: my arms had different thicknesses, the background was clear but the closer buildings were blurred, things like that.

It also featured a new talk sprite for my character, which as Nabber has gracefully pointed out, looks like it's jerking off. I then changed that to the image on the right.

Early Development
Chapter 2 had my first gif, and another decent drawing of Lakituthequick.

The gif wasn't anything special, being only two frames long and only one object being animated. But it checked out, so hey!

Chapter 4 had a rare appearance from Mr. 3D-Rendered scenery. At this point I had also started to take a little bit more care with my drawings, and had better art as a result.

Back then, my 3D results looked better than my 2D results, so I tried to include some of it in the panels. My rendering skills have vastly improved since then, and I am looking into using proper 3D backgrounds for my next project because of this.

Chapter 5 had two gifs with proper animation, and I'll throw in a checkpoint for character art too:

Ignoring drawing quality, I think the gifs are good. The animation is smooth, the effects are nice.

Bear in mind I still think the art is unsatisfactory at this point; I'm just choosing to highlight important moments in the progression.

Chapter 6 introduced Homestuck-inspired sprite art to the pool of styles. The sprites would remain exclusive to the prison scenes, but were ultimately underused.

While the scenery looks rushed, the characters look fine to me, even a year later.


paint.NET's last moments
Chapter 9 is my favourite chapter. It introduces a minor subplot which unfortunately never got mentioned again, and has some nice art to boot.

The left picture's shading really stands out to me, I think I did that well. I also find my choice of colours to be well chosen, but there are still occasional incidents of low quality drawings.

Chapter 12 was the last chapter to use paint.NET. I had a drawing tablet at that point, and had changed the art style to having no outlines to reflect this.

The keyboard one is interesting because the lines between the buttons are wonky. I definitely had a drawing tablet at that point, so I should have been able to draw consistent, straight lines. I honestly can't say why I couldn't get that right.




The (short) rise of Krita and the Paintbrush Phase

Krita was introduced to me by Baby Luigi, who suggested I get a proper drawing program for the creation of the Poll Banner on the Wiki. I used the default paintbrush tool to add colour and shading, and used a regular pen tool for the revived outlines. I began using it on Chapters 13 and 14, and never got the chance to switch to my current style before I quit. Anyway, the paintbrush stuff was unique.

This looked like a huge improvement from paint.NET, and to be fair, it was. Between Chapter 14 and now, I've refined my art skills to a constant, and without trying to sound obnoxious, I've done a bloody great job over the last year. I'll just get a comparison up for you to see for yourself.

Have I improved my art since starting this? Hell yeah, above and beyond my expectations. Can I still improve? Again, hell yeah. There's still some things I want to improve or learn for Krita: drawing without outlines, smooth shading, cleaner colouring/shading to name a few.

So, if you got to the end, then you're either interested in art or interested in the comic. If you know art, then you don't need to read my tips. If you're new to art and want to get better (which we should all want anyway), then have some of...

TPG's Technique Tips
*Whatever you're doing now, you can do better.
*If you don't know how to improve, look up to someone you respect as a better artist. They might be doing something you aren't, so try and see if that inspires you to aspire for improvement.
*Even if you don't have the right tools, don't worry. You make what you use your tool. And if you get a better tool, then great! But remember that anything's your tool if you try hard enough.
*Sometimes adding depth adds a punch to your art. Unfocus the background, add some shadow. It improves your work, unless you think otherwise.
*If you keep on doing what you enjoy, you'll get better. If you don't enjoy your art, then you'll have less motivation to improve it.
*Yellow's a good colour. (This may be a personal preference)



So, there's one more part left before I can let this rest. The conclusion will consist of a few things, mainly a general review and a few bits of trivia, and a final ending artwork. Have a nice day, and I'll see you here one more time for the final!

 

[freakworld]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 4/5)

2/3 people say this sucks

not sure if i should read

 

[TPG (2)]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 4/5)

fun fact: as soon as starkuss saw this poll he immediately voted the worst option. like, he was right next to me when it happened

anyway i can assure you that you'll enjoy it, you appear in it so you're obliged to like it

 

[freakworld]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 4/5)

haha that starkuss

i mean who votes for the worst option in a poll immediately when they see it right?!?

 

[TPG (2)]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 4/5)

 

[TPG (2)]

Re: MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 5/5)

MarioWiki Saga: The Conclusion (Part 5)
AKA procrastination; the comic

So, today is the day I finally sit down and put this to an end.

So, do I like how it turned out? Yeah. I think the improvements that I made throughout the 10 months it was running for were great, both in writing and drawing. There's definitely room for improvement, and had I started it with my current level of skill, it would probably be a very different comic. It was a learning experience, I suppose.

Most importantly to some, did I enjoy it? In all honesty, the highs and the lows were woven into each other. The deep feeling of dread inside me as I started to realise what little motivation I had to complete it. The kind of giddy feeling one gets when they think they've got a real smart idea; that 'ah-ha' moment. I can confidently say I have more fond memories of creating it than I have pitiful memories of looking back at it.

What next? Hell, I might make another one at some point. I don't know. I had plans for a detective comic a while back, but I feel like this place isn't really the place for hosting a comic. You might hear from it though. I had a good few ideas for it, and I don't want to forget about it just yet.

Before I finish I'd like to share one last piece of art for the comic.

Spoiler

...


Psyche. Here's the real thing:

So, thank you for experiencing it with me. It was fun, it really was, but the comic started over a year ago, and times have very much changed since then. If you see me on FC again, it'll either be in my art thread (in the sig) or perhaps a new project. Who knows. Anyway, see you next time.