“The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
The problem with starting something new is the blank canvas. You have to create something from nothing. With a webcomic you have to think of a theme, characters, even the layout. It’s bewildering.
There’s no real better way to get some insight than to go look for some inspiration from other comics that I enjoy.
My inspiration for the vector art style comes from a webcomic that used to be published every week. I loved it and it’s a shame that it just came to a standstill. It’s The Non-Adventures of Wonderella:
http://nonadventures.com/
It’s this kind of art style that I will try to emulate and make my own.
As for a theme, well here’s hoping that it will be something edgy, something about gamers in South Africa and I’d like it to be a little bit dark. Sinfest used to be great. The world and characters are brilliant. The art style has changed over the last while however and in my opinion it’s not nearly as good as it used to be:
http://www.sinfest.net/
The 4 panel comic or at least single line comic is probably what I’ll go for too. Most of my favourite comics follow this format.
I still need to decide on the characters. I would like them to feel real and I would like people to be able to relate to them.
For instance it feels like I know the characters from PVP so well:
pvponline.com/
It’s going to be a long journey and it’s not going to be easy. If we are lucky then the webcomic will be funny, pretty and memorable. If not then we can always count on our favourites.