It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two years since I started BS/OD. While I wouldn’t consider myself a master at making a 3D web comic, I feel that I have a decent amount of information that might help a beginner who wishes to start their own. Starting today, I plan on writing a weekly article that will give the would be beginner tips on getting their own idea off the ground.
Tools:
While there are plenty of tools out there to create a 3D web comic, many of them are either free or open source. This is a great way to start learning the process without spending a ton of money. Trust me, it’s quite easy to spend a lot but you can do much of your comic on the cheap if you do a little digging. Here is a list of free programs to get you started:
Daz Studio 2: This is a great program to start learning to work in 3D. With a wide variety of available content, you’ll be able to create a wide variety of comics. Now, while there is a ton of premium content available for Daz Studio, you can find quite a bit out there for free on various web sites. We’ll discuss finding content in future articles with more detail. As of this article, Daz Studio 3 is available but I would hold off using it for now as it still has some bugs that need to be worked out.
Bryce 5.5: This is yet another piece of software that will give you a good start. It will provide you with a number of ways to create scenes to put your characters in and it can work hand in hand with Daz Studio. As of right now, though, Bryce 5.5 isn’t compatable with Daz Studio 3.
GIMP: While most people know that Photoshop is the defacto standard when working with 2D, GIMP is a great piece of open source software that can do everything you need. You will find yourself using it to clean up some things before putting your comic together.
Inkscape: You’ll need a tool to create word balloons and lettering for your comic. After all, your characters will most likely be speaking at some point. While you can do it all in GIMP, you’ll find it a bit easier to make it look cleaner in Inkscape. In this program, you will also be able to assemble the final panels for your comic. If you do have a little money to spend, though, I would look into purchasing Comic Life since it will speed up this process greatly. I’ll talk a bit more about Comic Life in future articles.
These four programs will give you a good start but they will take some time to learn. In the next article, I’ll talk about free content that you can use in Daz Studio as well as some times on putting a simple scene together.
