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 speak 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.

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Yen Plus

While I’ve been watching anime for a number of years, manga is something that’s relatively new to me.  I would occasionaly pick up a title here and there but I really didn’t have a clue about the variety of material that was out there.

Eventually I started reading Shojo Beat and Shonen Jump which expanded my pallet somewhat.  While those magazines do  offer some less known titles, a lot of people would still consider them main stream.  I suppose that has a lot to do with the fact that both of them are run by Viz here in the States.  Still, I do enjoy reading them.

Yen Plus is a publication that I heard about by chance.  I believe someone on some social website referred to it and I was curious to see what it was about.  So, I check to see if the local book store was carrying it and I was able to pick up the most recent issue.

Now, Yen Plus is a bit different than Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat.  Not only does it have Japanese manga but they also publish material from Korea as well as from artists such as Svetlana Chmakova.  I must say that reading it is a nice chance of pace.

Yen Plus does costs a bit more than the other magazines that are available but you do get your money’s worth.  Just like with any magazine, though, you can save yourself a bit of cash by getting a subscription.  It may seem like a lot up front but I think it beats paying the $10.00+ that most manga cost in book form.

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Well, it looks like I’ll be hitting two cons again this year:

Otakon: July 18th
Anime USA: November 20-22

I originally wasn’t planning on hitting Otakon for a number of reasons.  First of all, it’s not exactly cheap to purchase passes for the con, a hotel room for several days, food, parking, etc.  After a conversation with a friend of mine, though, I am sharing a table on Saturday in the Artists Alley.  This will keep down my costs a bit but I’ll have to drive back and forth to the con each day that I want to attend.  Since I’m only going to be in the alley for one day, it really won’t be that bad.

I’ll actually be in Baltimore on July 16th so that my wife and I can attend the VAMPS concert.  This will let me get my Otakon badge early since they are setting up a special area for those with VAMPS tickets.  I’m rather looking forward to this concert since I really enjoyed Larc~en~ciel when they were in town a handful of years ago.

Now, what will I be displaying this year? I have decided to restructure things a bit since I have a number of new things to sell.  Here’s what will be on sale:

BS/OD CDs
Petit Rusika CDs
Anime Faith Comic Books
BS/OD Comic Books
Valkyrion RPG Books

I also plan on bringing on along a number of buttons that I still have on hand and possible a few other goodies.  I think this will be more than enough for Otakon since I’ll ony have half a table at my disposal.  Oh, I must give a shout out to Kali at Beware of Ninja for letting me share the table space!

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