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Hinckley

Student Enrollment: Adding dialogue to comics

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Kiel, help! I feel this is a weak area on my part (I'll enroll in dynamic paneling soon too. :look:)

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This is my most recent attempt. The game is filled with others. I can post better and worse examples, but I did struggle with this last night, pulling the raw images out several times to re-cut to fit all the dialogue. Any pointers for me?

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Well it's a bit weird offering pointers to someone who has been doing LEGO comics far longer than me :grin:, but let me see what I can suggest to improve your skills in adding dialogue.

Overall, the dialogue in this comics is fundamentally sound, following proper choronology, text and balloon spacing, and the other basic tennets of comic dialogue. I had an easy time understanding the story and I didn't see any major error. Though I spotted some teeny-weeny minor things that you could probably fix:

1. In the leftmost panel in the second row ("They're for flying..." dialogue), the top portion of the balloon border is incomplete. I noticed it overlapped on the borders of the panel, you could either fit it further inside (a bit downwards and to the right) or you could completely have it extend outside the panel borders (just like you did with the other balloons you did, e.g., the last two at the bottom). I personally don't have any problems with balloons extending outside panel borders as I myself like it and have used it in in the past. The main point I'm driving is visually, it's best if speech balloons are within panel borders or extending outside them, just not exactly coniciding with the pabel borders (like in this particular example).

2. In the panel with the CRASH!!! sound effect, was it the Crocodile that is speaking the "Nevrick, there's a potato message for you" dialogue? If he is then the tail needs to be pointed towards him more. If it's spoken by someone in the window(?) then the tail should point more to that source.

3. In the second to the last row of panels, the one with the "Nevrick, why aren't you at school?" dialogue, this is the same case as #1 as the speech balloon was inadvertently cut-off by the panel border. It's either you fit it inside or extend it outwards the panel border.

Those are just minor things that you won't have any problems fixing.

Now on your problem regarding re-cutting images to fit in dialogue, this is quite a tricky issue as it boils down to how you exactly plan the dialogue ahead of taking the pictures. I must admit, I myself experience the same dilemma when making comics since I normally don't do a written "sketch draft" and specifically plan how the panels and dialogues will fit in. The way I do things is normally "everything is planned and concocted in my head", which is not really advisable and even considered an error-prone technique. So if there's some pointers that I could probably suggest (for you and me :grin:):

1. Make a sketch of how the story will unfold (Dynamic Panelling lesson)

2. Write down the script / exact exchange of dialogue for the whole story so you'll know if the text will be too long to fit in a designated panels.

3. Then it's now only the time to take pictures. Ensure that the space needed for the speech balloons is sufficient, taking into account the exact dialogue from your "written script" from #2.

4. If steps #1-3 are followed correctly, one shouldn't expect any problem in fitting the dialogue inside the seperate panels during post-editing.

I know these steps may require extra effort but I think it will minimize, or even completely eliminate, any problem of fitting dialogue in comic panels. (I should also follow these steps I just made now :laugh:).

I hope that answers your questions, if not, just ask back and I'll try to answer to the best of what I know. :classic:

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Thanks for the quick feedback. I'll give it another shot tonight when I do the next interlude. Or I could try to fix these with your comments...or do both.

Yes, I think the dynamic paneling lesson is a necessity for me. It's a great one to take in conjunction with this one. Perhaps you and def should team teach a more advanced lesson on "adding dialogue to dynamic paneling". :thumbup:

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