Comic making applications for mobile devices

I've been playing with a few comic making applications for my mobile devices. With a mobile application, you can leave out having to use a computer to make a simple comic and you can do the entire process from taking the picture to uploading the finished comic directly from your smartphone. The main drawback is you can't make spiffy special effects like you could on a desktop so the comics will need to be simple compared to what you can produce otherwise. However, for those who don't need snazzy effects or just need something quick and simple, this can be the ideal method of making comics without having to spend a whole lot of time. The above two comics were produced using My Comic Photo Free and My Comic for Windows Phone 7 on a Lumia 710.

My Comic is about as simple as it gets. You get a choice of a few word balloons/boxes and a couple of font sizes and that's it. You only get one panel and it leaves a watermark in the lower right corner. But it's totally free and supports both landscape and portrait.

My Comic Photo Free is the free version of My Comic Photo. It has much more variety with support for different layouts featuring multiple panels as well as different word balloon types and fonts. Some of the features, especially most of the word balloons, are locked but even then you can make a pretty decent looking comic. The main negative for this app is a surprising lack of landscape support.

The above is made using ComicBook! for iOS on iPod Touch 4. ComicBook! is probably the best comic app I've tried. The only problem is that the iPod Touch's camera really sucks and is a far cry from my Lumia.  The app itself is fully featured with support for different layouts, fonts, landscape/portrait, and also image stamps to post sound and image effects with support for importing your own image stamps. I'd be using this a lot more if the iPod actually had a half decent camera. The image used above isn't even from the iPod's camera and would actually look far worse if it was. :p

Main reason I've been playing around with those software is because I've come to the ugly realization that I lack the time and energy to make comics like I used to due to my current job. I still have an interest to do photo comics but I have to change the direction I take for future comics since long winded stuff is pretty much out of the question. Keep it simple, I should.

Waning interest?!

Recently my interest in figma seems to have taken a dip. This has somewhat to do with the fact that while they're posable, they're not really meant to be played with like you can with a typical action figure so I can't quite toss them on the bed to play with like I can with a Transformer figure. That said, I still have a few figma preorders still remaining, namely Samus and the Strike Witches couple Sanya and Eila. On the Nendoroid front, I have preorders for Yamada Aoi, Shinguuji Sakura, and Saber Zero.

Speaking of preorders, I've noticed Strike Witch's Barkhorn is up. The good news is they've finally changed the stands to the moveable type that's standard on almost all recent Nendoroids, something that would have been nice had they done it with Charlotte.

I still think of this blog as 2D-ism. Old habits die hard. I've quit my 2nd job but it seems my primary job is starting to pick up. Just when I thought I'd get more time do do things like finally opening my toys. orz ^^;

(all images stolen from GSC website)

Ew.

I was at a local Asian supermarket a few days ago and noticed they not only sell live frogs but turtles as well for cooking. They had both hard and soft shelled turtles. Eek.

Work & anime

Been a while since my last post so just a quick update to say I'm alive. :P I took a 2nd job about a couple of months ago but I think I'm going to quit that as it makes certain parts of my schedule inconvenient. But that wasn't the only reason for lack of update. When I did have free time, I was watching anime and reading manga as well as just generally being lazy. orz As for stuff I've been watching, it's been old stuff: Gokusen and Utena. Finished both of them. With Utena, I've watched the first half initially and then that was it for a very long time. After picking it up, I decided to skip most of the middle episodes and start towards the last third of the show which for me was a good decision because the plot moves too slow and most of it is ultimately filler anyways. I have to say I have mixed feelings with how it ended but it's good they followed up with the movie which was ultimately a much better experience IMO. With Gokusen, I watched through the anime series, read through the manga, and now following the live drama as time permits. Yankumi has skyrocketed to the top as my favorite anime/manga/game character. I've also been reading through The World God Only Knows manga this past week so that took much of my time. Being a former eroge player, this naturally piqued my interest. That reminds me, I still have some games that's been on the backburner... orz



I just received the Wagnaria Nendoroid Playset A & B so I'm looking forward to opening them. I also have the Popura Nendoroid as well as many other stuff that's sitting in their boxes. I really need to clean out my place so hopefully I'll be spending the next week doing some late spring cleaning so that I have a place to finally open up my toys.

IABWSS 6.3

I'm off today so I used a coupon for free pizza, yay!


Sorry for late update. Happens when one gets a 2nd job. orz
Also sorry for head hurting dialogue. XD

IABWSS 6.2 part 3

You see where this is going, right? :p
And that concludes that. Back to Shinki-ness!
Although to tell the truth I have lot's more TF-centric stuff in store too... orz

One thing I've noticed is that my episodes tend to center on a single toyline. I seem to have trouble thinking up stories mixing different ones. That's not to say I don't have any but they're few compared to the ones that feature only one particular toyline.

Dragons Universe Rapid Fire Dragon Fighter review

I guess it's about time I got around to it. I first posted the pics over half a year ago...can't believe I dragged it that long... orz