Dodging in Photoshop to fine tune comics

 Hi All,

Lots of things going on, not much hobby. What I did do though is start looking at techniques for restoring old photos and fine tuning exposure issues in Photoshop.

The video instructions that I found helpful were this one by Karl Taylor and this one by Phlearn.

I've had an issue for a long time in my comics where the figures tend to show too dark. I have known that I could do some things to fix it but hadn't really put in the effort to understand it until now.

You may remember this picture from my last comic. As you can see, the figures are pretty dark and muddy looking. They don't read well.

So let's open it back up in Photoshop and see if we can fix it.

 Here I've reopened the picture and inserted it into the comic template I made. This is the base layer Smart Object being edited. You can also see that I zoomed in on our subjects, the Isengard Uruk Hai.

With your layer selected, add a Curves adjustment layer.

Pull the Highlights up on the curve. You can see how everything is brighter now.

With the Curves Mask selected press Ctrl+I to invert the mask. Thus removing the Curves effect.

Take you paintbrush and paint White over the areas where you want the Curves effect. I did it a little sloppily here just to give you an idea. I used a soft brush with 50% flow. Building the effect up with a lower flow brush might be better. You can also change the opacity and blend mode of the adjustment layer to further tweak the effect.

Before.

After.

So you see, it just helps bring back detail that got lost and I think makes a big improvement. I'm not sure what took me so long to address this issue, oh well.

I hope you learned something useful.

Hobby your way.

Dungeon (2014) - New Year's Eve Game

 Hi All,

As usual I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I thought I was in a space between Cross Country and Track Seasons and could get my hobby together. Turns out I got myself elected to the Band Booster Board, say that five times fast, and am more or less designated photographer for the band moving forward.

I attended my first HS basketball game this week and it was pretty good. I forgot how fun it can be to watch a game played by athletes who know what they are doing. I've been watching too many years of really horrible elementary school lunch recess basketball.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you a few pictures of a game we played of the 2014 reboot of Dungeon put out by Wizards of the Coast. We had had the game for years, but apparently had never opened the box.

It is pretty much the same game with updated art and they flip flopped you wanting to roll high for everything instead of wanting to roll low for some things.

The art is nicely updated and some of the tokens have been streamlined. For instance you now have a token to show whether your magic sword is +1 or +2.

They also updated the classes to be more in line with current D&D. You now have Rogue, Cleric, Fighter and Wizard. No more Elf as a class. They have also provided male and female playing pieces for each class. I thought it was a nice touch.

My wife chose to play the Rogue. I took Cleric, and the kids both wanted to be a Wizard. In the new game mechanic you roll to determine how many spells you start out with and then you pick cards for the spells you want. There are enough for two Wizards, it turns out. There is also a mechanic for replenishing d6 spells if the Wizard goes back to start.

We actually read the rules for once and more or less followed the suggested levels to go to for each class. The two Wizards went the same direction because they both need the big money.

The Wizards got bogged down in the 6th level. There was a Red Dragon in that chamber leading to most of the rooms. That is my wife in the Great Hall having to respawn after being killed while I win the game after plundering half of the 2nd and 3rd levels while making a daring escape back to the Great Hall through the 4th level.

All in all the game still holds up. It's frustrating, but fun.

Hope you are getting in games with friends and family.

First Comic video slideshow

 Hi All,

I just uploaded my first video slideshow of a comic style battle report. I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm going to have to dig out a good mic for ADR because what I included in this one is pretty rough.

I had wanted to have Scourge of Iron by Cannibal Corpse be the sound track, but I didn't want the video taken down. After listening to it a million times with the royalty free music I used it has grown on me.

Enjoy.

I'm new to this, so still working things out.

New Year, new comic - MESBG: Battle Companies

 Hi All,

I finally put together a comic of the game I played against Michaelmarines at Fantastic Legion's house before the holidays. It was a redux of the scenario I played against Brendan's Mirkwood Elves all the way back at the beginning of 2021.

Grab yourself a beverage and enjoy.

I may try my hand at turning these pictures into a video slideshow. We shall see, I have a lot of other hobby stuff that is more pressing.

Hope you have a great kick off to your 2022 hobby. We have another MESBG game scheduled for next weekend. Good vs. Evil, everybody brings 250 points.

Later.