Advice for making a MSPFA

Hello I am Mario.

Do NOT skimp out on the writing. Please. I've seen far too many mspfas who fall into this problem. Remember to draft, edit, and have a friend proofread to find any mistakes you may have missed during the editing phase. Proper grammar and writing can make your mspfa very professional, so I highly recommend it. And have fun! Don't be afraid to experiment.

@Mario

Wdym by skimping out? Like relying more on the art than the writing to tell a good story? The reason why Im uploading it to MSPFA is because I don't have the tools to make animation so I have to do something that's more writing based since that's not something I have to pay someone for (I do it myself with help from a writer moot)

I think my main struggle so far is pacing, I have a whole ass plot for 200 panels but Im struggling how to pace it out since I can only go to 40 withoutmy brain not knowing what to add to fill it

Yes I agree with Mario. Really polish that writing. Establish characters well so that when they start to change, readers are intrigued rather than confused.

On the other side of that same coin: when it comes to drawings, GOOD ENOUGH IS GOOD ENOUGH! Obviously put some effort into it, but don't get bogged down in pixel surgery and the like. Andrew Hussie made a lot of pages that looked like dogshit, and not even on purpose, so not every page has to be a masterpiece.

A good shortcut I like to check if your page has good, ez-2-read composition is to throw a greyscale filter over it and see if you can still understand what you're looking at. If it passes that test it's probably good enough. Which basically means it's good enough.

And also yes the first most important rule is to have fun and be yourself. If you aren't doing that what's even the fucking point? I could say some shit about how it will affect the quality which is probably true but man. Have Fun. It's So Important. Inherently

my most relevant advice to new mspfa artists is to make your work both easy and fun for yourself. when you're making your comic, you shouldn't feel constrained by the form. if you're doing something just because it's "the style" and you're hating every second of it, you don't have to do it. there's always a way that's better for you, and what's "good" for others may not be good for you.

i see this most commonly with people who really hate working in sprite mode, but want to do it just because it's in the style. they struggle through sprite mode for 25 pages before stopping, because the tools just didn't click with them, it's not fun and it's difficult. the reason i'm able to make as much as i do is because i've worked to make it as frictionless as possible to do what i wish to. i've made custom brushes, custom templates, i wrote a program that compiles frame sequences into a gif because clip studio paint's exports for gifs suck.

another thing i'd like to say is that if you put up a clunker of an update, it doesn't matter so long as you keep going. there's always a next thing, missing your mark for a couple of pages isn't the end of the world. at the end of the day, what you're making is a body of work, not individual panels.