Digital Art Zone

http://plasq.com/products/comiclife/win

I’m looking for something like that but for free. Anyone know of any?

Here’s a set of balloons that’s a prop…you render them in your scene…

http://www.sharecg.com/v/35816/View/11/Poser/Text-Balloons-Props

Here’s a set of png files to use in postwork….

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=15427

That will do until I can afford Comic Life. Thank you.

I was going to post right after you created this thread, but I had to go research, and find the items I was looking for.  Even stumbled upon a few new ones.

Going the free route will probably require more work than what could be done simply in Comic Life, but such is the way of free enterprise…

mjc covered balloons, and his are probably a better solution than what I was thinking of.  For what it’s worth, I would like to suggest three free software that can help in your creation process.

1.  Arts & Letters Express 7.0 DE (Download Edition;  Free, not a trial/demo).  Was very hard to find (well hidden).  I use this software for custom text, and balloons.  If used in conjunction with the next software listed, you can get nice clean vectors, and output alpha-ed bitmaps for end results.  I also own (paid-for) 6.0 full suite as well (irrelevant to your freebie search).  Download it here:

http://www.arts-letters.com/download/

2.  Inkscape:  Very good free vector software with many uses for comics creation.  You can translate bitmaps to clean-line vectors, then back to bitmaps if needed.  Download here:

http://inkscape.org/

3.  Serif DrawPlus SE:  Great vector/bitmap software to help with creations, but full functional crippled.  It can be used to create balloons, stars, explosions, and etc.  Only drawback I don’t like about this software is their registration process.  If your system crash-n-burns, you change a hard drive, or do a complete factory rebuild, you will have to re-register with them again.  Would be nice if they just sent you a permanent serial number with your registration.  I own an earlier full version (though, not as nice; non-upgradeable) that came with my Print Master Pro software.  Download here:

http://www.serif.com/free-graphic-design-software/

And, something that might be of use to you that I stumbled upon.  You can download a few different page panel templates (PDF) for use to get you started, and then work on creating your own in the vector software.  It’s a free online FLASH comic book creator from Marvel (for kids).  Find it here:

http://marvelkids.marvel.com/games/play/75/create_your_own_comic

I hope this helps…

DaremoK3 - 18 October 2012 09:01 PM

3.  Serif DrawPlus SE:  Great vector/bitmap software to help with creations, but full functional crippled.  It can be used to create balloons, stars, explosions, and etc.  Only drawback I don’t like about this software is their registration process.  If your system crash-n-burns, you change a hard drive, or do a complete factory rebuild, you will have to re-register with them again.  Would be nice if they just sent you a permanent serial number with your registration.  I own an earlier full version (though, not as nice; non-upgradeable) that came with my Print Master Pro software.  Download here:

http://www.serif.com/free-graphic-design-software/

Don’t worry about your copy being non-upgradeable - as soon as you’re registered with them (even with the free versions), they’ll start emailing you offers for the latest full versions, often at the same price or even cheaper than the upgrades. I just got an offer for DrawPlus X5 with a 64% discount.

A company named PlanetWide Games (or something like that) sold “Comic Book Creator” which was a really nice program.  You can get a demo of it here: Comic Book Creator

The company stopped support of the product years ago, but I still see it sold at various places for about 20.00

I think Gimp has some comic book templates, also.

“Comic Life” is really good, though—my kids use it a lot.

DaremoK3 - 18 October 2012 09:01 PM

I was going to post right after you created this thread, but I had to go research, and find the items I was looking for.  Even stumbled upon a few new ones.

Going the free route will probably require more work than what could be done simply in Comic Life, but such is the way of free enterprise…

mjc covered balloons, and his are probably a better solution than what I was thinking of.  For what it’s worth, I would like to suggest three free software that can help in your creation process.

1.  Arts & Letters Express 7.0 DE (Download Edition;  Free, not a trial/demo).  Was very hard to find (well hidden).  I use this software for custom text, and balloons.  If used in conjunction with the next software listed, you can get nice clean vectors, and output alpha-ed bitmaps for end results.  I also own (paid-for) 6.0 full suite as well (irrelevant to your freebie search).  Download it here:

http://www.arts-letters.com/download/

2.  Inkscape:  Very good free vector software with many uses for comics creation.  You can translate bitmaps to clean-line vectors, then back to bitmaps if needed.  Download here:

http://inkscape.org/

3.  Serif DrawPlus SE:  Great vector/bitmap software to help with creations, but full functional crippled.  It can be used to create balloons, stars, explosions, and etc.  Only drawback I don’t like about this software is their registration process.  If your system crash-n-burns, you change a hard drive, or do a complete factory rebuild, you will have to re-register with them again.  Would be nice if they just sent you a permanent serial number with your registration.  I own an earlier full version (though, not as nice; non-upgradeable) that came with my Print Master Pro software.  Download here:

http://www.serif.com/free-graphic-design-software/

And, something that might be of use to you that I stumbled upon.  You can download a few different page panel templates (PDF) for use to get you started, and then work on creating your own in the vector software.  It’s a free online FLASH comic book creator from Marvel (for kids).  Find it here:

http://marvelkids.marvel.com/games/play/75/create_your_own_comic

I hope this helps…

This does help! Thank you!

Salem2007 - 18 October 2012 10:08 PM

A company named PlanetWide Games (or something like that) sold “Comic Book Creator” which was a really nice program.  You can get a demo of it here: Comic Book Creator

The company stopped support of the product years ago, but I still see it sold at various places for about 20.00

I think Gimp has some comic book templates, also.

“Comic Life” is really good, though—my kids use it a lot.

I’ll check out Comic Book Creator, thanks! And I have the GIMP and I don’t think it comes with comic book templates. It used to come with nameplate templates, but not anymore.