new turtles dropped and they are precious (mikey’s head nearly killed me but i prevailed - i hope) also i am giving them nostrils bc the kids gotta breathe

I'm about to participate in my first zine which is making me nervous/excited. Do you have any advice about composition and colors? I definitely want to make sure the image doesn't appear too dark in print form and my contrast in my shading is visible.

Yooo congratulations!!! :D :D :D That’s so exciting! 

And ahh sure I can offer some advice! :>

I wish I could break this up in smaller chunks but this hellsite’s bullet point system is GARBAGE so sorry in advance for the giant blocks of text

Pay attention to bleed guidelines! Let’s say you’re in a zine and one of the mods shares the dimensions of the book with you. For example, “2550 px x 3300 px at 300dpi, plus a 4mm bleed.” You probably know this, but the bleed of a page is sort of like the “danger zone” lmao. The bleed may end up being cropped in order to fit your piece into the book. You basically don’t want to put anything important in the bleed area. You should still absolutely fill the areas-- most zines expect pieces that utilize the entire page-- but don’t stick anything important there, like text in a comic, or half of someone’s face, or details that you really want to see. (Some zines provide contributors with templates that not only let you immediately access a document of the correct dimensions for the zine, but also include the bleed! Never take these mods for granted, they’re very awesome to do that hahaha) ;;

Color’s a bit trickier since, if you’re working digitally, every monitor can show you something different and it can be hard to tell if something looks right. :/ But don’t worry!

Printed media is done in CMYK color! Digital media is typically done in RBG color! You’ll notice that CMYK is... much duller than RGB haha. Certain programs like Photoshop will let you switch between RGB and CMYK on the fly as you’re working, which is pretty useful. While you’re coloring, most art programs will let you know if you’re using a color in RGB that won’t be supported in CMYK, so try to adjust if you find yourself dabbling too much in unsupported palettes. Most zines offer physical and digital versions and will ask you to submit RGB and CMYK versions of your piece. Once you finish your work in one color mode, save it, then switch to the other color mode and make adjustments as necessary. 

Be wary of working with too much dark color. That’s not to say you should steer clear of dark pieces-- you just need to be mindful of how dark your piece gets. Because in CMYK, colors tend to darken and smooth out, so if you submit something too dark, your piece might not look as awesome as it does on your screen :( I’m not one of those artists who’d tell you to never color with black, but I would suggest avoiding trying to blend with black and, say, dark blue or dark purple in print. I feel like that would run a huge risk of being too dark in print. If you have the means to access a color printer, you can try printing your zine piece to see if it turns out okay! :D I understand this can be a costly and wasteful use of a printer if it’s just for testing purposes-- I only have a black and white printer at home myself-- but if you’re really worried and you have a color printer... *shrugs*

Communicate. Most zines will use a Discord server to stay in touch with everyone. If you don’t have a Discord and don’t want to make one, make sure you are constantly checking your e-mail or social media DMs for updates and requests from your mod team. It can be very hard as a mod if you spend weeks and weeks trying to get a hold of a contributor that’s suddenly gone ghost ;___;

Don’t be afraid to ask the mods questions! Your mods are there to help you. They know the ins and outs of the zine-- what the dimensions are, how the zine will be formatted, submission folders, etc. (They should also be able to help advise you if you should make any color adjustments to your piece, to tie into my last point!) If you need an extension for a check-in, don’t hesitate to do so, but DO try to ask in advance instead of on check-in day. As someone who’s experienced a string of emergencies this year that caused me to request last-minute extensions on deadlines, I know that this isn’t always possible. But let’s say you’re swamped with school or you have a very important work event near a deadline that’s taking up much of your free time and energy. Let the mods know you’re swamped. If they’re good mods (which I’m sure they are), they will be understanding and happy to work with you by offering an extension that will help suit your needs. Of course, there are hard deadlines in every project with expectations from manufacturers and promised release dates, so if you find yourself overwhelmed or unable to submit your piece for the zine by a certain point, you may not be able to submit a piece. But life happens. Be kind to yourself <3

Don’t be shy to interact with other contributors too! :> (Hypocritical of me since I’m very shy and don’t talk very much in the zine servers I’m in except for Sora Zine but I was a mod for that zine so I had to be more present lmao) But here is a group of awesome creators who share a passion with you! :> Share memes, talk about your faves, share WIPs, ask for advice! :D You might leave a zine with some new friends :3

Have fun! I remember how nervous I was when I worked on my first zine piece, but try to remember to have fun when you work on it! Pick a concept that you’ll enjoy working on that will challenge your creativity but not overwhelm you. Try to work on your piece from check-in to check-in, gradually over time, instead of just cramming everything into the night before a deadline. Your piece will come out better for it, and you’ll save yourself a lot of stress and late nights. :>

Again, congrats on getting into your first zine-- many happy returns, if you’re so inclined to join more <3