Dio Questions

[lehsreh]

I have been wondering about my dios. i think there pretty good, but are they good enough? if not, what can i do to make them better? that's where i need your input, take the time and answer a few of these questions.

what do you think of the characters in my dios? do you like or dislike the ones i use, is there any i shouldnt use and is there any i should use more?

i do a lot of one shots where i can introduce new characters and give those who otherwise would have no face time, their share of the spotlight. are the one shots a good idea, or should i just work on one main storyline?

i have some gun battles in my dios, but mostly hand to hand fighting, is the ratio in my dios good, or should i focus more on one or the other?

i sometimes have vehicles in my dios, but usually there just there for props, does this work or should i use them in action more.

should i have more big battles with lots of characters or should i keep them short as to focus more on a few characters?

what characters would you like to see in future dios?

what kind of story lines would you like to see?

if there is anything i can do that you think might make them better let me know, more action, more character development, whatever, just give me some pointers.

[Urban Saboteur]

Hey.
Well for starters, one thing I have always found increasingly tough about dio is actually getting positive or constructive feedback, alot of people just dont have the time anymore to read them.

Which is honestly one of the main drawbacks, theres really nothing worse in going all out for 4-5 weeks sometimes longer to make your storyline and then only 1 or 2 people read it.

Never the less I will do what I can to give you some feedback on your dios.

Here are the answers to your questions as submitted honestly by me. :D

what do you think of the characters in my dios? do you like or dislike the ones i use, is there any i shouldnt use and is there any i should use more?
the characters in your dio tend to be ones I dont expect, which is good because everyone always picks the top favourites, you've got this unique way of picking, don't get me wrong I think everyone has this, it's just that you can develop a character in your own way, and because it's someone we arent used to seeing, it's usually a surprise, but a good one.

i do a lot of one shots where i can introduce new characters and give those who otherwise would have no face time, their share of the spotlight. are the one shots a good idea, or should i just work on one main storyline?
I think this comes down to the storyline your trying to put across, some of the one shots you speak of have been really effective, i definately think this is one area that depends entirely on the new characters entrance to the storyline, at the moment i'd say you have a good balance between the two.


i have some gun battles in my dios, but mostly hand to hand fighting, is the ratio in my dios good, or should i focus more on one or the other?
the ratio is pretty good atm, through your dios you can tell your a fan of MMA, and sometimes it can be this good that it makes battles far more interesting, a one shot with one gun kill policy can work just as effective, but there really isnt anything as good as getting up close and personal with hand to hand combat.

i sometimes have vehicles in my dios, but usually there just there for props, does this work or should i use them in action more.
i definately think this is one area of gijoe you need to exploit more, the vehicles are there to be used, perhaps in a chase scene maybe? it will definately help you gain some practice with vehicle shots too.

should i have more big battles with lots of characters or should i keep them short as to focus more on a few characters?
having bigger isnt always better, and you can sometimes lose the focus of the story involving the base characters if you go too big. however if your doing a grand battle then maybe it's required then why not? just have maybe 5-6 shots of the main big battle with some narration to guide you through it, then cut back to the main characters again. this is totally dependent on the dio your doing and story your telling, if the story requires a big battle then do it.

what characters would you like to see in future dios?
to be honest i'm not sure with this, i'd like to see you do a dio involving a recruit to the team, that's all i can think of for now, i cant think of anyone character specific.

what kind of story lines would you like to see?
see above.

if there is anything i can do that you think might make them better let me know, more action, more character development, whatever, just give me some pointers.

You've always seemed to me to be very gritty in your dios, very straight forward thinking with them, and the good thing is that you show no problems in getting the dio done either. alot of people (me included) have the ideas but lack the finishing focus to get it done, you have this quality to put on yours as well as the many other things i've stated above.

I hope my feedback helps you some and you had a good new year.
Rich

P.S I tried reading your dio you posted at C&C but for some reason JD was down at the time, can you post the direct link over on the forum?
Cheers :D

[troopsofdoom]

The only criticisms are technical stuff. Run spell check and then proof read. Happy to see you're using a smaller font recently but I'd still loose the bold. Try a plain font in upper and lower case, that way the balloons would be smaller and not cover so much of the photos. Also don't place balloons on top of characters unless there's no other room.

The snowfall effect needs some work. When it's big it looks more like bubbles than snow.

That's about it. I think all your questions come down to personal preference. I want people to keep doing dios and the only way that will happen is if it's fun, so do whatever you want to do yourself.

[troopsofdoom]

[QUOTE=Urban Saboteur]Hey.
Well for starters, one thing I have always found increasingly tough about dio is actually getting positive or constructive feedback, alot of people just dont have the time anymore to read them.

Which is honestly one of the main drawbacks, theres really nothing worse in going all out for 4-5 weeks sometimes longer to make your storyline and then only 1 or 2 people read it.[/QUOTE]
A lot more people read dios than comment on them, check out the views counter.

Critical or negative feedback is rare, I think JoeDios members are far too polite. ;) Personally I don't feel right leaving critical comments on peoples dios when they usually put more work into them than I do. But if somebody specifically asks for it, I will.

Maybe people could ask for criticism rather than comments in their descriptions? That may generate more responses.

[lehsreh]

[QUOTE=Urban Saboteur]
Which is honestly one of the main drawbacks, theres really nothing worse in going all out for 4-5 weeks sometimes longer to make your storyline and then only 1 or 2 people read it.

i sometimes have vehicles in my dios, but usually there just there for props, does this work or should i use them in action more.
i definately think this is one area of gijoe you need to exploit more, the vehicles are there to be used, perhaps in a chase scene maybe? it will definately help you gain some practice with vehicle shots too.

P.S I tried reading your dio you posted at C&C but for some reason JD was down at the time, can you post the direct link over on the forum?
Cheers :D[/QUOTE]

[COLOR=Red]thanks for the honest feedback. your right that dio stories dont really get the feedback i think they should. im not talking bad about single shots, but it takes so much effort to do many sets and shots it takes to make a dio that makes me wonder why a single picture gets more comments. but we have to realize that there are many,many others who read these and keep the work up. my christmas dio proved this as it got some feedback from readers on other sites who had never commented on my dios before, but they wrote that they enjoyed all my dios.
im glad you answered the one about vehicles because honestly i find it hard to think of a good scene using them, but i knew i should have.[/COLOR]

[QUOTE=troopsofdoom]The only criticisms are technical stuff. Run spell check and then proof read. Happy to see you're using a smaller font recently but I'd still loose the bold. Try a plain font in upper and lower case, that way the balloons would be smaller and not cover so much of the photos. Also don't place balloons on top of characters unless there's no other room.

The snowfall effect needs some work. When it's big it looks more like bubbles than snow.
[/QUOTE]
[COLOR=Red]
thanks, graham has been telling me over and over about the spelling, i always run spell check, for some reason it doesnt catch them all, sometimes i just spell the wrong word. graham also pointed out long ago about the big font, i was still in the learning process and going from from sent files and photobucket to the site im on now.

as for the snow there were 2 things i could have done. the one i used was with the overlay in photoshop, i wanted to use picnik because it has some really cool snow, but it wold have taken a few more days to do it, a few days with my work week means a week. this raises another question im going to have to write in. thanks for letting me know these things bother more people then just graham. [/COLOR]

[zedhatch]

[QUOTE=lehsreh
what do you think of the characters in my dios? do you like or dislike the ones i use, is there any i shouldnt use and is there any i should use more?

Works fine for me, I don't get to read your dios very quickly and don't comment because of that, but character selection seems fine, no complaints to express.

[QUOTE]i do a lot of one shots where i can introduce new characters and give those who otherwise would have no face time, their share of the spotlight. are the one shots a good idea, or should i just work on one main storyline?

I say go with what makes you happy. I have found the major thing is if the person who is writing enjoys it then the quality comes accross fine.

i have some gun battles in my dios, but mostly hand to hand fighting, is the ratio in my dios good, or should i focus more on one or the other?

Again this is your comfort zone and what you want to do with your creations. If hand to hand is what works for you , roll with it, if gun battles float your boat, go ahead. Action is second to story in my mind.

i sometimes have vehicles in my dios, but usually there just there for props, does this work or should i use them in action more.

On this one I will say it doesn't hurt to have some of those props recieve useage, it gives a feel of reality to it.

should i have more big battles with lots of characters or should i keep them short as to focus more on a few characters?

Again this is a preference thing, I will say that you can easliy burn yourself out with the huge battles if you do them just as a big splash page with no point, at splash page number 10 you will be like "OK what's the point." Sure they look cool but are alot of work and need to go somewhere or the big battles are pointless and a pointless battle is boring.

what characters would you like to see in future dios?

Well obviously if I wanted to see certain characters I would add them into my own ;) So not a question I can answer.

what kind of story lines would you like to see?

Here is my thought, what kind of storylines would YOU like to see, that is what I want to see. I get more interested is a story or plot than pretty pictures. I could tell you many authors I hate for that reason (I won't list them though but it might suprize some people if I did).

if there is anything i can do that you think might make them better let me know, more action, more character development, whatever, just give me some pointers.

HMMM sounds like you have hit a stage all of us hit at one point or another. We pour everything we got into it and feel like we get nothing back. A common occurence I have found is that people tend to wait to read and then by the time they do its so long after the posting that they don't comment (I get a few of these via e-mail or PM, but its rare that I do, and of course I have been doing this since 2002 so alot more opertunities for such moments, but again very rare).

I think once I did a study based on web stats that I get one comment per 20 visitors, that was a few years ago but that probably has changed by now.

Well for starters, one thing I have always found increasingly tough about dio is actually getting positive or constructive feedback, alot of people just dont have the time anymore to read them.

Which is honestly one of the main drawbacks, theres really nothing worse in going all out for 4-5 weeks sometimes longer to make your storyline and then only 1 or 2 people read it.

Which is a great point, to add to that you also have people who think "Well what can I add that hasn't been said and not say "Everyone else covered my thoughts." its a hard thing to do to just say "good job" every post.

Hope I was a bit helpfull

[Trench-Viper]

I like commenting on photos and diostories but its not allways that I have something to say. In anycase I think people get pretty good number of responses in relation to the number of views, especally if you draw the comparison to youtube where a song that have gotten over three thousand views only gets four comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChftO-7PTY

Your dio stories are great and all agree on that. However there are few diostory entusiasts out there so there are few replies.

[Trench-Viper]

I have answerd your questions. I hope this helps.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
what do you think of the characters in my dios? do you like or dislike the ones i use, is there any i shouldnt use and is there any i should use more? [/QUOTE] I think you are doing a good job on charactarization of existing characters.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
i do a lot of one shots where i can introduce new characters and give those who otherwise would have no face time, their share of the spotlight. are the one shots a good idea, or should i just work on one main storyline? [/QUOTE] I like both! But if I would have to choose because you did not have time, then I would say go with the main story.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
i have some gun battles in my dios, but mostly hand to hand fighting, is the ratio in my dios good, or should i focus more on one or the other? [/QUOTE] I like hand to hand fighting and shooting. As long as there is good action I like it.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
i sometimes have vehicles in my dios, but usually there just there for props, does this work or should i use them in action more. [/QUOTE] I have the impression that vehcicle combat is difficult to do but if you can do it go for it. I am also happy with regular action.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
should i have more big battles with lots of characters or should i keep them short as to focus more on a few characters? [/QUOTE] The number involved does have anything to say for the quality of the action as long as its well made.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
what characters would you like to see in future dios? [/QUOTE] I like it when peopel introduce their own characters and customs. Mostly I like any character as long as you make good stories about him or her.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
what kind of story lines would you like to see? [/QUOTE] I like action and war stories. But I also like sci fi and comidy elements.
[QUOTE=lehsreh]
if there is anything i can do that you think might make them better let me know, more action, more character development, whatever, just give me some pointers.[/QUOTE] You should go with your own instincts. :)
In general its better to give the fans something they did not know they wanted instead of what they think they want.
Look at wrestling where the fans wanted to badguys to win and when they started to dominate the fans abandoned them.