Pixton: Begin Your Comic Making Career
There are many artistic programs available to individuals who seek to express their creativity through digital mediums. The amount of choices available can become overwhelming. Pixton is a comic maker application that targets educators and grade school students due to how easy it is to use. However, people of all ages are able to take advantage of the program. With pre-set features and easy to understand project layouts, Pixton provides creative guidance to users that might not believe they are very artistic. The “top authors” feature on the interface provides ideas on how to create popular comic strips, storyboards, and graphic novels.
Pixton provides newbies to comic making an opportunity to learn how to experiment with comic making but, it also allows experienced comic makers to create portfolios to share with a worldwide audience.
Pixton offers a basic free account and an advanced account that costs $8 a month or $72 annually. The benefit of having a monthly payment option means you don’t have spend money on a year long membership for a program you might abandon after a few weeks. I took advantage of the free trial however, that didn’t give me access to all of the benefits of a paid account.
WHAT DOES PIXTON ENCOURAGE YOU TO CREATE
The website immediately invites users to begin creating by allowing the user to decide whether they want to make a comic strip, a storyboard, or a graphic novel.
The user then can choose whether they want to create in basic mode or advanced mode. Basic mode is geared more towards newbies while advanced mode is great for experienced users. Basic mode guides users more in comparison to the advanced mode.
The ability to sample the layouts of each creative medium facilitates the user’s decision regarding whether they want to create a comic strip, storyboard, or comic.
Access to others project libraries inspires creativity and pushes users to build their own portfolios as they aspire to have the content they create garner a worldwide audience.
By seeing how each creative medium is laid out, users can plan their process then decide which layout best fits their plan. The easy to follow layouts benefit comic making newbies because by providing a guide, users begin to understand how comic strips, storyboards, and graphic novels are supposed to be laid out.
PIXTON VALUES CONTACT
Pixton understands the bias towards contact over content. On the home page of the website, users can see projects made by other users. This encourages users to interact with other users by allowing easy access to their accounts.
Each user profile is laid out like a blog page that makes it easy to interact with. Users are able to browse projects, read biographies, follow users, and be notified whenever someone posts a new project.
Another interactive feature is a virtual map of the countries where the followers of a user reside.
The map shows Pixton members the worldwide reach of the application with members living around the world.
Access to others project libraries inspires creativity and pushes users to build their own portfolios as they aspire to have the content they create garner a worldwide audience.
EASY TO USE TOOLS
Each user has access to a tool bar that allows them to edit their projects. This includes being able to edit the characters. In advanced mode, users can increase or decrease the size of a character by simply clicking on the character.
The benefit of character resizing is that it allows users to play with distance and perception because it can make a character appear closer or farther away.
Another tool in advanced mode is being able to edit the color of a character’s skin, hair, and clothes. Basic mode does not allow users to alter hair and clothing color and has a more limited selection for skin colors. Unfortunately, with a free account, users can’t change character outfits or hairstyles. There is a wide collection of colors to choose from though and users can easily experiment with color combinations.
ABSENCE OF DIGITAL ART
The color palette is the closest feature to digital art. Unfortunately, Pixton does not offer digital art which many other comic makers have.
The ability to sample the layouts of each creative medium facilitates the user’s decision regarding whether they want to create a comic strip, storyboard, or comic.
This is one of the few limitations of the application because it forces users to rely on Pixton’s preset options such as backgrounds, characters, and props when creating scenes.
MOVEMENT WITHIN THE INTERFACE
Movement within the interface is another limitation of Pixton. It’s difficult to move characters and quote bubbles. It takes several tries for the interface to react. Thus, in order to be able to edit without it malfunctioning, the user must let the app “recover” before trying to edit again.
Basically, downloading the app is not necessary because the medium is laid out the same way when you launch your mobile device’s search engine and load Pixton that way.
Occasionally, the interface freezes whenever a user tries to put in multiple quotes in one scene. If it fails to react after a few minutes, the webpage needs to be refreshed.
FEATURES NOT AVAILABLE TO FREE ACCOUNT USERS
Upgrading to a paid account permits access to the advanced comic maker which allows you to, for example, include more than three characters in your scene. Three is the limit with free accounts.
Users with paid accounts are also able to upload their own pictures and photos, print their projects, and download them. These options are unavailable to users with free accounts.
PIXTON’S MOBILE APP: IT’S BAD
Pixton does offer a mobile app. Unfortunately, the mobile app needs a lot of work to be as efficient as the online version. To begin with, the app doesn’t allow you to begin working on new comics. Instead, it only loads the most recently edited project.
As a result, users cannot work on new projects on the go.
Additionally, due to the failure to properly convert Pixton into a mobile app, it’s difficult to create scenes and move around characters and word boxes within the app because of how small the display is.
MOBILE LOG-IN CRASH
Another flaw with the mobile app is a glitch that doesn’t allow users to log in. The app breaks before it can even properly launch. The app even cuts up half of the words on the page.
THE MOBILE APP IS NOT VERY MOBILE
The interface has not yet been properly adapted for mobile usage. It can’t handle a lot of movement when you attempt to edit comics so it crashes. Basically, downloading the app is not necessary because the medium is laid out the same way when you launch your mobile device’s search engine and load Pixton that way. In order for Pixton to become a more efficient mobile app, the creators need to adjust the features to be compatible for a mobile interface.
CONCLUSION
Pixton is a great choice for users that want to create comics but don’t want to spend a lot of money for a year long membership. There are, however, several apps that may provide users with different comic-making opportunities.
For experienced comic creators that are willing to pay for a program, there’s “Clip Studio Paint Pro” which was rated the best comic maker app of 2019. This interface is great for users that know they will be creating consistenly over the entire year. It also has digital paint tools.
For users that are looking for free comic maker apps, there is Apple’s “Comic Draw” which also includes digital painting tools. However, this application is only available as a download for mobile devices so it will benefit users looking to primarily create on a phone or tablet.
At $8 a month, Pixton does not demand a huge financial investment which easily allows comic makers to experiment with the interface and decide whether they want to truly continue creating on it.
Although a paid account is needed to access the majority of the features on Pixton, the availability of free, basic features still allows users to be creative when making comics. It’s great for beginners who aren’t yet familiar with the process of creating comic strips, storyboards, or graphic novels. However, the mobile app will need a lot of work done in order to function just half as well as the website version of Pixton.
Overall, Pixton provides users with the layouts to begin their comic making careers. With members all around the globe, the interface provides opportunities for projects to reach a wide range of audiences.
