#how to zine

[oleandrsstudio]

Happy Nanowrimo! If you’re participating this year, please let me know how you’re doing! I’m sending good luck your way!

Today’s #zine #review is of “How to Hug A Tree” by Ella Lim! This is number 2 of the series, for some reason I didn’t buy number 1.

I love zines that look professional like this, they have an element of playfulness that make them fun. This one looks at the physical act of hugging a tree with a serious tone and clear instructions. I tend to be an indoors kind of person, so I liked this handbook for appreciating nature.

#minizine

[inky-thoughts]

When do you invite the guest artists? after contributor apps so you can see if they applied before inviting them?

To be honest, I haven't worked on zines with guest artists, and I'm sure there are several ways to go about it, so take my advice with a grain of salt here. I also want to preface this by saying that I'm not 100% sure what you mean with guest artists so I'm going with "artists that are invited into the zine and don't need to apply to it" so sorry if that's not what you meant.

In general, guest artists or sometimes also called feature artists are people you *really really want* in your zine. They usually are curated for a reason, typically because they fit the vibe of the zine so well, or because you want to collaborate with them specifically (maybe you're friends or you look up to them, whatever the reason really). In either way, I would find it more adventageous to ask them once the concept and planning has been done and the mod team stands, not after all the other contributors are settled on. Especially if you have a printed zine, you have limited spots/space in the zine. If you settle the guest artists early on, you know exactly how much capacity you have left for normal applications. This also means you can select the other contributors based on the vibe/aesthetic of your guest artists.

There's also a second layer to it: if you publicly announce your guest artists before you open up regular applications, your guest artists might actually help you promote your zine and motivate others to apply to it so they get the chance to work alongside the guest artists. Of course there's an off chance that some people wouldn't apply specifically because one of the guest artists for whatever reason, but again I find that chance to be rather minimal.

I find it also leaves a bad taste in applicants' mouths if they get a rejection but later on find out "this person was specifically asked to join the zine after they didn't even put interest into it, unlike me" so generally, I would advise against asking people after they didn't apply. That feels just rude towards the people who were genuinely interested and didn't make the cut.

Of course that's just my two cents so if anyone has more experience with it/an opinion on it, feel free to add onto it!

Hope this helps?

[supercorpzine]

Hi! I'm curious what program you used to put the zine together? Did you use Abode InDesign? Do you have any tutorials/resources that you would recommend for learning whichever program you used? Thanks!

Hey there, this is Grace! Sorry for the delay I was out of town when we got your message.

Both I and Monica, who was the art mod before me, and Batten who tagged in on assisting with merchandise in later volumes, used Adobe InDesign. We didn't list any particular programs in our How To post (didn't want to assume skill level) but if you are hoping to have lots of text or go to print, InDesign will be your industry standard program for that. There are non-adobe alternatives, but I personally didn't use them because they often don't offer the tools needed for print production or meet my needs for a design program. This may be different for you! We unfortunately don't have any strong recommendation for a free program to try, but we do know of Gimp, SketchUp, and Adobe Spark. Take your time trying out different programs to see which one better fits your needs. If you can get InDesign free from a friend that may be worth it.

Should you choose to brave InDesign, Adobe's resource page for tutorials and trouble shooting will be helpful. They also have a forum community where you can connect with others and ask questions. You could also check out the reddit page if you would like to have another community option! A quick search on YouTube also yielded a bunch of different tutorials, so you'll just have to pick and choose which ones would work best for you for the task you're facing. I apologize I can't really give you more specific answers on InDesign tutorials, it's a large program (as are all Adobe programs) so I would suggest just learning about the pieces and parts that pertain to what you're trying to achieve!

[mimimar]

(open pages for better image quality)

the moment I heard elphaba's delivery of "there's a girl i know..." in i'm not that girl i knew i had to draw this comic, i strongly recommend listening to it while you read for the full experience!

this comic is a companion to this piece (which was inspired by glinda's delivery of the same line in the i'm not that girl reprise).

pages 1-4 are from elphie's pov, pages 5-8 are from glinda's.

prints of individual pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

flower meanings in order of appearance:

[daeyumi]

⚫️ Ominous 🌑🩸

[swampybogg]

[fernsnailz]

she's so cool

[wishing-well-art]

You've got mail!

I'm so excited to show yall the stamps I've been working on for @hermitpostzine! What a cool project to be a part of, I've been looking forward to this release for so long! These little guys are available as stickers as part of the stickers + posters pack on the HermitPost shop, hint hint nudge nudge :]

[kairamuwu]

!!! Happy holidays!!!!!

Here's the lil piece I did for the ddvau holiday zine :3 jellie wants to be the star on the tree

👀You should totally check out the full thing here

[heartorbit]

happy halloween! 🎃🐈‍⬛👻🐇

[oleandrsstudio]

Today’s #zine #review is of “How to Care for Your Houseplant” by Ella Lim!

We’ve got two houseplants at my place. One is a cactus with a red flower, the other is a cactus with a yellow flower. We also have three cats. As you might expect, the cats get most of our attention.

This zine encourages the reader to reconsider how they view and interact with their houseplants. It’s good to take a moment, sometimes, to really think about how you treat the living things around you.

#minizine #solarpunk

[inky-thoughts]

When are page artists allowed to post the full piece of their zine artwork? After pre-order?

Yes typically it's after pre-orders are complete or sometimes after zines have shipped but I've also worked on zines that allowed us to post the full illustration as soon as pre-orders went live. It's completely up to the zine and what they think is more advantageous, but from a marketing perspective I would say after pre-orders are completed is your best bet to entice people to actually buy the zine.

Have fun & thank you for the ask!

[luposlipaphobya]

Falling in love with an outer god

(Just wanted to imagine what it’d look like if Mel took a draconic form in front of Lazuli. I guess it’d be more voidy and nightmarish in game cause of the Fallen Aasimar of the Awful Deep thing, but let’s just say that Mel could also be related to a golden dragon who was also Pelor’s favorite so… 👀 I wanted to try a fairytale/medieval vibe here, kinda happy with how it turned out! Melisande belongs to @the-nothing-maker ❤️)

[panstarry]

my final from last semester that i made into a zine. cooked this one up in a couple hours before the critique (the ink was still wet!), so it's very raw and kind of sloppy but the sentiment is there. i love you trans people of color. we are the backbone of this community 🌟

[celerydays]

🤍 Monster AU(?) Horror movie/actor AU(?) drawn for the Le Blanc zine in 2023 🤍

I thought it would be super fun to go for an old school, kitschy horror movie poster vibe with a werecat!Chat Blanc -also I may or may not have just come out of a huge monster romance reading binge at the time huhuhu

[inesvazquezart]

Tears of the kingdom short thingy but *SPOILERS* *SPOILEEEEERSSSSS*