Halloween Sketch - Werewolf yearbook picture

Creating Comics - Tips

A friend of mine recently started a comic of his own. I have more experience (barely) in this area so he asked for my opinion. I thought some of these tips were good for anyone so I'm posting the email here. 

Hey man, 

First off, there is no right and wrong. Comics are more and more becoming a free form type of art. There are general guidelines, but you can always break rules when needed.Here's what I do. 

Step 1: Story

- Make sure to have the whole story mapped out before trying to draw anything. This prevents you from painting yourself in a corner later on. 

- Once you have the story outlined, Try breaking it up like a script. Write out what goes in each panel. There are many examples of comic book scripts online. 

- I don't really use this style, but it helps people who lean more towards traditional writing, especially when working with other people. 

Step 2: Layouts (Thumbnails)

I se this as my writing tool. This allows me to structure the comic in a more visual style. Since i'm more artist than writer I find this fits my personal process better. However, everyone uses layouts regardless of style. It really helps. 

-  I draw a small box about 3X5 inches (1/3 scale). Full size comics are drawn on 11X17 illustration board, however I draw about half that size for my final pictures. for the thumbnails I doodle stick figures in each panel, sometimes more elaborate. it helps me map out the page before drawing the full-size scene. (Example included) 

- You can also make personal notes out to the side, and it gives you and idea what it's going to look like when you're done. You can use it like a flip book. Think storyboards for movies. 

- Make sure to leave negative space for word bubbles. (explained below)

Step 3: Narration & Dialogue

- Dialogue always comes last. It's great to write out what you want to say ahead of time, but you will most likely have to change some things. The reason for this is if you're writing War and Peace, it's not going to fit on the page. You have to be conservative. 

- Show don't tell. Don't spend too much time explaining what's happening in the scene with narration. You have to do that with novels because there are no pictures. Narration can set the scene up, but use it sparingly. Use the dialogue and pictures to tell the story. 

- Negative space is where your word bubbles should go. Often you will run out of space so you'll have to trim down your narration. This can actually end up being a good thing as it forces you to be more concise with your writing. You also have to plan ahead so you don't cover up any important artwork. You will always lose something in this process, but hopefully you're just obscuring the background environment. 

- Cerebus by Dave Sim makes excellent use of negative space for word bubbles. 

http://i.imgur.com/ihDLK.png

Day 3 - Halloween Sketch

So, due to time constraints I opted for a quick doodle of a mummy. I like the darks. I had a much more elaborate picture in mind, but this thumbnail should do.

Day 2 - Halloween Sketch

I drew this one last night and fell in love. As frustrating as day 1 was, this was the opposite. I did have to erase two or three gestures before I landed on this one. I will most likely post a colored version of this when I get time. 

I'm working on using a softer pencil on illustration board. I was always intrigued by Adam Hughes' comments that he likes a soft pencil so he feels like he's "gliding across the page". I used to hate soft lead because it smears like a bitch. However, once you have the layout done, if you start rendering at the top and draw towards the bottom, it prevents you from dragging your hand across your finished lines and prevents smearing. I also use a light cloth to gently brush away eraser bits. 

I used a 2B on Blue Line Pro illustration board. I'm almost thinking I could go down to a 3B, but I want to give this one some time. 

Day 1 - Halloween Sketches

My brother and I love Halloween (If you don't there is something seriously wrong with you). To celebrate we decided to do a drawing a day. Since I'm super busy right now I decided to do uncolored sketches. I will most likely go back and color my favorites. My day 1 sketch is NOT one of those.

Sometimes it's about doing the work. It's far from what I wanted, but I'm posting it to remind myself that something is better than nothing. With that said, I do like the band of stitches across the chest. It almost has a graphic quality to it.

Flame Sword Design

This is the the second of two swords my friend's character found playing D&D. This sword shoots out fire on command once a day. Groovy. I decided to go with a different look. I chose black and slate as the colors because I wanted it to have a volcanic color scheme. Overall, I am happy with the look. The best part for me is the hatch shading on the grey part of the blade. It's subtle but I feel adds depth to the picture. Whole lot of fun. :)

Frost Razor - Sword Design

This concept design is for a sword my friend found while playing D&D. I thought it would be fun to sketch it out.

Purple People Eater

I like to sketch on my iPad in bed at night. It's fun and relaxing. Right now I'm doodling a lot of cartoony characters. I have a new project in the pipe that is very different from my other stuff.

I decided to do my version of the purple people eater. I know, I know! In the song the purple people eater isn't necessarily purple. He just eats purple people. However, you are what you eat, so... maybe he IS purple.

Two Scoops - Robert Rodriguez

It's been a while since I've posted. I just found out recently that one of my monster designs was chosen for Robert Rodriguez's short film "Two Scoops".  Admittedly, I should have known weeks ago when they sent me a legal disclaimer, but due to the wording I thought I was just in the running.... either I was in denial, or I'm just a little slow. Probably the latter. :)

Imagine the sheer BLISS when I saw my monster come to life. It's a concept artist's dream!!

You can check it out here.
http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/desktop/en/us/ambassador/robert-rodriguez.html

I've always been a huge fan of Robert Rodriquez and his work. I used to live next to the old airport where he films a lot of his movies. If I ever run into Robert I'll definitely buy him a beer!

Project Green Screen - Robert Rodriguez

So I just found out about Robert Rodriquez's project called Green Screen. It's a really neat idea having fans contribute content to the finished product.

http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/desktop/en/us/ambassador/robert-rodriguez.html#get-involved

Of course when I found out he wanted people submitting monster designs, I had to jump on that.
Here's some of the pics I uploaded. I probably won't hear anything back, but it was fun to participate.

Panel 2

So here's panel 2 of page 1. I would have put them both together, but I took the pic with my phone and it looks terrible. My brother got an 11X17 scanner recently and I think it's time I did the same :)

I'm back!

Sorry gang. I was out for bereavement last week. Back to life, back to re... ok, no 80's song lyrics.

I jumped back on the grind stone and started drawing issue #3. I'm listing a sneak peak of the pencils below. If you haven't read the second issue it's not going to make any sense.

Enjoy.

I think I'm just going to power through and do #3 and #4 back to back, then color everything in Photoshop afterwards. We'll see how that works out.

Dreams

One of the things I got into for a while was writing down my dreams. I'm not going to say your dreams are an untapped reservoir of potential, but they are definitely a good place to pull out some wacky ideas.

Several years ago I dreamed I had an alien organism on my back trying to control me, like the movie the Puppet Masters. I also recently noticed it had a really close similarity to the harness creatures on Falling Skies. It's not the first time I've dreamed about something that I see later on, but that's another post all to itself.

Anyway, I jotted it down in my sketchbook the next day. If I had dreams like this every night I'd probably start keeping a visual dream journal more often.

Sketch - Glob Monster

I spent all night submitting Black Hole Cafe to Comixology Submit, so I didn't have time for a full post. So here's a pic of a glob monster I did on my iPad. :)

Conductor Sketch

Since it's Friday and I'm going to the symphony tonight, I decided this would be a perfect post for a sketch I did several years ago. http://www.austinsymphony.org

As you can see it was very rushed. I was more interested in capturing the idea then doing a finished drawing. (Note to self: Start posting finished pictures you hack!)

It reminded me of something you would see in the movie Brazil. It's an idea that's stuck around, so I may incorporate it into Black Hole Cafe. 

Storyboards

Since yesterday's post was about thumbnails, I figured I would go with a similar theme and talk about storyboards.

Storyboards are typically created for movies, cartoons, commericals, etc., in order to give the director and producers a visual representation of the script. it shows the action and gives direction for framing shots.

Storyboards can be as simple as stick figures in boxes, or as complicated as fully animated test reels. Even though it's not necessary to make storyboards look great, many have turned it into an art form unto itself. 

I dabbled in making short films with some friends of mine for a while, so I had the rare privilege of storyboarding about ninety pages worth of script. It was grueling, but incredibly satisfying. Storyboards are basically comics broken into individual panels, it's all sequential art. 

I feel like I grew a lot as an artist. It required me to draw normal people doing normal things. I have a ton of boards, but I've posted some of my favorites below. Notice that some have arrows. That's to indicate the movement in the shot. Sometimes these are for the actors, but other times they can be for the camera movement. 

Thumbnails

I wanted to cover something that is near and dear to my heart. Any time I approach a comic page, I always thumbnail out the layouts first. I have a lot of fun doing this because it lets me experiment before drawing the actual pages.

Definition: Thumbnail (noun): A very small or concise description, representation, or summary: "a thumbnail sketch"... not the thing that ends up on your bathroom floor. Gross dude.

Basically, a thumbnail is very small rough version of your final page. It should have very little detail, and only capture the layout of your page. I usually try to thumbnail about six pages in advance. I find thumbnailing my book first gives me an idea of the flow. Here's a few examples from issue 2 of Black Hole Cafe.

As you can see, it's very loose. I try to capture the flow of the action without putting too much detail. Anyone familiar with gesture drawing will be familiar with this concept. I feel if I can capture the feeling of the scene in a thumbnail, I can usually recreate it later on. Here's the finished page.

This page stayed pretty close to the layout of the thumbnail. However, sometimes they can vary drastically. Take a look at page 16 from the same issue. 

I really hated this thumbnail. I didn't like the pose and was worried about what to do. So, I sat there in front of my drawing table for a few minutes imagining the scene and then whipped out a different pose. The layout is basically the same with Dodd standing over an altar, but the end pose and angle are completely different.

Both of the thumbnails above were done at 1/3 size. Since I use smaller illustration boards than a traditional comic, it comes out to about 2 X 3.5 inches. Yes I know these are bigger than an actual thumbnail... but you've never seen my thumbs! I do this to draw a little more detail than a normal thumbnail. Once again, I do this to capture the feel of the scene.

I love thumbnails. Sometimes I love them more than drawing finished pictures. There's something so immediate and free about doodling. I enjoyed this process so much, that I thumbnailed out all four issues of Black Hole Cafe's first story arc in two days. Needless to say, I had a good time. :)

Go out there and try doodling some of your own!

Sketch

I've been a little out of pocket the past few days. I'll make sure to post more consistently in the future.
Here's a random sketch from the vault.

 It was based on a short I did in Lovecraft style. This one was scanned directly from the sketchbook so you can see some dirt around the edges.

I wanted to draw a character who goes through stages of transformation. I can't remember what the inspiration was. I just know I wanted him to have lots of boils and big eyeball.

Staple - Independent Media Expo

Today was the annual Staple Expo. I decided to stop by for a few hours and was really impressed with the turn out. I even ran into a friend who had booth. Check out the logo they posted this year. (None of the artwork on today's post is mine)

Staple

http://www.staple-austin.org

 I was really impressed with the turnout. It seems to get better every year. What I like best is the variety you can find there. it's not just indie comics, but various shirts, buttons and prints too.

Here's a few things I picked up today. I didn't grab any typical comics. I decided to go a little alternative this year.

** It goes without saying that these images are owned by the artists. I'm just posting them here to show off their stuff **

Here are some amazing prints from Jessica Grundy. I usually mosey past the tables, but I stopped at hers and had to buy something. These have an Alice in Wonderland feel, so I grabbed them for Misty's office. Everything in there is Alice themed.

Jessica Grundy

solocosmo.blogspot.com

solocosmo.etsy.com 

Here's one from the wife of friend who had a booth. She does a lot of really neat intricate pencil work.

Kim Scoulios

theksgallery.com

And of course there's this guy. Not only does Kenon have really good illustrations, but who can pass up a shirt with Cthulu riding a bike?.....no one... NO ONE I TELL YOU!

Kennon James

http://kennonjames.com

I plan on getting a table next year. I would have this year, but I missed the cut off working on my second issue. By next year I should have all four issues of the first story arc done, and plan to combine them into a single trade.

See you then!

Random Sketch!

It's Friday and I'm wiped out from the week. So, here's a random sketch I pulled from my sketchbook.
It was supposed to be a character for a comic I was working on. Half-cat guy with giants knives!
Apparently, I like drawing half-animal characters. You'll see a lot of those show up in future editions of Black Hole Cafe.

Happy Friday

Warming up

When working on my book I always like to start by warming up. I bet you didn't know that drawing was a contact sport! You definitely don't want to pull a muscle leaning over that drawing table.

Over the years I've learned that I draw consistently better when I'm warmed up. To do this I came up with a system that works pretty well for me.

A few months ago I sat down and came up with a list of monsters that I've never drawn before. I love drawing monsters because they are fun, and the anatomy doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, the more distorted the anatomy the better. I took one of my sketchbooks and wrote the names at the bottom of each page. Each night I would sit down with a timer set for thirty minutes and draw whatever was next on the list. If I didn't get done in the allotted time, I would finish the next night. The key is to remember these are sketches and not portfolio pieces.


Here's a warm up sketch from a few months ago.

It was supposed to be a plant creature who ended up being a mushroom guy, meh. I broke one of my own rules there, so I have to go back and draw the plant monster soon. Don't piss off the client!


This warm up process works great for a few reasons.

#1. You don't waste any time thinking about what you want to draw.

Thirty minutes goes by very quickly. And if you're like me, you don't have a lot of extra time to draw at night. I have a full time job during the day, so every minute in the evening counts.

#2. You force yourself to draw what's been assigned.

I'm my own project manager. (aha! future post idea, time management) Anyway, I treat myself like an employee. This means I don't get to draw what I want, I draw what the client wants, which is me. Confused yet? When I was young I would sit down at that blank page and just draw what came to mind, often switching in the middle of picture if it didn't come out right. The purpose is to MAKE it come out right.

#3. Thirty minutes warms you up, but doesn't burn you out.

Thirty minutes for me is the perfect amount of time. Any longer than that and I start eating into my comic page time. Once again, If I was a full time artist I would probably spend more time on sketches, but for now this works.

Let me know if you guys have any warm up strategies.

Pens Dammit!!

So I'll be the first to say I'm not the world's greatest inker. In fact, I kind of suck at it. This is probably why I'm not inking professionally for a big comic company. I do admit that I'm not a huge fan of inked work. Sure it looks pretty, and makes your work look much more professional, but I love seeing the pencil lines. I know I've said that before. That's one of the reasons Black Hole Cafe isn't inked. Maybe it was a mistake, but I'm happy with the results.

Still, I fully appreciate the inker. My brother does amazing inks, with a very unique style. I will most likely ask him to collaborate on some stuff in the near future. Even though I don't ink my work very often, I'm definitely no stranger to it. In fact, a few of the pictures in my previous posts were inked by yours truly.

Here's a couple of examples of my inked sketches.

These were all done on sketchbook paper, so they are a little messy. If done on illustration board, they would look a lot tighter. What you'll notice is there is a definite difference in line weight. Back in the day artists would achieve this with an actual ink brush. By working the angle and the stroke... (is this getting dirty?) Anyway, by the angle of the brush they could achieve very fine lines, or broad black strokes. 

Since I don't have that kind of skill or patience, I opt for different sized pens. You can find these at any art store. Currently my faves are Premier by Prismacolor. I have, in order of size from smallest to largest, a 005, 01, 03, 05, and 08. I also use a Sharpie Fine Point for the bigger areas. Sharpies are pretty much a staple of an artist's tool kit. Here's a sexy photo shoot of some of my pens. 

give me sassy... good, now pouty, show me pouty....

As always, it's all about what you are comfortable doing. I know some artists who work almost exclusively in ink. Whatever fits your personal style, and whatever you enjoy doing is what you should go with. Go out and grab a bunch of pens. See what works for you.