Happy Sunday everyone!
This post is going to be an overview of my process for illustrating a single comic page. This page is from my webcomic, Tugboat, which I have talked about in previous posts and can be read here: https://zserbin.wixsite.com/tugboat
I'm using this page as an example because I was pretty good about documenting every step of the process, and it doesn't give any spoilers. This is how the page looks when it's been finished, but obviously there are quite a few steps before we get here. So let's dive into it!
First, I meet with my comics partner Hailey Koart, who is responsible for the wonderful writing of this project. We sit for three hours over coffee and get super excited about all of the awesome things we want to happen in the following story. Then, Hailey takes this overwhelming amount of information and magically condenses it into a beautiful script. For Issue 2, which is currently in progress, the script is about 27 pages long.
After I get the script, I make thumbnails of each page. These are loose (like, we're talking super loose) sketches to give me an idea of page layout and make sure that the timing/pacing of each page allows for clarity.
You'll notice that the thumbnail of this page (the page on the left) is way different from the final version. As I was drawing, I realized that it may be nice to space out the panels so that the introductions were the only thing on this page. I wanted to give these characters the time and space they deserved to get acquainted with the audience.
So I re-did the page to look like this:
This spacing is much more readable. Nothing is cramped, or rushed. We get a clear view of all three main characters' poses, and personalities. Next, I do the cleaner, final lines, which is called "inking," and then I do several layers of coloring - flat colors, shadows, and overlay/texture layers.
Here is a fun gif of all of these layers coming together!
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And that's about it!
Hope you enjoyed this little window into how these pages are made, thanks for stopping by!
Hi @zoeserbin,
Thank you for sharing your process. I am a student and currently in the process of writing and laying out my comic and reading posts like these helps me tremendously. Thank you so much!
Awesome, I am so glad it's helpful! I'm planning on doing more of these in the future so let me know if there are certain parts of the process that you'd like to see in more detail. Good luck with your project as well! Are you planning on posting your progress?
I am in the script writing and character design process now, I am sharing some of the work on my steemit blog, but I have to buckle down and pick one storyline to just do a book with.
I don't know if this happens to you and Hailey, but how do you pick which direction the story should go? and another question is what is your character design approach?
thank you for your time!
We have a lot of ideas of smaller stories that we want to tell with these characters, as well as a larger plot that will slowly unfold. So we are trying to balance an episodic storytelling method to develop the characters and the world, while also moving towards the big climax of the series. It's hard but it's really fun. As far as character design, I talk a bit about that in these two posts:
https://steemit.com/comics/@zoeserbin/character-design-mag-the-pilot-for-tugboat-comic
https://steemit.com/comic/@zoeserbin/character-design-adeline-the-captain-for-tugboat-comic
And I plan on doing a lot more of those in the future! Hope this was helpful!
UGH. So good! You'll have to show me how to make dem gif's
You got it, dude!
You can use online services for this. Google "Make Gif" and you'll find that there are a bunch of websites for uploading individual pictures which will be combined to make a gif. e.g. gifmaker.me (I can't say how good this one is)
Yeah that one may be similar to what I used too. It's a fairly simple process once you have all the images!
Photoscape is a free program I use to make gifs.
Oh, cool. I'll check that out. Thanks!
This is super cool @zoeserbin. I just found your blog and I love what you're doing here. Your female-based comic is awesome and I really like how you're using steemit to talk about your process and go into detail about the characters. It definitely adds something extra than just reading the comic.
Following!
Thanks so much, I really appreciate the support! Super excited to make content that features women at the helm, and glad you are enjoying it!
Awesome work :D!!
Thank you!
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Thanks!
Awesome job!!! I love your style! I'm making my own comic(s) right now but I tend to generally make them based off writing that already exists, stories I've made with friends and such. It's not nearly as clean, but it's definetely fun to put pictures to words.
Thank you! Putting pictures to words is my favorite thing :) Good luck with your comic! Are you going to be posting it on your blog?
This is so awesome! It's always interesting to me to see an artist's process to get to their finished piece. Thank you for sharing!
I always find it cool so see other artists' process so I'm so glad that you enjoyed reading! I'll definitely be posting more, too!
That's a great work dude! and a big help for those new comic designers(me) haha...
I'm so glad it's helpful! Thanks for checking it out!
Hi thanks for this. I'm currently working on a webcomic which i plan to release 1-2 pages per week. This has given me a lot of idea. Thanks @zoeserbin
Awesome! I hope you post it on steemit so that we can see. Good luck!
Thanks! I will let you know once it's posted. :D
It is really interesting to see a breakdown with the explanations. I think it is a good way to learn any kind of art!
Thanks! :)
wow such a great tutorial plus cool comic! I would love if you can join the community I'm running related for comics specially made by people in steemit :D you can join the discord server to talk about comics or just whatever you want, then we can also promote comics there. Here's the link if you're interested in joining Steemit Webcomics
Thanks so much, it sounds great! Excited to meet other artists on the site :)