Summer Reading Club – Author Blog

LAYOUT

Comic layout is important and can help you tell your story.

Use a larger scale paper size so, when reduced in size,  the picture has more detail. Also it is easier and you will have more space to work on. So if you want to print your comic in A4 size, you would draw it in A3.

With the layout of your comic, there is no right and wrong way to it, just what works best to tell your story. Things to consider are: do want a close up of your main character on the first page? If you have a surprise or you want to establish a large scene, you can use the whole page to emphasise the effect.

Panels

 Other things to consider are how far the panels are apart. This may not seem important but it will help you communicate how much time passes from panel 1 to panel 2. If you have the panels stuck together with no space in between, then panel 1 has responded quickly to panel 2. And if the panel 1 is spaced further away from panel 2 more time has passed between the panels.

Once you have done the layout of the comic, start planning where you would like your dialogue to go.
Lettering and speech bubbles are cartooning and illustrative conventions used to convey dialogue, internal thought or a story. If you are not confident or feel your lettering is too rough, the computer is a great way to overcome this. Also, you may be able the get a friend who is good a lettering to help you. Using the computer, you will be able to add lettering and speech bubbles to your drawing later very easily. Be aware of line and letter spacing if you are going to draw your lettering yourself. A helpful way to do this is to use ruled pencil lines for the spacing for your lettering.

Speech Bubbles . Speech bubble order.

Basic Balloon Shape : Thought, speech, exclamation, and caption.

Speech bubble order.

Speech bubble order of dialogue: The dialogue order traditionally goes from left to right and from top to bottom.

TECHNIQUES FOR DRAWING AND DRAWING STYLES

Have you thought about how you want your comic to look in its finished form? Will it be in colour or black and white? What you choose can depend on your skill and style. If your artwork already involves a lot of colour, then you will obviously try and do a comic with colour. Think about what inspires you. This will influence your style and drawing techniques.

Another thing to consider is how people will read your comic. Do you want your comic to be read online or to be published in the traditional printed format?

Your personal style will be shaped by what inspires and influences you and will develop the more you draw. If you are good at painting, then paint the comic.  If you are good at illustration, focus on that.

Work station & equipment:

Work Station & Equipment

A light box is very useful tool for any artist.

Colour:

There are a few different ways you can colour your comic. You can do it the traditional way or use a computer. The easiest method to colour drawings I’ve found is to draw the picture by hand then scan it into the computer. Then I colour the picture on my computer. The method you use will depend on what tools and equipment you have at your disposal. If you don’t have access to the computer equipment you need, you can do it the traditional way by drawing the picture and colouring using water colours, felt pens, pastels or whatever you like. Think about how you are using colour.  Does it work as a functional element for your story or are you just adding decoration to your drawing?

Style 1

Style 2

Dramatic contrast: black and white
Hatching and Cross-Hatching is a shading method used to create dimension and mood. The most effective way to use hatching is using it in black and white drawings.

Hatching

Hatching & Cross Hatching 1

Hatching & Cross Hatching-2

Movement & devices:

With illustrations and cartooning, there are many different devices that can be used to quickly convey noises, actions or internal thoughts. These exaggerations are heavily used in the cartooning profession to depict and emphasize comedic elements. These images give greater emphasis to ordinary subjects and situations or can be used to show things that are not actually present in the static picture.

Body movement can be illustrated in a number of ways by the movement being illustrated or by the use of devices to imply motion. You can draw movement directly by having the body in a particular state of motion, for example running, jumping or falling. Angles and perspective can also help emphasize movement. Body language is also a great way to express internal feelings and expression of your character. Body language is something we all use and observe in the outside world every day. It may be as simple as someone resting their head in their hands to show boredom or a figure leaning in a relaxed position will infer a casual presence in the picture.

Foreshortening:

This is an exaggerated perspective effect applied to characters and objects. Foreshortening is used for characters or objects so they appear to be coming at the viewer from the page which helps with melodramatic impact. This also creates the illusion of things being near or far away.

Foreshortening 1

Foreshortening 2

Distortion & simplification:

Expressions are essential for an illustrator to learn. By distorting or exaggerating a character’s features, you can convey different emotions and feelings in your story. This can be shown through the character’s body expression and, of course, through facial expression.

Basic Expressions:

Expressions

Light and shade:

This is another way to generate a mood and feeling in your picture. For example having your picture very darkly shaded you can create drama and suspense. By working with the three dimensions of the objects, people and places, you will be able to create an atmosphere for the image.

The light coming from different directions affects the light and shadows on the object.

Light & Shade

Don’t overdo it. The main part must still be integrated with the other elements in the image

Focus:

There are different ways you can direct your readers to a point of view. This helps lead the audience through the story and helps with the continuity of the pictures. An example of this is a close up on a characters face.

Corrections:

If working on paper, it can be quite difficult to change or correct mistakes in your work, especially if you’re using ink or another medium that is not easily removed. There are a number of ways to correct your work:

Patching from above:
Place and glue a specially cut piece of paper over your mistake. Paint over the edges of the paper with white paint to hide the line.

If you’re using a computer to finish your drawings, corrections will be much easier with the use of layers and the eraser tool.

Next Issue: Layout

There is no strict rule about how you should start creating a comic or graphic novel. You can just dive into drawing the comic straight away or write a script, then sketch the actions.

I will be drawing out rough thumbnails sketches then cleaning them up for colouring. You can clean your work up in a number of ways. One way is to use a light box to trace over the rough draft using a clean piece of paper. The other way is to scan the image into your computer and use the eraser tool and layers to clean up the picture.

When you are happy with your script, you can set out a rough thumbnail sketch to lay out the page. A thumbnail is a rough sketch of what you intend to be the final drawing. This can be as simple as stick figures and a few lines about the story or can be more detailed to include dialogue and any action that happens in the story. This will help you arrange the panels and any action or dialogue that is shown on the page.

Thumbnails of Mick & Toby. Note these can be very rough and depict basic actions and settings.

Thumbnail Page-1

 

Thumbnail Page-2

Thumbnail Page-3

Thumbnail Page-4

Thumbnail Page-5

 Model Sheets:

Mick Model Sheet

Toby Model Sheet

When creating the characters in your story, a model sheet helps keep your characters looking consistent.

When you finish your thumbnails, you can start to add more detail to your work. You can also use a ruler to draw all the panels you want on the page.

Black & White Page-1

Black & White Page-2

Black & White Page-3

Black & White Page-4

Black & White Page-5

The background is an important feature of your picture and helps tell your story. Backgrounds create a setting for your story and characters to interact.  A good warm up is to practice drawing the different settings and environments. This will give you a chance to get comfortable with the backgrounds and have a better understanding of how to place your character in that environment.

Sky-Line

Backgrounds

Reference photos are a really useful tool for creating backgrounds and will give you details that you may miss by drawing from memory.

 Depth of picture, perspective, direction and angles:

Perspective is a very useful tool when drawing backgrounds and objects to emphasize depth and height. For example, an angle showing the height of a building will give a more dramatic impact for the viewer. Perspective requires one or more vanishing points on a fixed horizon. A horizon line determines the vanishing points and because it is your own eye level it alters as your perspective moves. There are number of different perspectives you can use when creating your picture.

One-point perspective is a method and is the easiest and most commonly used by cartoonists. This involves drawing a horizon line, which will act as your eye level, and a fixed vanishing point.

One-Point Perspective

Two-point perspective uses two fixed vanishing point on either side of the horizon line. These may need to be done outside the page if you’re illustrating an interior of a building. It can be done by creating a grid to suggest the line direction.

Two-Point Perspective

Three-point perspective is used to emphasise height and depth to make it look more dramatic. This may involve the horizon line being above or below the picture itself.

Three-Point Perspective

Next Issue: Techniques for Drawing & Drawing Styles

What is a comic or graphic novel? Basically a comic or graphic novel is another way to tell a story,  just like a book, film or a painting.

Comic books have gone in and out of favour in their long history but now they are firmly part of today’s various digital and print media.  A good example of this is the Batman or Superman comic books. Batman and Superman both started as comic book heroes and have since made the jump across all forms of media: television, movies, books, computer games and the internet.

I think it is important to understand your motivation and goals for creating a comic.  What story do you want to tell? How do you want to tell your story? Over the next five weeks, I am going to talk about the following topics:

• Story – how to develop and write a story for your comic
• Drafting pictures – how to start making your story into pictures
• Drawing techniques – different drawing styles and cartooning
• Drawing layout – presentation, lettering and sound effects
• Publishing – how to publish and distribute your comic to readers.

Where to start?

HOW TO CREATE A STORY:

So what type of comic would you like to make? Comic books can take many forms and styles. You may just want to create a comic strip like the Garfield, Footrot Flats or Phantom comic strips you see in the newspaper. Or there is the more traditional comic format as seen in the popular X-men, Superman and Batman comic books. These comics can also be accumulated into a graphic novel which is just a very long comic (or a comic series compiled into one book).

Some of you may be interested in developing a story rather than drawing a comic or vice versa. To overcome this, try and find someone interested in working with you. For example, you might have a friend who can do the drawings for you. Of course you will need to share similar views and opinions on the comic you what to produce together.

First you will need to think of a story. This is a lot easier than you think. Inspiration for your story can come from anywhere. Think about what sports, music or hobbies you like, because it is easy to write about what you know. Also think about genres and any movies or television shows that you like (horror, action, drama and comedy).  Another good source of inspiration is thinking about what comics you already like and what it is you like about them.  You will need to think about the people who will be reading the comic – your audience. It’s a great idea to listen to friends and other comic book readers about what they like in a comic.

It’s also important to remember that some stories can be told with pictures alone. You don’t need to have dialogue in your comic. You may want tell your story using  just the drawings and images you create.

Once you have decided on a story that you would like to turn into a comic, you can begin with a rough script. This is mainly so you can set out the story flow and choose what pictures you would need on each page.

I will be producing a short comic based on the short story ‘Mick & Toby’ to demonstrate the different styles and methods used to create a comic.

Story: Mick & Toby

Mick and Toby are best friends at school together. They do everything like play soccer and of course Xbox 360. They also read comics together; both their favourite comics are X-men & Batman.  They really love playing sport together at school.  This is because Mick & Toby both have special powers. Mick can run faster than anybody. And Toby’s so big and strong, he can throw anything miles away. The thing is, because of Toby’s power, he needs to eat a lot to keep his strength up. The other kids at school make fun of him because he eats so much. Mick is always concerned about this but also wants to fit in with the other kids, so sometimes he ignores Toby. One day some new kids at school start to pick on Toby. This normally wouldn’t be so bad but the new kids have special powers too. They use their powers to make fun of Toby. Mick uses his power the help Toby.

Mick & Toby Issue #1

Next Issue: Drafting Pictures