For Part 1 of this series of blogs: The Foundations of Writing, click here!
For Part 2: Script, Lettering & Layout, click here!
So where were we? Oh yes! I’ve come up with my story, written my script and laid out my lettering and panels as seen below.
Now it’s time to start drawing what will eventually look like this…
THUMBNAILS
I’d recommend starting the drawing process for virtually all comics by doing thumbnails (small quick very rough sketches planning what you intend to draw), after character designs and other preliminary studies. It almost always saves time in the long run and gets better results.
I have to admit that with Lucy I usually skip a proper thumbnail stage. I seem to manage to get away with this because…
- I do a sort of mental thumbnail stage in my head when I lay out the lettering and the panels.
- By now I have drawn these characters hundreds of times before.
- The undersea characters are relatively simple to draw anyway. Drawing humans would be a whole different matter!
So anyone starting a comic strip for the first time, please do thumbnails!
PENCILS
I always aim to lay out the main elements of the entire comic strip before I go into too much detail. It saves on having to erase things which you’ve already spent ages on if the positioning needs to be adjusted.
That being said, you can see that I immediately get carried away drawing Miss Faridani, rather than laying out everything else. Naughty, naughty.
That’s more sensible. I map out the background characters in Panel 1.
Then I draw in the monster and bus in the circular Panel 2.
Hmmm… not sure about the THWAK! sound effect.
It’s not clear where the noise originates from and isn’t the right sound for a metallic vehicle being pummeled anyway.
I change the sound effect to KERLUNK! and have it surround the bus.
I also start properly mapping out the other characters.
I’m now generally happy with the layout of the first three panels at least.
In Panel 4 however, I’m not sure about the look of that handle that the octopus on the right (Kate) is holding on to. It needs to look like a handle that can open the window or door, but what with it being attached at both ends to the top of the seat, it looks like its function is as a handrail.
So no problem right? I just tweak the handle to look like it can be turned. I then flesh out Lucy and Kate while I’m at it.
Well, there is still a bit of an issue. The back seat of the bus where Lucy and Kate were sitting previously appeared a couple of strips earlier (Strip 91) and there was no such handle to be seen…
Now, its more than likely than very few readers, if any, would notice this, but it would bother me to not sort this out, so I go back to Strip 91 and add a handle to the offending panel.
That’s one cool thing about webcomics – you can make tweaks even after a comic has gone online and just update the file. I’ve made a few spelling corrections, dialogue changes and other small alterations in this way, sometimes weeks after a strip is online.
Once a strip has gone into print however it’s obviously not possible to make these changes.
Anyway, we’re now just left with our final panel to do, and I’m having trouble with it. So here I do the smart thing and try some thumbnails of possible layouts, on a separate sheet of paper – keeping it loose.
The second one seems to work for me.
While generally thumbnails are drawn much smaller than finished art, this sketch happens to be the right size for the final drawing so I use my lightbox to trace it on to the final piece.
Phew! At this stage of creating the strip I feel I can relax a bit.
Having mapped out the rough layouts of the strip, the really brain-taxing work is done!
Now it’s just a case of adding details. I move on to fleshing out the passengers in Panel 1.
Then the last Panel – no need to do it in reading order!
I make notes as to which kids will fill the role of the helpless pupils in the central panel. This is largely based on what colours the characters are resulting in who will look good next to who.
It’s worth noting that as with the script, if the strip was going to be worked on by another artist (at the inking stage) I’d make the pencils far tighter.
I finish off the final characters and I’m done.
Next time… On to the inks!
For Part 1 of this series of blogs (The Foundations of Writing), click here!
For Part 2: Script, Lettering & Layout, click here!
For Part 4: Inks, click here!
For Part 5: Erasing, Scanning & Cleaning Up click here!
For Part 6: Colours click here!
For a video overview click here!
