When I Make a Comic

There are many different ways to do the same thing. To make a comic there are a lot of different styles, but there is a traditional way that I learn that is still used today by many comic publishers.

First step is, get an idea and make a script:

Maybe you had an interesting moment, that you want to write about your life experience. Maybe you thought of a funny joke and you want to illustrate it for a small newspaper. Maybe you have been developing an alternate world with characters that no one could ever imagine. Having an idea comes first but before you start working out the panels, you need to write out a script about what you want to happen, who says what. Put in as much detail as possible.

The second step, is decide your media, and sketch:

I personally find that most publish work is done with inking and as that is how i was trained I feel I would be able to teach you that the best, but some people feel that working digitally is best. While I like to work in my personal sketch book, no matter where you do it, you need to sketch out the placement of characters and where the words will fit. Look at the flow, are the visuals easy to understand? Can you flow through the panels and understand without being lost. Remember to be objective, will someone who does not know the story be able to understand.

Step Three, Illustration board with pencil and ink:

So now you got your idea you need to focus on the technical skill. This is not the most glamorous step but the most important. You need to get a strong board to work on, like Bristol or Illustration Board. Measure out your boarder and tape it off. You need clean lines for panels. First make sure the corners are 90 degrees, usually they are not, but if you work off one corner you can get an even work. I suggest using a T square and a Triangle to work on getting the corners perfect. After getting the square or rectangle straight, Use a paper cutter then, use a T square to make even straight lines for the panels. Remember to sketch it out lightly, extremely lightly with pencil first, then measure out even straight lines for your font and work on making it look professional and straight. I suggest measuring out the three line bars for your words. One on top, botttom, and center of the words. Also make sure to leave space between lines. When you get done with the panels, text, bubbles, and transfered or lightly sketch drawings. You will use permanent black ink. They have Quills with different tips for fine or bold lines that can help create interesting strokes. Think of the work content to choose style. Ink everything in, and then erase the pencil work.

Step 3.5 Color and Detail:

After this is finished maybe you want to add something to it, like color. They have color ink, but a lot of different options exist. Some use markers, color pencils, highlighters, and water color. I personally usually use just black and white. But before you start coloring, work out your color palette on another piece of paper first. I suggest limiting your colors or choosing your style for bright or dark, cool or warm. Think of the scene, your target audience, and the overall composition of the piece with flow. I suggest working in black and white until you have built up enough experience to know that you can trust yourself with color.

Step Four, Scan, Edit and Print:

This is so very important. Keep the original, those are priceless, but ultimately remember what is being distributed is the print. If you don't plan on printing the work, you still need to have clean scanning and editing. Make sure the scanner is clean, it doesn't hurt to take a tissue and wipe the screen down before scanning. The reason why I suggest this, is because the way work looks on the screen and printed is different. There may be a unclear smudge that will show up at print that you will have to re scan, re edit, and re print. When scanning, scan at 300 DPI at least, this is dot per inch. When printing a work you will want this to be clear, but if its on the web you will want to save it as 72 DPI. I suggest starting with 300, you can always make it smaller. Also I suggest scanning in color, even if it is black and white. If you make it black and white, sometimes, it will assume some grey scales are one or the other and can lower the quality of your work, like if there is any pencil marks they could show up as more of a problem. 

When it is scanned, you might have to do some touch ups in photoshop or in a similar program. Maybe you want to experiment with color on photoshop. Feel free to do what ever, but I suggest always keeping the original file and save frequently as different images so you can work out which works out best for you. Its almost impossible not to make mistakes when inking, this is where you can clean up those mistakes, like smudged ink, or accidental drops or line marking. Be as careful as possible though, because it can look overly photoshop and loose its hand drawn look. When saving the work, i suggest saving as a tiff file there are a lot of differences in jpg, and gif files, You can read the differences online at...

http://www.scantips.com/basics09.html

When printing, you need to organize your piece. You can go to a place like Kinkos and pay to have them organize the files, but to save money and time, its best to organize it yourself. I suggest using adobe indesign and export it as a pdf. This is really only needed to print multiple pages. This is so you can print your pages on both sides, and possibly have them bind the work for you. The one thing is that not all comics are printed the same way, there are different layouts for flip books versus graphic novels. Really this needs to be personalize. Be clear and make sure before you mass produce any comics, always do test prints, see what papers work best for you, and make sure the test print is exactly what you want before you buy anything.

Step Five, Distribute:

So who is going to buy your work? Who is going to see it? This is all up to you, if you want to sell I would suggest starting out a underground comic convention. I say underground because you are a new face, its going to be hard to send it to a publisher for them to buy a work. But if you just want to get your idea out there. Look up free community newspapers and do not expect to make anything starting out. After you get some experience and build up a resume your chances of making money will improve, but go ahead and go for it. Also don't feel like you have to go through all this. You can always try a networking art website, like www.deviantart.com to share your ideas without working about printing. Maybe print out some freebies for your friends or other artist who might show it off and get the ball rolling. This is a lot of work, but the experience can be rewarding, and if this isn't for you then don't push yourself, there are plenty of ways to work.