Making Comics
After 5 or so years of stumbling around in the dark, and figuring out how to do some stuff, I've decided to sit down and start writing about my process of creating comics. As a relative newcomer to this arcane art, I've gone through a lot of shortcuts, picked up a lot of tips from professionals, and evolved as an artist and writer, and now I want to share what I've learned.
If you'd like a great book about making comics, might I suggest the appropriately titled Making Comics by Scott McCloud. It's a great compendium of comics creation.
The topics I intend to write about include writing for comics, breaking down pages, drawing roughs and final pencils, digital inking, laying out pages in Photoshop, and digital lettering. Maybe I'll even also touch on self-publishing and on-demand printing.
Articles
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Digital Visions panel notes
- Notes I made before giving a panel at ACE.
- How to produce a Grumbles
- A short description of the process I use to produce the weekly Grumbles strip.
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Writing Comics
- The first of a series of articles about how I approach the creation of comics.
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From Script to Panels
- Part 2 of a series of articles about how I make comics. How to breakdown a script into a comicbook page.
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Roughs to Pencils
- Part 3 of a series of articles about making comics. How to take your rough thumbnails and scale them up to finish your pencils.
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Digital Inking
- Part 4 of a series of articles about making comics. This section takes us from finished pencils to final inks.
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Digital layout in Photoshop
- Part 5 of a series of articles about making comics. We explore my technique for laying out your comic page in Adobe Photoshop.
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Digital Lettering and Balloons
- Part 6 of a series of articles about making comics. This tutorial deals with using digital fonts in your comic, using Adobe Photoshop.
Yes... I said Photoshop.
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Sound effects
- Part 7 of a series of articles about making comics. This tutorial deals with creating display type in Illustrator and importing it into Photoshop for use as sound effects in your comic story.