Values and Mark-Making

Recently I've been experimenting with ink washes and acrylic to get a specific look/feel for the werewolf comic. This first page was me trying to find different textures and values on top of different surface preparations. The three coatings I used were matte medium which absorbed the acrylic too quick. Gloss medium which worked great for adding textures but left an ugly shinny surface. And finally satin varnish which was the best of the two, right in the middle. I was able to get the textures I wanted and created enough of a barrier that it didn't absorb the paint on contact. Finding the right paper for ink washes was also a bit of a hair puller. I didn't want to use watercolor paper because it's too expensive, so finding an alternative took a bit of investigation. After about the fourth of fifth attempt I found a paper that was smooth enough to retain ink marks and had the correct amount of sizing to disperse washes of ink. The name of my new best friend, Folio Print!


After finding the correct paper and surface preparation I attempted my first study with one of the panels. This study had no surface prep it was just ink, washes, and acrylic. I found out that the acrylic was absorbing too quick and not leaving the brush marks I was looking for. Which I had already known but wanted an example to compare for when I did prepare the paper with medium.


On the second study I inked the drawing and added in washes for values, then I coated the paper with satin varnish. This created a barrier between the paper and the top surface which meant I could add in brush textures without losing any of their detail. There was also a brush I found to create motion lines a lot quicker and more accurate as you can tell on the fist punch. Much better than the individual lines I had to make for the motion lines on the first study.

I'm hoping I can carry the quality of this panel study into every panel from now on for the werewolf comic.

Where Chaos Reigns Supreme! (Inside A Writer’s Notebook)

I’ve posted pages from my sketchbook that relate to thumbnails or designing characters, but I (perhaps misguidedly) thought someone out there might find it interesting to see what my writing “sketchbook” looks like.

When starting something, I usually at some point come up with a very rough, bullet-point outline.

You have to write ideas down on whatever is available. Even if it means scribbling on the back of receipt paper because you were at the registers at work when genius struck.

I may flesh out the outline or go right into sketching out scenes. Often times I go back a forth between the two because as I begin to write scenes I get a better idea of where things are headed, or should head. And of course, as I begin to get some scenes down I also begin sketching out thumbnails so tiny and indecipherable that sometimes I barely know what they represent.

As I mentioned in my post about thumbnails, I’ve been writing dialogue and doing the thumbnails at the same time. This worked for several scenes as I wrote chapters two and three, but somewhere along the line my notes got a little crazy, and it’s hard to sketch out thumbnails for a scene when you can’t track the dialogue because it jumps around three different pages in ten different ways.

It was time to sit down at my computer and so I could turn the chaos of my notes into an orderly and easily read pseudo-script. (It’s not really a script at this point. I don’t even have all the page and panel breaks written in, let alone scene description). I’ve learned from experience that I should put a slash through the sections of my notes I’ve already typed up. I can’t tell you how much confusion that simple practice has saved me from.

I printed out the pages with a wide left margin so I'd have plenty of space for working out thumbnails and then turned the nice, neat, orderly typed-up pseudo-script into this:

Good times.

Translating text into visual beats is one of my favorite things about storytelling through comics, but like any aspect of any creative process, it can be frustrating at times. When I got stuck, I found myself sketching different panel layouts. I basically knew what I wanted to happen in this particular sequence, but the ideas were slow to fully form. (This by no means was the toughest spot I found myself in when it came to writing this story).

Sketching out the different ways the panels could interact with the story kept my brain churning until I finally figured out what I wanted to do.

Another useful trick was to work backwards from a place in the dialogue a few beats ahead of the section that was causing my indecision. This worked for me because I knew what I wanted the bottom of this particular page to look like. Once I sketched the arrangement of those panels, figuring out what to do with all the stuff written before that point pretty much fell into place.

Eventually, I have to incorporate all the chaos I’ve written on the typed page into the script I started on my computer...if I can make any sense of it.

Continuing in this vain, the first draft of chapter two has really come together.

I’m always interested in reading about other folks' creative process and I guess that’s why I write posts about mine. So…what does your process look like?

(A brief note on the names: these are characters who – for the most part – only appear in this chapter. Since they’re minor characters, I didn’t bother to give them real names, but had to call them something. So, no – in case you looked closely at the pseudo-script or notes and are now wondering – there aren’t really characters named Gidget or Moondoggy in this story.)

A Whole Mess of Studies

After receiving Cacy's reference material, descriptions, and character studies. I put pencil to paper and got to work on getting accustomed with the characters overall look. Getting started this time around was a lot easier given all the work Cacy had already put into her studies. Making adjustments where I thought they needed to be made was the most difficult part in all this process. Such as in Supriya's dress, I took out the designs with the thought I didn't want to have to spend forever redrawing it onto her dress every time she was in a scene. But now that I see the study I'm thinking it looks a bit bland, any opinions?
Creating the features on the three female characters was fun, at first I had attempted creating them without any reference but drawing a specific ethnicity was much more difficult than I had anticipated. So I reference several online pics and combined them to create the different looks of each character. Next time I know to do this step first to save myself some time.
I also brushed up on my wolf drawing skills and they still haven't rusted out since I last drew them in "Justine".
Hope everyone enjoys this weeks drawings.

Thumbnails: They Come In Handy!

You get it? You see what I did there? With the pun? Thumbs… Hand-y…

Ah, well. I’m not talking about those kinds of thumbnails anyway. I’m talking about the other kind. As in sketches.

I mentioned before that I’m trying my hand at doing thumbnails as I write some of the scripts for the coming web comic. Here’s what that looks like:

Er… That might not work if anyone but me needs to understand them. Actually, after some time passed, even I was a bit confused and had to decipher my intentions.

First thing I did was type up the script based on my sketches. (You see all that indecipherable chicken scratch? Some of that is actually dialogue and stuff.) Then I re-drew the thumbnails. Since their purpose is communication, I tried to make these thumbnails sketches (palm sketches would be a more accurate size-correlation label, but whatever) as clear as possible. I thought adding some gray marker would help to that end. (And also, maybe I was procrastinating getting to the next thing on my to-do list.) (Boy, this paragraph has a lot of parentheticals [I loooove parentheticals!])

I kept forgetting that I’m left-handed and made a bunch of pen smudges. If you’re a southpaw like me, you probably already know that when working with smudgeables it’s best to move from right-to-left if you can’t keep yourself from resting your hand on the page.

Writing is re-writing they say, and just because one is writing with thumbnails doesn’t mean the old adage is any less true. Doing the thumbnails over allowed me to see what obviously wasn’t going to work. Page 2 is a good example of that. I made a few changes on this page, but one mistake was glaring. This is what I originally sketched out:

Can you see why that won’t work?

Scott McCloud explains it well in Making Comics when he talks about “choice of flow.” Basically, we have a certain way of reading. In western cultures, it’s left-to-right, top-to-bottom. The above layout sketch creates confusion because the reader’s eye will want to go from panel two to panel three to panel six. Adding arrows is an easy fix and works for some comics, but wouldn’t work for this one.

So this was my solution:

I made the three panels in question floating panels so that they overlapped panel five (previously panel six) and panel one just slightly. It was my hope that that would alleviate any confusion as to what order they should be read. After all, it’s an instinctively understood concept that the thing overlapping something else is closer i.e. comes first. Also, I thought this arrangement would indicate that those three images are one set, kinda sorta like a triptych. Whatcha think? Does it work now?

I’m quite liking this working-on-thumbnails-as-I-write way of doing thing. I think this experience will help me even when I’m required to write scripts separate from doing any sketches.

Quick Sketches

A page of sketches for some of the short stories and poems Cacy has written. This is always the first stage in the process of making sense of what I've read. Sometimes the drawings make sense and other times I forget what they mean and have to re-read the text, which is why I write the title of the piece next to the sketches.

No “Bam!”s or “Pow!”s Were Harmed During the Writing of This Post

Oh. Hello there.

I was so caught up in developing material for our upcoming web comic that I didn’t hear you come in.

No, stay. Stay.

I’m sure. Since you’re here, I’ll take a much-welcomed break. Oh, here’s an idea. Let’s warm up some hot cocoa while I tell you about my approach to writing for comics.

Okay, you can have hot cider if you prefer.

Unlike screenwriting, which has a very specific structure that is used for everything from feature-length film to live-action television to animation, there’s no one way to write a comic book script.

Take a gander through a bunch of different books on writing for comics. (Here’s one I really like.) Or flip to the back of one of those special edition graphic novels that includes the script. You’ll see the myriad of ways that comic book writers get their stories out of their heads and onto paper. Scripts, summaries, thumbnails, information tables…it seems anything goes as long as it conveys what has to happen on the page.

I’ve tried a few different approaches.

The first approach I took was to write in a basic script format while dividing the action and dialogue into panels and pages as I wrote. This, of course, was with the understanding that what works in my head, might not work out on paper once it comes to doing the thumbnails and layout sketches. This always seemed like a “standard,” straightforward way of doing things. What sucked though was that when re-writing the script, if I took out a chuck of dialogue or added a bit of action it would throw off the panel and page divisions that I’d already written into the script.

In reaction to the first approach, I decided to write the scripts without the page and panel divisions. If I got a specific idea of how the panels would unfold I took note of it, but other than that, I didn’t stress about it. For me, this type of script is faster to write simply because I don’t have to think about how many words or actions can fit into a panel. The downside is you don’t really know the page length until the script has been annotated or turned into thumbnails, so if you’re writing to achieve a specific number of pages you might want to be prepared to do some cutting. (Scripts seem to run longer than whatever I had in mind when I’ve done it this way.)

The latest approach I tried was to do thumbnails as I wrote the dialogue. This works for me since I’m usually pretty specific in my scripts anyway. Again, I do this with the understanding that when Jose starts working out the sketches, he may find better ways of executing certain things. So far doing this has lent itself well to the more action-oriented stories. While it seems to take longer, I think having the thumbnails already thought out is ultimately a time saver because it better communicates what’s going on in my head.

Oh, and there’s a fourth approach we’re trying out. That’s basically where I back off, stop being so annoyingly specific, and let Jose do whatsoever he wants. We’re not working with scripts at all with this approach. Instead I’ve handed a bunch of flash fiction and poetry over to Jose for him to decide what to do with. I can’t wait to see what they’ll be turned into.

What’s that? Time for you to mosey on out of here?

Alright. Thanks for visiting. Swing by again sometime soon, okay?

Have a good one!

Looking at the Midway Process

This week we'll be looking at the midway process of developing an illustration for one of the short stories called, "The Cold Front". After I sketch out a few ideas I choose one thumbnail to develop more. If you remember the sketches I posted up last time you'll find the thumbnail I decided to develop on the bottom right hand corner.



I decided the simplified gesture would work for what I had in mind.

Next I developed a value sketch of what the finished image would look like. Keeping the character separated from any background elements I thought would help give the image more of an isolated feeling.



The next step was to burn some paper to incorporate into the final image, which you'll find out goes along with the story when you get the chance to read it. After several sheets of burning I chose the better looking burnt paper and scanned them in.



Next, I draw the final image, then scan it into the computer and manipulate it until I get something I like. But you won't be able to see it until the website is up and running.
Thanks for stopping by.