1/9/08: Deadlines

Well, I think I may have been a tad ambitious saying I'll produce three comics. I'll never be able to get that finished in the remaining time. So what I'm going to do is just make one comic. I'm almost finished it and I'm up to the colour which I'm also doing in Photoshop. Plus I might also a page of writing about techniques etc...maybe. It's a pity I didn't get the others finished but oh well. It's been fun figuring stuff out for my first real comic.

Colour

The temptation when using Photoshop to colour is to go crazy with all the colours, textures etc. After all, computers have the complete palette available. The problem is if you just pick heaps of colours randomly, the comic won't have a unified look. It' ll be untidy. I wasn't really sure about how to balance them or anything but what I did was use the same blue for the whole thing and the same red etc. So it would be the same colours throughout. In the past for printed comics this wasn't really a problem because they had a limited palette anyway- for cheaper printing and stuff. Nowadays when options on the web are almost limitless it means you have to think harder about the choices.

A photoshop workspace (the image you're working on goes where the flowers are in this example) :

22/8/08

Week 3 is almost over. I've got the sketches for #1 and #3 but #2 ...eh. I need something more concrete than the slight idea I've got. However the actual drawing should be less work as I'm thinking of doing it more illustration/text rather than the traditional comic look. Or maybe manga?

But I've done the panels (in photoshop) for #1 . The way I did it was a bit roundabout as I had to experiment as I did it. But it ended up looking great and quite professional. I put in some of the text as well- like the sound effects and so forth.

When doing panels you have to think about the flow and pacing of the story. It's a bit like movie screenshots. Only instead of them moving in front of you they're stationary on the page and you follow them with your eyes.
How the panels are arranged affects the flow of the story.

---Scott Mccloud on panels.

The final version of the comics is done on the computer. I scan my sketches in and use Photoshop and a Wacom tablet to draw the comic.

The tablet I use:

Tablets are great to work with. I have the same drawing freedom as with pencil and paper plus all the added options of using a computer. The greatest of these is the undo button.

So far I am working on #1 on the computer. Yeah, I'm kind of behind schedule but if I can work in the week before holidays I reckon I can make it. Plus all of this is leading up to doing my webcomic!

11/8/08

I've decided I'll do 3 comics. I think I'll be able to complete that number in time to meet the deadline, complete with like a commentary on how I did it, my thought processes and so forth. I want to try a couple of different of styles which I hope will fit the stories.

Comic #1: A day in the life of a particular schoolgirl. This will be sketched with paper and pencil, scanned into a computer, then inked and coloured on Photoshop. It'll probably be my only colour comic. I haven't really done colour before so I'll have to think about what works when choosing a colour palette. As the comic will be about a rather disorganised girl I intend to do the comic in a loose, messy style to reflect her personality. This won't be a challenge as most of my drawings are like that anyway.

Comic #2: This comic is intended to contrast #1. It's about a (stereotypical) 'perfect' girl. I'm going to do it as a montage: A series of shots, which combined together show a single idea. So basically, I'll show her winning races, helping starving children in Africa and stuff. This would also be a good opportunity for caricature and exaggeration. I intend to use a very neat line style which will be different for me. This might be done on the computer as that would be the best way to achive the finished look I'm after, however I need to consider how much access I'll have to computers.

Comic #3: This comic is based around a homeroom for a week and how it gets progressively filthier and ends up kicked out. It's obviously based on real event but with comics (like movies) you cut out the unnecessary stuff, streamline the story from start to finish and punchline. I sketched out a draft but it's rather straightforward, step by step stuff and therefore rather boring. I'll have to rethink it.

3 weeks to go! I think I can manage a comic per week.

7/8/08: Character Design

I've been sketching some outlines for comics but I realised I need a clearer idea of what the people look like. So here's some character designs. Not very complex characters because they don't need to be for the short, simple stories I'm going to do. Also their personalities need to be conveyed almost entirely in pictures- this is where stereotypes come in handy, though you want to avoid predictability. Another point to consider is that these are just highschool kids. They're not going to be too dramatic and far out. Unless of course I was doing some sort of mangaish highschool story. They often have incredibly dramatic and unrealistic students which, come to think of it could be fun to do as a parody maybe?
Some character design:

6/8/08

Completed so far- the plan, a sketch for one comic and begun another. I have a vague idea for the next two but nothing concrete. This seems to be something I figure out on paper- visualising the whole comic from start from finish I don’t really do. They seem to be mostly silent comics but for one of them I’d like to focus on text as placement of word bubbles is something which puzzles me. For that one I’d also like to do a script. Scripts are important for the more complicated comics/graphic novels especially ones by writer/artist teams such as the Sandman chronicles by Neil Gaiman. An extremely popular graphic novel series.

I find when sketching my outlines I draw a lot on stuff learnt in Making Comics by Scott McCloud, a book I got out when first interested in comics. Scott McCloud is a comics theorist who really opened my eyes to the possibilities of comics. Before I read him I only had the vaguest sort of idea of some sort of webcomic. But now...

A poor quality photo of an initial sketch: