Making pages of the comic is a pretty tedious process, although fun. It takes about 3-4 hours all told, start to finish, not counting any breaks in the middle. And since i never did this before, i figured i'd show exactly what goes on.
At this current point in time (early summer, 2004) this is the process.
Step One
gathering the tools of the trade
-Canson 9x12 acid free sketchpad (spiral bound)
-crayola washable water colours
-bic .7mm mechanical pencil
-paper mate felt tipped black pen
-various cheapo paint brushes
-54 prismacolor markers
-Inhuman novel in progress
-LOTS of mp3s
-adobe photoshop/scanner
-water
Step Two
checking and planning
Although I usually have a good idea of what i'm going to do with the next page, it's sometimes good to check back and see if i'm missing a major plot point i want to go over in the book. Also sometimes i find some scripting gems i want to save, or ideas i have to rework. Grey's nightmare sequence was originally a sort of stream of conciousness conversation. So once the part of the book is read over, the planning begins. How much of this part do i want to cover in this page? Who do I want it to focus on? What's the mood? Do i have any fantastic panel ideas i want to work in?
Step Three
sketching the page
This is where i get to be sloppy, sketching around under bubbles and over bubbles and erasing and redrawing and all that good stuff. But at the final stage of sketching, the damn page has its basic layout and basic script. This is version 1 of the page's script, though.
Step Four
inking the damn thing
This is where stakes start to go up. If i fuck up here, it's pretty hard to cover it up. The borders of panels are outlined in the fat end of a black prismacolor marker. the rest of it is inked with the papermate. It goes in a very particular order. Borders, text, bubbles, characters, background. Then i erase the fuck out of it once the ink is dry. That cleans up the lines so i can see if there's anything i missed inking. As a side note, i ALWAYS fuck up on the bottom left side of the page. ALWAYS. even if the bottom left is the ENTIRE page width. I don't draw well having to watch for a low edge. This is script version 2, usually just refining what was there.
Step Five
I LIKE COLOURS
This is the most hap-hazard part of the process. I don't do this in any particular order. Sometimes I concentrate on entirely finishing one panel, shading and all. sometimes i work character by character. but this is where prismacolors get to shine. they are like paint, only ink. and i slop them round and round and make the page alive. but it's still pretty bland. If i'm rushing through a page, i'll prismacolor in a background too, but it's not as versitile or fun to play with as watercolours.
Step Six
watercolour the fuck outta that bitch
I usually tend to go a little bonkers with this step in the process, since i can get sloppy and still make it look good. this also involves a lot of refernce checking previous pages to see what colour i made certain things. usually i try to go for a colour theme, so the page 'holds together,' but sometimes not. this is, so far as i'm concerned in the real world, the final version.
Step Seven
hurry up and wait
i hate waiting for paint to dry. this is usually when i think about final script revisions or prepare the site for update.
Step Eight
photoshop ahoy!
since my scanner scans things dark, i push her into photoshop for a clean up. This includes darkened/crinkled edges, colour refinement, final script changes etc. The process (for me) goes like this.
- reduce size 60%
- reduce size 60% (again)
- use burn tool over entire image
- adjust brightness/contrast to desired point
- clean up leftover dark/light spots
- make a new layer for cleaning text bubbles
- clean text / type up final script
- save at max resolution
