Making of a Comic

[Virmir]

Hey folks!

Just for fun I thought I'd go through a step-by-step how I make comics.  I'm always fascinated reading how artists do their work, so thought people may be interested in how I do things.  We'll be taking a look at how strip 13 for October 30th was put together.

Tod handles the pencil sketches, so first off I need to get scene and script info to him.  Usually I will give a general description of the setting and characters, then will describe how I'd like the pages to look frame-by-frame.  Sometimes I'll draw general diagrams like I did here for Lucian's apartment.

Next comes the script for the page!

Page 13

Panel 13-1 (Left 33%)

Upper torso view of Lucian reading the scroll.  His lips are pursed in mild interest and thought, though he doesn't seem very excited about it. Simple apartment walls background.

Narrator: "Father only wrote me for two reasons.  Either to demand I return home, or announce that he would be visiting me."

Narrator: "The latter of course only when he had official business in Caerreyn.  Usually a side trip before bickering with the Queen and the Council..."

Panel 13-2 (Middle 33%)

A blank open scroll from Lucian's point of view (so that I can fill in the text).  Lucian's thumbs can be holding it if you can make it work.

Letter:

Lucian,

I will be arriving at noon on the day you receive this.  I implore you to meet me at the dock as I leave my ship, as we have much to discuss and I won't have much time before I meet with the Queen and Council.

Lord Julian Urocyon

Panel 13-3 (Right 33%)

Lucian rolls his eyes as he begins to crumple the paper.  Behind him, the messenger stands in the doorway, one hand extended as he asks his question.

Narrator: "Well, that was to the point..."

Messanger: "Do you require a response, Sir Mage?"

Lucian: "No, you may go."

Tod processes that information, then uses dark magic to produce a raw sketch of the page.



Now the fun begins! (For me, a least!)  I then cut the comic in half, convert the pencils to red, then print it out on matte photo paper.  This comic is a rare case in that it splits in half nicely.  Most of the time I will do two panels on one page, and the last on another.  The idea is to get the panels big enough to do a nice ink-over in pen.



I use Faber Castel pens and a few others to go over everything in nice thick black lines.  I used to just do this all digitally with the pen tool in Photoshop, but printing it out and doing it by hand is waaaaay faster.



After that it's just a matter of scanning it back in and piecing it back together.  Setting the brightness and contrast of the scanned image to 100% makes all the black lines stand out nicely and the red easy to erase.



Ready for coloring!

I use a Wacom tablet to color in all the areas coloring-book style.  Finally I add in text and speech balloons. 

The finished product!

[Pontos]

Hehe, I found your "Crimson Flag Extras" album before this thread :P (I thought you surely posted something about the album in the forum or the main page).

Cool Behind the Scenes :)

[Blazkowicz]

Yah, this is pretty cool.

I expect something like this would take lots of patience. How long does it generally take you over-all? Knowing me, you probably already said it, and I overlooked it. xD

[Virmir]

Thanks!  I'd say a single page takes 8-10 hours of work after I get the sketch from Tod.  I usually try to work on it a little per day, though I'll admit I'm usually distracted at the time which means it takes longer. ;)  I'd love to push the update schedule up to once per week once I get a bit faster.

[KaiAdin]

Just wondering, how much does it cost you to commission the sketches off Tod? Cause with the story your going to tell, its surely gonna go on for hundreds of strips!

I'm kinda surprised that your not charging anything or trying to recoup the costs in someway.

[Virmir]

Ha ha.  I do dream of selling printed archives of the comic some day.  But we've got a loooong way to go before then. ;)

I'm not sure if Tod would be okay with me giving out his exact price.  I'll ask him and get back to you if he's okay with it.  I will say though that at three pages per month, it's a good deal less than what I pay a month for, say, internet access.  This is a hobby for me.  And like most hobbies, it has a cost.

I may consider adding advertisements (sparingly) to the website at some point, especially if the comic becomes popular enough that I need to upgrade my hosting account and/or pay for extra bandwidth.  But for now, things are looking good. :)

[KaiAdin]

Ah yea, I know what you mean, my photography hobby does leave ones wallet feeling a bit thin after buying a lens.. or two, but it's a labor of love, and you don't really care about how much it costs.