Switching Lanes - Words to Pictures

Thumbnail art for a comic book page

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

Going from Script to Artboard

It all starts with an idea. Then it becomes words or words with pictures. What do you do with words you get from someone else? How do you interpret the script so you can visualize it?

Here's a process you can use.

1. Read the script a few times. Sometimes the images will come to you right away. That's great! Other times you will have to think about what you want to draw. In either case you have to get a clear image of what is happening in your mind. Your mind is your most important drawing tool.  if you can't see it in your mind, the you can't draw it well on paper. If the characters are new to you then you have to imagine what they will look like.

2. Use a highlight marker to choose what items you are going to need reference to draw like the Statue of Liberty, a car wreck, luxury apartment, cars, chairs, kitchen, birds, etc.

3. Make thumbnails to break down the script into pages for pacing,panel breakdowns and composition purposes. You can do this right on the script or on other paper. At this stage you just want to be sure your thinking is clear and you are concentrating on storytelling. You're not really trying to draw here. Do this quickly to get your ideas on paper. it can be stick figures or scribbles. It's for your benefit only.

4. Now collect all the reference images you will need. You don't want to disturb your drawing time by looking for reference then. Get it all at the beginning. Use the reference file you have and the internet. This is also the time to take your own photos. TAke a day to go to locations you may need like downtown, the subway, zoo etc. Also take shots of yourself and people in difficult pose you may need. References are to be used as a guide, not a crutch. It will be plainly obvious if you trace a  reference in one panel and don't have reference for the same thing in another panel.

5. Do layouts. Now is when you want to be concerned about drawing. You have two options. Draw it on an 8.5" x 11" bond paper , enlarge it to your art board size  an then lightbox it onto the board. Or do your layouts directly onto your art board lightly with graphite or non-photo blue pencil. Leave room for balloons and captions.

6. Do some model sheets for yourself of the major characters, so you can draw them consistently from panel to panel.

7. If you have a full script, then now is the time to do the lettering. Do not do lettering for samples you are doing in your portfolio.

This is a quick overview. I will go into detail about this process later.

Here's a fun illustration by the great Brian Buniak.

I also would like to see your comments. Is this helpful to you? Are the explanations clear and complete?

Keep reading and  +1 me. Share with your friends. Please comment. Just create!

copyright 2012 H. Simpson

Tools of the Trade

My pencil drawing of Peter Falk as Columbo

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

Traditional Tools

1. PENCILS - A non-repro blue pencil is great to use because you don't have to erase it. Anything that saves you time is an asset. Saving time becomes very important when you need every second to meet a deadline. 

Now if for some reason you do not want to use a non-repro blue pencil, then you can use a regular gray pencil. Even though pencils are referred to as having lead, it is really mostly graphite. We call it graphite because the man who discovered graphite thought he had found lead. Today, graphite and clay are mixed with water and pressed very tightly together with high temperatures into thin rods. Graphite gets it name from the Greek word meaning "to write".

You really can use any type of pencil to draw. Be aware that soft graphite smears and makes a mess and hard graphite can dig into the paper if you're not careful.

Art pencils use the English scale to grade graphite which is a combination of numbers and letters with "B" standing for soft graphite that gets blacker the softer it is and much messier. The higher the number the softer the graphite and the more it smears.

"H" stand for hardness of the graphite. The higher the number, the harder the graphite and the lighter the pencil mark made.

"F" stands for fine point. As you start from F to 9H the pencil is able to hold a fine point longer.

The American grading system uses numbers. You may have used a number 2 in elementary school as a kid and HB is equivalent to that pencil. So you can keep using it to draw if you wish. But you may want to put your big boy pants on (or big girl panties) and do something bold; EXPERIMENT.

The fun of art is exploring and playing with the tools to see what they can do. Run away from anyone that tells you you should use an HB or 2B pencil. Buy every pencil grade and draw with them all and see what works for you. 

When I don't use non-repro blue, I have personally settled on a 2 pencil combination. I use the 4H to do rough drawing, then use a 2B to tighten it up darker. Why? Because the 4H pencil lines I don't have to erase. Once I lay down a darker graphite the 4H lines are barely noticeable.

So what are you waiting for? Go play with pencils!

to be continued...

BONUS LINKS TO CHECK OUT NOW!

Drawing techniques: 7 fundamentals of pencil drawing

Drawing - Tips on Better Graphite Pencil Drawing

Pencil Drawing Techniques for Beginners

Line Drawing: A Guide for Art Students

2B or Not 2B? A Guide to Pencil Drawing Techniques

read next - Pencilers Have Better Point Control

previous - Talk Dirty to Me

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful please let me know and share with other creators. Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

When you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2012 H. Simpson

Talk Dirty to Me

This art is a character design for a project that didn't go anywhere.

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

TERMINOLOGY CONTINUED

38. THUMBNAILS - A drawing that can be as small as your thumbnail and no larger than your hand. The main purpose is not drawing, but to quickly get you ideas down on paper. It helps the artist more than anyone else, as the artist is the only one able to decipher the chicken scratch.

39. CMYK - C is cyan, M is magenta, Y is yellow and K stands for key. The cyan, magenta and yellow printing plates are carefully keyed or aligned with the key of a pure black ink, the key plate or keyline color. Full-color images use 4 colors of ink on printing presses . The four inks are placed on the paper in layers of dots that combine to create the illusion of many more colors. Image files must be converted to CMYK color space to print correctly.

40. TIFF - Tagged Image File Format. File format used for bit-mapped images to be printed. Files in TIFF format usually end with a .tif extension.

41. EPS - Encapsulated PostScript. PostScript documents that contain information for more accurate printing. Usually larger in size than a TIFF file because of added information.

42. PDF - Portable Document Format is an open standard file format that looks like original documents and preserve source file information

43. FONT - a complete set of type of one style and size.  A specific member of a type family such as roman, boldface or italic type. A font family is typically a group of related fonts which vary only in weight, orientation, width, etc., but not design

44. TYPEFACE - the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. A consistent visual appearance or style which can be a "family" or related set of fonts. A typeface such as Caslon may include roman, bold and italic fonts.

45. DPI/LPI/PPI - DPI (dots per inch) is a measurement of printer resolution. The number of dots per inch that the printer is capable of achieving to form text or graphics on the printed page.

PPI (pixels per inch) is the number of pixels present per inch of display screen. This is for monitors, scanners and digital cameras, even though DPI has been applied inaccurately to refer to screen resolution by laymen and now has fallen into common usage. 

LPI (lines per inch) is a measurement related to the way printers reproduce photographic images using a halftone screen. The LPI is dependent on the output device and the type of paper. This term is used only for printing.

46. RESOLUTION - A measure of the sharpness of an image or of the fineness with which a device (such as a video display, printer or scanner) can produce or record such an image usually expressed as the total number or density of dots, pixels or lines in an image. The higher the resolution the better the quality. 

The resolution is only going to be as good as the output device. So it's a waste of time creating a 1200 dpi image if it's printing from a 600 dpi printer. The image prints at 600 dpi.

47. NON-REPRO BLUE/NON- PHOTO BLUE - It is a particular shade of blue that can not be detected by graphic arts cameras used for professional printing. However, most scanners will pick up the blue.

48. RGB - R is red, G is green and B is blue. Red, green and blue light is added together to form full color images to be transmitted  and displayed on electronic monitors. RGB color space should never be used for printing.

49. JPEG, PNG and GIF - A few of the options and alternatives for the coding of still images for the internet. These are usually 72dpi RGB images and not good to use for print purposes.

Next: The Tools of the Trade

BONUS LINKS!

Graphics File Format Types and When To Use Each One 

Which Image File Types Should I Use?

Image File Type Tips

read next - Tools of the Trade

previous - Talking the Talk

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful please let me know and share with other creators. Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

When you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2012 H. Simpson