#creating comics

[downthetubes]

“Strip it down to essentials and draw the hell out of what’s left” - Zorro by Alex Toth

[idrawprettyboys]

I have 100 pages of Maka storyboarded so far. Based on how the story is progressing, I anticipate the full story being between 300 and 400 pages. Although I should be impressed at the number of pages that I have laid out so far, I’m actually not content with most of the story thus far. It still needs to be fleshed out a lot. The characters’ personalities and interactions have a lot of room to grow. I’m not at that point yet where I automatically know how the characters will react to any given situation. I’m still getting to now them. The beginning will need a lot of adjustments, but I’m not sure exactly what it’s lacking at the moment or what I want to do with it. I started this story by writing out a very vague plot description, with points such as “the party recruits this person and then goes to this place”, so the specifics weren’t figured out in advance. And I still feel like I need to write a bunch to figure out what I DON’T want to find out what I DO want in this story. I’ve been writing a lot of this storyboard with the first things that come to mind, so it feels rather haphazard. I think it’s best to think of this storyboard as the first draft, and then I’ll write a second draft afterwards. Depending on how much I like what I have, that could either mean simply taking out and adding new pages where I feel like the others weren’t good enough… or it could mean restarting the story from scratch and sketching out a whole 400 new pages, where the events are drastically different than the first one. This is going to be a slow process. I tend to worry so much about being fast with my comics, because I get this feeling like “if I don’t finish this within the year, I never will”… but you know what? The reason I quit so many of my comics isn’t simply because they take too long. It’s because I LOSE INTEREST. If I want my comic to be something that I WANT to make, I can’t think of it in terms of just getting it done as quickly as possible. This isn’t a job. It’s supposed to be a passion project, so I need to learn to be passionate about it. The more time I spend developing the story into something I love, the more motivation I’ll have to complete it. I can’t tell myself “good enough” and get started on the final pages, when I’m not feeling invested in it. I need to make this into something that I WANT to spend lots of time on.

[yourdailysketch]

Marek Bennet on making comics.

[binarystarcomic]

Check out this interview I did with SCI-FI COMIC NEXUS! We talked about my comic series BINARY STAR, art, science fiction, creating comics, and more!

[danidoodels]

They're twins your honor

[christiansinglebabes]

Kabru getting a taste of his own medicine

[emthimofnight]

Stellar's first day at school!!

[downthetubes]

Fantastic advice for new comic artists pitching at conventions

Thoughts on giving critiques to comics artists.

Seeing lots of discussion from students about sour experiences with an unhelpful art teacher, so here's a long, long post about giving critiques.

NB: I have no formal training as a teacher, but I was a student, and I've spent decades giving artists feedback on their work.

When someone brings me a portfolio, I like to establish my limitations & clarify my perspective. My work is firmly rooted in traditional US comics storytelling (i.e., not manga or art-comics.) I can give feedback on other approaches but they should know where I’m coming from.

“We've only got a little time for this, so I'm going to spend that time focusing on things to correct. That doesn't mean you're doing everything wrong, or that there’s nothing good here, but it’ll be more helpful if I identify some problems and show you how to fix them.”

Why? Because for many young artists their entire sense of self worth is wrapped up in being good at what they do. (It was for me!) In school they were probably the best artist in their peer group. But now if they're hoping to turn pro, they’re at the bottom.

Sometimes you know what’s up when you see page 1, but try to keep an open mind. Some build their portfolios by sticking new pages at the back & don’t weed out the old stuff up front, so the work gets better as you go. When it’s like that I ask: “Show me your best 8 pages.”

I ask questions: "What's the goal? Do you want to be hired to work on someone else's project, or to get the story you're showing me here published?"

If 1, I steer towards a portfolio that'll showcase hirable skills. If 2, I look for what tweaks will make that particular story more effective.

"Do you have teachers giving you regular feedback? What are they telling you?" Sometimes a student is getting bad advice. In cases like that, I'll do my best to be extra clear WHY I'm giving them advice that's 180 degrees from what they've been hearing.

“What artists are you looking at? Is there someone you admire or try to emulate?” This often helps me understand choices they're making, and I can sometimes incorporate things those artists do into my suggestions.

I ask myself questions about what I’m seeing. First: Is there a narrative? If not, I make it 100% clear I'm not speaking as any sort of expert. I'm good at critiquing storytelling, but don't have anywhere near as much to offer illustrators or designers.

Can I follow the story? Or am I confused about what's going on? Are the characters and settings drawn consistently? If not, is the artist at least making use of tags (distinctive clothing, hair etc.) to keep the characters recognizable?

Does the artist demonstrate a good command of basic academic drawing? If not, Do I think they need it? Do I focus on "how to draw" or on "what to do when you can't draw?" Is the artist putting the viewer’s eye where it needs to be to tell the story effectively?

(At this point I’m usually doing little doodles to go with my instructions. I scribble out ugly little 5 second diagrams that I hope will clarify what I’m talking about. Or they might make me seem demented. Hard to say!)

Is the artist making choices that are creating more work than necessary? Is there a particular weakness? I once spoke to an artist with a portfolio full of great work when he was drawing animals and monsters, but his humans were amateurish in comparison. I spent that critique talking about drawing people.

A crit can be a grab bag. In addition to big-picture advice, I'll point out tangencies, violations of the 180-degree rule, wonky anatomy, weird perspective, places where the artist neglected to do important research, odd choices in how they spotted black, whatever catches my eye.

I also try to make a point of defining the terms, so that jargon like “tangency,” “180-degree rule,” and “spotting black” don't go over their heads. Find simple, concrete ways to talk about these things, & clarify why it's a problem when they aren't done correctly. Draw diagrams!

Recognize that even a perfectly phrased explanation might not sink in. Some lessons can only be learned when a student is ready, and it might take a year or two of work before they can understand what you were saying. It's good to plant seeds.

Are there other artists who are particularly good at solving the problems the student is trying to solve? I steer them towards that artist's work. And I always recommend life drawing & the use of reference to give work variety and authority.

Despite what I said earlier about focusing on what's wrong, I try at the end to find something encouraging to say. And if I’ve really piled on the criticism, I emphasize that I only spent the time and energy to do so because I take their efforts seriously.

If I've done my job right, they'll leave my table with tools to make their work better. And maybe in a few years they'll be looking at some younger artist's work, surprised to discover just how much you can learn when you're asked to teach.

[blabberoo]

Welcome back, Bill.

prev | next

[blahlahblash]

They overreacted a bit. Just a wee bit.

Part 2

[downthetubes]

Cartoon Museum comic and cartoon creator-focused conference returns in February

Early bird tickets are now available for the fourth Cartoon Museum Conference in London next year

Early bird tickets are now available for the fourth Cartoon Museum Conference in London, taking place on Sunday 24th February 2025. Aimed at comic creators, learn how to survive and thrive as a comic artist and creator. Learn from industry experts and specialists all under one roof for one day only. Speakers include: editor Corinne Pearlman and comic creator David Shenton; the Society of…

[starspilli]

i think they would be very good friends!

[winte-ry]

I'm sorry

I'm sorry part 1

Next

Masterpost

[catsharky]

Presenting: King Sidon, his wife Queen Yona and his boyfriend Link.

Yona is very supportive of everything except Sidon forgetting his ceremony cues.

(I had an atrocious week and TotK has been coming in clutch for keeping me sane.)

[clemnoir]

this came to me in a vision