#im not dense

[jabibi-the-beef]

you call it "playing dumb" i call it "minimizing the casualties" we are not the same

[leafwateraddict]

When you do the math problem wrong but still somehow manage to find the solution…

Was supposed to be my submission for @sansxyouweek Day 2: Act to Flirt but turned into a whole comic 💀 (i mean. I guess it still counts?)

[densewentz]

just say I was the top listener spotify smh

[bacchuschucklefuck]

[the--firevenus]

The best trope for superbat for me is Bruce falls first and Clark falls hardest, and add slow burn to the mix and it's DELICIOUS

Bruce who's did in fact falls first but didn't say anything and overtime get used to the feeling of butterflies in his stomach so now he just accepts it and didn't act on it at all. Vs Clark who one day slowly putting pieces of puzzle together in his head and fall head first to the crush zone and he falls HARD, HOW CAN HE BE NORMAL NOW??

[naturesass]

[pseudophan]

do you think this might affect phandom conversations for a bit? like are we getting back to “we shouldn’t speculate” and people bringing up this screenshot to reinforce that?

some people are going full force with that already yes 👍 like what the fuck ever at this point, if you're stupid just say that. i'm so over it. it's like people have zero object permanence and only ever go by the latest thing they heard. dan and phil told a journalist to mind their business? that must mean they actively hate any and all mentions of their relationship even from their fans who they are currently performing a stage show more or less about their relationship for. like can we be so fucking serious. no a random ass reporter trying to get a quote for their front page is not the same as you making phan memes come ON. but again like, whatever, they can think what they want i guess. anyone who wants to have a boring ass time in this fandom because they can't utilise critical thinking to save their fucking life is free to do so lmao

[iridescentpull]

There are actual tears in my eyes

[toxifoxx]

>random guy looking at my blog >likes a bunch of my art posts >reblogs post about how important reblogging art is >doesn't reblog any of my art

[emotsper]

!!!!!??_!&)&?&)&?(4:? okay guys. based on this crazy as fuck fic i read at 1am last night and lobotomized my brain

[worldformula]

with my chorus guiding you, forge ahead.

(quote from the thing is by ellen bass)

[newttxt]

hi quip! i really like your one piece comics and i am curious how you do them! i'm not good at comics and want to be better at drawing them! how do you learn how to make comics?

thank you!

uh oh... im afraid u have caught me at the perfect crossroad of "bored at work" and "unrelated task ive been meaning to do but keep putting off."

this is long. i hope you like reading (and grayscale progress pics). and of course!!! disclaimer before we begin that this is just how I, personally draw comics. there is no "right way."

quip's comic-making process!

Switching my typing to make this more legible...

My process can kinda be broken down into 6 steps:

Brainstorming

Thumbnailing

Sketching

Panels & Text

Lines

Tones/Colors

1. Brainstorming

My brain is a leaky sieve on a good day, so I sloppily jot down ideas in my phone notes the moment I have them. This helps me when it's time to draw too, because if I feel art blocked, I can look through old concepts and see what catches my interest.

Otherwise, I love drawing for other people's writing. :) And if worst comes to worst, doing manga/comic page redraws in my style teaches me new things every time.

Once I have my idea, I'll usually make a bulletpoint list of "plot points" or "story beats" I want. Then I plan the comic with this format that I've adapted from a tutorial I read once. I'm going to use my most recent comic (original comic post) as an example.

I start in the third column, writing notes of what I'd want to see in each panel. I also include the dialogue (in this case, I didn't have to write the dialogue! it's from the fanfic linked in the original comic post!). I usually write the whole name like [Luffy:], but at this point I've drawn so much of these guys, just the first letter works.

I like to handwrite these notes to get an idea for how much text I'm putting in a single panel.

After I describe all the panels, I go back and separate them into pages. I can't tell you how to know how many panels to a page. It's whatever works for you. I just kinda know about how big each panel will be, and so I can feel when I'm probably running out of space. (Also. You can change things later. I don't in this example, but I add/drop pages/panels all the time.)

2. Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing—as the name suggests—should be done tiny. Too tiny to accidentally get sucked into details.

This is about marking down blobs where items/characters go, and figuring out the paneling. I'll draw and redraw these a bunch of times too.

This is also the most time-consuming/brain-working part for me. If I were in a zine that did progress percentage, I'd try to finish thumbnailing around the 50% mark (but I'm also a moderately fast artist, so your mileage may vary).

I think the terrible quality makes them charming, actually. I really like how silly they look. :')))

I will add, when you draw your "page" rectangle, make sure it's the same proportions as your actual canvas for the final image. You want an accurate idea of how much space each panel will take up, especially if you have a lot of text.

3. Sketching

This is my most recent change to my usual workflow, and it's saving me a lot of time. I make my thumbnails a bit bigger (each one about half the size of the final canvas), and I sketch these basic body forms right over them.

It just helps give me placement for my actual lines!

I usually draw these in a paleish color so I can lower the opacity and not get distracted by them while lining. The random darker parts are to either help keep two forms separate (like when two characters have their limbs all over) or to better define sections that were too sloppy/poorly proportioned.

I also think this helps my poses stay looser, because I have more dramatic/wriggly shapes that aren't too bogged down by proportions yet.

Sidenote: I CANNOT show this here, but sometimes this is when I take videos. Of myself. I prop my phone camera up and shoot a video of me acting each panel. :/// It looks really dumb, but it also shows me fun body language ideas like hand gestures, expressions, weight distribution, etc. Just pretend you're an overdramatic cartoon character, and try not to worry about your roommates or mother walking in on you doing odd things. (You can also use the video for anatomy reference later, but I usually just capture the vibe and don't try to copy the actual video frame.)

4. Panels & Text

Oh, boy. So, the panels are usually just straight lines (though it's fun to make creative exceptions, like a round panel to mimic looking through a spyglass), but there are some fancy rules that I don't strictly adhere to.

I believe (I have no technical training in this. Take everything I say with a grain of salt) the vertical gaps (between two side-by-side panels) should all be a consistent width and the horizontal gaps (between two panels on top of each other) should be another. The vertical ones? Should be thinner? Because you want the eye to easily glide between them, whereas the horizontal gaps should be a visual barrier to keep you from jumping ahead. Just something I've vaguely noticed.

There are lots of fun "default layouts" you can look up. Or keep it a consistent grid. I think it's fun to sometimes have characters/objects sticking out of panels and overlapping others. This is just a matter of taste, creativity, and inspiration. (Read Witch Hat Atelier... It has some of my favorite paneling...)

You may also notice I have already done the speech bubbles. This is, to me, a crucial step. This helps me catch early if I don't have enough room for all the words. It also lets me plan the art in each panel with the speech bubbles in mind. There's nothing worse than working really hard on a panel, and then you realize there's no room for the bubbles.

I also try to lay them out in a way that guides the eye! Even without art, can people tell where to go next? Better yet, if I want people to look at panels out of order (aka not left to right, in my case), can I use the speech bubble path to make them? Here's just a vague example of what I mean.

As an added bonus, doing speech bubbles early also allows me to be lazy! :) Ignore the comic; I'm not supposed to post it yet oops,, There's a whole lot of drawing to do on each comic page, and I am not wasting my time on stuff that will be covered up. So yes, if I hide my bubbles, there are a lot of unfinished lines trailing off into nothing. (As a bonus, if there's a part of a character you're struggling with—and it won't look weird to do so—you can move speech bubbles to just hide the problem area yayyy)

Making the actual bubbles could be their own whole tutorial, tbh, but there are some general guidelines I use.

Zoom out when you choose your font size. You want to know how it will look to the average reader, so it isn't super teeny tiny or way too big. You generally want to keep the same text size for all your pages/bubbles.

When I draw bubbles, I try to size them about one vertical letter height (and some change) around the words [left side]. This isn't always the case though, because humorously large or funny shaped text bubbles can convey different feelings [right side].

On Procreate, I set my bubble lines to Reference and just drag-and-drop the white fill on a separate layer below the lines. (Remember to turn Reference back off again when you're done, or your fill bucket won't work right when you're drawing.)

To get the white outlines I use to keep the bubbles from cluttering up the art, I literally just Gaussian blur an all-white copy of the lines + fills... and then I copy and merge it 5 times until it's opaque enough. This is a terrible way to do it, but it works for me. :')

5. Lines

This is the part that I can't tell you how to do. I literally just. Draw right over my wacky sketched body forms. Boom. Comic drawn.

I'll make three suggestions:

Don't focus on making every panel perfect. Give a little extra love to big ones or ones you want people to linger on. Otherwise, know that people are typically speeding through the art. It's way more important to focus on storytelling than art technique. In my opinion, a good story that's told well will always be better than a beautiful one told poorly. (Some comics are beautiful AND well-written... Alas, I am just a hobbyist who needs to get the ideas out of my head at top speed.)

Put your background lines on a different layer. Put your foreground lines on a different layer too, if you have those. Basically, I try to keep the main part of each panel (usually a character or object) on my lines layer so I can erase background/foreground/etc lines to ensure clarity/focus.

You can make background lines lighter colors too. I have too many numbers sorry. (1) Background. The stuff that's farthest away. Lightest lines. Few details; more focused on shapes and the suggestion of a background (I'm not good at backgrounds). (2) Midground. Same distance away as the characters are. Lines can be black. (3) Also midground, and also the same distance away. But they're very detailed, so I lighten them so they aren't so distracting. (4) The characters. Black lines for focus. For people who haven't seen the comic, I swear they are just hugging. This is SFW. D:

6. Tones/Colors

Do not. Do NOT ask me. I don't understand colors. I hate working with them, but I try because I want to improve. I hate doing anything beyond the simplest grayscale shading. Please go elsewhere for your coloring/tone advice. This is how my color picker looks 95% of the time. I have pre-set "percentages" of black that I got by lowering the opacity of a black layer and just color picking it. I don't even know the exact percentages I used. Good luck out there. Be better than me.

7. Sharing

This is a bonus step that I didn't mention earlier, but it's actually the most important of all of them.

You need a friend. Or maybe a groupchat or discord. A family member or coworker if you're really close like that. I don't know.

Find SOMEWHERE you can spam wips and be cheered on. Drawing comics takes a while, especially if you're trying to tell longer stories than I'd dare to attempt. If I don't force someone to praise me for every line I draw, I shrivel up and die.

Also if and when you post online, add alt text. I'll admit I'm the first person to complain and drag my feet on this, and I literally use a screenreader myself when my eyes hurt (strong prescription glasses wearer). Comics should be accessible, because stories are fun and everyone should be able to enjoy them.

***

Learning???

And I guess lastly, how do you learn to make comics? Two steps: 1) read them and 2) make them. This is the tragedy of creating things.

1) Reading them: I grew up reading comic strips, western serialized comics, and webcomics. I've always loved graphic novels too. Then in late middle school, I started reading manga (Death Note and Haikyuu were my first two), and now I'm trying to read more webtoons (sorry im so slow bree)!

I also... mass-consume doujinshi, thanks to proxy mailing services and bilingual friends/Google Translate/knowing some Korean. (I have an entire bookshelf of doujin, actually,,)

The thing is, it's not usually enough to just read comics. You also need to be thinking. :/ I notice paneling, comic devices, clever comedic timing, etc. as I go. It's just a lot of studying/learning while also enjoying the story.

2) Making them: You just have to start. :( Even if you think they're "bad." My first comics were actually just drawings placed randomly all over the page, connected by speech bubbles (yay... I was already practicing how to place bubbles to lead the eye around the page...). I was going to post a pic here, but I'm a coward. Backscroll my account and you can find some older ones though.

I also know my art in general improved dramatically when I did ten comics in ten weeks for my friend's fic. Don't do this. It hurt my hands/wrists. But do practice in moderation.

***

If you actually read all that... I hope it made even a modicum of sense. And maybe it was even helpful? Just know at the end of the day, there is literally no right way to draw a comic.

And if you aren't ready to go for it yet, you can start by just adding a couple speech bubbles to your illustrations or doodles! It's a way to add storytelling and dialogue writing to things you may already be making.

Yay. I love comics. :))))

[ilikerosesalot]

Everyone talking abt the kiss the dance pv being down bad in jambound ch 18 but mentally I'm still stuck here

[evilbookworm]

Thinking about this cause this was actually crazy to do

[takuyakistall]

(I think tumblr ate my ask, so if you received this again, do ignore it!)

Hello👋, may I request a one-shot of Epel and Reader staying up late to do a sewing project together and finishing it, only to end up falling asleep on each other due to exhaustion?

Thank you, and take care~!

heya! so sorry if this suddenly shows up in your notifs when you sent this ask years ago LOL but i decided to write a lil something for it since i'm clearing out my asks

The first thing they taught in class were basic stitches. At first, the class felt like a breeze when they had you make a mini portfolio showcasing the different stitches in scraps of fabric—you were under the idea that if they had to teach the basics, they wouldn't ask for anything too difficult.

That was your first mistake.

Night Raven College wasn't so forgiving when it came to their academic tasks, they expect you to do your best unless you wanted to get a failing grade. Most teachers were open to giving additional work for extra credit but it's due to your unfortunate luck that this professor was adamant on having this huge project be the only grading component. Needless to say, you felt like you were going to fail miserably.

It was a sewing project, yes, however it was essentially asking for a professional output. An outfit, in other words. They didn't really specificy which kind but they were kind enough to leave a prompt to push the students towards a certain direction. The prompt was "glamorous".

Not comfortable or casual but glamorous. Making a simple piece of clothing seems hard enough but making it glamorous felt like you were going to have to sacrifice nights to complete it. Though you wanted to take things one step at a time and the first step was brainstorming a design.

Did you want to make a dress? A suit? Or a mix of both? The possibilities are endless and your skill level didn't really match most of your visions which made you slump over your desk in frustration. What to do, what to do...

"Epel!" Going to him was what you decided on doing. While it may not seem like an obvious decision, your reasoning was quite simple. One, you liked him; and two, he was part of Pomefiore. Although the second reason was a little bit on thin ice, the first one singlehandedly pushed you enough to go to him.

"You know I can't help you with that..." Epel muttered, a frown appearing on his face. "What's up with that project anyway? I can't recall you signing up for a fashion class."

"It's not! That's why I'm soooo frustrated. I took it because I thought it was going to be an easy A+ but it turns out I have to go through suffering too..."

"You should've known there's no such thing as a free pass in this school." A giggle left his lips as he watched you despair over it. "Maybe I can help you with something else though?"

You perked up at his offer, rushing close to him and grabbing both of his hands to express your anticipation. He stumbled backwards, struggling to keep his balance when you were leaning so close to him. Epel tries to not show it on his face but his mind was panicking in that moment. So close!

"I'll accept any kind of help!"

"Y-Y-Yeah! That's right, ahaha! I'll help you! J-Just get off me for a second...!" He breathed a sigh of relief when you backed away, allowing himself to calm his heart down from that sudden attack. "I can help with the sewing part... if you were planning to ask."

"That's perfect!" You cried out and you had to stop yourself from grabbing him a second time. "That would be a huge help already, especially since I'm practically a beginner..."

"We can find clothing that can be made with basic stitches. Though you might have to make up for it with the design since the theme is, err, supposed to be glamorous." He tilted his head and pondered for a few seconds. "It's nothing a little hot glue and sequins can't fix."

"You're a lifesaver! How about you come over to my room tonight to help me with the design?"

"Sur—" Epel bit his tongue to stop himself from replying. It didn't sink in fast enough when he opened his mouth. He stared at you, a little listless, "tonight...? Your room...?"

"Yeah! No worries, I can sneak you in no problem."

"T-That's not the issue...!?"

"Eh, then what is?"

"You—!" Epel figured that his cheeks are probably red as apples now. He let out a defeated sigh and pinned his gaze away from yours to avoid tripping over his words. "Fine... I'll see you then."