What Goes Into A Comic Page
The reason I am even on Steemit right now is all thanks to @drwatson; way back in May/June, Michael and I started working on his comic series, Ithaqa, together. At one point we had been discussing different ways to draw attention to the comic and he had mentioned Steemit. In the ensuing months, as I was working on the comic he had been writing about the process of it all on Steemit. It was always incredibly fascinating for me to read about the behind-the-scenes of what went into making Ithaqa from the writer's perspective. I think it's just as interesting for me to learn about the series I've been illustrating for the past several months as it is for people just discovering Ithaqa.
I thought for this post I could share the process from the artist's point of view of what goes into making a page. The process of comic making, as you could probably guess, differs from situation to situation so this is specific to what Michael and I agreed would be the procedure for bringing Ithaqa to life.
The best case scenario for a cartoonist are scripts like this; Michael has illustrated exactly what he wants for each panel. o guesswork for me. Sometimes clients will just write descriptions for the page as a whole and then it is up to the artist to break the description down into panels. While it's nice to have the control over the panel layout for a page, getting a script like this usually eliminates situations where a client is displeased with the choices I have made.
Once I go through the script, I do quick thumbnail sketches of how I want to compose each panel. These drawings are always extremely rough, usually stick figures, and mostly just so I can go into the next phase with a basic idea of what I want the page to look like. I also show these to Michael so he can let me know if I'm on the right track.
Stage 1: The Roughs
I instantly knew I was going to have some fun with this page; Mookie (one of the main characters of Ithaqa) is such an amusing and expressive character to draw, especially in this particular interaction where he is trying to flirt with the librarian, Catherine. If anyone is familiar with the Legend of Korra, I get a lot of inspiration for Mookie's mannerisms from the character, Varrick.
As you can see the rough stage is pretty...rough. I'm going to let you in on a secret; it may take you 15 seconds to read a whole comic page but for artists, it takes a whole lot longer to create that page. As a professional, you don't want to put an incredible amount of time into the roughs because the earlier stages of the process are when clients are most likely to want the biggest changes. Or let's say I interpret something wrong, I don't want to have constructed a beautifully detailed scene just to be corrected and have to redraw it.
The rough stage is mostly to make sure I've interpreted the script correctly and that the composition reads well. I don't focus too much on anatomy and background details; I just get down the most important aspects. After this get's approved, I move on to the next stage.
Stage 2: Pencils
The penciling stage is definitely the part of the process I spend the most time on. I go back to the drawing and work through the anatomy, background details, and even changing panel composition around a little bit. It's not so evident in this particular example, but if you check out @drwatson's posts, you'll see some panels change a lot more than others. This is usually due to compositional, anatomical, or perspectival issues from my initial sketches.
The penciling stage is also the most important, in my opinion, as this is the stage that the page generally looks like what it's going to look like at the end of the process.
Stage 2: Inks
It was a pretty recent decision to go from drawing traditionally to digitally. This choice was also one of the smartest decisions I've made for my career; it makes the cartooning process so much easier. When I was working traditionally, the inking stage was just a frustrating as any other. I had one shot to get things right and had to deal with unwanted ink splots and shmearing my own artwork. Now, it's infinitely easier; if I make a mistake, my little buddy "command z" saves the day. I don't have to deal with my pen nib spitting ink in places it should not be and if I draw my pencils really well, I don't have to do that much work in the inking stage. This stage I devote time to adding line variation for added depths, adding more background details and textures.
Stage 2: Color
Lastly, we got the coloring stage. As you can see, I keep a coloring key around the edges of the page to make the process easier and so that I keep the coloring consistent. Michael and I decided to go with a limited color palette because, let's be honest, less is more. Obviously, taste is subjective and sometimes bright punchy comics with the entire rainbow in it can work in some instances. But I'll give you a little artist insight: limited palettes help to make a piece look more uniform. We went with these particular colors because Michael decided he wanted the colors to correspond with the seasons the story takes place in; right now, it's fall.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, you've got yourself a completed page!
Thank you for coming on this journey with me.
Once again, thank you for sticking until the end. Let me know if you have any questions or are curious about other aspects of the cartooning/illustrating process.
Ithaqa is a Lovecraftian horror comic that takes place in 1920s Ithaca. It follow a con-artist/filmmaker who accidentally stumbles across a dark plot as a moving picture he’s struggling to produce goes horribly wrong.
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Website: https://www.theresachiechi.com/
Until next time 👋