A Process of Making a Comic
by Sylvia T. Leung of Wish³

Hello there, this is Sylvia T. Leung from the web comic Wish³. I've been asked for a while to create a walk-through of my comic page-making process and figured… ah, now is a good a time as any!

So here we go. First, as with all good creative story projects, you get your story together. You can do this any way you choose. Some would rather write their stories in prose, exactly like a novel. My technique is a kind of short hand, never too specific in details, just enough to get the main ideas and events across. Others are known to fly by the seat of their pants, placing characters and events as it comes to them.

I personally like to write a script. It's in a somewhat outline/ cinematic "shot list" form where I give stage directions and odd comments to better explain my mental vision of a panel would be. Sometimes I don't have the vaguest idea of how a panel will appear and I leave it to dialogue and stage direction.

Here is my second stage: thumb nailing. There's a few articles online about comic book panel flow, the way an artist can manipulate the viewer's eye from panel to panel in the correct sequence. The direction of where the character is looking at, or their "eye-line", is a common way to direct a reader's eye. You want to know what they are looking at. Sometimes, artists use the arm to point into the next panel, or props or background elements to do the same. A knowledge of classic painting compositions would do well here.

The unique aspect of comic book pages is the freedom of angles and placement of figures. You can have two people talking to each other who are angled differently. You also have the freedom to frame your compositions - using the square, rectangle, oval, strange shapes, etc. unlike films which are limited to wide screen or television which is almost square. Or you can choose to not use frames at all, but make images bleed into each other like a collage. The good thing about creating a long-running comic is that you'll have plenty of chances to experiment with your vision.


(Click for larger image)

For example, in the page above, I have added red arrows where I intended the viewer's eye to follow. European reading starts in the upper left hand corner and I used my character Basil's right hand to gesture towards the next panel to the right. It is reflex to read from left to right, but a little reinforcement doesn't hurt. I use the text's flow to lead the eye to the larger figure of Basil who looks down to the lower left corner. The small Basil in that panel looks to the dragon/fox fountain. The fountainhead, in turn, is gazing at the smallest Basil and they exchange glances (of sorts). In the storyline, he is dreaming in color and I used the color of small Basil's shirt and the large Basil figure's sleeve to drag the eye to each other. Again, Basil's hand gestures to the next and last panel of the dragon/fox head. Comic book flow takes some thinking and is intensive when you first start out, but with practice, it gets somewhat easier.

Keeping all of the classic and filmic composition rules in mind while creating panel-per-panel compositions that follow the rules of cinematic direction (staging, camera angles to tell mood, etc.) can be daunting, but I take it as a personal artistic challenge. Articles on film direction can also be found online or you can simply watch your favorite movie over and over, taking note of the composition of each scene frame and what it's trying to convey.

In any event, thumb nailing is one of the most important steps in any finished-product art, in my opinion. When deciding on a composition, you must consider shapes and the overall flow of the piece and resist getting dragged down by details. Thumbnails take care of that, as well as allow you to try many different variations of your scene without wasting your drawing time on a larger piece of paper. Thumbnails are usually an inch or two squared, depending on your piece. In any event, I type up my script in Word and make my left margin very wide for my thumbnails.

Once I'm satisfied with a thumbnail, I take it to regular paper. I actually use 8.5x11" cardstock. In case I must erase several times, the cardstock is stiff enough not to buckle under my heavy hand. It is also less likely to shred under eraser rubbings. I use colored lead such as Colerase pencils or automatic pencil lead. (Pentel makes blue lead, found other colors in Japanese bookstores.) I try to be as energetic as I can with these pencils, document the energy of the scenes in my head.

I then tape a sheet of maker paper over the pencils and ink over them with technical pens (Koh-I-noor Rapidographs) or - what I've been using lately - ink, nib, and quill and sometimes a brush pen. I use these supplies to get different line thickness for the drawings, shake up the "technical" look of a steady line with something more changeable, more organic. A general rule of inking is to have thin lines where the light is strongest, and thick lines where shadows fall deepest. If you choose to use ink and nib, you will learn control over time, enough to create very thin lines with a steady hand.

After this step, I try to let the ink dry for a few hours, then go over them with marker. This is very tricky as the ink can smear. Like watercolors, when I use marker, I start with the lightest shade first, then move to darker areas. I used to use Prismacolors, then moved on to Tria markers with their three different tips, but have finally settled to only three shades of Copic markers. Streamlining is an evolutionary thing and it all depends on your personal approach. Some tone their comic entirely on the computer, even draw it completely in Photoshop.

Lastly, I scan it and take it into Photoshop for final tones. I am still trying to use comic tones, the way manga artists use patterned gradients for shading and make an otherwise boring shadow into something interesting. Here I also put in sound effects, word bubbles, and such. I usually scan at 150 dpi now that I have a later printing process to keep in mind, then shrink it to a smaller size for the website.

There you have it, the secrets and long, strenuous process for the pages of Wish³. This is only my personal process. Julian of Rules of Make-Believe creates her comic completely in Painter and she made a walk-through of her process. You can create your own process if you want to create your own comic. Good luck and happy arting!