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Webcomic tips

In the conclusion for now, some things I’d really recommend doing if you’re seriously considering making a webcomic (or really a comic in general). Some of these don’t really apply to strips or gag-a-day type of comics, but I’m not talking about those here.

1. Write down ideas\sketch stuff, LEGIBLY. “I’m gonna remember it later” NEVER works. And if you scribble it somewhere on a piece of paper, you’d better scan it or retype in one doc later, because tiny notes always get lost among other doodles in my skethbooks.

(i know it’s hard to keep everything clean and organized, but this mess is just not productive)

If your project is a collaboration, save your conversations. If you’re working alone, make a blog for your ramblings. You have no clue what tears of relief I cry when I open that blog and rememeber I don’t have to painstakingly look through my heaps of sketchbooks and folders for a tiny idea I’m not even sure I wrote down a few months ago.

2. Inspiration folders, or even better, inspo blog with tags also help with collecting and remembering ideas. Color schemes, landscapes, style inspirations, atmospheric stuff, maybe some photo references, all those neat things.

3. Basic tier: character design sheets. Top tier: common poses, expressions. God tier: outfits they wear throughout the comic. Holy cow tier: turnaround sheets for all those outfits.

(I’d die trying to find good pages for references without these)

4. If you haven’t finished detailing the plot, don’t even think about moving on to drawing the comic. You’re gonna regret it when you come up with a really cool plot element that can’t be incorporated anymore because you’ve already drawn all the parts you could’ve tweaked.

5. Don’t just define the plot, make a script. Writing down the lines and the brief description of the actions serves me fine:

(notice that I approximately divided the pages & the text that’d go to each panel on a page)

6. Hard mode: make thumbnails for all the pages, if possible. At least whenever a new chapter starts.

7. If your story involves some convoluted chronology shenanigans, you’d better write down the events of your timeline in the chronological order.

8. Backgrounds. You can’t avoid them, bro. Like half of the comics are backgrounds, especially if your story involves a lot of adventuring and looking around. I know it hurts, but you’ll have to become friends with them. Read some tutorials, practice on photos, go out and sketch some streets, use 3d programs (like Google Sketch) to understand the perspective, use sites like houseplans to visualize your buildings better, I don’t know. Just be prepared for their imminent evil.

9. If you’re drawing digitally, pick a brush size for the lines and stick with it. You don’t want your lines and detail levels to look all wonky and inconsistent in different panels. And I don’t mean the cool stylistic varying lines, I mean this:

Also, things on the background should have thinner and/or lighter lines to avoid distraction. Usually less details too, unless you’re making a busy background with a simple foreground to help it pop out. Or wanna draw the attention to an object on the bg.

10. Readable fonts. Even if you chose to ignore people with poor sight or dyslexia, the majority of your readers aren’t gonna be excited about struggling to decypher this:

Also, as much as I love my black speech bubbles, colorful text on black still kinda hurts the eyes. I wouldn’t recommend doing that for all the characters. Black speech bubbles are usually used for creepy, inhuman voices. And yes, having a colorful outline in this case helps.

11. Probably newsflash, but did you know that panels have their place, order and functions? They do! My favourite thing ever is how I used panels when I was like 12:

(comics ain’t rocket science, but this one is)

The composition of the panels and word balloons always serve for a better reading experience. They guide your eyes over the page, so that you never feel lost or confused. The images in the comic equal frames in a movie, so it’s pretty damn important in what order you look at things and how quickly you can understand what’s going on!

(Eric Shanower & Scottie Young’s Wizard of Oz)

12. One update a week is fine for testing waters. Don’t overestimate yourself, especially if you have a pretty busy life outside it. A stable comic that updates slowly, but regularly is better than an unpredictable erratic one. You can always pick up the pace later, if you feel confident enough.

13. Try to always have a buffer - a couple of pages in reserve. If you’re making the pages much faster than you’re updating, this shouldn’t be a problem. But if those paces are equally the same, it’s goddamn HARD. But on the other hand, if something happens and you skip an update, those come in handy.

If you’re looking at this list and thinking “wow that’s a LOT of work”, you’re totally right. And it’s okay to be intimidated at first! But that’s why it’s important to start with something small. Once you get the formula down, these things will be natural to you.

sarahculture

Tips on Drawing Hands Tutorial

Hope this is helpful!

Twitter

DeviantArt

drawingmodel

Hand drawing tutorial

baqki

OK to make a font out of your own writing

go here

http://www.myscriptfont.com/

instead of printing it off just use this blank thing that way you dont have to scan it or anything

so fill that out by pasting it in any art program and whatnot

then save it and upload it to that site

and itll give you an option to download it

so do that and then install it BAM

dustandhalos

kittenmogu

kaiami

Tutorial: plastic keychains

I know a ton of you have been waiting for this one. Teaching you to make your own plastic keychains!

To start off, I think the biggest question everyone has is what I use to make them. I work with shrink film. You might be familiar with Shinky Dink brand shrink film as a kid. I use Grafix brand white inkjet shrink film. The inkjet kind is relatively pricey compared to the regular kind. If you’re using regular, I don’t recommend you stick it in your printer. Sharpie markers would be good for that.

Alright, now open up the file with the images that you’re working with. Make sure your images are a lot bigger than you want your finished product to be since they shrink significantly.

You’ll also want to lighten the opacity to about half. I go somewhere between 50-60%.

Now print your image out! I’ve found that it works best for me when I have it at the plain paper setting, and standard print quality.

Holepunch with a ¼" holepuncher BEFORE you shrink them. It’s so much more work to have to punch holes when your plastic is thick!

Cut out your design, leaving the amount of border you want.

Set them on a tray for convenience. An aluminum foil sheet works too, but I recommend cookie trays because they are easier and quicker to get out of the oven.

Preset heat. Your shrink film package will tell you what temperature to set it at, but I find that it isn’t always accurate for me. I generally set temperature to 350 degrees or so.

Put them in the oven. Remember to keep track of time! I leave them in for about a minute and a half.

After time is up they should be super small! Magic!

If your charms are not flat, put something heavy on it right out of the oven when they are still hot and malleable.

If you’d like to, you can seal them now. In my last two batches, I used clear topcoat nail polish. The problem with that is that I need between 3-5 coats of it, and it takes a while to dry. I’ve been experimenting with modpodge.

For lariats, you can use jump rings or lobster clasps.

Here is one that I made that wasn’t sealed. The finished texture after shrinking is a little bit rough. There’s nothing wrong with leaving them unsealed, but because they are inkjet printed, the colors wash right of without protection.

This is one that was sealed with modpodge. The colors become a little more vibrant and smooth and water resistant. Things often get stuck on when applying or drying so be careful.

These ones down here were sealed with clear nail polish. They come out shiny if you put enough coats, but the grainy texture will still be there.

Well, there ya go! Have fun making your own keychains!

pamisleyphd

fullten dunno how in to DIY you are, but this seems like a way to get more cute things in your life.

fullten-deactivated20240430

This is super cute

addicted2reading

I do this!! You can also glaze them with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic! It gives it a nice, shiny surface. Resin would work too, and it would be more durable.

julymarte

yeyyy so, first of all i’m not good making tutorials and i hope it still helps

anon san asked me how do i color my cel shaded stuff so.. here it is

cheeziesart

SO YOU WANNA DRAW CATS AND DOGS BUT THOSE PESKY SNOOTS GET IN THE WAY

Here’s a hopefully helpful tutorial on how to draw them from memory but it also helps to understand and break down how to see their structure when you use reference!

Remember, it’s always best to learn the anatomy of an animal first before trying to stylize it. This way you know the rules and can choose which ones to break!

Please do not repost this tutorial or any images from it. Permission will not be granted. You may post a link to this post instead to help spread it from the original source.

zelda-tunes

Visit Original Link

A live orchestration of BOTW’s main theme (without the pause)

mkjay-art

20170226

Drawing Study of February - Light and Shadow

isharton

Thing i learned some time ago! hope you all find it helpful ( perspective grids can be your friend!)

anatoref

Hands Row 1 & 2 Row 3 Row 4 Row 5 & 6 Row 7

chicinlicin

Someone asked about animating tails a while ago, thought I’d add in wings as well! I’ve got more stuff on animating with waves here, clothes and hair too.

Just a little extra note, slow motion videos of animals flying are really good to check as references if you’re stuck on timing or how much arcing the wings should do!

sarahculture

Tips on Drawing Hands Tutorial

Hope this is helpful!

Twitter

DeviantArt

t-n-r

[pixiv] [part 2]

latesummersolstice

supersatanson

Now that’s a kickass tutorial on how to develop your hair technique!

grimphantom2

This is good tutorial

bonkalore

Trying to draw buildings

archive7481465

yo here’s a useful tip from your fellow art ho cynellis… use google sketchup to create a model of the room/building/town you’re trying to draw… then take a screenshot & use it as a reference! It’s simple & fun!

moorecolinart-deactivated201810

Sketchup is incredibly helpful. I can’t recommend it enough.

There’s a 3D model warehouse where you can download all kinds of stuff so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.

vanjestic-deactivated20160131

reblog to save a life

bludragongal

This is an incomplete tutorial, and it drives me crazy every time I see it come around.

We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.

Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:

How do you populate your backgrounds?

Well, here’s the answer:

If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.

The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.

How do you fix this?

Well, here’s the simplest solution:

This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.

From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)

From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)

Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.

Your creations live in a unique world, and it is as much a character as any other member of the cast. Make it as believable as they are.

shatterstag

Great comments and tutorials!

I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!

Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!

Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)

The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.

By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!

Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.

We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!

Proper 3d modeling software is immensely powerful, and if you wanted to, you could model a complex environment that occurs regularly in your comic or illustration work (say, a castle interior, or an outdoor forest environment) and populate the scene with as many perspective-grounded characters as you need!