I'm not home (on a trip right now with family), but I still want to talk a little bit about my process, so I did what I could to find some wip shots 🧡
Plus, I'd also like to update my extremely patient readers with a little taste of what's to come!!!
Step one, of course, is writing.
When I'm writing I have four documents open. A "dump" document, a "yes this!" Document, an outline document, and a drawing canvas!
In the dump document, I put ANYTHING. complete stream of consciousness. The 'yes this' document is where I put anything useful from the dump document, and the outline is, of course, the outline. The drawing canvas is for me to sketch out problems and ideas and get sort of a different angle on things, since I can't really visualize.
Once I have a book completely written, I start thumbnailing!
My thumbnails pretty much look like this. Text, sketchy poses, indications of expression and maybe environment...
I thumbnail the entire book at once. I don't let myself do any edits on it until it's done, but I take note of edits I'd like to make! Then, once the first draft is out, I edit.
I'll move entire scenes, delete whole episodes, bring in bits from the end to have proper foreshadowing... Etc! It's a long process that makes my arcs feel much more complete and something I can be really proud of.
I can only do this when I'm really ahead, though, so that's why I've been on a long hiatus!!! I was forced to work without my process for a few arcs, and the difference is so huge to me that I refuse to let myself do it again. It makes a loner hiatus, but work way more worth waiting for!
Yes, I skip sketches! I go right into lines.
I save every head I've ever drawn, and that lets me copy paste in a basic head angle. Then I redo the face, fix up the hair, etc. so it fits my panel, and then I draw the rest of the body!
This seriously saves me so much time, but less so for the drawing (i still draw a ton of heads and I'm very fast) and more just for helping me skip sketching entirely!
Then I do character flats, which since all my lines are closed that goes pretty quickly (slowest part is Steve's hair, I refuse to use a brush cause every one I've made looks terrible!!!)
And then I draw the backgrounds!
Which, I keep layered, clean, and HUGE so I can use them throughout the arc.
I used to feel bad doing this, but then I realized... It's not like backgrounds "change" irl. So why make them change in my comics...? It saves me so much time, but it ALSO lets me put in more detail per background! I draw probably 3 very large backgrounds per episode like this, and then I draw maybe 5-10 unique backgrounds for single panels per episode as well. I save these too, but they're rarely re-used.
And then my panels are done!!!
So there's a bit of my process for you all!!!
And here's my comic, if you haven't read it and want to see the end result of this process, or if you have read it and would enjoy a re-read with the extra knowledge:
Every full moon, the rambunctious werewolf Steve is forced to time travel. To his dismay, circumstances require that vampire agent Adam keep
Or, if you would prefer books I have those too!
Happy to elaborate on any step, as well!
I make comics extremely quickly and as my full time job, and my process allows me to easily manipulate my format as well. I'm happy to share any of my knowledge if you have questions!!!