#comic process

Quick process post: the final, colored art for a couple of panels in OUTLAW'S APPRENTICE, the original art for it, and the digital roughs I used to... I was gonna say "write it," but I think I'll say "compose" it. The dialogue, moment choice, the composition, it's all the "writing" but that term suggests that the words and overarching story are driving things, but how the image is laid on the page both affects and is affected by those words.

How much room there is in the compositional space between one character and another dictates how much dialogue either speaks and a necessary line might compositionally suggest that a character has to perform a physical movement in order to provide the space for that balloon, and that movement may well dictate how the scene plays out (climbing a wall, for instance, and thus being in a position to see over it).

Everything affects everything else (or can, if you allow it to do so), and so often the term "writing" suggests a stage that precedes roughs rather than writing THROUGH them. So "composing" might be my favorite term for it.

some favourite bits from the upcoming taz comic I'm doing, and of course, my ultimate fav:

Who wants to see the mess that is (some of) my saved comic panel character assets/references.

I made this comic because my art has always gravitated towards comics, but my one attempt at a longform more original project was disastrous. I decided that everyone has to start their learning somewhere, so I did! I chose Kid Icarus: Uprising because the episodic format with a web novel style felt perfect to learn from and expand on. Also because the game is a banger. Here's some simple stuff that I took 22 chapters to learn, that is probably going to be even simpler than planned because my ipad died dead so I can't go for all the examples I had planned (give me a few days to type it all out).

REFERENCE SHEETS

Reference sheets serve multiple purposes and are honestly the most important thing to invest your effort in before starting a big project. Mine looked like this:

This is a good place to start! it gives a nice handy list of colors on a layer you can copy/paste into any canvas where this character appears. This is also where you should be understanding your character's design in order to draw it consistently. Their hairstyle, anything weird about their outfit, any details or decorations, this is where you need to iron it all out. Understand how it actually functions because that's how you're able to draw something from any angle. For non-OCs, this is where 3D models can be a big help, or even stuff like this little guy, who has lived on my desk for this entire project:

Say hi, Pit!

But there's also another use for the reference sheets, which I didn't understand at the time. In a longform comic, characters with a lot of screentime are going to need to be simplified, both for your mental health and the health of your hands. That damn crown, that shows up all the time at the start and mysteriously disappears at the end? Should've simplified it down at the start, that way I would've had a nice consistent design: