Do you have a great story to tell with pictures and words? Why not write a comic book? For help with sketching, developing characters, writing an interesting story, and creating all of these elements in book form, use these guidelines and hints.
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Part 1 of 4: Making Initial Sketches
Step 1. Sketch your characters or character ideas
Since comic book characters are very much defined by their appearance, making some sketches is a great way to inspire yourself to create a unique character – and maybe even give you plot ideas. You can start with a pencil, crayon, or even a digital design program depending on what gets your creative juices flowing.
Step 2. Practice drawing the characters, locations, and objects that will be in your story
Professionals call this a "model sheet." The more you practice, the more consistent the drawing will be, making it easier for your readers to "read" your artwork. Make sure you know how each character looks from all points of view, this will help your readers identify them, even if there's a lot of action around them on your pages.
Step 3. Practice drawing different facial expressions, postures and situations for each character
This will allow you to make your character look smoother and will help you solve some minor problems in your technique. Practice drawing your character with the four most important feelings (happy, angry, sad, and scared) in five different ways (slightly happy, sort of happy, very happy, incredibly happy, hysterically happy). This is a great way to practice drawing your character's facial traits. Since comic books are full of action, you'll also have to draw each character in a variety of action poses.
Part 2 of 4: Developing Character
Step 1. Perfect your key character
Developing your character's back story and personality is essential to making a good digital comic book. Even if you prefer not to reveal much to your readers at this point (e.g. Wolverine), it's important that you have a sense of your character's roots so you can make their behavior realistic and organic; their past experiences, victories, wounds, and failures should shape their reactions to new situations. If the hero in your comic book is going to be a superhero, read How to Make a Super Hero for advice. Otherwise, read How to Create a Fiction Character from Scratch.
Develop an antagonist/rival/bad guy personality, but don't get too deep into the story itself. Overexplaining about the antagonists will take away their uniqueness (which is why the Joker is still interesting) and bore into the larger conflict in the story. On top of that, since the comic has to cover a lot in a limited amount of time, there's no time for the reader to be distracted by anyone other than the protagonist. Examples of cartoons such as Biowars, the protagonist is actually related to biology, so don't force your storyline to be based on humans or monsters
Step 2. Make each character completely different physically
If you are a beginner, it will be difficult to make specific features on your character's face and you don't want your readers to confuse your rival and your hero. If your protagonist has short blonde hair, make his rival have long black hair. If your protagonist is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, make his rival wear jeans and a lab coat (or whatever). If possible, match your character's outfit to their general demeanor; bad boy clothes, and so on.
Step 3. If this is your first story, don't include too many characters
A common mistake in beginner comics is that there are too many characters and it makes your readers lose interest in the main character's story. Simple. For a very short story, a good number is three characters. This can be the protagonist, antagonist, and helper of the protagonist if your story is about a quest, or it can be the protagonist, rival, and loved ones of the protagonist if it is a love story.
Part 3 of 4: Forging a Storyline
Step 1. Introduce the key character
This is usually the protagonist, but if your villain is particularly interesting, you might want to open up with him (especially if you want to set an atmosphere of corruption, mischief, or terror for the whole story). You will need to discuss who he is and what his life is like at this point to let readers connect. Remember to cover all the important details of that character's life. You may have thought about this story for a very long time, but readers are finding it and may not understand it very well if you miss some other details.
Step 2. Introduce the element that initiates the action
It could be something that causes a disturbance in your main character's daily life. Be sure to point out why this is different from your character's habits.
Step 3. Send the protagonist on a quest
It's your character's adventure to get things right (or, if you choose an anti-hero, to cause something to go wrong). This is where you can add lots of twists and turns to keep your readers interested. Remember that you want your readers to stay interested but you don't want to lose them, so stick to the idea of a world in which your character evolves.
Step 4. Bring the conflict to a climax
This is where your main character decides to choose or is forced into a major confrontation that changes all parties involved forever. Avoid the temptation to show off how capable your hero is by making victory seem too easy; The best confrontations are where the participants are evenly matched and the audience is genuinely scared for the characters they love. This is the moment the reader will hold their breath to see what happens.
Step 5. End of story
This is where the reader sees everything gathered together. Make sure the ending gives you a feeling of accomplishment free of emotional tension. If this worked for you, it should work for your readers.
Part 4 of 4: Perfect the Comic Book
Step 1. Create a thumbnail for the story
To help you, write a timeline with each stage or event in the story and write in advance how many pages you will devote to each event: that way you won't make the mistake of making an insignificant event have more pages than the climax. Then, create thumbnails based on how you distributed your events. It doesn't necessarily have to be a full script based on what you wrote: thumbnails are small, sketch versions of each page. Use thumbnails for your "plot details" - decide how much story you're going to tell on each page and each panel. Think about how to compose each panel and how to convey it to the reader. Don't be afraid to try lots of different thumbnails, organizing your story in different ways. Since they are small and sketchy, you won't have to spend as much time on them as you would on drawing the page.
Step 2. Cut a nice panel
Stack these (in order), discard the rejected ones, and create additional panels if needed. If you like certain aspects of the rejected panels, be sure to explore them in your other endeavors.
Step 3. Draw the panel boundaries for your final page
Use your final thumbnail as a guide. This can get loose at this stage, when you start placing your final artwork in the courtyard space. You can decide something from the thumbnail needs to be a little bigger, or smaller, or emphasize less or more. It's time to make those last-second decisions.
Step 4. Write thinly the words
You may be tempted to start drawing first, but you need to make sure there is room for your text box and words or thought balloons. Planning your copy placement now will save you a lot of headaches later.
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Watch out for the speech bubbles. A reader will naturally read a bubble above and to the left first. Keep that in mind when you position them for a dialogue.
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Step 5. Sketch the picture
Make sure everything on each panel is clear and works the way you want it to. Is the picture swarming around the writing until it's squashed into one corner and hard to read? Do speech bubbles get in the way of important details in your drawing? Is everything clear and easy to understand? This is called a "pencil". Try to use a sharpened pencil so people can read your comic. Maybe a good mechanical pencil. Some artists use a non-repro blue pencil to make rough sketches of their panel designs and characters. The reason is that these ultra-light blue pencils don't appear on photocopying and black-and-white prints, so there's no need to erase them later. Then you can correct your drawing with your pencil. Work lightly - any lines that overlap your inkwork will appear on the final page of the comic.
Remember to have someone reread each page to make sure it's clear enough. If your friend asks you any question like "What do you mean by that?" or "How did the character get here?", the page is not clear enough
Step 6. Finish your pencil
Add details to characters, objects, and backgrounds.
Step 7. Ink your finished page if desired
Some artists leave their work in pencil ("Herobear and the Kid" is one example). However, most comics are inked on a finished pencil. Use whatever you feel most comfortable with - or consider handing the pages to someone to ink (as the big companies do). Use a Penstix, Rapidograph, or thorn, brush and Indian ink will bring life to work. Pay attention to line thickness - in general, outlines or edges are thicker, while details like facial lines and fabric wrinkles are lighter and more subtle. Ink the border lines.
Step 8. Determine your type or ink your letters
The process of writing words is very important - it will tell half of your story, while pictures will tell the other half. Handwriting can be time consuming and difficult, but it looks amazing when done by a skilled calligrapher. Use a pencil to make rough sketches of your writing - there's nothing worse than running out of space in a speech bubble. Or consider using Word or something similar, and a font like Comic Sans to make your letters perfect and legible. Don't forget to check spelling!! Grammar is important in writing.
Step 9. Find a title for your story
This is not always as simple as it sounds. If you've found it, great. If you haven't already, start by writing as many words related to your story as possible. Try to write about 50 to 100 for a short story or 100 to 200 if a long story. (Troublesome, yes, but will expand the boundaries of your imagination and force you to think of something a little more creative). Then, join the words together to make a title. After making several combinations, choose the one you like the most and ask some friends to help you. Always have a second, third, fourth, or even fifth opinion. Ask your friends which title makes them want to read the comic the most.
Step 10. Decide whether to publish your comic book or not
If it turns out really well, you might even be able to sell it to Comic Con. If the results aren't spectacular (or you're not interested in publishing), you can create a Facebook page about it or post it on YouTube!
Tips
- Make the cover page colorful and catch the eye.
- Read real comic books. You might want to see the real thing before you start.
- Don't be afraid to repeat a story or page that you don't think fits. All the work you have done will always be useful even if you feel in vain. Remember, practice makes perfect.
- Try to think before you draw or write something. You don't want to write or draw something that isn't what you think it is.
- Don't make the story too long or too short. If it is too short, readers who are interested in the comic will feel disappointed. And if the story is too long and complicated, eventually the reader will lose interest.
- While writing a comic book, balance the amount of action and dialogue. Too much action will seem too extreme. Too much dialogue, the comic will look boring and bland.
- Which is consistent with your idea.
- Often make other people reread your story. Don't be afraid to be criticized. It's often hard when someone points out something that doesn't fit in something you've worked so hard for, but it's important. Remember that your opinion is not objective.
