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KASTLE COMICS TUTORIAL
All righty, this here is a step-by-step process on how I go about drawing a typical Kastle Comics page. Normally, I do all my drawing at work, but I deliberately had to do this one at home so I could get to my scanner. The things I do for you people. :) Okay, so Kastle Comics starts like any other comic-- with a script. I’ve got this ultra-spiffy pirate notebook I got from Jason that has the skull watermark on every page. Total inspiration-maker right there, folks. Pirates kick ass. Pirates FTW
As you can see, it’s kinda messy. I don’t like writing with pencils (those are for drawing only!) so all my scripting is done with a pen and scribbled out a bazillion times and stuff like that. I carry this notebook around with me all the time, and jot down ideas as they come to me, or as they’re being said at the store. So, I’ve got the two scripts I’m working with, because two comic strips fit on one page, time to break out the supplies. Supplies
Most of what I use isn’t fancy. I’ve got a .5 mechanical pencil, sharpies of various sizes, and a metal ruler. I used to ink everything with Micron pens or Steadtler tech pens, but I recently got a Rapidograph set from a customer, and I am SO in love with those pens. So that’s what I use for everything these days, cause they so smooooth. As far as paper goes, I’m drawing on 11x17 Strathmore Drawing Paper, the spiral-bound pad. All righty! Let’s start drawing!! Woohoo! First thing I do is lay out the borders and panels and all that jazz. Take a gander. Borders n' Such
Me and rulers don’t really get along very well, so eight out of ten times, my lines aren’t very straight. It’s not that big a deal, but it’s kind of annoying later. But whatev. They don’t like me, I don’t like them… Meh. So I use my ruler to draw about an inch border around everything, so give me extra working space, then measure and draw the panel borders. When I write the script in my notebook, I make a mental note of how many panels I want, where I want them, all that jazz. I don’t ever do thumbnails because I usually already have a pretty good idea of what I want to be going on. Next up, I write in the dialogue. Dialogue
I always write in the dialogue and draw the speech bubbles before I draw the people, because it’s easier to fit people around the word bubbles than vice versa. When I first started the comic, I didn’t always do it this way, and it ended up with people’s heads intersecting the speech bubbles and awkward word placements and stuff. As you can tell, my comic handwriting is infinitely more legible than my script book handwriting. I do that for you guys. J See? More of the luff. Nextly up, let’s draw us some peoples, yo! Drawing Teh Peoples
Um, apparently my scanner messed up in the middle of this page, and I didn’t catch it until after I finished inking everything. Soooo, ignore the blobby squiggly messy thingy right there. You can see around the squiggly mess, that I have drawn me some peoples! Like I said, I don’t do much thumbnailing or layouts, I just jump right into it. I don’t have character sheets or anything, but I’ve drawn me and Stan and Wess and Jason so many times that I don’t really need any. That random guy, however, I had to go back to the previous strip and double-check what he looked like so people can tell he’s the same dude. I keep my pencils pretty clean for the most part, because the characters in this are pretty simple to draw. When things get more complicated, though, my pencils are a MESS, and it’s horribly hideous and scratchy and confusing and bleh. Inking
Now we delve into the sharpies and pens and such. Again, I start with the words and panel borders. I use a sharpie for the borders and speech bubbles, because Rapidograph doesn’t make a thick enough pen. Sometimes at this point I decide to slightly change the placement of the words to accommodate the characters, like the second panel on the bottom row. The little shout bubble right on top of her head was awkward, and it made more sense to put it off to the side where there was more room. More Inking
After I finish with the words, I ink the people. I just use a solid, flat line for everything at this point. For smaller details, like facial expressions on really little shots, I’ll use a thinner pen. This is just the basic outlines of everything. Eraser Time
When the outlines are all inked and such, I go through and erase the pencil lines, leaving pretty crisp blackness. Gotta love that stuff, yo. Erasing is my absolute least favorite part about the entire drawing process. There’s too much unnecessary physical activity, it makes a mess of eraser shavings everywhere, and there’s always that risk that you’ll mess up and your hand will slip, and you end up crinkling the edge of your paper. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done that! That’s another reason I put that inch-wide border around the edge of the paper when I start, so that I never actually have to erase at the very edge, which is the most dangerous place for an eraser to be! Pho-Color
After those nasty pencil lines are gone, the sharpies have they way with the page. This is kind of the “coloring” step. I fill in anywhere that’s going to be solid black with sharpies, and then use a small pen to shade in any grey areas. I also apparently outlined a few of the characters with a sharpie to separate them from their background a little bit. Poppin' Fresh
This is where things really start looking good. I go back over my linework with my pen, and thicken certain parts of the lines to make things stand out. Places where things overlap each other, or where things would cast a shadow, or where things curve a lot, I thicken the lines. Those are the basic rules, anyway. Sometimes I’ll just add thick lines wherever the hell I want, just cause it looks good. It’s one of those things you just hafta eyeball. Place I always add shadow are under the chin where it overlaps the neck, and where the sleeve of a shirt meets the arm. Usually under the hair where it meets the face, too. And looks like I also added some background shtuff like shadows and shading and whatever. Boldify
And right here we’ve got the final step that I do by hand. I go back and bold some of the words for emphasis or just so that the dialogue doesn’t look flat. Photoshopping
After that, I scan the comic onto the computer. I bring it into Photoshop, and adjust the Contrast and Levels until I get something nice and dark and smooth and crisp. Yummy. More Shopping
Using a guide to make sure I’ve got it exactly straight, I rotate the picture until it’s lined up right. Like I said before, my lines aren’t always straight, so I usually just adjust it so that middle line between the strips is straight, and kinda fudge the panel borders later if they’re a little crooked. Crop Circles
Once it’s straight, I copy one of the strips (with extra space around it) and paste it into a new document. Paint it Black
When the comic is on it’s own, I make a new layer, and using the Marquee and Paint Bucket tools, I fill in solid black around the edges and between the panel borders. This is where my fudging skills come into play. If a panel is a little crooked or something, I just paint black over the lines and make a new edge for it. It’s usually only off by a few pixels, so very little of the artwork is covered up, even when I royally screw up the ruler-ing. Almost There
Checkitout, mannn! Almost done! After I fill in black around and between everything, I crop away the excess, leaving a border around all sides, with a slightly thicker border at the bottom. Then I just type in my little copyright thingy, and BAM! It’s done! BAM!
And there you have it. That’s how I do things. Obviously, that’s a way that works for me, but every artist is a different creature, and what works for me may not work for you. I know people that draw straight with pen, or ink on the computer, or use Photoshop for their dialogue, stuff like that. The important thing is fiddling around with things and figuring out what you like and what methods and supplies work best for you. Well, there you have it. That’s how I get her done. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
Kastle Comics and all related stuff is (c) Sarah White 2008. |
