I’ve just seen a Book lookylikey (a bookylikey) – Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch cover (by Paul Kidby) is exactly like Rembrandt’s painting! I don’t know who this Rembrandt guy is, but he sure ripped-off Pratchett…
Okay, I´m back for the second post. I´m going to talk about layout
Keep in mind how many pages you have to fill and try to separate these pages in to scenes. An example; your characters meet, find a stray dog and take it home with them. Assign pages to the plot points. Say you have 5 pages; break up your story. The two first two could introduce the characters and show what they´re doing, one page to find the dog and the two last for them to make a decision and show them taking the dog home.
Once you have that, you need to decide what you want each page to look like. Wide margins, thin ones, none? Do you want big drawings to cover the page or lots of small panels? The more modern comics or graphic novels go for the bigger panels often filling the whole page, the advange is that it gives you a lot of space to do your drawing, you can be more artistic with it, rather than representing exactly what´s happening. Use the layout and contents of the panels to your advantage, you can transmit a lot of emotion though perspective, angles and even the spacing between panels. Do quick scketches of your page with what drawings you want to appear on it, write out the text for that page nearby so you can work out what needs to be seen in that panel.
You may decide to change the drawing inside the panels themselves when you come to draw the actual comic, but it just the basic idea and look that you´re going for, a little like a storyboard for a film.
Carry on sketching until you´re happy with you layout and it isn´t confusing, from there you can start drawing the final pages.
It´s best to use 2h or 4h pencils when doing the final pages and don´t press hard, the pencil is just a guideline for the pen and it you make it to hard it will show even after rubbing out and will cause the penlines to smear and blotch. Underneath the text is an example of page layout and final product. As you will be able to see, there are quite a few changes but the basic idea is there. Okay, that´s all for now!
De acuerdo, estoy de vuelta para el segundo post. Voy a hablar del croquis.
Hello everyone!
My cousin recently asked me for a few tips on a graphic novel he has to do for a project. I thought I´d post them here incase they were helpful to anyone else. I´ll be posting about planning the story first and later add more tips on different points of the process. These tips are more for graphic novels than for comic strips.
The story- Before you can start, you really need to have your story clear in you head. You need to know exactly how it starts and ends and what information you need to give. Work out you characters carefully whilst you design them, they´re just as important as the plot. You need to know what they can and can´t do, what their reactions would be and what knowledge they´d have to be able to develop the story around them. For example, if your story involves the characters using greek mythology at some point it´s good to have a character who is involved with that or maybe would have access to that information. If you don´t then tweek a charater so that they do.
This will help fill any plot holes or dodgy leaps in the storytelling.
Think Hermione or Dumbledore in Harry Potter; the group needs to know something? Hermione is the fountain of all knowledge.
The design of your characters needs to fit the story, so keep that in mind as you create them. Should they be wearing a certain style of clothing? Do they have scars? Do they look like they fit in the story you´re telling?
Work out how much you can say through the drawings and try to keep text to the minimum. If, for example, your character is in a prison, you can just draw the prison as backgroud instead of having to explain in text that they´ve been captured and put in a prison.
Obviously many graphic novels have lots of text but the page will seem much clearer and less confusing the less text you have. I always think that the text should be used only for things that you can´t imply in the drawing or, if you´re having trouble with space, to save yourself a couple of panels.
Okay I´ve strayed a bit from the original point but these are all things that need thinking about early on. If you´ve only got a few pages you can´t make your story too complicated or it won´t be understood.
In the next post I´ll give some tips for laying out the comic.
Until next time, I´ll continue stalking Joe! and Jayme and doodling comics about their shenanigans
Esto ayudará a rellenar cualquier agujero del argumento o salto tramposo en la historia.
Piensa en Hermione o Dumbledore en Harry Potter; Âżel grupo necesita saber algo? Hermione es la fuente de todo el conocimiento.
El diseño de tus personajes necesita encajar en la historia, asĂ que tenlo en cuenta cuando los crees. ÂżDeberĂan vestir algĂşn tipo concreto de ropa? ÂżTienen cicatrices?ÂżParece que encajan en la historia que estás contando?.
Obviamente muchas novelas gráficas tienen un montĂłn de texto, pero la página parecerá mucho más clara y menos confusa cuanto menos texto tengas. Siempre pienso que el texto deberĂa usarse sĂłlo para las cosas que no puedes implicar en un dibujo o, si tienes problemas con el espacio, para ahorrar un par de paneles.
