Hey folks – the first of a series of idrawdigital books will be released in early 2010. The book, which is titled: Drawing Comic Books – The idrawdigital Method of Creating Your Own Comics from Start to Finish is currently in production and I will be posting more updates as the sections near completion.

Check the site in the next few weeks for the subscription sign-up form. If you subscribe to the idrawdigital blog updates, you’ll receive a free copy of the book!

Spread the word – get your hands on your very own copy of the first idrawdigital tutorial book, and you’ll be able to create your own comics from concept to completion.

In this previous post about drawing backgrounds, I wrote about their importance and how to apply them to your comics in order to add further detail to your stories. Without some kind of defining background (whether its a colour, abstract linework, or a beautifully rendered scene) your foreground characters will just appear like they are floating in dead space with no purpose. This quick tutorial will give you a few more advanced techniques for backgrounds, and how to keep a nice big library for use at a moments notice.

Establish your Settings

If your comic is set in the city, amass a folder filled with reference shots in the city. Skylines, high and low angle views, rooftops, sidewalks, interesting buildings, street scenes, traffic, etc. The more reference photos you have, the better. If your comic is set in the wilderness, you’ll want trees, mountains, lakes, rivers and all sorts of natural vegetation. Separate these files into folders based on location.

Make a Composite Image

You may find yourself seaming two or three photos together in order to get the right look for your scene. Using photo editing software like Photoshop allows you to alter your images in order to create the basic background you are looking for. Here’s some basic tips on how to do this:

Using the transform tools to warp, skew and twist your photos to fit can save you a lot of time trying to figure out what the structures would look like on an angle. Save time and use photo reference where necessary.

Render your Image

Once you’ve set up your photo reference, merge your layers together.

Reduce the opacity of that layer to 40-50% so you can see what you are drawing over.

Your work area should be somewhat transparent.

Now, proceed to trace out your background on a separate layer. Use a variety of different brushes for increasing line weight and creating depth.

I prefer to use a bright colour such as a lime green or a bright red. This shows me where I have traced – using flat black can lead to some problems if the photo below has a lot of dark patches (like the night scene in this example.)

Once your background has been traced out, use the black and white filter to convert your colored line to black.

The Black and White adjustment has a number of options to convert the color on your layer to black and white – choose ‘Maximum Black‘ in the settings.

Adjust the sliders in the dialog box until you have found a dark black that does not lose any of its edge fidelity (gets jagged or too blurry) and click OK. You have converted your background line art into solid black.

Creating the Library

With all of these background files for use in specific situations, you will have an easier time keeping a consistent look to your setting, as well as saving time. I most of your story takes place in a certain area, reusing and modifying the line work is much easier than redrawing it all by hand. This helpful set of shortcuts will make you comics process way more efficient.

Tune in next time for another how to draw comics tutorial from idrawdigital. Check back through some of the previous articles for tips on color, inking and pencils.

So you think you’re ready to jump into your comic/webcomic, right? You have a script, you have a schedule, you have drive, ambition and motivation. Now you need to put pen to paper, or in a digital sense, stylus to tablet. If you’re wondering what tools artists use to master their craft, look no further – idrawdigital is going to give you the run-down on the must have items a comic book artist should have in his / her arsenal.

Drawing Pads

I know I preach a lot about doing everything digitally – but there may come a time when you don’t have access to a computer or have the itch to kick it old school and draw using pencil, pen and paper. There’s nothing quite like the feel of sketching on a natural surface, and it will also keep your skills sharp, your planning in composition and proportion exact, and force you to analyze your subjects more carefully. There is no UNDO feature when you draw by hand – unless you count your eraser, and that can be quite time consuming and sometimes messy.

Go to your local art store or stationery supply store and stock up on a few sketchpads of various sizes. Amazon offers various brands as well if you’re interested in purchasing online for dirt cheap (click the image.)  Keep all your random scribbles and concepts – they make great conversation pieces and journals for the projects you’ve worked on – and they also make great reference material as well, where you can go back and skim for hidden gold you may have forgotten about.

Pencils and Inks

If you’re planning on going the hand drawn route at different stages of your production (you could start with pencils and scan them in, or do your roughs digitally and ink by hand, etc) you’ll need these tools at your disposal. Make sure you buy a graphite pencil set with varying degrees of hardness, there are also non-repro versions as well (the blue line pencils that don’t appear when photocopied). For inking, you can use the traditional quill with ink for supreme control, or mimic that elegant line weight result with technical pens with varying point sizes (from millimeters to brush width!)

A Digital Drawing Tablet (WACOM)

The weapon of choice for digital comic artists – this is the keystone for all digitally created artwork. There are other cheaper brands, but for the purpose of this list, I will be referring to the WACOM brand of tablets. With a plethora of touch sensitive options, advanced cursor control and key mapping functions, the digital tablet is as close to drawing naturally as you’re going to get in the digital realm. There are a number of tablet products ranging from the small and simple, to the expensive and complex. The higher-end versions allow you to draw directly on screen (the Cintiq by WACOM doubles as a touch sensitive monitor) and simulate the feeling of drawing. If you master the use of a tablet, you are well on your way to a fully digital workflow. For more information on using your WACOM tablet, check out this post.

A Flatbed Scanner

If you insist on doing your artwork by hand using traditional means, you’ll definitely want to scan it into your computer in order to complete the job. Sending electronic proofs, cleaning up inks and pencil work, or just tightening up the artwork and converting it to digital format requires the use of a reliable scanner. Scanners come in a number of sizes that can accommodate oversized sheets (especially bristol pages) and have a range of resolution (dpi) depths dependent on your need (large format printing or just high quality). Having a scanner in your arsenal is essential if you’re planning to draw comics.

Software

The final tool you need when you’re learning how to draw comics is the purchase of licensed software. There are a number of drawing programs available – whether you’re following the fully digital workflow, or traditional means, drawing software is absolutely necessary for building your work, or preparing your scanned image for final output on press or online.

I’ve given brief reviews in another post on the different drawing software that is available – there are free options, and expensive high-quality versions. All of the software has a try before you buy option – so you don’t have to commit to an expensive purchase if you’re uncomfortable using the programs.

There you have it – get these tools in your possession, and you’ll be ready to tackle any of your comics projects. Go forth and create!

I’ve started a fan page over at Facebook if you’re interested on keeping up to date on this site via Facebook alerts, or if you want to discuss comics related topics in general – head on over.

In case you hadn’t seen the button on the left hand column, I have a Twitter account you can follow as well – whenever the Facebook page is updated, a Tweet gets sent. But I also use Twitter for other updates for my sketchbook blog over at Tumblr – and other random stuff I come across.

The other side blog I have is my new sketchbook which you can find over at Tumblr. I’ll be posting my latest projects and giving updates on how all of that stuff is progressing. I didn’t want to put any of those updates on here, since idrawdigital is more tutorial and learning based. My personal comics stuff should have its own place.

Thanks for the support!

I’ve been practicing and preaching about the digital workflow for presenting comics for quite some time. It is perfectly fine to draw and ink and color by hand, but if you are on a time-sensitive schedule, or you want to simply speed up the process, you may want to consider making the jump to digital for a number of reasons. This post will discuss the benefits of learning how to draw comics using a purely digital workflow.

Many seasoned artists have a set routine when it comes to their workflow. They sit at their desk for a set number of hours per day, have certain tools at their disposal, set a certain amount of days to achieve production goals, and are quite comfortable in their approach. While it sounds like the ideal situation, it may not be the best method for everyone. The traditional workflow for a comic artist generally looks like this:

Rough sketches > Pencils > Inks > Color > Final tweaks

Now, if you’re working for an editor who has a number of specific changes, this can be extremely time consuming. Drawing out your panel roughs and presenting them, then going back and erasing, redrawing and presenting again can be a serious hassle and eat up valuable time. Especially if you have to scan in these changes, convert them to a JPEG file and e-mail them on for review.

Using a fully digital workflow for creating comics saves a lot of time you would spend erasing planning lines, tracing from a lightbox, photocopying and resizing, and scanning. All of these physical actions are virtually eliminated, giving you more time to come up with quick concepts and sketches, then refinements to those sketches.

Instead of lugging around a sketchbook, full sheets of bristol, your pencils, inks, brushes and other miscellaneous tools, everything you need is in a file or two and on one (or maybe two) programs on your computer. If you use Photoshop, you can set up various layers for your ideas and concepts and use them as reference. You won’t have to keep multiple sheets and layout pages and cut pieces from all over in order to make something complete – you’ll have the ability to do all of that in one spot! Here’s how to draw comics using the digital process.

From Roughs to Pencils: Once you’ve sketched out your rough plan, you can simply create a new layer above it, and proceed to trace and refine your artwork.  This eliminates the lightbox step.

Pencils and Revisions: When the pencils have been set and it is time to make modifications to perspective, proportions or the overall look of your panels, you can easily distort, copy, move and adjust your artwork without having to draw/erase/draw like you would with traditional pencils and paper.

From Pencils to Inks: At this stage, you can create a new layer above your pencils, and simply retrace and modify them – or you can duplicate your pencils, darken the linework and add in your ink details. There are no faint pencil lines you need to erase after inking in order to clean up your image – you’ve already created a clean, inked page with a few button clicks and WACOM stylus strokes. The digitally inked page is also more precise and has cleaner edges – traditional inks can bleed on the page and cause the edges to look fuzzy.

From Inks to Color: Once your final solid inks have been created, you can proceed to color your work using numerous digital effects and techniques – airbrushing, metallics, smooth gradients, light effects – can all be achieved in less time. The bonus to this is, if you don’t like the result, you can simply undo it and try it again. This eliminates any guesswork and failures after experimentation. You wouldn’t be able to get away with that if you rendered your colour by hand. Also, your colors will have been chosen specifically using the printed color gamut, so you won’t have any surprises when the final piece is created. There is no conversion necessary from a scanned image.

Adding Dialogue and Sound Effects: With a wide variety of comic book styled fonts and lettering, you can set your dialogue and sound effects in place in minutes. Instead of trying to determine where these items will be placed in relation to the drawn page, and hand rendering letters, you can easily type them on to your screen, then resize and distort them to fit.

The Finished Piece: Now that your page has been drawn, inked, colored and lettered, there is no need for a final scan in order to prepare the file for printing (since modern print-shops create rips from digital files). Your file is already 100% digital, and is print ready.

Another benefit to the digital workflow include the ability to use and obtain reference material. You may have a folder or a file that contains various poses, landmarks, color inspiration etc. that you can view at a moments notice. You can drag these elements into your working file and use them as reference from a spot on your desktop – it is almost like having a digital drawing table with all of your photographed resource material laid out in front of you.

The real benefit comes from being able to make all of those items disappear by turning the visibility of a layer on or off in your Photoshop file.

There is my basic plug for using the digital workflow method when you are learning how to draw comics. These techniques are extremely effective in saving you time, and I highly recommend them. It may take some time to find a comfortable routine, and it may be a big expense initially (if you do not have all of the tools and software first) – but the end result pays huge dividends. You can start out slowly – replace one of your traditional steps (pencils, inks or color) with a digital method, and eventually you will be confident enough to replace a number of the steps until you are using a fully digital workflow for your comics.

Experiment and practice – you’ll be more efficient with time!

Hey folks!

Today we’re going to jump into a lesson on lettering in comics. Often seen as an afterthought by many rookie artists, the lettering component of comics can be the deal breaker that makes your comic look professional and well crafted, or poorly planned. If you are just learning how to draw comics, the very first step you should take is to carefully plan out where your dialogue and sound effects will be placed on the panel in relation to your artwork. Essentially, the speech bubbles and sound effects are artwork in their own right and should work alongside the figures and backgrounds to create a complete composition. Here’s a brief tutorial on proper lettering techniques, and how to use them to your advantage.

Expression and Tone

Lettering is more than placing word bubbles on a page and attempting to avoid characters heads or important focal points in the artwork. Lettering serves as an additional method of advancing the story, through direct eye movement and through narrative/dialogue. As you draw comics, there may be a message you are trying to convey within a panel – the formatting of the lettering can play an important part in expression. For example -

The example on the left is fine – the exclamation is there, and the tone appears serious. If you were to use the example on the right, it has tremendous impact – it is perceived to be a loud yell, a bold statement, an exclamation and an order coming from someone who is clearly showing force and authority. Now, if THAT is the message you’re trying to get across, the example on the right is how you should render your lettering. If the statement is subdued and serious in tone, the rendering on the left can be used to express a different type of emotion in speech.

Placement and Direction

Another important item in effective lettering is placement. Since speech and narrative balloons take up space on your panels, they should also lead your reader through your panels alongside the direction of your artwork. Visually leading a reader through the panels is vital in maintaining a comfortable storytelling pace. If the flow is broken up and the reader has to figure out which panel they should go to next, you have disrupted their concentration and pulled them away from the experience. The key is to keep the reader immersed in the story. The composition, the pencils, inks and colors can only do so much in leading the eye – if the viewer has to read dialogue, it MUST be placed in a logical area to limit confusion and distraction.

Here’s an example featuring Marvel’s ‘Deadpool‘ – take note of the direction of your eye…

If you managed to read the dialogue, your eye should have traveled in this path (more or less) -

Did you notice how the speech bubbles and thoughts propelled you in the right direction, in conjunction with the rendered artwork? If the lettering was merely ‘slapped on’ you could potentially be led off of the page, or lost in details that are unimportant to the story. In this example, the story is advanced through the actual dialogue and through the placement of the lettering. Also, note the various tones in Deadpool’s speech – he goes from being calm, to surprised, to angry, and then to evil – if the lettering was rendered in the same fashion throughout the page, the emotions would not be as clear.

Font Selection and Examples

The last lettering tip I’m going to share today deals with font selection. Back in the day, lettering was all done by hand, so the majority of the rendered words in comics were unique from issue to issue. A person used to letter a comic title was often used for an extended run, in order to keep the look consistent. With the advent of computers and technology, hand rendered lettering is slowly becoming obsolete. Custom lettering is still widely used, but the hand drawn letters are now scanned and converted into fonts that can be used over and over again. By applying the right font style, weight and color, you can add more impact and meaning to the spoken dialogue, thought or narrative. Here are some examples of hand rendered lettering from comics of years past:

Note the artistic nature of the lettering – it doesn’t have to be plain words on a page. By giving them life and dynamic action, you can heighten the intensity of the mood of your comic page. Remember, the lettering is also part of your artwork – so make sure it interacts well with the drawn images on your page! Determine where you’ll need emphasis in your lettering, and decide what style of font will express the emotion effectively.

Comic Book Font Downloads

If you run a search online for comic book lettering and fonts, there is a wide array of free examples to download and use as you learn how to draw comics.  One of the best resources for comic book lettering comes from BlamBot. Check out these font examples from the site:

In addition to fonts, BlamBot also features an array of speech bubble styles and sound-effects in a vector format for scalability.

There’s the lesson for the day – there will be a future lesson on more advanced lettering techniques in the next little while. For now, these basic tips should push you forward in your quest to learn how to draw comics effectively. Don’t just slap your words on the page – integrate them into your artwork, and make them an important component in your composition. See you next time!

Mainstream comics are brilliant displays of finely crafted artwork – with the relative costs of ink colors on press dropping significantly, comics publishers have taken advantage of full colour in order to grab the attention of readers. However, color is not just limited to eye-candy and attraction – great comics use color to capture the mood of a moment or to help with the pacing of a story. Here are a number of tips on how to draw comics more effectively through the use of color theory.

I’ve written a short step by step tutorial on applying color to your inked comics, and I have also posted a number of links to various tutorials on the basics of color theory. Have a look at those previous posts for additional information, in order to help you with some of the terminology and concepts explained in this post.

Color Combinations

Color combinations are used to create a pleasing arrangement to the reader’s eye, and to attempt to elicit a certain mood. Most of the time, this is done at a subconscious level, and when done correctly, will advance the story in a proper manner. There are a number of rules when using color that can be explained in full detail in the Color Theory post.

In comics, complementary colors are used to produce tension and also to produce harmony, depending on the response you are attempting to create. I have included this colour wheel by Don Jusko – his Real Color Wheel theory teaches the idea that darkened, shadowed colors achieve a neutral dark tone rather than a flat black devoid of any hue. This wheel was created for print/paint in order to take advantage of realistic color created under certain light conditions found in nature, and eliminates the use of black to create shadows (which makes your colors muddy and dull.)

For the greatest vibrancy of colour, use its direct complement (the pure colour directly across from it on the wheel). Note: Jusko’s wheel is quite different from the traditional color wheels you have seen. His complements are direct optical inverses of one another. If you are uncomfortable with this method, use the traditional wheel which relies on black to create shades.

Another method of effective color combination comes from the use of analogous colors. These colours are found beside one another on the colour wheel, and when used together, help to amplify moods. For example – using a combination of BLUE/BLUE GREEN/GREEN could create a feeling of doubt, mystery or an eerie, creepy effect – this is why it is commonly used in horror films and images.

There are also discordant color combinations, monochromatic (single-color), triadic (triangular equidistant on wheel) and more which you can use to add emphasis to your panels.

Temperature

We’ve all heard of cool and warm colors – but how do they work within comics? Well, similar to painting and color composition in drawing and photography, a cool colour palette within a comic panel will evoke a feeling of despair, sadness, melancholy, etc. At the same time, these tones will also slow down the pace of the story in that particular scene.

In these panels, Peter Parker reflects on some memories of Gwen Stacy while he’s cleaning out some stuff in his attic and coming across her picture.

To the untrained eye, you may have sensed a feeling of regret and reflection, coldness and emptiness – and it wasn’t merely the dialogue that evoked that feeling. The shades of blue and dramatic shadows helped intensify that feeling. Color is used to play upon the subconscious of readers. We associate colors with feelings – and feelings are also associated with temperature. Anger, excitement, intensity, love, and happiness are associated with warmth and heat. Sadness, anguish, lonliness, despair, regret and misery are associated with cooler temperatures.

This temperature effect helps the colorist control the mood of the reader – if it is a tense action moment, perhaps the scene will have more reds and oranges to heighten the urgency. But a dramatic, sad scene like the one illustrated above will make use of subdued, cooler hues like blues and purples.

Determine the mood within the panel, and choose the right color to amplify it. Being subtle in pencils, inks and dialogue works some of the time – but effective color can really drive home the point.

Focal Points

We touched on creating focal points when you’re learning how to draw comics in this post about composition and layout. Now I’ll show you how color can enhance this direction. Look at this panel from Skaar: Son of Hulk, and see where the focal points of each panel are.

The huge yellow blast behind Skaar in the first panel draws emphasis to that particular area on the panel. It is an intense scene with a number of active elements on the page – a chasm opening up, rocks being smashed and flying about, all from Skaar pounding the ground. You could easily emphasize one of the wrong elements and have the scene be interpreted differently. In this example, the emphasis is on the power of Skaar’s impact. By using a fiery yellow blast, it also elevates the feeling of action and strength.

If you look at the last panel, you see the emphasis is on the red figures in the background. Their anger and rage is intensified with the red and yellow fiery tones. If you couldn’t tell they were pissed from the line drawings, you can sure figure it out now.

Another effect used on this page is saturated colors – in the second panel, the figures in the background are of lesser importance, so their colors are muted and desaturated. Meanwhile, in the foreground, Skaar’s leg appears much more prominent, partially because of the stronger line weight, but also because of the deeper, saturated color. The same effect is seen in the third panel – except this time, the background figures are prominent, and the foreground figures are subdued.

Subconscious Themes

As I mentioned earlier, color can be used to evoke feelings at a subconscious level through temperature and experiences from past associations. Another method of playing upon subconscious thought is through the use of polarization and dominance. Visually, the boldest color scheme is the primary color triad of RED-YELLOW-BLUE. Secondary to that is GREEN-ORANGE-VIOLET, and beyond that is the tertiary scheme of the in-between colors (YELLOW-GREEN, BLUE-VIOLET, RED-ORANGE etc)

Here’s an interesting observation you may not have noticed. Check every major superhero you know, and look at their color palette.

Captain America – Red and Blue
Spiderman – Red and Blue
Iron Man – Red and Yellow
Superman – Red, Yellow and Blue
Shazam – Red and Yellow

Now compare that to typical villains:
Doctor Octopus - Green
Dr. Doom – Green
The Hobgoblin – Green and Orange
The Green Goblin – Purple and Green
Parallax – Orange and Green

Notice a pattern? The heroes are often outfitted in the dominant primaries, while their evil counterparts are in secondary colors. This subconscious color scheme forces you to believe that the hero is the most dominant. I’ll bet some of you didn’t notice that. Now, this isn’t a cemented rule, but you can try that effect out in order to accentuate the main character in your next story.

Overall Effects

Smaller details such as warm glows, refracted light, mists and hazes, and environmental effects can also increase the dramatic effects in your panels. For example,

this image of Batman standing amongst the shadows shows the city of Gotham in a brooding, mysterious blue-grey haze. There is additional contrast to the focal point (Batman) where a cool bluish-white glow surrounds the hero. This intensifies the dark background and makes the city look even more sinister.

In this image, the warm glow of the sun casts a number of warm colors this sullen warrior. The front of the character has been washed with cooler tones, perhaps to bring out an evil side, but the colored highlights from the light source in the rear create contrast through some subdued complementary juxtaposition (red-oranges-yellows / blue-green-purples). In addition to the glow of the scorching sun, there are some wisps of mist in the chasm behind the main character, creating depth and separation of the foreground and background elements.

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That concludes our lesson for today – I hope you’re able to take some of these tips on using color effectively to help you learn how to draw comics that are vibrant and inspiring. If you’re looking for some color ideas and themes, check out Kuler – an Adobe project showcasing designers and artist’s color palettes to inspire and evoke moods for your next project. See you next time!

If you trace back the history of inking in comics, its sole purpose was to enhance the initial drawn lines by the penciller so they would reproduce properly when printed. Now, inking is an art form in itself – much more than simply tracing a penciller’s work. Inkers are required to take drawn panels and make them come to life with the use of dynamic lighting, depth with linework and shading, and add texture which may be lacking in the pencils. This important facet of comics is often overlooked and taken for granted.

The best inkers have the ability to determine how to make the important elements on the page ‘pop‘ and improve the linework. Inkers determine light sources, create convincing contrasts with shadow and light, and help separate visual planes to create a sense of depth. Without this step, comics may appear flat and lifeless – the right combination of ink can change the atmosphere of the story. Here are some examples of inked panels:

With the dark contrast areas in this Batman-Spiderman pinup, you can see the musculature and definition of both heroes, the folds and dynamic shape Batman’s cape takes on, and the rugged texture of the rooftops. The silhouettes of the city skyline also add to the dramatic nature of this panel. You wouldn’t achieve the same effect with pencils alone – therefore, inking serves as a key tool in developing scenes and defining shapes in your artwork. Even though they have been clearly laid out within the pencils, the ink gives the image a deeper, moodier appearance.

In order to be a successful inker, you must have a good working relationship with your penciller – as you are drawing overtop of their work and their vision. Make sure you’re on the same page (pardon the pun) when you’re working on a project together. There have been many documented occasions where a penciller will refuse to work with an inker over ruined work.

Secondly, make sure you know how to draw comics just as well as your penciller – if not, better. Understanding the physics and properties of light and shadow, anatomy and mastering the techniques of brush + ink, marker rendering, or pen work is abslutely vital in becoming a successful inker. You may also be called upon to fill in for a penciller who is behind on his work – where you are filling in details, adding texture and in some cases drawing complete panels from roughed in sketches. Trying to maintain a consistent style with your penciller is extremely important.

Here’s a few techniques to improve your inking when you’re learning how to draw comics:

1) Variable Line Width
This is the method of establishing form and creating some depth in your work.

Objects in the foreground should have thicker, darker outlines than ones in the distance. Your natural inclination is to look at the boldest, darkest item on the panel – so if your most important element is in the foreground, make sure it is outlined and detailed better than something behind it. A thicker line creates the perception of heavier weight and fuller form, whereas a thinner line recedes into the background.

2) Determine Light Source
Take a few seconds and create a point of reference for your light source.

It could be a simple symbol or a dot on your page (in the margin) to indicate where your light will be coming from. This will help you figure out which portions of your inked work will be cast in shadow. Remember to be consistent with your shadow placement in your panel, and from panel to panel as well.

3) Adding Washes and Hatching

A wash is a thin, diluted application of ink which creates a grey tone in the background. By building layers of wash, you can create different levels of contrasting greys, which do not detract from the solid black linework put into place.

Some artists use cross hatching as a method of creating shadows. A loose hatch appears more like a grey tone when viewed from afar, and also adds texture to your drawn elements. The downside of cross hatching is a rougher appearance – this may not be suitable for some artwork (superhero comics especially – which rely on clean, solid form). As you learn to draw comics, you’ll develop a signature style over time. Make sure your style works for your penciler.

4) Scratches, Dabs, and Erasing
To create some textural effects in your inked work, you can use an ex-acto knife or a dried out pen nib to scratch away and some of your solid pools of black to create some interesting scratchy textures, stone, masonry or woodgrains.

Using a molded putty style eraser creates soft, leathery textures by picking up dabs of ink and leaving behind some grey spatters. If you apply the eraser and different points by dabbing, you will create a blotchy, blobby texture that is an interesting effect for backgrounds or softer elements in your work. The dab technique also works with washes as well – use a brush with some watered down ink, and try blotting on the panel at different stages of wetness/dryness. You will create some cool looking patterns.

Once you’ve rendered your panels in pencil, try out some of these inking techniques (most of these can all be applied to digital work as well). Experiment and develop an inking style that suits your pencil work. Will it be slick and clean like the major houses (Marvel, DC, Image) or feature loose, scratchy effects with more grit, found in indie comics? If you’re working with a partner, make sure your styles complement one another, but don’t be afraid to offer your input – inking is not just tracing! For more tips, check out this previous post on simple digital inking techniques.

This concludes our latest installment on how to draw comics – stay tuned for more tips from idrawdigital.

A good comic book layout can capture a reader’s attention and keep them focused on your content. If your composition is poor and allows the viewer to exit your page, you haven’t mastered the art of leading people on through your layout. Here’s a few ways to improve your composition and page layout, and keep your readers interested by maintaining their eye on your work and dialogue.

The Grid

The earliest comics were always set up in a grid format, contained within white gutters (borders) and followed the logical Western method of reading – across from left to right + down to the next level & repeat. In this example from Jack Kirby, you see Captain America and Batroc the Leaper battling it out over a 9 square grid page layout, which reads very easily. The red arrows were added to illustrate the reader movement.

As comics grew in popularity and the talent level increased, artists injected their creative influences and began to produce layouts that did not necessarily conform to a grid format. While absolutely stunning to look at, these pages were a logical disaster if they weren’t planned properly. In order to keep the flow of the story intact, there are a number of grids that can be used throughout your comic to moderate pace, as well as allowing for eye-catching imagery.

The most common grids are the 9 and 6 panel grids. In a 20-24 page issue, the 9 panel grid is most useful when the story contains a lot of information that needs to be conveyed. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons did this effectively in The Watchmen series. The sample below is another 9 panel layout that splits two scenes going on at the exact same time, and creates an interesting visual effect.

Here is a standard 6 panel grid from the old newsprint/pulp style comics of the 60s-70s. The grid offers enough room for dialogue, action and visuals. This is a traditional layout for comics, and the most commonly used – even to this day.

In sharp contrast to the traditional linear aligned storytelling method, here is a sample of a manga influenced comic book page layout. Note, the grid is skewed to create a feeling of motion and adds a sense of dynamic action – the reader’s eye is forced about from one end to the other at a high rate of speed.

Yet another grid format which is gaining popularity is the widescreen panel. This type of panel layout is used to create a cinematic feel. These longer panels also create the illusion of extended time.

Finally, a traditional ‘strip’ styled layout – 3 panels. This is most common for newspaper/online serials which use a wider format.

By establishing a grid for your page layouts, you can conform your artwork and continue to guide the reader along with the position/movement of your characters and backgrounds, as well as logical placement of speech bubbles.

Create a Point of Focus

Once you have established your grid, it is now time to determine where your main focal point for each panel will be. The standard in comics/webcomics is to place the focal point in certain areas to avoid visual confusion from one panel to the next. For example – a panel which is predominantly horizontal should have its focus in one of three locations – the center of the panel, left of center or right of center. For a vertical panel, the focal points should be center, slightly above center or slightly below center. The trickiest panel to set up a focal point is the square. You have the option of above, below, left and right of center, and the center itself. When placing a focal point in a square panel, plan accordingly – make sure it will lead your reader towards the next panel.

Here is an example (using Super Monkey no less!) of the placement of the focal point in each panel.

See how a silly and simple comic makes use of effective focal point location? This method draws the reader’s eye from left to right, and keeps the flow of the story going within the page layout.

Avoid at all costs: Do not have competing focal points in adjacent panels (creating a converging effect when viewed – drawn to the center of the page). Another pitfall in focal points – do not lead your reader’s focus out of the page bounds, or into a panel that does not follow the logical sequence of the story. Always have your artwork force the viewer towards the next panel (either subconsciously or blatantly) – do not rely on the reader to make a logical conclusion to go from one frame to the next. A poorly led panel causes bigger problems than you may think.

Poor composition within panels often disrupt a person’s natural reading flow and cause confusion.  The minute you disrupt the reader’s concentration and focus, you lose the element of immersion in the story, no matter how good that story is. Poor planning and vision of your visuals will negate all the hard work that is put into a script and storyline. You don’t want your writer to strangle you, now do you?

Lines of Sight – Backgrounds and Characters

The final tip I will elaborate on in comic page layout and composition are lines of sight. This is another simple method of forcing your reader to follow a direction using a subtle, subconscious prod. Here is a sample – read this page:

Now follow along with these subtly implied lines, using the character’s lines of sight, the guidance of character’s positions and movements, as well as visual cues from the background and the placement of speech bubbles.

Your eye was moving all over the place, yet it was contained within the page. This widescreen grid automatically forced you to move along the horizontal axis from left to right, and all the additional drawn elements moved you around dynamically, never leading you out of the page until the final frame, when Batman glares menacingly over his shoulder – directly at you (or in this case, THROUGH you).

This was all achieved using lines of sight, background cues, grid layout, speech bubble placement and focal points. If you keep to this strict method of creating comic panel layouts, and ensure your compositions within each individual panel lead into the next, you will have no problem maintaining a reader’s active interest in your story. Just make sure that the story is well written! For some tips on that, read my blog post on writing.

Try these helpful hints on your next project, and you will be well on your way to becoming a master visual storyteller.

So I’ve received a few requests for specific tutorials on how to draw certain ‘popular’ comic book characters. I’ll start this set of tutorials with a fan favorite – Wolverine. This tutorial requires a lot of practice and patience. Developing the skill to draw quickly and efficiently is something you will learn with time – keep trying using the techniques in this tutorial and eventually you will be able to draw Wolverine or any other character with minimal instruction.

But first – its time to put on the training wheels and helmet. Watch and learn…

Step One: Obtain your resource material.

Wolverine is one of Marvel Comics most popular characters, so there is a TON of images you can use as reference. I went to Google Image Search and found a few images I liked. For this example, I am going to use the ‘Hugh Jackman’ version of Wolverine for the pose, but add in some other elements to make the image original.

Here are the resource photos I’ve collected.

The image I have planned is an interpretation of the ‘Wolverine’ costume, using the ‘real-life’ likeness of Jackman as the basis for the look.

Step Two: Building forms

I’m currently using Photoshop for the tutorial, but you can do the same sort of thing in Sketchbook Pro or other software. After deciding on a paper size, it is time to rough out the pose. This page size is 8″ x 10″ at 300dpi.

Using the Jackman Wolverine as a guide – I place the two files side by side to try to replicate the posture/pose. You can elaborate at this point if you wish – but for the sake of this tutorial, I’ll keep it closer to the original.

Now add a layer in your Layers palette, and turn the opacity down to approximately 50%. Select a pure black as your colour, and choose a brush size of about 3-4 pixels.

Then start to sketch out the forms of the body in the pose.

Begin with the head – mapping out the size, the centre of the head (lengthwise) and where the eye level will be. The eyes are halfway down the length of the oval shape. That is where your eye level should be marked.

Net, block in your forms with basic shapes – cylinders, spheres, etc. Build your body form using these simplified shapes. We will be refining them later. Try to keep as close to the source pose as possible. You will be able to judge your proportions better that way. Remember to add a vertical line that passes through the center of the torso. This well help you in placing muscular elements (pecs, abs) in their correct positions. Plus, it will assist you on the lower part of the midsection and its placement, and the legs, etc.

Add in more details, and make refinements to your form. I’ve noticed a few mistakes already, so I can easily go back and alter them with the eraser tool or CTRL-Z / undo (Command -Z for Mac!) Keep your forms loose so you get the feel of each shape and its size.

Add more visual references like hands & fingers, the length and position of the claws, a belt to indicate the midsection, and draw rough guides for the face and hair.

When building the muscles on Wolverine or any super-hero in general, make sure you check out the physique of bodybuilders. There are a million images of ripped abs, flexed muscles, etc. These guys & girls aren’t shy about showing off what they’ve worked so hard on, so finding pics should be easy. They love to pose, so use those pics to your advantage.

I always have trouble with abs and pecs, etc. Using visual reference helps to steer me in the right direction. Don’t just wing it, thinking you have a full grasp of anatomy – especially if you’re new at this. Seasoned pros make huge mistakes and their fans let them know about it dearly – poor anatomy in super-heroes does not cut it. Just ask Rob Liefeld and his 8-pack abominations.

Now that we’ve roughed out Wolverine, we can draw in the details in the next stage. Right now, the lines are really scratchy and hatched. We’re going to clean this up and make the image sharper with some pencil-work.

Step Three: Pencils

We’ve blocked in our basic pose, we have some minor details as reference points – NOW we’re going to get down and dirty and make our Wolverine look more like something closer to a finished product. Let’s go!

Create a new layer and call it ‘pencils.’ Select your ‘rough‘ layer and turn the opacity down to 25%. We want to be able to see what we are drawing over. Make sure the pencil layer is above the rough layer – if it is not, simply click and drag it above the rough layer until it falls into place. Set your ‘pencils‘ layer to 50% opacity, select your black colour and we’re off…

Start by adjusting the brush dynamics in the Brushes palette – you want your brush to mimic the pressure/sensitivity based on the amount of weight you put down on your WACOM tablet. Select a comfortable brush size and make sure that the shape dynamics are activated, and the brush sample has tapered ends, like the diagram below. You can adjust the settings in the dialog box for different effects.

Add in your details like shoulder-pieces, gloves, cowl, etc. Use different line weights to achieve greater depth with the drawing. Try to resist filling in your shadows and dark areas with solids – mark your black spot fills with an X. When it comes time to ink the piece, I will show you a quick method that will save you a lot of time. For now – keep them open.

I added a ton of arm hair since Wolverine is a hairy guy  (I can relate!)

And I gave him shorts. I never really understood the briefs thing for superheroes. It looks silly. Not that skin-tight spandex is any better, but why have your burly men wearing their gitch on the outside? They aren’t wrestlers…

I know it’s not true to form, but its my interpretation and variation. I’m the artist here – so when you decide to draw Wolverine on your own, you can take those artistic liberties – unless you’re actually working on the Wolverine comic, then you gotta follow the rules.

Now that we’ve finished penciling in our star, it is time to move on to inking and REALLY creating more depth and solid form.

Step Four: Inking your work.

We’ve done our rough pose, and now we’ve completed our pencil rendering. It is time to add shadow and contrast to our piece by inking. When you work digitally, it is way easier to ink your work because you can easily alter the contrast and levels to turn your pencil greys into rich blacks.

If you recall, at the beginning of Step Three we made the opacity of our pencils layer to be 50%. We are now going to duplicate that layer, hide our pencils and rough layers, and put this new pencil layer copy to 100% opacity. The linework should be jet black.

Now we are going to work with the inked piece. I asked you to make a copy layer in the event you make a mess of your ink layer and need to restart fresh.

Now that we’ve got a head start on our inking, I’m going to show you another shortcut to fill your shadow areas. Select your magic wand tool -

Set the ‘Tolerance‘ to 32, and begin to select the shapes you have marked with an X. Hold the shift key down to select multiple items. Keep selecting until you have selected all the white spaces in the spot black areas you are planning to have filled. You may not get them all – don’t worry – we will clean up what’s left after the big fill.

Now, under the Select menu, select Modify > Expand

Expand your selection by 2 pixels. What this does is forces your selection to encroach upon the black ink lines by two pixels, and eliminates the white pixels that weren’t picked up by the Magic Wand.

Your image should be covered in ant tracks from the selection. Now we will fill the selection – in the Edit menu, select Fill (keyboard shortcut = CTRL + Backspace (Cmd + Delete for Mac). Make sure that black is your color – choose from menu and hit OK.

Your selection should now be filled in. Press CTRL-D (Cmd + D) to deselect, and look at the ink pools you’ve filled.

If you zoom in closely, you’ll see areas that weren’t filled in because they weren’t part of the selection. Take a brushfill these in with solid black. You may find a few ‘crumbs‘ of white here and there. Just paint over them until you have a nice deep shadow. Also, take this opportunity to make additional details on your image in the ink phase. and

I decided to thicken the lines in places to draw emphasis to parts of the figure. I also added some more shadow to increase the form through contrast and line weight. Then I added more details like folds, hatch marks, stubble and wrinkles. Add in details at your discretion. Save your work at different stages if you plan on trying something new. Don’t overwork your drawing – know when enough is enough!

Once I’ve filled in all the details, I am ready to finalize the piece by beefing up the outlines and correcting any linework mistakes. The final drawing is now done. You can keep it as an inked piece or move on to color. Congratulations – you’ve just drawn and inked a pretty rad looking Wolverine.

Here’s the finished version:

Next time we’ll go further and color this bad boy, and add in a detailed background. See you then!