In the previous tutorial, I showed you all how to draw Batman digitally, through rough construction lines followed by refinements in tightened pencil drawings. Now we’re going to continue on by inking our Caped Crusader and drawing in a simple background.

Here is where we left off last time. A fully drawn Batman with a thickened outline. Now, we’ll add in our inks with dark pools and shading.

Inking the Drawing

Step One: Create a new layer and call it INK. This layer will be your new area for ink fills. In the event that you don’t like the ink work you’ve done, it is a lot easier to modify a separate layer, than having to go back over previously drawn artwork and correct your inking that way.

Step Two: Start with your pools and fills. Instead of spending time using a brush to fill in pockets of ink, you can quickly set up shapes for your fills by creating an outline using your Lasso tool.

Fill in all your areas with a solid black. I reduced the opacity of the pencil layer in order to see exactly where the selection lines will overlap the linework.

Continue to fill in the solid pools.

Sometimes the lasso tool will create sharp lines and jagged corners which need to be smoothed out. I’d suggest tracing over the edges of your lassoed fills with a small brush.

Setting up the Background

Now that our main figure has been inked and the form is built up some more, we can start to create a simple background. In this post, I go into detail about the importance of backgrounds and how to go about setting one up for your comics based on the situation.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to whip up a city background in just a few minutes.

Step One: Hide your artwork layers until you see a blank canvas. Then create a new layer at the very bottom of all the layers (just above the background layer which is locked).

Step Two: Using your lasso tool, make a shape that resembles a rectangle with a peak on top of it.

Step Three: Fill in the shape with a solid colour – I chose black for its prominence. Repeat Step two a number of times but stagger the position of the shapes. Make sure they are different widths and heights, but are connected together at some point. You should have a skyline beginning to form that looks something like this:

By using the rectangular shape with the peak, you are creating the illusion of a 3-dimensional form. It is showing the front corner of the building, and creating a makeshift perspective.

Step Four:

Step Five: Fill this shape with a solid colour (I chose a lighter grey in order to create a sense of depth. The darker buildings are more prominent and stand out more than the ones in the distance.)

Step Six: After you have created the first layer of buildings, create a new layer, and make sure it is below this first solid layer. Repeat the same steps to create the peaked rectangular shape (or boxy building shape like you see in the example) but make it much smaller. Fill this shape with a solid colour (I chose a lighter grey in order to create a sense of depth. The darker buildings are more prominent and stand out more than the ones in the distance.)

Step Seven: Add a solid colour or gradient on the base Background layer for effect. For an additional layer of moody, noir mystery, use a noise filter on the gradient or solid fill for a film grain effect.

These are the settings I used. Feel free to adjust the settings to increase/decrease the amount of grain. You’ve created a simple city skyline background. We will further develop it with details once we begin the color and finishing touches part of the tutorial.

Creating a Paper Cutout

Now that the background has been done and the inking portion of the tutorial has been completed, we will create a ‘paper doll’ or cutout from our Batman drawing.

Step One: Hide all your background layers, leaving your pencils/inks visible. Create a new layer called CUTOUT.

Step Two: On your Pencils layer, select the area around your character, ensuring that all the background spots are part of the selection (spaces under the arms, etc)

Step Three: Once the background areas have been fully chosen, we will invert our selection. In the menu, the option is: Select > Inverse

Step Four: Once the selection has been inverted, the selection should appear around the outer edges of the Batman drawing. We will now contract that selection in order to have it fit within the inked lines. Otherwise, when the background fill is applied, some of the edges may appear outside of your crisper black edges you defined earlier.

I contracted the selection by two pixels – this should be enough room to keep the CUTOUT fill hidden underneath the drawn artwork.

Step Five: Fill your cutout layer with a solid white. This layer will now help you distinguish between background and foreground elements. You can link your pencils/inks and cutout layer together, and move it as one unit, or recycle it somewhere else.

That concludes the second part of the tutorial. In the third part, we will tackle color and finishing touches to complete our Batman image. Feel free to check out this other tutorial on how to draw Wolverine while you wait for the next installment!

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 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.

Scott Kurtz of PvP fame - hard at work.

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!

Last month I posted a number of links to some great webcomics out there. This month I’ve returned with a number of new gems for your collection. Feel free to check some of these out.

The Retriever by Daniel Fu

Strange Case by Noelle Drewe

The Talos Project by Giorgos Chronopolous

Cealdian by Anne Szalba

Edge the Devil Hunter by Sam Romero

Gravity by Bryan Ibeas

Dark Wings by Ashley Ann Merrill

Red Kelso by Gary Chaloner

Battlegate by Chris Moujaes

The Phoenix Sage Saga by Joseph Sotomayor

Freak Angels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

Last Blood by Bobby Crosby, Chris Crosby and Owen Gieni

Have a peek at some of these great series. I’ve read through a number of them for inspiration and I try to check in on the updates as much as possible. You may find yourself hooked and trying to catch up on weeks of stories, taking up all your time – but there’s no better way to spend it than by enjoying these finely crafted webcomics.

If you have suggestions for webcomics you enjoy, drop me a line or leave some comments and I’ll review them for webcomics roundups in the future.

Webcomics can be the easiest and most cost effective method of spreading your stories to a large audience. The benefits are quite extensive – you have extremely low costs for operation, you have instant publishing features and a broader reach for potential readers. Producing comics online can prove to be a very successful endeavor, which pays off in nice dividends once you have established yourself as an artist/writer with a catalog of work in your portfolio.

But you have to start from somewhere, right? Here are a few tips to get you started on how to make a webcomic.

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Step One: Translate your ideas into a story, character, place or theme

You’ve come up with a great idea for a webcomic. Your first order of business should be to fire up your word processing software or grab a pen and a notepad and start jotting down al the scenes that are playing out in your head. It doesn’t matter if the scenes are out of sequence or brief flashes or if it is just an idea for some attire a character is wearing – make a note of it. If you spend too much time trying to establish the image and committing it to memory, you may lose the thought.

Once you have taken down the idea, you can arrange it into categories – scenes, characters, plot, theme. From there, you can mix and match components to create a bigger story or add depth to your current story idea. The most important thing to note is you MUST get it down on paper or in a file for reference.

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Step Two: Organize your elements and add details

Now that you have established a setting, some characters and a rough story or theme, organize your material to fill in the blanks. You should have a main character (or characters), a main setting, and a main theme established. You can develop more as you go along – but to begin, you should have all of your details worked out for your main elements first before you move on to the next step to make a webcomic.

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Step Three: Character Sketches

Before you jump into drawing your webcomic, you should familiarize yourself with your main character(s). Create numerous character sketches from all sorts of angles and actions. If you consistently draw your character numerous times, your character drawings will develop into repetitive action and you will draw your characters in the same consistent manner.

Many webcomic artists often struggle with a consistent look to their characters due to the lack of practice sketching and development of repetitive action. Of course, you can draw your figures and continue refining them, but the key is to make sure they are always consistent when drawn.

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Step Four: Write a script

A number of artists tend to jump right into their pages/strips without having a clear idea of where their comic may be headed. This works fine if you are simply doing random webcomics here and there, but it is difficult to establish any continuity for the future. You should have a plan.

The easiest and most efficient method of developing a script is through the use of point form. You don’t need an elaborate movie style script to develop your webcomics, but it does help. If you’re a one-man show, you may want to stick to 15-20 brief point form notes for each page as your guide. If you are anxious to get into drawing your webcomics, make sure that point form plan is in place.

If you have more time, consider extending the details in your script, and include dialog, pacing, and various visual cues/effects. A detailed script will help the artist visualize and render the artwork for the story properly.

Another tip – try to hammer out a script for at least 20 pages worth of your story. Once you have that many pages established, you can make edits ahead of time, rather than writing one page, drawing one page then repeating the process and trying to make it flow. You spend more time figuring out problems than producing the webcomic. Plan ahead, and you can modify things if they do not work to your satisfaction.

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Step Five:  Render your pages.

Another pitfall most webcomic artists encounter is a lack of updates once their site is up and running. If you have already generated a script for a story arc, try and render as many pages as you can prior to launching your website. Once the site is live and operational, you will already give yourself a bit of a head start if some unforeseen circumstance appears and you are unable to do your regular update.

My suggestion is to render a complete issue (roughly 20 pages) prior to launching your site. If you plan on doing weekly updates, this gives you 20 weeks of leeway and ample opportunity for script and drawing refinements. By having your pages in a ready-to-go status, you will also create the illusion of being dedicated (which you are) and a prolific artist (which you will become!)

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Step Six: Set up your website.

If you do not have a website or domain name, you should decide on creating a site that is easy to navigate and memorable for your readers. This step requires an yearly investment, but now that hosting packages and domain names are abundant, the prices are a mere fraction of what they were years ago.

For domain names, visit NameCheap: http://www.namecheap.com – You can obtain a domain name for less than $9 a year. With coupon codes, it could be even less.

For hosting, you can’t beat Host Gator: http://www.hostgator.com – Hosting packages start as low as $4.95 a month, and they offer great technical support and loads of features.

If you can afford a yearly investment of $70 to $100, you will have full control over your site and its development. There are a number of options you can pursue in building your site – WordPress allows for blog styled setups, or you could create a Flash-enhanced site, or a simple HTML setup. The possibilities are endless.

For those on a tighter budget, you can try free alternatives for webcomics hosting such as:

SmackJeeves

Comic Fury

The Webcomic List

Drunk Duck

Comic Genesis (KeenSpot)

Comic Dish

Some of these hosting services require memberships and linkbacks to the main site, and ad banners placed in prominent areas of your pages. The upside is the support you receive from other contributors, as well as some pre-made templates to get you up and running quickly.

Your site can also double as your portfolio!

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John Giang

Step Seven: Launch and Promote

Many artists worry about readers and statistics right off the bat. With any new website that appears, it takes time before the masses stumble upon it and pass it on to their friends. Therefore, it is very important during your quest to make a webcomic to continually update and provide new content to your readers. Over time the content you have produced will continue to draw in newer visitors passively.

In order to get readers interested in your site, you will need to do some active promotion.  The easiest way is to make allies and friends within like-minded communities on the web. If you are producing a sci-fi webcomic, then target the fans of sci-fi webcomics. Seek out communities and online forums, and contribute in their discussions and be a part of their community – once they see that you have valuable input and commentary to add, you can ask for their feedback on your project and have them visit your site.

A large portion of startup traffic comes from the cultivation of relationships with groups. If you do not have the benefit of a group to get you started, you will have to do some work in order to gain the respect of your peers. Be engaged in your targets interests and discussions. Support their projects and in time, they will reciprocate. Comment on blogs, give positive encouragement, jump into discussions and make friends – its the equivalent of networking in the first person. This activity is absolutely vital to expanding your reader base when you are just starting out.

Once people come to your site and experience what you have to offer, their word of mouth advertising will work for you and offer huge returns.

The key is to be patient, and not rush headlong into it. Avoid the common mistakes when you’re learning how to make webcomics, and you will become successful and ‘internet famous.’ Popular webcomics such as Penny Arcade, the Order of the Stick, xkcd, Applegeeks and countless others all started with a handful of readers. As the years passed, and based on the creators involvement with their readers, the comics and the site grew in popularity and referrals. Some of the artists have been able to make an honest living through their site, as well as additional side projects related to the webcomic.

You too can achieve that success with some careful planning and passion. Don’t ever quit when you feel it is hopeless – it’s a labour of love that pays off with perseverance. During your journey to become a successful webcomic artist, always remember this phrase: Those who quit following their dreams will never know how close they came to success.

Good luck!

Awhile back I mentioned that some changes will be coming to idrawdigital in the next few months – this post is one of a series demonstrating the shift in thinking this blog will now take. I’m planning on focusing more on illustration around webcomics, with more tutorials geared towards digital art in that genre. I’ve already posted two brief  tutorials on inking and coloring for comics. Have no fear – the TWILL updates will still occur, as they provide a source of inspiration and ideas for many of the regular readers.I’ve just decided

This week I’m going to showcase some of the wonderful webcomic finds that I regularly check out. You may have heard of some of these already – if not, I highly recommend you check them out.

NYC2123 by Paco & Chad Allen

Outside the Box by Brendan Cahill

Inverloch by Sarah Ellerton

Paper Eleven by Dan Kim

Zombie Hunter by H. Rockefeller

The Circle Weave by Indigo Kelleigh

Elsie Hooper by Bob Krzykowski

REX by Danijel Zezelj

Wazabu by Fuschia and Head

Dark Dallas by Heronime and Robinson

Two Rooks by Alice Fox

There’s a small helping of some interesting webcomic/graphic novels available online for your viewing pleasure. I’ll be posting some more in the coming weeks to expose you to some of the finest looking art and wonderfully crafted storylines. These are a few of the webcomics I’ve read, and believe me – there are a ton of them out there! There is a wide cross-section of genres available – space, sci-fi, fantasy, noir, gamerz, comedy, slice of life, drama, etc – you name it, there’s probably a webcomic for it.

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the blog of a friend of mine. He is currently in the midst of writing a series that will one day go to print. Please visit and give your support to Darren Hammond over at the PanicAttak blog. With enough encouragement, he’ll press forward with all the amazing ideas he has stewing in that weird head of his. Go forth and command him to produce for you!

Keep checking back for more changes to idrawdigital! See you next time.

- Drezz