Last week I gave you a series of webcomics to check out. This week I have something a bit different to put in front of your eyeballs. If you’re in the mood for some more reading material, check out these 10 artists and their blogs / portfolios. You may have heard of some of them, but they are not your average household names, that’s for sure. With sneak previews, upcoming projects, production images and inside looks at their processes, these blogs will definintely give you a different outlook on the lives of the everyday comic artists like you and me. Take my word for it – they’re great resource material. Click here to continue…

For the last few months, I’ve been creating tutorials and giving away valuable information on the creative and organizational processes of drawing comics. This time, instead of a tutorial, I’m going to give you a different type of take-home work. You’re going to do some reading, and trust me – it’s definitely worth it. Click here to continue…

As a followup to my webcomics roundup for 2010, here is a list of comics bloggers that you should definitely follow this year. Some of these blogs contain valuable insights and commentary, some provide you with the latest and greatest in the world of comics, and others offer you straight up eye-candy and popular webcomic magic of their own.

Take a look and get acquainted with these blogs! They’ll definitely leave you inspired… Click here to continue…

The Graphic Novel – the term that is casually misused on a regular basis among those who collect, read and create comics. Some view it as a method of collecting a series of comics, removing the cover and by-lines and sandwiching them all together as one big long story. Others see it as a way of breaking beyond the traditional 22+ page issue format into a lengthier story form, allowing the artists/writer to develop their characters and settings with greater depth.

I don’t care to argue – I love graphic novels whether they are series of sandwiched trades, or magnum opus full length tree killing volumes. But how does one go about starting to put their graphic novel together? Click here to continue…

I’ve decided to create a new series of posts based on famous (and not so famous) characters from various comics we all enjoy. The first character spotlight goes to one of the biggest comics icons of the United Kingdom – JUDGE DREDD.

The Development of Judge Dredd

Created in 1977 by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, Judge Dredd is one of the most prominent characters featured in the comics publication 2000 A.D. – a sci-fi pulp magazine similar to Heavy Metal. He is currently the longest re-occuring character in the magazine, appearing regularly since the 2nd issue. Judge Dredd was developed from Wagner’s idea of a lawman similar to Dirty Harry set in the distant future, with the ability to deliver instant justice through ultra violent means. The character’s signature look with his hard-set riot helmet, stomper boots and armored heavy epaulets was developed by Carlos Equerra, who was given an image of David Carradine as Frankenstein from Death Race 2000 as reference.

Plagued by a series of problems that would eventually lead to the temporary departure of Wagner, Judge Dredd found itself in the hands of Peter Mills and artist Mike McMahon for the first ‘real’ issue. The story had been modified heavily by Mills from the original introduction, setting Dredd in a future version of New York City where he had the ability to act as judge, jury and executioner as needed. His hard-line attitude allowed him to exact harsh punishments on criminals, and the basis of the series was born.

Annoyed that the character was redrawn and reimagined, Ezquerra quit and resumed his work for Battle. Wagner returned to writing stories for Judge Dredd again after the 9th episode, and his dark style became the model for all subsequent stories. Wagner would write the majority of the stories from 1980 to 1988, and collaborated at times with Alan Grant.

In 1990, Judge Dredd received his own title – Judge Dredd Megazine. Wagner left 2000 A.D. to assume the primary writing duties for the new publication, and left the stories in the original to be handled by Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, Grant Morrison and John Smith. Unfortunately, their vision of Judge Dredd paled in comparison to the imagination of its original creator, and Wagner returned to write for 2000 A.D. in 1997, after years of sagging sales of the flagship title.

Currently, some of the stories have been written by Gordon Rennie, in the same dark, gritty style of Wagner. It is believed that Rennie will take over the writing duties full-time once Wagner retires and Rennie has established himself amongst fans.

About Judge Dredd – the Character

Joe Dredd is actually a clone of a ‘Chief Judge’ by the name of Eustace Fargo. He is the most famous of the elite corps of Street Judges within Mega-City One, and as a law enforcing Judge, has the ability to sentence and execute criminals under the guise of the law. Dredd travels via his “Lawmaster” motorbike – a high-tech machine equipped with state-of-the-rt weaponry and artificial intelligence. His main weaponry includes a special issue “Lawgiver” handgun with a DNA imprint and the ability to fire a variety of bullet types. Dredd’s uniform is standard issue, with a riot helmet that obscures his entire face with the exception of his mouth and trademark jutting chin, large brass epaulets (one with the Eagle of justice) a large brass badge attached to a chain link, and the Judge’s signature stomper boots.

Judge Dredd’s face has never been shown in an issue of 2000 A.D. or the Megazine. Although it was established that Dredd was a clone of Judge Fargo, it was never stated if he resembled Fargo in terms of appearance. Judge Fargo’s full face is shown in later issues, but Dredd is never fully seen by the viewer, even when his helmet is off or broken.

In one story arc entitled ‘The Dead Man,’ Judge Dredd is drawn badly burned and in the City of the Damned storyline, he is fitted with bionic implants for eyes.

‘I am the Law’

Much like Schwarzenegger, Stallone and other action heroes, Dredd has his own catchphrase  – I am the Law. As a Street Judge, he is a living personification of the law, and exacts swift justice against those who clearly oppose it. The line, which proved to be extremely popular to fans due to its straightforward delivery and the truest representation of the character, that it became a signature.

The Old Man

Since the stories in 2000 A.D. are supposed to be set in ‘real-time,’ Judge Dredd is presumably over 60 years of age. Even though he is treated with longevity therapy to maintain his active abilities, in later issues and stories, Dredd appears to suffer from the burden of old age. Currently, there are newer Judges who are being groomed to take Dredd’s place (Judge Giant, Judge Rico), but is has never been determined if Dredd will actually be retired by writer Wagner and Rennie in the future (speculation of Wagner’s impending retirement helped fuel this idea). Although newer stories have Dredd fully aware that his time is coming due, to this day there have not been any indicators as to when this may occur, if at all.

He was diagnosed with cancer, but due to the story being set in the future, and possible cure could be concocted to fit within the storyline. Will Judge Dredd retire, die of cancer or keep going? The future is unclear.

Stay tuned for future spotlight posts on our favorite comic book characters, their creative origins and their backgrounds!

Who do you think should be featured in the next character spotlight? If you have a character request, drop me a line and tell me who you’d like to see!

When I was growing up, I recall taking one look at Jim Lee’s style, and aspired to become a comic book artist with his level of efficiency and precision in his artwork. His runs on Marvel Comics X-Men, Image Comics Wild C.A.T.s and DC Comics Batman: Hush are some of his best known works. Have a look at this gallery of Jim Lee’s work throughout his career.

Lee created an instant chemistry between the young and naive Jubilee and the gruff, overprotective Wolverine during his run as the lead penciller in his own XMen title with Chris Claremont.

The famous pull-out cover of X-Men #1. This image is one of Lee’s most iconic works.

Aboveare some samples of Jim Lee’s DC comics works – note the level of precision and how dynamic his characters look. Below are some samples from his Image comics days.

It’s hard to believe that an artist of this caliber almost took a career path in psychology. Jim Lee started off as a fill-in artist for Marc Silvestri on the Uncanny X-Men title, and it became permanent after Silvestri left in 1989. By 1991, fans were so taken by his work, that Marvel launched a new line simply titled X-Men which featured Lee’s work and the writing of Chris Claremont. After Claremont left due to a working disagreement, Lee continued on until 1992 until he left Marvel with a group of artists to form Image Comics.

While under the Image Comics umbrella, Lee formed a series of titles called Wildstorm Productions, featuring his flagship title – WildC.A.T.s. For years, Image was criticized for its lacklustre story telling and its style over substance approach during the 90s. Lee managed to concentrate on publishing a number of critically acclaimed series such as The Authority (Ellis/Hitch) and Planetary (Ellis/Cassaday).

Lee finally sold Wildstorm to DC Comics in 1998 and returned to his role of illustrator on titles such as Batman – where he was involved in the 12 issue storyline entitled Batman: Hush.

After the Batman run, he worked on Superman for awhile on the ‘For Tomorrow’ story arc, and also teamed up with Frank Miller in 2005 for the oft-interrupted All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder series.

He was currently commissioned to oversee the art for DC Comics online RPG game as the creative director.

You can check out his work at some of these links:

Jim Lee Cover Gallery
Gelatometti – a blog with numerous artists including Lee
DeviantART gallery

I personally encourage you to pick up anything Jim Lee has worked on in the last 20 years. You wont be disappointed.
I’ll leave you with a video of Jim sketching Wolverine in his trademark style at the NYC comic con this year.

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!

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!