1- Dead Zone

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my webcomic debut.  I'm an old fart (41 y/o) amateur and I've finally decided to just follow my dream and make my own comics.  I've had a very long time of self-criticism and perfectionism which has led to massive artistic paralysis for the past 20+ years.  I know.  It's ridiculous.  It took me a long time to realize that...

You have to MAKE COMICS to IMPROVE at making comics.  

My intellect (my inner Spock) has known this for ages, but my internal critic was so brutal I couldn't make it happen.  Now I'm doing it.  Below each comic strip I'll have a little peek behind the scenes to show the methods to my madness and I'll include realizations and crap about my learning process.  I'm going to shoot for a strip a week, but since I'm learning I may be a little slower at first.  

DOING IT OLD SCHOOL

I have spent money on old school tools over the years - drafting table, pencils, microns, pens, ink, brushes, t-squares, triangles, etc.  Because I don't know if/when I'll make any money doing art I've basically vowed to myself to stick old school until I feel I've earned a wacom, adobe photoshop/illustrator or mangastudio.  Knowing my high standards this will be years away.  

Besides I just feel like I'm going to learn a ton of crap doing it the old ways.  And it's cheaper.  Anyway... on to the methods to my madness.  

So my scanner is small and can't handle 11x17 pages.  So I'm just doing drawing on 8 1/2x11 pages.  I tried out regular typing paper for the pencils and a card stock paper for the inks.  Still pretty cheap and fits in my scanner nicely.  And FYI 11x17 ain't nothing but two 8 1/2x11 pages put together (dimensionally speaking).  So I'm doing my webcomic aka comic strip on 1/2 comic pages.  I figure if I ever do well with this thing I can slap my 2 strips together and make a comic page with some tweaking.  

SCRIPT

I've had this main universe of characters and setting in my head for the past 20 years although constantly mutating because I never set anything down in a final form.  Just reams of jotted notes, sketches, and a database.  

I've written a number of comic scripts, a novel version, and an illustrated web serial version.  Then I came back to my senses.  I'm doing this like an adventure comic strip as best I can.  

I have a malleable outline for the near future of the series which is good to start with.  I then wrote a quickie script of the smallest bit of the story and tried to end it on a little punchline or at least something a little punchy.  I wrote is as vaguely as I needed since I'm drawing it.  

PENCILS

So I sketched up a thumbnail of the strip at the same size as the actual pencils.  I did a couple of reworks.  I didn't keep any of that to scan for you, sorry.  

Taped the paper down so it stayed still.  So for the actual pencils I used colerase blue pencil on typing paper.  I used t-square and triangles and did up the panels first.  Then I worked up the main figures and sets in a rough way.  I didn't work with vanishing points as much as I should but whatyagunnado?  

I then went in with a H or HB pencil, not sure which.  

I then broke out my aims lettering guide and followed the instructions I found in one of my comic how-to books.  I tried to use my drafting pencil w/blue lead but that thing kept snapping on me so I just used a crappy disposable mechanical pen you find in the school supply aisles and that worked better for me.  I don't have the most patience with this kind of thing, part of my issues.  

I did a rough pencil of the lettering mostly for approximate spacing than for panache.  During this process I realized that my script was too freaking wordy, even wordier than the finished product.  There was a good amount of script editing that went on during the lettering stage.  

Then I scanned it.  

INKS

I taped pencils with blank card stock paper over it onto my lightbox.  Old school, yo!  I tackled with thickest micron (08) first for outlines of panels and balloons.  I did everything free hand because I felt like I wanted that look, not so sure anymore.  I then used a smaller micron, an 03 maybe, I think, to do the letters.  

After dry, went back with 08 micron and inked largest figures.  Stuff smaller and farther away I used smaller microns.  Not terribly systematically I must admit.  

Once everything was kinda outlined I took it off the lightbox and taped it back on my drafting table.  Then I tackled with ink and brush.  Then I let it dry.  Then I scanned it.  

TONES

I wanted to gray tones and as I go I'll be experimenting with different methods.  I'll probably do ink wash, COPIC markers, and hatching at least.  

This time I went with pencil shading.  I basically grabbed a 9B pencil and shaded mostly with the sides however I felt like it.  Once I felt it was done I scanned it.  

SCANNING

My scanner is like 8 1/2 by like 12" and so I had extra crap on one side.  I tried to use Open Office Drawing program but I have no idea how to use that crap and it kept crashing on me.  I'm familiar with paint and a little photoshop, so I just went to sumopaint.com and used their free app.  I cropped using the change canvas size function.  It scanned pretty big so I saved that and a smaller version that would fit better online.  

And that is the final strip you hopefully tried to read in the first place.  

LESSONS FOR ME

I worked faster and looser than normal to shut up my inner critic.  My critic is still there and still brutal and also still correct about a number of specific points, but I don't listen in the same way.  

It was both harder and easier than I thought.  I got to the end and that's what freaking counts and it is very encouraging no matter how much I focus on all the mistakes and problems.  Speaking of those...

Next time...

• Fewer panels.  I'm working too small, much smaller than your average professional comic page.  4 panels max since I'm working on a 1/2 comic book page scale (that would make it up to 8 panels/page).  
• Actually use some of those perspective instructions I have in my little reference library to construct sets for the characters to move about in instead of just kinda winging it.  
• Just got a print from Arthur Adams himself for my B-day from my sweet wife.  Monkeyman and O'Brian and the Elasmosauras.  It is crazy awesome and also made of super microhatching, which I'll probably never do, but it made me look at my stuff and realize I'm working too thick sometimes - start out smaller and finer and be VERY careful with brushwork.  
• Use dip pen and play with line weights more naturally.  
• At a certain point I got impatient and didn't solve the problems in the pencil stage where it should have been decided.  Doing it in the ink stage was not good.  So...
• Do tighter and much darker pencils.  It will help spot problems of drawing, storytelling, clarity, etc.  Plus darker pencils would help me see things better on the lightbox.  
• Slow down on the lettering, Tex!  What I felt was "personality" at the time just feels like so-so legibility and laziness now.  
• More minimalist tone style.  I actually kinda like the inks better than the final product.  Tones kinda made it busier and more monotone at the same time.  Need to try another approach.  

Each ep will be full of my experiments with pretty much everything.  Now this is training wheels stuff for the pros, but for me it's boot camp.  

I encourage everyone to just dive into the things you love, don't waste time like me.  Follow you bliss and all that crap.  

See ya next time, 

Nick