Reckless Crafting

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Whew! Okay, I'm finally for a follow-up post on what the heck I planned to do with all this fabric and thread and terrifying trips to Jo-Ann Fabrics.

A little while back, I created some t-shirts and prints featuring Greek Gods:

After I started running out of t-shirts, I decided I wanted to do something NEW with them. I love the idea of wearable art in general, and t-shirts are difficult for me to produce, and not a terribly fun process. I send off the images to a printer, I get back t-shirts. Ho-hum. Where's the danger? The excitement of some late night crafting?

So I brainstormed about something else people could potentially wear  ... and voila! I thought about wrist bands.

I looooooove me some wrist bands. Leather cuffs, wristbands, bracelets, what have you. So I decided to embark on an exciting sewing journey to see about turning my beloved Greek God t-shirts into wrist bands.

First, I scouted for some various types of fabrics, as I mentioned here. Then I started cutting them into the basic length and width of cuffs I already owned, so see what I'd be working with.

It became pretty clear right away that I was going to have to do something about the fraying edges. Sew around them? Seal them somehow? I didn't know. So I did a wee bit of looking around and landed on using pinking shears to texturize the edges.

OMG soooo much fun, I could cut zig-zags all day. So I ziggedy-zaggedy'd the fabric into three main layers:

  • A soft layer (the part that will be on the bottom, next to the skin)
  • A textured layer (providing some pattern, color, and sturdiness)
  • A transfer layer (the part of fabric where I've ironed on an image)

Once I had them all together, I plopped them onto my scanner. I shrunk and shifted my Greek God drawings around in Photoshop to match the general shape of the transfer layer. Then, I printed it out onto tshirt transfer paper (Avery Light Fabric Transfers, to be exact. I've liked them the best after years of trial-and-error with t-shirt transferring when I was in derby). After cutting my transfer out as close to the image as possible, I ironed it onto the cloth, and once cooled, peeled back the paper.

Now that I had the three layers the way I wanted them, I pinned them down and trimmed the edges if they were all crazy and didn't line up right (like I would ever make a mistake measuring?? Hey, it's not called "reckless crafting" for nothing).

Then I braved the ever-terrifying sewing maching. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the actual sewing process (just memories of the cursing), but I basically used a zig-zag stitch in order to mirror the zaggedy edges of each layer of fabric. I planned on using different colors of thread, but ended up sticking to a nice cerulean blue this time around (to save me time and needless thread and bobbin-switching). The sewed result looked a little something like this:

Then I had to figure out how to fasten the things onto the wrist. I decided the easiest way (or, rather, the way I could probably do successfully) would be to poke two holes on one end of the wristband for a string I could use as a loop. On the other end, I'd sew a button, so in order to fasten the wristband, you'd simply slip the loop end over the button. Unfortunately, poking holes in layers of fabric wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be, but I eventually had success with two tools:

A metal skewer thing my Mom had lying around (awl?) and a leather punching kit I bought and then realized wouldn't work at all. But, by piercing the fabric with the skewer (awl?) and stretching it out with the punch set, I was able to get the holes wide enough for my leather string.

Using fabric glue, I stuck the ends of the string to the back of the wrist band, securing it in place.

Then, I simply sewed a button to the opposite side:

And - TA DAAAAA! A wristband!

One that specifically declares to the world that I, am in fact, a Hermes. Like that tricksy god himself, I also am punctual, work out, and like playing practical jokes. Not very neat and tidy, but that's the way I like it.

As you could see in the pictures above, I've got a bunch of different sizes/styles, as well as different widths (each one also has a different button on it).

I'm debuting this latest crafting adventure at this week's Baltimore Comic-Con, exhibiting at table A-176. If you're in the area, stop by to see them in the flesh!

Otherwise, I'll be posting the remaining ones in my Etsy store, and potentially will be taking custom orders. Stay tuned! And if any of you have any crafting/fabric/sewing tips or tricks for projects like this, please post them! I'd love to learn more, now that I've tiptoed into the wild world of crafting my art ....

Trial and Lots n' Lots of Error

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When embarking on a haphazard crafting journey, here are some important things to remember: Step 1. Survive JoAnn Fabrics. Despite the fact that the fabric-cutting lady already told you you're doing everything wrong and Suzanne Vega is on the radio (which has been  proven to cause migraines).

Step 2. Try to look like you're knowing what you're doing. While aimlessly meandering around picking up thread and fabric glue and buttons.

Step 3. Keep cat away from everything. Always. He will inhale an entire spool of ribbon when your back is turned.

Step 4. Stay positive, even when you realize (as you've realized before) that you're no good at measuring in any form.

At the end of the day, at least I've got a couple of color combos I'm excited about trying:

Just What I Always Wanted!

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Little by little, I'm revamping my website. But going at a snail's pace is really difficult when you know what you want to do but ... not how to do it. I knew I wanted my portfolio page to be separated into sections (latest work, work done for hire, etc.), but I couldn't decide how best to present that information. I had originally listed oodles of thumbnails which, when clicked, gave you larger images. But who wants to do all that clicking? I liked the idea of having big images visible without an extra click, but I wasn't sure how to show all of them at once. Splitting each section into scrollable parts was irritating and aggravated my tendonitis with all the places to click and drag.

Finally I discovered all these gorgeous, endlessly side-scrolling websites like JessicaFortner.com and  Klas Fahlen (both recommended by HOW) that I desperately wanted to emulate. But, the sneaky thing they both had that I couldn't for the life of me figure out was the fixed menu. The images could scroll beautifully by, but a fixed header? Surely you jest.

Since my approach to web design leans toward the haphazard and CSS still makes me a bit squeamish (we're getting to know one another, but we haven't exactly gotten to any bases yet), I wasn't sure I'd be able to work this one out.

BUT! I am thrilled to announce that after hours of frustrating trial and error, ending with just a wee bit of CSS wrangling (mainly adding <div> tags around the parts of the page I wanted fixed, and adding a position:fixed style to them, then putting the scrolling items in a table surrounded by <div> tags - you can check my code for the messy deets), voila!

A shiny new portfolio page!

 

So far only the "recent work" and "for hire" areas are ready to be seen on the side menu, but there'll be plenty more adding and adjusting to come. I was just too giddy giddy gumdrops not to share this!

Oh: and also, as stated, I was so excited to get this up that I'm sure there will be browser conflicts - if you encounter any, please let me know! And if you've the wherewithal, feel free to throw any suggestions my way in how to make it work!

My Big Fat Wall Calendar

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Sometimes all the projects I'm currently working on and want to be working on and anticipating what's coming up next is a bit mind-boggling for me. I definitely prefer looking at the big picture, if I can. I've wanted a giant, yearly wall calendar for my office for a while now, but wasn't having any luck locating anything. Eventually I decided to create my own - hence the wall I painted over with chalkboard paint in this previous post. At first I thought it'd be cool to use this wacky whiteboard paint and make myself a giant whiteboard (what will they think of next??) but didn't trust myself or my bumpy walls to do a good enough job. I figured chalk would be much more forgiving. So after some measuring and tiring out my arms by holding them over my head too long ... ta daaaaaa!

All finished! Now, my first inclination was not to draw in the month divider lines with chalk but to use thin tape instead - but so far I haven't had any luck finding any. I got some Artist Tape, which was thinner than regular masking tape but too low-tack to stick. Actually, not much really sticks to the chalkboard, unfortunately, so I have to scrap the idea to put up post-its for detailed info. It's hard to fit a lot of words in using  these thick chalk sticks.

Years ago I worked in a coffee shop that had a giant blackboard that we'd write the daily specials on in the same vein as Starbucks, and I think I remember that we'd wet the chalk in order to achieve a thicker, more paint-like line. But I'm not positive. Anyone out there have any cool chalkboard tips?

Table Display in Action

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So after all that careful measuring and planning .... I discovered that I actually had 4' x 2' of room to play with for my display, instead of 2' x 2'. Which worked out perfectly, since I had too much stuff for my puny 2' x 2' space anyway. Hooray for inaccurate planning! Here's the finished display at this year's Stumptown:

It worked out really well - and I was able to keep switching things around and adjusting as the con went on.

I used these new book holders that came in different sizes and weren't as unwieldy as ones I've bought in the past:

To get my signs hanging up over the top of the books, I used a couple of things - photo cubes (with my logo added to the inside):

And wire holders to sit on the photo cubes and hold my name and website signs:

I had to tape everything down with masking tape and add some cardboard to the back of the signs to keep them from flopping over, but in the end - success! They even withstood the steady draft of the air conditioning that pelted us throughout the convention.

And now - Lipstick & Malice Triple Pack is available in my Etsy store, woot!

Book Cover Experiment

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One way I've decided to save space at this convention is to combine each of my comic book series into cute little packs. For example, since I have three Lipstick & Malice's for sale, I'm going to sell them as a cute triple pack instead of individually, hence taking up less room on my table. I can do the same for Bonnie N. Collide (three of those) and Gods & Undergrads (two of those).  But how to bind them together?

Over the years and conventions, I've seen a couple of cute ways to bind several books of a series together. But frankly - I haven't got much time and I'm not very gifted in the crafty. So I decided (as is my custom) to just haphazardly try something out and see if it worked. Here goes ...

First, I got the books together I wanted to combine.

Then I started out by wrapping a plain piece of cardstock around them to see how it would look.

Since that seemed wayyyy too big (since it's 8 1/2" x 11"), I thought I'd try out what half of a sheet of paper would look like when wrapped around my books.

This was better, but I still felt like it was a tad big, so I halved it again, ending up with a 1/4 sheet of paper.

So I wrapped it around, testing out the size, and started to make sketches of the design I wanted to put on it.

I punched a hole where the two ends overlapped, giving me something that would (hopefully) hold the wrapper in place.

Now that I had roughly the dimensions I needed my wrapper to be, I sketched light pencil lines where the creases were ....

And scanned the scrap of paper in, sketches and all. This gave me a template to use for creating a more polished looking design in Photoshop.

I used the pencil lines as guidelines for where to keep my edges. And when it was done, I printed it out - 4 to a page (since I made mine 1/4 the size of a piece of paper), printed on cardstock with the settings to "borderless printing".

Now that I had it printed and cut up, I punched holes in the wrapper.

And wrapped it around my books to make sure it still fit okay.

Then, for flare, since you can never have enough flare ... I cut a piece of ribbon out to thread through the punched holes.

And tied a neat little bow. So - voila! There you have it - a tiny little book sleeve for a 3-pack series of books, all totally possible to recreate yourself.

 

Book Cover Experiment

/

One way I've decided to save space at this convention is to combine each of my comic book series into cute little packs. For example, since I have three Lipstick & Malice's for sale, I'm going to sell them as a cute triple pack instead of individually, hence taking up less room on my table. I can do the same for Bonnie N. Collide (three of those) and Gods & Undergrads (two of those).  But how to bind them together?

Over the years and conventions, I've seen a couple of cute ways to bind several books of a series together. But frankly - I haven't got much time and I'm not very gifted in the crafty. So I decided (as is my custom) to just haphazardly try something out and see if it worked. Here goes ...

First, I got the books together I wanted to combine.

Then I started out by wrapping a plain piece of cardstock around them to see how it would look.

Since that seemed wayyyy too big (since it's 8 1/2" x 11"), I thought I'd try out what half of a sheet of paper would look like when wrapped around my books.

This was better, but I still felt like it was a tad big, so I halved it again, ending up with a 1/4 sheet of paper.

So I wrapped it around, testing out the size, and started to make sketches of the design I wanted to put on it.

I punched a hole where the two ends overlapped, giving me something that would (hopefully) hold the wrapper in place.

Now that I had roughly the dimensions I needed my wrapper to be, I sketched light pencil lines where the creases were ....

And scanned the scrap of paper in, sketches and all. This gave me a template to use for creating a more polished looking design in Photoshop.

I used the pencil lines as guidelines for where to keep my edges. And when it was done, I printed it out - 4 to a page (since I made mine 1/4 the size of a piece of paper), printed on cardstock with the settings to "borderless printing".

Now that I had it printed and cut up, I punched holes in the wrapper.

And wrapped it around my books to make sure it still fit okay.

Then, for flare, since you can never have enough flare ... I cut a piece of ribbon out to thread through the punched holes.

And tied a neat little bow. So - voila! There you have it - a tiny little book sleeve for a 3-pack series of books, all totally possible to recreate yourself.

 

My Comics Process: Table Preparation

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As I'm sitting here, frantically alternately printing out books for my upcoming convention and replacing paper/ink cartridges, I'm starting to think about how to best display my work at said convention. I've already shown some of the ways I've displayed books in the past, but every show is always a wee bit different. For this show, one of my big challenges will be the size of the table space I'll have:

 

I'll be sharing a 6-foot table with two other comickers, so that leaves me with about 2-feet x 2-feet space for li'l old me. Considering that at my last convention, I had an 8-foot table to myself, I'm going to need to do some creative re-working of my products.

First, what am I even bringing along to sell? There are some books:

... And then there are some prints.

 

Now, clearly there isn't enough room to lay everything out flat - I'll have to start combining some things. I'll also need some good display items - racks, stands, what have you. Over the years I've dabbled in some different options, but so far I seem to have only these at my disposal, currently:

Hmm. I might need to hit up Michael's this week and see what else I can find. Stay tuned for the next installment - how on earth do I fit what I have into the space provided??

My Comics Process: Computerizing

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And now, for the next step in my Comics Process (this process seems really long, doesn't it?): Computerizing! This is going to be pretty mind-numbingly detailed in terms of what to click next, so make sure your caffeine is at the ready.

First, I scan my inked page.

Because I have a regular-sized scanner (this one in fact), I have to scan my page in 2 pieces.

Next, I open my scanned pages with Adobe Photoshop. I use Photoshop for the computerizing process mainly because it's something I've become so accustomed to doing, so therefore it's fastest for me. Over the years I've come to know Illustrator and InDesign better, and I know other comickers have other programs they prefer, which are probably better to use for this kind of thing. So just as a disclaimer - I use Photoshop because at this point I can use it faster than I can other programs. Anyhoo.

My page comes in 2 pieces, so I need to rotate my images and combine them into one page. I go to the top menu > Image > Rotate Canvas to get each part facing the right side up. Then I pick one of the halves and go to Image > Canvas Size.

I set the height of the page to 14 inches, because that was the size of my original paper. I select the other half of  my page, copy and paste it into this one, and fiddle around with the layer until they match up. Then I combine them into one image by going to Image > Merge Visible.

Next, I need to put borders around all of my panels, since I didn't ink them in. I select the Rectangle Tool from the handy toolbar and draw one big rectangle along the outside of my entire page.

Then, I go to the Layers Panel and set the fill of the rectangle to 0%, so the rectangle is transparent. Then I add a Layer Style to the rectangle - a stroke 12 pixels thick, which gives us the panel outline.

Now that the outside of all of the panels is marked, I need to separate each panel border. Using the rectangular marquee tool, I draw rectangles for all the gutter spaces (in between the panels). Make sure when you use the rectangular marquee, you've clicked the Add to Selection button so that all of your selection is included.

Next, go to top menu > Select > Inverse. Then, back in the Layers Panel, click the Add Layer Mask button.

Voila - by drawing that one big rectangle and cutting out the parts I didn't want, I've successfully created all of my panel borders for the page.

The next step is going to be adding text. Since my scanned image carries traces of my blue pencil, I can still see the word bubbles and what text I want to type in on the page. Now, you have some choices when you're adding text in on the computer. I would beg you, however, not to use Comic Sans as a font. It's been used everywhere, it's tacky, and it's a bit ugly. There, I said it. Besides that, I would say it's up to you what you choose for a font. However, in my opinion, one of the best things you can do if you're not hand-lettering (or getting a professional to do it for you) is to create your own font. Even though I'm terrible at drawing fonts by hand myself, I struggled through the process and managed to come up with one that isn't horrible, is legible, and 100% reflects me and my style. I used this font creator back in the day ... like, at least 9 years ago when I created my font. Yeesh. I'm old.

So, using my font, I type over the word bubbles on the page. For words I want to emphasize, I select the text and go to the Character panel and hit the Faux Bold or Faux Italic buttons. When I created my own font, I created a "bold" version of it too, but I usually prefer to use the Faux Bold instead of my own font (again - not gifted at font creation).

Now that all the text is in, I can create the word bubbles to go around them. For this, I go to my Shapes Tool and select Rounded Rectangle. I set the radius (curvy-ness of the shape edges) to 50 pixels.

After I've dragged rounded rectangles behind each of my text bubbles (make sure to set the properties of the rounded rectangle tool to Add to Shape Area so the shapes all end up on one layer), I can create the stem that points the bubbles to the speaker. For this, I select the Pen Tool.

Using the Pen Tool, I select the rounded rectangles layer in my Layers Panel, again making sure the selection properties on the top panel are sent to Add to Shape Area. What this does is insure that the stems I create with the pen tool will be treated as part of the same shape as the rounded rectangle, so there won't be any lines or separation between the word bubble and the stem coming off of it.

Now, a word on word bubbles .... I don't terribly like the way I do them. In fact, I tend to prefer word bubbles that look more like this:

(This page is taken from Hopeless Savages #3 from Oni Press, art by my fave Christine Norrie, story by Jen Van Meter, lettering credited by Christine Norrie, Andy Lis, Jamie McKelvie, Tom Orzechowski, Bryan Lee O'Malley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this is something I definitely need to work on.

Next - on to getting rid of the pesky blue pencil marks. I forget who exactly I got this process from first, but it's proven to be quick and handy, so I thank them! With your artwork layer selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

Select the Blues and set the Lightness to 100. Repeat the process with the Cyans selected.

Now, your blues are gone but your inking still looks a little ... drab. I little bit less than pure black, doesn't it? Easy fix. Go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold.

And hit OK.

That should bump up the contrast of your inks to a nice level.

So there you have it - the whole page!

Now, for follow-on things you can do - to get rid of the lines that go outside the panel borders, select your panel layer (the one with all the black panel borders) in the Layers Panel, right-click on its mask selection, and select Subtract Layer Mask from Selection. Apply this selection as a mask to the layer your artwork is on. Also, you'll need to select the outside border of your panels and go to Select > Inverse. Select your artwork layer again and go to Select > Save Selection > Channel > Shape 1 Mask > Operation > Subtract from Panel. What all of this does is mask your artwork layer to be within the same boundaries as your panel borders - i.e. none of your lines will bleed outside of the panel border lines.

Still awake? You've made it through my computerization process! Yay! Now, there's all kinds of places you can go next - adding grays to the page, color, etc. However, my page is going to stay this simple for now, as you can see posted here. If anyone has any further tips, suggestions, preferences on this process, lemme know! Let's have share time. :)

Past Parts:

My Comics Process Part 1: Thumbnailing

My Comic Process Part 2: Pencilling

My Comics Process Part 3: Inking

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[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

My Comics Process: Computerizing

/

And now, for the next step in my Comics Process (this process seems really long, doesn't it?): Computerizing! This is going to be pretty mind-numbingly detailed in terms of what to click next, so make sure your caffeine is at the ready.

First, I scan my inked page.

Because I have a regular-sized scanner (this one in fact), I have to scan my page in 2 pieces.

Next, I open my scanned pages with Adobe Photoshop. I use Photoshop for the computerizing process mainly because it's something I've become so accustomed to doing, so therefore it's fastest for me. Over the years I've come to know Illustrator and InDesign better, and I know other comickers have other programs they prefer, which are probably better to use for this kind of thing. So just as a disclaimer - I use Photoshop because at this point I can use it faster than I can other programs. Anyhoo.

My page comes in 2 pieces, so I need to rotate my images and combine them into one page. I go to the top menu > Image > Rotate Canvas to get each part facing the right side up. Then I pick one of the halves and go to Image > Canvas Size.

I set the height of the page to 14 inches, because that was the size of my original paper. I select the other half of  my page, copy and paste it into this one, and fiddle around with the layer until they match up. Then I combine them into one image by going to Image > Merge Visible.

Next, I need to put borders around all of my panels, since I didn't ink them in. I select the Rectangle Tool from the handy toolbar and draw one big rectangle along the outside of my entire page.

Then, I go to the Layers Panel and set the fill of the rectangle to 0%, so the rectangle is transparent. Then I add a Layer Style to the rectangle - a stroke 12 pixels thick, which gives us the panel outline.

Now that the outside of all of the panels is marked, I need to separate each panel border. Using the rectangular marquee tool, I draw rectangles for all the gutter spaces (in between the panels). Make sure when you use the rectangular marquee, you've clicked the Add to Selection button so that all of your selection is included.

Next, go to top menu > Select > Inverse. Then, back in the Layers Panel, click the Add Layer Mask button.

Voila - by drawing that one big rectangle and cutting out the parts I didn't want, I've successfully created all of my panel borders for the page.

The next step is going to be adding text. Since my scanned image carries traces of my blue pencil, I can still see the word bubbles and what text I want to type in on the page. Now, you have some choices when you're adding text in on the computer. I would beg you, however, not to use Comic Sans as a font. It's been used everywhere, it's tacky, and it's a bit ugly. There, I said it. Besides that, I would say it's up to you what you choose for a font. However, in my opinion, one of the best things you can do if you're not hand-lettering (or getting a professional to do it for you) is to create your own font. Even though I'm terrible at drawing fonts by hand myself, I struggled through the process and managed to come up with one that isn't horrible, is legible, and 100% reflects me and my style. I used this font creator back in the day ... like, at least 9 years ago when I created my font. Yeesh. I'm old.

So, using my font, I type over the word bubbles on the page. For words I want to emphasize, I select the text and go to the Character panel and hit the Faux Bold or Faux Italic buttons. When I created my own font, I created a "bold" version of it too, but I usually prefer to use the Faux Bold instead of my own font (again - not gifted at font creation).

Now that all the text is in, I can create the word bubbles to go around them. For this, I go to my Shapes Tool and select Rounded Rectangle. I set the radius (curvy-ness of the shape edges) to 50 pixels.

After I've dragged rounded rectangles behind each of my text bubbles (make sure to set the properties of the rounded rectangle tool to Add to Shape Area so the shapes all end up on one layer), I can create the stem that points the bubbles to the speaker. For this, I select the Pen Tool.

Using the Pen Tool, I select the rounded rectangles layer in my Layers Panel, again making sure the selection properties on the top panel are sent to Add to Shape Area. What this does is insure that the stems I create with the pen tool will be treated as part of the same shape as the rounded rectangle, so there won't be any lines or separation between the word bubble and the stem coming off of it.

Now, a word on word bubbles .... I don't terribly like the way I do them. In fact, I tend to prefer word bubbles that look more like this:

(This page is taken from Hopeless Savages #3 from Oni Press, art by my fave Christine Norrie, story by Jen Van Meter, lettering credited by Christine Norrie, Andy Lis, Jamie McKelvie, Tom Orzechowski, Bryan Lee O'Malley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this is something I definitely need to work on.

Next - on to getting rid of the pesky blue pencil marks. I forget who exactly I got this process from first, but it's proven to be quick and handy, so I thank them! With your artwork layer selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

Select the Blues and set the Lightness to 100. Repeat the process with the Cyans selected.

Now, your blues are gone but your inking still looks a little ... drab. I little bit less than pure black, doesn't it? Easy fix. Go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold.

And hit OK.

That should bump up the contrast of your inks to a nice level.

So there you have it - the whole page!

Now, for follow-on things you can do - to get rid of the lines that go outside the panel borders, select your panel layer (the one with all the black panel borders) in the Layers Panel, right-click on its mask selection, and select Subtract Layer Mask from Selection. Apply this selection as a mask to the layer your artwork is on. Also, you'll need to select the outside border of your panels and go to Select > Inverse. Select your artwork layer again and go to Select > Save Selection > Channel > Shape 1 Mask > Operation > Subtract from Panel. What all of this does is mask your artwork layer to be within the same boundaries as your panel borders - i.e. none of your lines will bleed outside of the panel border lines.

Still awake? You've made it through my computerization process! Yay! Now, there's all kinds of places you can go next - adding grays to the page, color, etc. However, my page is going to stay this simple for now, as you can see posted here. If anyone has any further tips, suggestions, preferences on this process, lemme know! Let's have share time. :)

Past Parts:

My Comics Process Part 1: Thumbnailing

My Comic Process Part 2: Pencilling

My Comics Process Part 3: Inking

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[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

My Comics Process: Inking

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It's time for Part 3 of my Comics Making Process - Inking!

When we last left off we had a page all pencilled, waiting for some ink:

So I gather together all my favorite inking tools. I prefer the Pentel Brush Pen, and Microns of various sizes. The Pentel is a fairly recent obsession of mine (and by fairly recent, I mean since 2008, when I started using it), recommended to me by the incomparable Chris Schweizer. Finally, a brush pen that kept its fine point for months, even years after purchasing! It was a bit of a learning curve at first, and occasionally my hand will still spazz out and give everything a thick line, but overall I loooooves it.

Okay, so I've got my inking tools and my page to be inked. Now depending on the contents of the page, I'll use one of the Microns and a ruler first in order to block out all of the architecture - basically anything requiring a straight line. Sometimes I'll go over lines without the use of a ruler, which, for me, is almost always a mistake. (I've got those blasted coffee hands - all a-jittery)

This might be common sense, but I try to ink from the upper left hand corner of each panel down to the lower right hand corner so I limit my ink smudging as much as possible. Apart from the straight-line items on the page, I'll use the Microns for anything tinier or more precise than I trust myself to be able to do with the brush pen.

Now, with inking (depending on how you eventually finalize each page), you have a chance to really add some good shadows and depth. Pay attention to what time of day it is in your scene, where the light sources would be coming from, etc. In my earlier comicking days, I tended to shade everyone equally, as if there were a little sun hanging directly over each and every character. I didn't really get that I had to create a whole environment for my characters to be running around in, I couldn't just light them all individually. Anyhoo.

Now for this page, you can see I didn't play too much with shadows and contrasty lighting. In the past, I've colored my Gods & Undergrads pages. Recently I haven't had enough time to fully color each page, so I've been doing them in straight black-and-white. However, since I one day hope to color them, I don't add as much depth with my inking as I would if this were closer to the finished product. Also, you'll notice I've left the borders of the panels as-is - no inking by hand. I'll leave that for Part 4 - Computerizing!

My Comics Process Part 1: Thumbnailing

My Comic Process Part 2: Pencilling

My Comics Process Part 3: Inking

My Comics Process Part 4: Computerizing

My Comics Process: Inking

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It's time for Part 3 of my Comics Making Process - Inking!

When we last left off we had a page all pencilled, waiting for some ink:

So I gather together all my favorite inking tools. I prefer the Pentel Brush Pen, and Microns of various sizes. The Pentel is a fairly recent obsession of mine (and by fairly recent, I mean since 2008, when I started using it), recommended to me by the incomparable Chris Schweizer. Finally, a brush pen that kept its fine point for months, even years after purchasing! It was a bit of a learning curve at first, and occasionally my hand will still spazz out and give everything a thick line, but overall I loooooves it.

Okay, so I've got my inking tools and my page to be inked. Now depending on the contents of the page, I'll use one of the Microns and a ruler first in order to block out all of the architecture - basically anything requiring a straight line. Sometimes I'll go over lines without the use of a ruler, which, for me, is almost always a mistake. (I've got those blasted coffee hands - all a-jittery)

This might be common sense, but I try to ink from the upper left hand corner of each panel down to the lower right hand corner so I limit my ink smudging as much as possible. Apart from the straight-line items on the page, I'll use the Microns for anything tinier or more precise than I trust myself to be able to do with the brush pen.

Now, with inking (depending on how you eventually finalize each page), you have a chance to really add some good shadows and depth. Pay attention to what time of day it is in your scene, where the light sources would be coming from, etc. In my earlier comicking days, I tended to shade everyone equally, as if there were a little sun hanging directly over each and every character. I didn't really get that I had to create a whole environment for my characters to be running around in, I couldn't just light them all individually. Anyhoo.

Now for this page, you can see I didn't play too much with shadows and contrasty lighting. In the past, I've colored my Gods & Undergrads pages. Recently I haven't had enough time to fully color each page, so I've been doing them in straight black-and-white. However, since I one day hope to color them, I don't add as much depth with my inking as I would if this were closer to the finished product. Also, you'll notice I've left the borders of the panels as-is - no inking by hand. I'll leave that for Part 4 - Computerizing!

My Comics Process Part 1: Thumbnailing

My Comic Process Part 2: Pencilling

My Comics Process Part 3: Inking

My Comics Process Part 4: Computerizing

My Comics Process: Pencilling

/

Here we go on to Part 2 of my comics making process - pencilling! So now I move into my office, and set up shop at my drawing desk. Yes, it's a little old and filthy and apparently I work best when surrounded by clutter ... shh! Don't tell anyone!

I've got my coffee and my pig pencil case, so I'm ready. Here are a few of the supplies I use -- paper. Strathmore's smooth Bristol, 11x14, has been my preferred paper for years now.

I use blue pencil, and with a mechanical pencil housing blue lead, I'm able to get a much thinner, sketchier line than I would with a regular pencil. The only problem? I tend to press down really hard when I pencil, so I break the tips off when I draw like nobody's business.

My eraser's pretty standard. It does its job.

So I take my 11x14 sheet of Bristol and tape it down to my drawing table. That way, it doesn't slip out of the way when I'm aggressively sketching and breaking off lead and whatnot. Now here's the part where I do a little math: My paper is 11" wide x 14" long, and my final end product will be printed on paper that's 5.5" wide x 7.75" long - standard page size for a manga-sized book. I've figured out that this gives me about a 4.33" wide x 6.933" long space to fit all my art in, with no risk of bleeding out in to margin space. I'm definitely not the best at properly adjusting my pages in order to take advantage of bleed space in printed pages, but at least I have a rough guess for how much room I'll be allowed to work with for my comic page. So when I compare 11"x14" (paper size) with 4.33"x6.933" (drawing space), I discover that I have to slim down my paper width area a wee bit in order to match the ratio I want to end up with. So my drawing area becomes 8.74" wide x 14" long. So I simply measure 1.14" off of each side, draw a little line, and know that these are my boundaries to draw within.

Then I measure out the page into thirds, since my thumbnail sketch told me that I wanted 3 rows of panels on this page. Again, I do a little math to measure out the page into my panel areas, but you're free to do this as anally or as sketchily as you please.

Now that the page is divided up into spaces for the panels, I mark out the panel lines themselves, leaving a little bit of room between panels for the gutters.

Then, finally, I can begin sketching! I've got my boundaries, I've got my thumbnails, so this should be the easy part, right? Wellll ... it depends on how detailed your thumbnails are, and how skilled you are at things like perspective and environment drawing (and I am not). So this part can take me a little while as I slowly build panel ...

... by panel ...

... being careful to write out all of my dialogue, so I can have room for it when I put it in on the computer in the final stage (stay tuned for that exciting installment!).

Sometimes I'll tape up previous pages as reference (shown at the right is the inked version of this page, which I put up to remember certain details about how I drew the characters the last time).

Until - voila! I'm all done.

The page is now all pencilled and ready to be inked, which is Part 3 of my Comics Process ... stay tuned!

My Comics Process Part 1: Thumbnailing

My Comics Process Part 3: Inking

My Comics Process Part 4: Computerizing

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[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

My Comics Process: Pencilling

/

Here we go on to Part 2 of my comics making process - pencilling! So now I move into my office, and set up shop at my drawing desk. Yes, it's a little old and filthy and apparently I work best when surrounded by clutter ... shh! Don't tell anyone!

I've got my coffee and my pig pencil case, so I'm ready. Here are a few of the supplies I use -- paper. Strathmore's smooth Bristol, 11x14, has been my preferred paper for years now.

I use blue pencil, and with a mechanical pencil housing blue lead, I'm able to get a much thinner, sketchier line than I would with a regular pencil. The only problem? I tend to press down really hard when I pencil, so I break the tips off when I draw like nobody's business.

My eraser's pretty standard. It does its job.

So I take my 11x14 sheet of Bristol and tape it down to my drawing table. That way, it doesn't slip out of the way when I'm aggressively sketching and breaking off lead and whatnot. Now here's the part where I do a little math: My paper is 11" wide x 14" long, and my final end product will be printed on paper that's 5.5" wide x 7.75" long - standard page size for a manga-sized book. I've figured out that this gives me about a 4.33" wide x 6.933" long space to fit all my art in, with no risk of bleeding out in to margin space. I'm definitely not the best at properly adjusting my pages in order to take advantage of bleed space in printed pages, but at least I have a rough guess for how much room I'll be allowed to work with for my comic page. So when I compare 11"x14" (paper size) with 4.33"x6.933" (drawing space), I discover that I have to slim down my paper width area a wee bit in order to match the ratio I want to end up with. So my drawing area becomes 8.74" wide x 14" long. So I simply measure 1.14" off of each side, draw a little line, and know that these are my boundaries to draw within.

Then I measure out the page into thirds, since my thumbnail sketch told me that I wanted 3 rows of panels on this page. Again, I do a little math to measure out the page into my panel areas, but you're free to do this as anally or as sketchily as you please.

Now that the page is divided up into spaces for the panels, I mark out the panel lines themselves, leaving a little bit of room between panels for the gutters.

Then, finally, I can begin sketching! I've got my boundaries, I've got my thumbnails, so this should be the easy part, right? Wellll ... it depends on how detailed your thumbnails are, and how skilled you are at things like perspective and environment drawing (and I am not). So this part can take me a little while as I slowly build panel ...

... by panel ...

... being careful to write out all of my dialogue, so I can have room for it when I put it in on the computer in the final stage (stay tuned for that exciting installment!).

Sometimes I'll tape up previous pages as reference (shown at the right is the inked version of this page, which I put up to remember certain details about how I drew the characters the last time).

Until - voila! I'm all done.

The page is now all pencilled and ready to be inked, which is Part 3 of my Comics Process ... stay tuned!

My Comics Process Part 1: Thumbnailing

My Comics Process Part 3: Inking

My Comics Process Part 4: Computerizing

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