2021 Christmas Comic Process (Patreon)

Hi all!

As promised, I wanted to gift a bit of a glimpse into how I created this year's Batgirl Supergirl Christmas comic!

These days I work almost entirely in Clip Studio Paint. The slight negative about this is that it's not as easy for me to save snapshots of my various steps as it is with Photoshop's excellent History bar. So the below steps will be a very abridged version of how I went about writing and drawing this particular comic.

The plus side however, is that CSP allows me to record every mark I make. So read below, and then if you really want a more considerable look at all the thoughts and decisions that went into the making of this comic, you can watch this 16 min time-lapse I uploaded (a much quicker 60 sec version is above for the patiently impaired like myself).

Okay! Let's get to it!

STEP 1

The only step in my process I still don't do digitally is when I'm simply jotting down my ideas and figuring out my panels and character placement. That's what you see above. Basically me writing what dialog I plan on using (which changed slightly in the end) and a rough sketch of my panel layout.

Sometimes this is much more involved. In this case, I had a pretty clear conception of what I was planning so there wasn't much to scribble down.

STEP 2

Once that's out of the way, I move into CSP and lay down my borders and type. If you watch the process vids, you'll see the above pic is a bit inaccurate. For one, I don't draw my borders right away because I have template borders I can adjust before tracing over them. Also I rewrote some of this dialog as I went. But for the sake of this post, it's much easier to have something established up front for y'all to see.

I always start a comic by laying down my dialog first. The text will move around as I draw, but it gives me a good idea of how much space I need to allow for my word bubbles as well as how to place them for best readability. I'm also using a new sentence-case font I created since I've started to grow fond of mixed case in comics these days.

STEP 3

From there, I start scribbling in the art! I used to do a much rougher version of this stage and then another layer on top that was a little more detailed: The "pencils" if you will. Lately though, I combined these two steps into one that falls slightly in-between.

I work in blue at this stage because I just got so used to using blue lead for my traditional work. It's also much easier to "ink" over top of, especially when I lower the opacity.

STEP 4

Which I've done here! Before inking, I draw all of my word balloons on a separate layer. That way it's easier to move them around and adjust them if needed.

STEP 5

And then I get started "inking" on an above layer; More or less just polishing up my blue-line art. Sometimes, however, I might change things completely. For example, Batgirl's entire head in that third panel. The reason for doing this is because I realized my "line-of-sight" was off. What is "line-of-sight" you might ask? Well, I'll show you!

SIDE THING 1

To make sure the reader has a seamless reading experience, the artwork and characters' sight lines should often--not always (rules can be broken to great effectiveness)--but often direct the reader to the next panel or dialog. Now, instead of Batgirl looking off into some unknown direction away from the rest of the comic, she's leading us directly into panel 4, exactly where I want the reader to go.

SIDE THING 2

And since we're in this now, word balloon and sound effect placement can also aid in how easily read a comic is. Overlapping (panels 2, 3, 4), and creative ways of moving characters around a page (panel 5) are a couple of ways to do this.

Sometimes, line-of sight and dialog placement is where most of my thought energy is spent. And if I've done my job well enough, shouldn't even be noticeable.

STEP 6

Moving on to color: I tend to color any characters or central objects before working on the background. The main reasoning behind this is often characters already have established color palettes and I need to make sure they stand out. I can often adjust a background color easily without sacrificing much continuity.

STEP 7

Such as here! Lots of blues and purples which contrast nicely off of Kara and Babs' red and green costumes.

If you've seen previous process posts from me, you'll notice I no longer "flat" my artwork--that is, laying down colors without lighting or shading. Biggest reason behind this is I simply work quicker this way now. It's less technical (or more fluid) as well resulting in a much more enjoyable coloring experience.

STEP 8

Finally I color up some of the linework, make some additional color corrections, add a bit of texture and voilà! Finished comic.

Doing away with the borders for this particular comic isn't something I've done before but the colors were so vibrant I decided to try it out of curiosity. I ended up liking it enough that I may continue the approach for these Batgirl Supergirl strips going forward. Who knows what the future holds? :)

Merry Christmas!