The ugliest part is the hardest part

Mar 22, 2020

No time for me today? Here are the highlights:

I do a page breakdown
How much time should you spend on each step?
I share a lesson I wish someone told me years ago

Happy Sunday from the Madison Quarantine Zone.

I've had a few questions about my process, so I'm going to share. It's not much, but there may be useful gems here and there. If I was starting out again, I'd want someone to tell me how long to spend on each part, so I'll cover that.

Also, a lesson I wish someone had told me right at the beginning.

So, jumping in --

Thumbs/Layouts

You probably know that drawing a comics page isn't about drawing a bunch of little pictures that look good on their own, but drawing a bunch of little pictures in balance with each other in a way that guides the reader's eye across the page.

A single page (or the odd double-spread) needs to be a compositionally-sound piece of art as a whole. The best-drawn little panels don't make a hill 'o beans worth a difference if the reader doesn't know where to look next.

To figure out how to do this, you do a rough layout or thumbs. Thumbs are tiny rough sketches to give you an overall idea of the composition.

A lot of artists will do half a dozen thumbs for a cover and pick the strongest one. Some do thumbs for all their pages.

I split the difference and start with layouts. Basically, I open a blank file (I work digitally) and do the rough sketch of the panels, the action, and where the thing I want you looking at in each panel goes, and how that all works together to make a PAGE.

I think whether you skip thumbs, layouts, or split the difference like I do, it's safe to say that this is the hardest, most time-consuming, most frustrating, most "I want to give up," least fun part of the process.

I'm sure there's some contrarian out there going "uhm akshually I love the--" yeah, go to hell.

This is the un-fun part. And that's okay, because there's a reason for it.

It's the part where you find out whether what you see in your head will work on a page. It's the part where you work out the kinks before you've invested time and energy drawing really good little panels only to discover that they just don't work together, you don't know why, and there's no way to fix it.

It's a good thing that it's hard and not fun.

But, it can be discouraging, because if this part is so crappy, then is making comics even fun at all, man?

Yes it is.

But don't bother telling that to 2015-era Rent.

He's not going to listen. He wants to complain like a little bitch about how hard comics are.

And we're going to let him, because he's only hurting himself and wasting his own time.

2019 Rent is done wasting time, but he still doesn't understand why this is not a good thumb/layout:

I had a really hard time getting started because I didn't understand why this here doesn't work.

I figured, I just need to put a quick shape on a page and that would be enough to carry me to the end.

But then you start drawing and all these questions come up.

What does the background look like?
How deep is it?
Where are the figure's unseen feet in relation to the ground?
How close should the "camera" be?
How much twist should there be in the figure?
What post would be the most dramatic?
Am I capable of pulling it off?

God forbid you get busy and have to come back to this a few weeks after you draw it. You'll think, what in the hell is this, even?

I didn't understand that you don't want to negotiate these questions at the pencils stage.

You want to have as good an idea going in of the shapes, the depth, the space being taken up, etc. as possible, and even though the layouts are the un-fun part, they are your best opportunity in the entire process to work this shit out without sapping your willpower, enthusiasm, and time.

The above is the perspective ruler tool in Clip Studio Paint. It makes things a lot easier, so if you work digitally, use it.

Here, I changed my philosophy.

This is a different layout for the same page, but this time I tried to work out the background first, and forget the figures for now.

Also a mistake.

If you read my last newsletter for writers, then you know that each panel is about the one thing you want the reader to look at.

Unless you're doing some establishing shot or a dramatic, detailed vista, that one thing is most likely going to be an object or a figure.

You can't build a setting and then drop the point of focus in. Always start with the point of focus. Build around it.

This is version 3, and the one I ultimately went with.

Even now, looking at it again, I probably would have pushed it further, adding light/dark values and doing a more detailed construct for the main figure, but we're miles away from where we were before.

We have a much better idea of what the figure is doing, what the panels around it look like, and what the action is.

From here, jumping to tight pencils is easy.

Some artists might do a looser pencil before getting here, and I might even do that myself depending on the page.

But I feel really confident in my figure work and closeups are easy.

If the background were more detailed, I might have taken a looser pass, but since it's mostly just shapes, a few neon signs, and a skyline to convey an impression of a setting, I didn't need to worry about it too much.

The figure is the focus, and should be the most dramatic.

At this point in the process, I'll usually "sleep on it" and see if there are any other tweaks I want to make.

If you have to go back to the layouts at this point, it can be incredibly discouraging, and it's really difficult to pull yourself back from that feeling of giving up on the page entirely.

In this case, I did spot a pretty big error after some shut-eye.

The main figure is well-rendered, but way too small.

He needs to take up more space, not just for perspective reasons, but because he's the main focus in the composition and your eye should be drawn to him.

Working digitally makes it really easy to pull a figure out from pipsqueak status.

You can do this with a hybrid traditional/digital approach as well, but I work digitally from soup to nuts because the time savings outweigh the benefits of traditional for me.

It's completely a personal preference thing, don't let anyone thumb their nose at you one way or another. You tell them I said they can go to hell! (They probably won't know who I am.)

So this looked pretty good.

I made some minor adjustments to his poncho and sword to connect to the gutter better and kept the original layer so I could ink over the background I already drew.

Now here's inks.

Added some rain effects, everything is looking pretty good.

This page is part of a 2-page sequence I had in mind as a "proof of concept" for my upcoming webcomic Ronin Digital Express (subscribe here).

Here's the full sequence, colored by me. Call it a little bonus for newsletter readers.

Page 2, the final:

So how long should each thing take?

Thumbs/layouts should by far be the "workiest" part. It takes me the longest, though you might have a good idea in your head of what you want which makes a thumb a little quicker.

Good for you, but either way, build the foundation here. Let it take time.

Roughs/tight pencils will take more or less time depending on how different your pencils are from the final inks.

If you prefer to do your tight detail work in inks, this stage will hopefully go quicker since you laid the track during the layouts.

Inks if you go from tight pencils to inks, this stage is pretty quick.

If you frontload your detail work at the pencil stage, you should mostly just be tracing over work you're happy with.

I might even save myself some time if I did tight pencils with a G-pen and just changed them over to black if I was satisfied (takes note).

My favorite part

Definitely doing tight linework.

I love watching an image change like this:

That's my dessert. Everything before and after is veggies.

But, you gotta eat your veggies. That's the lesson I wish someone told me earlier on.

Eating your veggies is hard, time-consuming, and occasionally soul-crushing. But let it take the time it takes. Dessert's coming.

If you're gonna cry about it, you can go to bed with nothing like 2015-era Rent.

2020 Rent is enlightened.

There's probably not a whole lot you can safely get your hands on right now, but make note to try and find these when you can go outside again:

Genius Illustrated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth: One of a multi-volume set (and probably the most useful of the set for comic book artists) this chonky boi is part biography, part behind-the-scenes look at the process of one of the greats. Though his mainstream comic work is not nearly as prodigious as some other big names, his influence on the medium can be seen damn near everywhere.

The Plot: This Vault book is out in trade now, and is one of a two-volume set. It got a lot of buzz online and I'm happy to report that it mostly lived up to the hype for me. It definitely feels like the comic analogue of the somewhat "prestige" horror film era we're in (A Quiet Place, IT, Bird Box) with as much a focus on characters as scares. You'll know whether you're into it right away. The first issue had a couple of legitimate shocks for me. The only complaint I really have is the title, but I think that's on me. For some reason, I thought "The Plot" was some kind of meta, postmodern thing, but it just refers to a family plot of land in the story.

Batman: Tales of the Demon: I've been waiting for this trade for a LONG time. The episodes comprising the unofficial Ra's al Ghul saga in Batman: The Animated Series are among the show's best, and I've always wanted to see how much of that comes from the comics. A surprising lot, as it turns out, with some episodes being a near-shot-for-shot adaptation. Also, any excuse to get some more Neal Adams into your library is a good one.

That's it for this week's adventure.

As always, thank you for your support.

I don't have a Patreon, nor do I ask for donations. If you want to help me, the best thing you can do is share this content with your followers if you enjoyed it.

Thanks for being here all the same.

Back to work (and please wash your goddamn hands).

*rent