A lot of the lore in the comic is about to be reworked, but rather than explain how, I'm just going to go ahead and show it. Here's a hint as to what may have changed: Sera cannot heave tables of that size onto people and substantially crush them without a great amount of difficulty. No one, save possibly professional wrestlers and people silly enough to participate in Most Extreme Elimination Challenge would dare try. More on table-heaving in the next few issues.

I was asked twice how I make the comic, so here's a quick run-down (one day I'll make a FAQ and get you all to leave me the hell alone): I start with a layout I made in Adobe Illustrator, but since not all of us have Illustrator, any program used for graphics that can print on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper at 300 DPI or so will do. If you don't know what DPI is, I suggest you look it up. After the layout has been selected, it is printed off. This layout is usually a single-panel, wide-screen edition setup, with THX enhancements up the wazoo. Not really, but I'd like to at least dream of such things.

I print off four copies of the layout, and use each for a seperate panel of the comic. Below the layout (since I work horizontally) are four boxes, three small, one quite long and thick. In the box that is long and thick, I write my name. In the three small ones, I put down the date, episode, and chapter numbers respectively. When that's done, I start sketching. Once I'm done my sketches, having resolved them to a point where most everything makes sense, I scan those in at 300 DPI, greyscale. Then in Photoshop (again, any program worth having will substitute quite well) I set the sketches to Mode > RGB Colour, and adjust the tint using Edit > Hue/Saturation. I make the sketches a very nice, light blue. This is a process I like to call "bluelining". Then I print those off.

The printed copies, which I like to call "bluecopies", are the ones I ink. The originals never get a drop of ink on them if I can help it. That way if I screw up the inking or decide I need to change something, I can just go back and correct the original sketch, rescan, blueline it, and print it. If you do in fact suffer from shaky hands as I do, you may want to print off two copies, maybe even three. If you require four, I would consider returning to art school and seeking professional help.

Inking is a tedious but rewarding process. Just remember to close all your lines and section off the different parts of the character. Hair should be closed off from the flesh, shirts from the flesh, etc. This way when it comes time to use gray (or colour), and you just want to plop down a colour in an area, no problem. Otherwise you'll start having colour spill into areas you don't want it. I use Micron Pigma ink pens made by Sakura. I use an 01 and an 05 usually, with an 005 and an 08 on hand just in case. 01 is for all the basic work, 05 for thicker lines, 005 for small, teeny details, and 08 for really thick lines.

When the inking's done, I scan the copies in and open them in Photoshop (or equivalent, once again). Before we forget, remember that scanning is always done at 300 DPI. In Photoshop, I add gradients in the background, isolating objects from it using the magic wand tool. Any shading necessary is accomplished using the polygonal lasso tool on a layer above the ink work with the blending set to "Multiply". That done, I merge the shading and panel layers, then set to work on balloons and lettering.

Everyone does these differently to some extent, but my favourite method is this: Draw an object on a new layer using the polygonal lasso tool. Then use the polygonal lasso tool to make a small tail aimed at the character speaking. After that, fill both with white, then use Edit>Stroke to apply a black outline. If you're using Adobe Photoshop 7, you can do this using the Effects menu as well. Add whatever lettering you require and so forth. Save a large copy for editing work if required, then flatten it and save a copy for the web at 72 DPI. Voila, it's done.

 

Friday, March 12, 2004 # posted by <$BlogCommentAuthor$> : <$BlogCommentDateTime$> <$BlogCommentDeleteIcon$> | Archived Commentaries