How to Draw a Comic Book

Video Transcript

"O'kay folks in this clip we are going to talk about how to draw a comic book. Alright so the first thing you are going to want to do is just sit down with a blank page in front of you and start to sketch out concept ideas, concepts for the different casts of characters that are going to occupy this book. If it is already an established cast of characters figure out if there are any new ones that you want to introduce into this particular series of stories that you want to tell in your particular comic book. Figure out exactly what their design is going to be and really just take some time to get a whole bunch of random ideas down on paper. Try a bunch of different variations of those ideas as well. Don't just lock in to one idea and just leave it at that. I mean if you are incredibly in love with your early concept design like the first one that you laid down then by all means go with it but allow yourself the freedom to experiment just a little bit, not just with the characters but with the locations like use a little bit of creativity here and explore the limitless possibilities that are at your disposal, that would be the first thing to do. The second thing would be to start the story book, the actual comic, figure out exactly what is going to happen visually from frame to frame to frame, figure out the different layouts that you want to use, the way that you want each sequence to progress, the visual style that you want to use that way and really just sort of lay the foundations for what the finished product will be. That would be step two and then in step three I guess what you would do is actually start to draw the thing. I am assuming that you are actually going to be doing this at home with maybe just yourself or one other person helping you out and if this is the case you are going to want to take it just panel by panel. Start by what is going on in the foreground, the character, I'm assuming that is in the panel or whatever might be the center of attention in the panel, start with that first. Then draw in the backgrounds behind it. This is not necessarily the way the pros do it I mean in the comic book world there are dozens of different steps before you finally get to the phase where you are actually laying out the finished product but since you are going to be doing this on your own get the story boards first, the basic panels and you can even use those sketches as the actual template for your finished product if you really love what you have done with the template, start to draw over it, take it panel by panel. I would recommend just using a pencil at first just to know exactly what you want and then finally at the very end what you are going to do is go over all your sketches in ink. That would be your final step in creating or drawing your very own comic book."