About thumbnails

[mac]

im a bit curious about how everyones series thumbnails get made,,, im having a hard time creating one for a new series im going to start so i was wondering,,, for the series' thumbnail, do you create a larger file then resize it down to 300x300 px or do you just work in a thumbnail-sized canvas?

[joannekwan]

For my series thumbnails I work on a 800 x 800 (or so) canvas (300 dpi as always) then I save it at 300 x 300 (72 dpi).

For episode thumbnails, I usually just crop a section from a panel.

[mac]

i'll have to try that!! thank you!!

[efdvorsky]

I did a thorough explanation of my page process on this topic about arranging panels in pages but basically I thumbnail the whole chapter in a sketchbook to at least get the pacing right and know what I want in each page. Then I make sketches separately if i want to rearrange the paneling in some specific pages from this first raw draft (which is very common. 'write drunk, edit sober' and all that...minus the alcohol at the moment)

(the stains are from some fountain pen doodles in the previous page, sorry)

I have 12 pages of this, which is a total of 2 chapters.

Hope it helps!

[mac]

this is pretty helpful thank you!

[Kayke]

I used an image cropped from a page of my comic. I just picked something that looked dynamic and had two of my fave characters. I was planning on making new art and was just using this thumbnail as a place holder... but I never got around to it and people seemed to like it so I left it.

It was also fun to see people's reactions when I got to the page that I took the thumbnail from

For the episode thumbnails I basically did the same thing, picking a panel from that chapter and adding a little frame with the episode number:

But to answer your question about the size, I always work larger and then scale down as a rule. It lets you put more detail and makes the lines look cleaner.

[mac]

thank you!!!!!!!!!!! (rly had to stretch the excitement to make the word limit lol)

[phen]

I also use a unique thumbnail grabbed from the corresponding comic page that updates. If you're using Photoshop, you can flatten the page, double-click the background layer to make it "layer 0", then adjust the canvas size to 300x300 pixels. Now simply drag the image around in the little box until you see a focal point you like! It's super fast.

But I really like what @Kaykedrawsthings adds with the episode number added in the corner! That's really nice, keeps an even more orderly kind of look to everything!

[mattcleaver]

Yeah I generally just crop out a small 300x300 bit of the page to use as a thumbnail, which is actually the most time consuming part of the uploading process. But some comments on here have helped ME a lot too so thanks for putting up this question CX

[TheArgoNinja]

I just screenshot a square of one of my character's faces from the page, then blow it up (Or shrink it) to about 300x300. Really simple on my part.

[efdvorsky]

omgIjustrealized we were talking about THOSE thumbnails.

Iamsosorry

[AnnaLandin]

I only have one thumbnail per chapter (so readers can glance at the sidebar and know where one chapter ends and another begins without having to look closely), and I use a crop of the chapter-cover. My usual method is to create a 300x300 file, and then importing the entire cover and re-sizing the imported file until an appropriate part of it fills the square.

[Doubtcent]

Its usually best to go big then downsize it. Make it appealing to the eye, and have it basically represent your comic as a whole.
I like to have a theme, and I change the color of my thumbnails after a few episodes.

[MannyMelancholy]

This is great, having them all laid out for a grand scheme viewing which will allow you to better read the flow of your panels and page placements. Such crucial information for the comic artist in the starting phase.