Jul 2021
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Jul 2021
Jul 2021
gabriellabalagna
Jul '21

1. What is a good number of panels to use for one scene to achieve good pacing? (You can give a range, obviously some scenes require more or less. Also, you can answer how many panels per one episode/chapter instead if that's easier.)

2. Should a comic scene be paced the same as a movie? (Let's say an action movie scene has 30 shot changes. Would an action scene in a comic require about 30 panels?)

(For context, I am asking this to help improve pacing in my next comic. The comic I already finished feels very rushed and changes scenes way too fast. So I was wondering if I could learn better pacing by trying to replicate the pacing in movies. Thanks if you read this far!)

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    Jul '21

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G_yagura
Jul '21

This will depend a lot on the dramatic load and speed you want to put into the scene. In faster scenes without a lot of appeal it can usually happen in 3/5 panels when you focus on a certain action, but if you want a scene that requires more appeal and has a very dramatic charge you usually focus on the details, so that increases the number of panels, which can be +5.
The faster the scene, the fewer panels are needed. The slower the scene, the more panels will be needed.

About question 2 I don't think so. Films and comics have considerable differences, although they both start with script and storyboard, but the final product is different. Usually comics have less "frames" so as not to bore readers.

Kaydreamer
Jul '21

I had to tackle a similar problem very early into Blue Star Rebellion - the first half of chapter one felt way too rushed. I ended up overcoming it in a few ways:

  • I started storyboarding in longer batches, rather than single pages. Then, when I switched to vertical, I started storyboarding in episodes. This helped me think in whole scenes, rather than in however much I could fit onto a page.
  • I think through the whole scene and play it like a movie in my head; sometimes even speaking dialogue out loud. If I do this enough times, I get a sense of how long I'd want the reader to linger over each part of the scene, in order to get the right impact from it. The parts I want them to linger over get more panels. The parts which they can move quickly through get fewer panels. I tend to really stretch parts of my dialogue out with lots of panels when there's supposed to be a lot of emotion in the conversation, for instance. It's read slower, which helps each line resonate.
  • Small shots of characters doing non-verbal things can help slow the pace as well. For example; a person walks into the room, and instead of having them immediately take a seat, you show them fiddling with the leaf of a favourite pot plat first. I like taking a panel to show slight changes in facial expression.

Hopefully some of these help!

DNoble
Jul '21

1: A comic scene should have as many panels as it needs to have in order to tell the story.

2: A comic scene should be paced the way it needs to be paced in order to tell the story.

Do not overcomplicate things. Do what works, full stop.

gabriellabalagna
Jul '21
1

@alsfxxi Okay, that makes sense. I like that tip about faster scenes need less panels. Slower scenes need more. Thank you!

@Kaydreamer Yeah, I usually only thumbnail 1-4 pages at a time. But thumbnailing in longer batches would help things flow a lot better. And then they could be test read together to see if things feel too fast. Also, yeah adding more dialogue would help slow things down. So helpful! Thank you!

@andersondavid319 Yeah I agree. But I'm not really trying to nail down an exact number. Just want an idea of how many panels people use. I don't want things to feel rushed, yet I don't want to bore people.

Kaydreamer
Jul '21

Yeah, I read over each episode I make multiple times to test the pacing. At least once in thumbnail, once in sketch, and once again in lineart. One advantage of working vertically is that I can add in extra panels with ease. If you're working page-style, make sure you comb over the thumbnail carefully - or - and this just occurred to me - storyboard it in squares first before moving to design a page. That way you don't waste time on having designed page layouts when you feel like you need an extra few panels.

gabriellabalagna
Jul '21

Yeah, that's a good tip about thumbnailing with squares first to not waste time on layouts.

My next comic I want to make in page format so it can be printed. Then I'll chop it up into scrolling format for sharing online. But yeah, page format is hard how you can't just add in an extra panel or some extra spacing as easily.

rajillustration
Jul '21

So like for me, (and assuming you're talking about scroll format, and not page where you don't want to go over 10) I realized very quickly that fitting in 30 panels would cap the MB limit without really any way to fit content in even if I saved my files lower quality, so I do about 15-20 panels just so that like...that wouldn't be an issue (and I can fit quite a lot in 15-20)

But as for if it should match a movie paneling? Nah, I don't think it should. With movies you generally have to show people's faces when they talk, so the camera pivots back and forth. With comics you can fit way more dialogue in one scene (and it's not a ton of dialogue, but you don't have to switch the frame every time they switch over.) Especially with modern movies they do a ton of cuts, and with a comic, you can get more feeling of movement without showing every step of the movement.

So if you have a fight scene you don't need to show every punch and every jab, coordinated the same way a movie does--that would take 2 years to draw in a comic. Instead, you can have more aesthetic pieces that get across that energy and that page flow, but with a fraction of the punches. Comics are more abstract, and readers can put together the movements that happen between panels without showing every frame. It's more of knowing which frames are necessary for them to fit together all the pieces of the puzzle.

That and unlike a movie, comics have a weird impression of time. You can blend panels together seamlessly in scroll format, so one panel takes the place of four. You can have a big background scene with text on top to cover what would have been 10 or so cuts in a movie. You can spend 4 or 5 small panels to do one motion. So like...while you can get a ton of inspo looking at movies (I love looking at movies for storyboarding ideas, personally) they don't work 1-1. 30 cuts is not the same as 30 panels.

As for what's the right number of panels? Eh no one knows. Especially when you do have very tiny panels you can use so many (with scroll it can't get as small, but they still exist) and when you have loooooong panels you can got pretty low in the panel count and still make a satisfying page. It's kind of a non-answer, but for myself and my style, I noticed that around 15 works for me.

rachurch95
Jul '21

for me, i just have a set number of panels i need to do each week.

i normally want to do at least 7 or more, but no more than 11.

so because of how many 'sets' i wanna do, i normally do 3-4 panels on each set.

Unless it's a slightly dramatic one, so it'd be one panel, and then one big drawing.

maseba
Jul '21

To make the scenes or panels of a comic script you have to think about what you have to show and what is the level of information that each panel has.
Also, in general the European and American comic has fewer panels than Asian comics.
And it also depends on what kind of story you do: comics noir have a lot of panels and details in conversations while shonen have in fights.
My recommendation is that you watch comics similar to yours to see how other artists do it.

gabriellabalagna
Jul '21

@rajillustration Okay, good reminder about the upload size limit. Also, even though you're saying movies aren't 1:1 as comics, thanks for the explanation here. This really helps me understand their differences. Also, yeah 15ish seems like a decent amount.

@rachurch95 That seems like a good amount per week. My old comic, I only did 5-6 per week and it didn't feel like enough for much to happen.

@maseba Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I need to find some comics that are similar to what I'm going for and study what they do.