Do you paint behind the speech bubbles?

[jmhenry]

I do art and speech bubbles on separate layers. It makes it easy to change the placement of dialogue, if I ever have to change format or change parts of a page

[Tanako]

WHAT? lol you work on the art then text and bubbles come last. HAHAHA!

[joannekwan]

First I lay out the text to make sure the flow is right, then I plan the panels and composition within the panels to work with the text. I draw everything. Then the actual bubbles come last.

[rajillustration]

I never draw anything more than I have to, so if I know a speech bubble is there--ain't nothing going behind that. I have my whole life to live, and I'm not hiding it behind a speech bubble.

[TenguHarley]

I do art first then speech bubbles after, on either or I make tweaks and adjustments so it flows right and fits well to be read :s

though I can definitely say its a learning process with it

[Rhonder]

My first comic I absolutely did because I was drawing the lineart traditionally, but coloring and lettering on the computer. So I would have to draw the whole page first because I wasn't sure exactly how large a given bubble would be (I'd have a rough idea during thumbnailing, but things are subject to change in the real deal lol).

I'm moving to all digital for the next one, but I think I'll still draw everything because it's nice to have the ability to move things around down the line if I need to. I'm also considering doing the "draw in page format and chop into vertical" method for it where that would be a necessity anyways.

[gh0stcr33p]

really think you should do speech bubbles last. don't even bother putting them in the thumbnail or sketching and inking can just end up being a hassle. plus, that way you can always rearrange them later on

[NickRowler]

I usually type out the text first and work around it to avoid overlapping. Bubbles are usually drawn on the same layer as the lineart. So the only thing draw behind bubbles are the backgrounds.

In my first comic, I did bubbles last and on separate layers and I felt like I was drawing stuff only for it to covered and bubbles felt squished.

[UzukiCheverie]

Always. Always, always, always.

Because how you sketch your speech bubbles may not be how you lay them out later. You might find that the text you put in needs to be rearranged in a certain way either due to its length or how it structures itself line-per-line, or the speech bubbles don't work as is with the composition of the art ... and if you screw it up, you're gonna have to draw more stuff anyway to fill in those blanks you created by not drawing everything in the first place.

It also can't hurt to have untouched art with no bubbles to reuse for promotional reasons, thumbnails, memes, etc. without worrying about the speech bubbles getting in the way of it or the art being unfinished when you do take those bubbles away. I say this confidently as someone who used to cut corners by not drawing the art 'behind the speech bubbles' and 9 times out of 10 it bit me in the ass later.

Art first, lettering later. You can obviously still plan out where you're going to put your speech bubbles, because speech bubbles/text play a huge part in how you create a composition anyway; you gotta make sure the art and speech bubbles work together... but it can't be at the expense of one or the other. At least when you have the panels finished 100% regardless of their placement, you'll have more freedom to move your bubbles and text around without risk; and you'll have a bigger batch of art to pull from if you need to use old panels for whatever purpose.

And if you're someone who works on a team of artists, your letterer reserves the right to beat you upside the head if you provide them art that's not finished lmaooo

[dawgofdawgness]

I try my best not to, because it usually ends up being a waste of my time. You should get into the habit of incorporating the placement of speech bubbles in your thumbnail so that you don't smoosh it in last minute. It can look kind of janky composition-wise and super packed with little room to breathe. Also if you render your comic beneath a speech bubble and it gets covered up anyway it's the worst feeling lol.

I think the only perk of rendering your comic beneath speech bubbles is that you can move the bubbles around if the layout changes, but worst case scenario you just fix it later.

[azzy-m]

I sketch my panels without the speech bubbles and I add them sometime after sketching. Depending on how lazy I am and how detailed I want the panel to be, I won't even color anything behind the speech bubbles. Case in point:

(not afraid to admit, i just paint-bucketed the BG here)

[JRHoch]

I stopped using speech bubbles--instead I just let the letters float on the backgrounds and use an indicator line for who is talking. This allows the most amount of background to be visible. It also allows me to rethink my text, add or delete dialogue, and not have to worry about fixing missing background.

[PaulDevers]

I used to for the longest time! Nowadays, not so much. It's just a little bit faster if I don't, and I appreciate efficiency.

[Cronaj]

So, I always plan where I want the speech bubbles more or less before I begin drawing, BUT I do paint/draw behind them, mostly because (as was mentioned), it makes my job easier if I decide to move a speech bubble around, and because when I format my comic for scrolling/webtoon format, I often have floating speech bubbles or more out-of-panel space to put the speech bubbles. And as a bonus, if I ever decide I want to use an image from the comic for promotional materials and such, it all looks good under the speech bubbles after I remove them

[sushy00]

I sketch behind the bubbles, but I am not coloring/inking there xD

[Kann]

Yup, because I move them around a lot before I'm satisfied with their placement. Also they have a little transparency going on.

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

It depends. If there’s something important or necessary to the continuity of the scene I draw it in and lower the opacity of the bubble to give a peek of what’s behind it. If I’m pressed for time And/or the stuff behind the bubble isn’t particularly important then I don’t bother.

[Missapogee]

unlike a lot of the people on this thread, my speech bubbles are both a part of my initial sketches and the first thing I do, but because my art is pretty freeform (lineless and with more painterly) Often behind my speech bubbles Will just be the general shapes that never got properly shaded/ cleaned up

I actually think it's fun to see art at a very different stage of completion attached to finished stuff!

[Caro]

I work traditionally so I always do my speech balloons (and panel borders) before I ink the rest of it. I like knowing where they are so that I don’t end up overdrawing things that won’t even end up showing up and I feel like having that figured out is just useful for the way I layout my pages and make sure the dialogue is in the right spaces and the timing is correct. I think its a little harder for me to pull off if its an afterthought.

[ble]

I draw and color everything, and in the end, I draw the speech bubbles (i already figure where the text is gonna be, last thing is drawing the bubbles), because first, i do the regular normal page layout, and later I put it into a vertical format, and the speech bubbles is the one that got changed when vertical.