Let's see your thumbnails!

[teasidesketches]

Page thumbnails came up in another thread about traditional paneling, and it got me thinking; I'm the type to thumbnail out my entire chapters before I even consider sketching them, but well.. my thumbnails are an absolute mess and normally I would never show them off to people.

But that's no fun, and I'm curious to see what other people's thumbnails look like, if they choose to thumbnail for their comics (and, if you're feeling like it, you can show how they look compared to the final page)!

Personally, I just thumbnail with ballpoint pens in a big sketchbook, like so:

Are they a mess? Absolutely. Do I find them helpful? So very helpful because I can't work without having a visual plan. Though, I have tons of respect for people who can just get into it without meticulous preparation!

Anyone else wanna share their thumbnails with the class, be them for comic pages or illustrations they've done?

[rmdooley]

Doing thumbnails is my favorite part of making the comic. You can feel terribly productive just churning out mini-page after mini-page

[teasidesketches]

Oh, definitely! They're tiny, but it feels like so much progress seeing all those pages on paper even in mini form.

[Rhonder]

Oh yeah, I love the thumbnailing phase because you can draw very simply and quickly and it still gets the job done here are a few spreads from my comic's story board:

Like despite being at this level, they helped the pages of my comic go much much faster when I got to the big pages just having an idea of the expressions, text, and poses gives me a lot of cues months down the line when I finally get to the real deal lol. I can say this with certainty because the pages and panels that I've had to improvise w/o being represented in the storyboard have taken much longer to do on the spot

[Iris-Grimoire]

My comic goes through two thumbnail processes because I'm really bad at planning. The first is whenever I have the time, on my teeny tiny sketchbook, and sometimes I don't even have my script on hand and I'm just trying to set up the mood for the scenes. Second one is on a full A4 paper, with script and usually gets extra adjustments in case I forgot dialogue or the frames ended up too small/ bent. Here's an example with pages 10 and 11(the second being way different because I forgot half the scene;; )

[teasidesketches]

My comic goes through two thumbnail processes because I'm really bad at planning.

I can relate to having a few rounds of thumbnails! I usually work with my script next to me, but sometimes I'll have to change things, too, and add pages/panels because things just don't flow properly once I actually thumbnail them out.

[CloudyMagpie]

I agree that thumbnails are the most fun for me. I just finshed a huge batch of them and would otherwise not share them at all, but I'm glad people want to see them. :3

Here's alittle side by side of the thumbnail vs the finished page

[GamerPrincessXI]

I'm finally starting to thumbnail my comic btw, Chapter One is done in written form but drawing it is another story. XD @teasidesketches thanks for giving me advice on my thread.

[teasidesketches]

@MossyRabbit Oh I love them! I also love the comparison between the thumbnail and final product. It's crazy how we can get these great final pages from the chicken scratch that is thumbnails.

@GamerPrincessXI No problem at all! Hopefully seeing other people's thumbnails will also help you further develop an idea how you'd like to do your own.

[malverav]

The first pass I printed and bound the script and scribbled all over that. My current chapter I added in later, so it all got thumbed in CSP with the script clipped in:

Thumbnail to page, because I love looking at those comparisons;

[spadesart]

i dont do batches of mini thumbnails, but here are my page roughs! they serve the same function (these arent in order btw)

SPIRE | Tapas

[arcojawa]

They look pretty basic, but I don't think they need to be all that complicated:

Often times I'm drawing new character outfits next to the thumbnails as well.

........ I can't say they always prevent me from making mistakes... buuuuttt there is at least one last chance to fix things in the digital phase:

[feardeer]

The level of detail in my thumbnails varies a lot.. Sometimes I just want to get the gist of the page down, and sometimes I treat it more like a preliminary sketch layer, with lots of visual information.

I do always start with a script, which contains notes about panel placement and angles, so I don't usually end up doing multiple thumbnail drafts.