Post WIP steps of your comic pages!

[FlorianBiege]

Hi everyone.
Maybe we can share some Work-in-Progress steps of tapas comics in this thread? It´s always interesting to see the process and there are always new ways to learn on how to aproach a new page.

I´ll make the start with three steps of page #33 of PHANTOM REIGN.

Phantom Reign | Tapas

Step1: Basic sketch after some scribbling to get an idea of the page layout. For backgrounds I just start with some shapes of the landscape.

Step2: Blocking in the main shapes in rough colors.

Step3: Add details, textures and light.

[Rodimus13]

My husband's streams are the best thing for that... cause he does outlines all 20+ panels and then he goes in one by one and does all coloring and affects.

[Cavechan]

I love WIPs! I offer them for Patrons, but here's an example:

I first do the thumbnails in a notebook. I read over them many, many times and try to perfect all of the dialogue and paneling.

I work in CSP and start by laying out the panels, then type in the text and then sketch. During sketching, I move things around and make sure proportions are right, etc. I try not to make too many adjustments during the inking phase. Frequently for backgrounds, I will usually just do a few simple lines for the sketch because it's tedious to draw them twice essentially.

Then I ink the word bubbles, then people, then backgrounds, then effects.

Then last but not least are all the comic tones. Then I finalize the text and crop and save in Photoshop.

Celestial Chronicle Shion | Tapas

(Edited post. Forgot to include the thumbnail stage.)

[imiogri]

Heck yes!! My process is pretty simple.

I start with an incredibly bad sketch based on my script (and I never plan anything beforehand) Then I throw all the colors in. I draw all the characters on the same layer if they aren't overlapping like here. The backgrounds are split into a few more layers because they're annoying to fix in a single layer.

Then I spice it up with effects

[Kelheor]

Oh, I love looking at WIPs of comics =) Maybe you will laugh at mine too.
First sketch!

Second sketch!

Thir... oh, only 2 sketches for this page are not deleted, so the second was actually the third one.
So, line art! Please, think about your speech bubbles from the first sketch, live is easier that way. I've started to do it only, like, two chapters ago.

Basic color.

Slap some actual color on that layer.

Don't forget all the details.

Put some more light, text, sfx, background, put some color between the frames, get yourself some more 50 layers of things! Ta-dah!

Hexameron | Tapas

[Coati]

I make the storyboard in my notebook, so I haven't the first step XD

Actually I work in each frame as a separate ilustration and then put then together in the panels

Basic workflow
Storyboard - Frames (Sketch - Lineart - base color - shading - special effects) - Organize the frames in panels - Making the balloons

Flower Field | Tapas

[frgmnt]

I love seeing other artists' WIPs, too. My process is... needlessly complicated?

• I make page thumbnails, based on the script, in a notebook I have just for this purpose. I need to do a lot of planning at this stage, otherwise it is (even more) suffering.
• Drawing begins, on A4-sized paper. I divide the page into panels, make very rough sketches, and a 1000 years later I get them to a state where I can refine the lines and do the hatching (which I do with a softer pencil; I tried inking but I guess lolnope).

• Scanning, cleaning the scan and arranging the panels into an actual comic page. At this point it looks like this.

• Colors/values (this step is my most hated because of how much time it takes, even though over years of coloring with a mouse I did find ways to make it faster)

• Add color overlay, textures, effects etc., and finally add in the text and speech bubbles.

• Done! ...aside from having to fix millions of other mistakes I noticed way too late :"")

[phen]

Oh, dude, such rich and engaging processes here! It's really interesting how the blueprints of a comic page get fleshed out by different artists. Everyone has a general notion of what steps are commonly taken but there's a wide variety of execution, it's crazy. And rad! I made a gif set for one of my pages (minus the bubbles).

I work from sketch>inks>flats>shadow+effects. Only recently have I started doing really loose thumbnails first;;

[kimketli]

Your sketches already look so cool.
My sketches look really bad.

[cookiety]

Probably no one is going to understand what I've written here, but that's not the point. These are some VERY early planning I did before writing the script. I actually write down eeeeverything that comes to my mind and put it in order (or edit it) later.

Then, when I feel like what I came up with is good enough, I write a document that looks something like this:

And then the artist I'm working with draws the panels

[Lucca_Vendramel]

This is mine! Sketched it just yesterday.

Everdream: Stars Hold no Boundaries. | Tapas