Script, Storyboard, or just flat out winging it?

[yvettegustafsson]

I write down all of my ideas on a big piece of paper, and somewhere along the line I see some kind of connection between some of the things I've written down. It could be some sort of event, and/or a line I'd like to use and then I come up with a setting.

Then I sketch out a rough synopsis/storyboard with tiny thumbnails of each page, like A7 size or even smaller. That's when I write the dialogue aswell. In this stage I can see if I've made too many talking heads or used too much dialogue. If it's hard to fit in the tiny bubbles, it might be too much and I have to reconcider my options.

When I'm happy with the small thumbnails, I start sketching it out on paper OR: Now that I've been switching to digital (Clip studio paint + cintiq 13HD), I take photos of the rough thumbnails and can skip a step (yaaaay!). Even if the thumbnails are very rough I can start drawing up the characters without refining it all too much. The background might need some more work, I don't put in a lot of effort on the backgrounds when doing thumbnails.

[twjalkh]

I have the entire plot in my head, as well as how a page would look, so I used to skip the storyboarding, and as a result all my textboxes were off. It's fun to be spontaneous, you can even get some great panels off that way, but it's not worth the price of giving your readers difficulty.

[kazukitakamura126]

I have a powerpoint with all the comic's notes on it so I can easily access information when that chapter in question occurs. For the visual department of my comic hand draw mock pages to get the general idea of how I want the page to be laid out. All these drawing are in a notebook with 4 mock pages per page. I only take it to Photoshop CS5 once I am ready to create the actual page.

[Luie]

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2015/02/microsoft-onenote-now-totally-free-for-mac-and-pc/

Seriously, this.

You can do this

and also this

It saves me so much brain work. You can even insert your thumbnail comics and drag them around anywhere you want with the dialogue. You have to do script work and panning when making a comic, but this makes the planning part so much easier!

AND IT SAVES TO A CLOUD

[ratique]

Kinda winging it, kinda planning it.

I know my basic story. In the past I would sketch out the whole chapter that I was working on. But then I started working with my husband as editor and things changed drastically. I now work scene by scene, sometimes page by page and change things according to feedback. It's a lot of fun this way and is working surprisingly well!

[gearpunk]

Welcome to the Tapastic forums, Simon_M!!

[gearpunk]

That is seriously cool and I think I definitely have to check that out!!

[Simon_M]

Thank you! The english internet is much, much better to do webcomics, this is great

[Stellamari]

For my Goldlocks Agency for Superheroes, I just kinda wing it. I was in the midst of some art project for quite some time when I felt stressed out and thought I just want to draw something for fun without caring for the colour, perspective or other technical stuff. Thus, the idea for Goldlocks was conceived on that day and next day, I googled for webcomic hosting site, found Tapastic and uploaded my first page. That being said, I have no buffer, no preparation, draft, thumbnails whatsoever ;w; But, I truly have fun making this comic!

[monotone_ink]

With my manga Shade, I have the general plotline and important events set up, in the form of a word document.
From there, I make the scripts for every chapter I make as I follow the big plotline. I write the scripts in a way that you would write it for a movie, though I might start writing them like novels occasionally when it comes to emotional moments.
Then from there, with my little sketchbook, I make extremely rough pages just to get an idea of the composition, panelling and dialogue bubbles.
After that, as I'm following the plan, I draw the entire page on the computer and voila, you've got some pages.

[DynamoToon]

It is tremendously important to script and storyboard. But for my comic I just wing it XD

[toherrys]

I write up a script of sorts to keep a handle over the pacing of the story and well.. to not forget to include something. But my scripts are pretty much as keii4ii put it earlier, "chat logs" : D Since they're only for me, they're just the dialogue and a very brief explanation of some actions.

When I first began I tried going without a script and realized in like 5min I REALLY need a script haha. After scripting the first page I also learned I can't decide the amount of panels per page in the script, so now I just separate between panels and see how many pages they form while drawing. Since it's just me working on my comic I can make adjustments as I go along ~

[kazukitakamura126]

This looks a very though plan for your story, I believe it is important to be as detailed in the notes as possible because it helps tell your story more easily.

[Luie]

Yeah, revisions are much easier and it helps draw all the details together as a whole so you can eliminate all the unnecessary stuff. I want the thinking work to be done when I start actually making pages so I can just focus on the visual art becausr that in itself is a complicated mess Cx

[jmhenry]

I just do a really brief summary of each scene in the chapter, usually 1-2 sentences. Once it's committed to memory, it's on to thumbnailing the whole chapter. After that you're making pages.

I"m not sure if that's 100% winging it, butfeels more efficient than doing a by-the-book comic script, personally.

[fighterxaos]

If you're drawing it yourself I'd say your way is actually pretty efficient. It's only when someone else is the artist do I feel a need to do a full on script personally.

[DruidPeter]

With Kolodruidtale Epilogues, I have all the stories already written down in draft form(more or less). As for the comic itself, however, I'll usually draft strips 4 pages in advance, and then do the final versions sequentially.

It can take forever, though. Drawing a web comic is a glacially slow process, haha. XD

[eagle1]

There are a few things here that I would like to comment on.

Full scripts are a good way to work, long run and short run. I realise that they are boring, and that they are not easy to write, but one of the problems that I run into while reading webcomics is that too many of them feel like the writer doesn't really have that much of a clue about the details of the story, and is making them up as they go along. A full script helps solve that.

Winging it. Once I figure out that any comic other than gag-a-day or slice of life is winging it, I am out of there unless you have me by the beard for some other reason. There is a highly rated comic that I am positive is winging it, but it's too funny for me to stop reading it, as frustrating as it is.

Personally (and I realise that my idol, Stan Lee did the exact opposite of me), I can not write the dialogue after the page is drawn. I need to know what the dialogue is to know how to frame the panels, how to decide on panel size, and how to restructure the dialogue if needed. But that's just me.

My choice for scripting software is Comic Life 3, for the following reason:

I can write the script in one window, and drag and drop the images, captions, balloons, and even panes from other windows into the final product. Quick and easy.

Eagle
(Good tools!)