What do your comic sketches look like?

[Strontium]

Sketches are the part of a comic people don't usually see. I wonder, what do people's sketched pages look like?

When I do sketches for my comic Heroes of Thantopolis, I create a canvas in paint tool SAI and sketch out my rough ideas. And I mean very rough. Later when I'm "setting up" the page in Photoshop I'll extend the original canvas so it fits the right proportions.

Here was the sketch for page 15 of the second chapter:

And the finished page looks like this!

What are your sketches like? Messy? Detailed? When you go to do the final lineart, are you copying the sketch line for line, or drawing from the sketch? Do you use underdrawings? I want to see!

[PotooGryphon]

Oh, this will be a very interesting thread to see everyone's process.

With a printed script in hand, I like to carry about a sketchbox and jot down little thumbnail drawing or I like to call them "brain spits". It kind of feels like a thought I might lose easily so it's something I quickly sketch to get my thoughts on paper.

Then, I take those and roughly lay them out in Manga Studio. Jeramy has a better eye for layouts, so he usually comes in after me and arranges the panels properly on the page. After that, Jeramy draws in the finalized backgrounds, and then, I come back to the page and draw in the finalized characters according to his background and layouts.

[hades]

oh gosh I love showing my process and seeing everyone else's as well.

for starters I start with a script to tell me how many panels I need and what all is happening in the chapter.
Then I'll make thumbnails of a few pages or more. Usually roughly 5-8 pages at a time. This helps me keep track of flow and pacing. This is also the stage where I decide where speech bubbles will go and how many there will be.

then I'll sketch the page using the thumbnails and a rough sketch as a guide.

Then my usual method is actually lining and coloring/finishing a panel at a time. Like so. The process helps me keep from getting bored of a page or feeling too much like a routine.

I just finish the page from there and add the lettering last.

[UzukiCheverie]

Ooooh, neat idea for a thread! :3

This is the sketch for Uzuki #108 - Costume Catastrophe :

aaand this is the sketch for Time Gate: Reaper episode 1/1/2 :

[Raven_C]

I think my process is similar to most of ya'll

thumbnails/figuring out paneling:

rough sketch:

Clean-up:

Final coloring and adding text later and all that jazz:

[Strontium]

Your thumbs are so detailed and cute! I'm impressed at how much you fit into a small area!

[Strontium]

This is an awesome process! I like how so much of the detail is added later, the transformation is very cool!

[UzukiCheverie]

I find it interesting how most people come up with their page drafts by doing sketches.

Thing is, I'm also a writer, and I utilize that by doing drafts in text format. Uzuki is done in notepad files with panel descriptions and Time Gate: Reaper is done in LibreOffice via charts. And of course I keep a running list of which comics I've already drawn :3

Soooo like this:

If anyone's curious about how the Time Gate drafts are set up, it goes from page to page, and each new line within each page category is a new panel :> So ex. page 2 would have roughly - shooting for - 5 panels. Of course once I sketch the pages out it does take a bit of moving around and sometimes I have to push some panels to the next page (or even get rid of some stuff entirely if I'm having a hard time getting it to fit right and if some lines/entire panels seem entirely unnecessary in the long run).

[UltHamBro]

I've been preparing a "how this is made" extra at the same time I'm making a new page of my comic, so once I got it done I'll post it in here.

[elixiadragmire]

Ahhhhh mines .... a bloody mess. My system? Its rather fluid and well. I'll cut to the chase its organised choas. As my boss calls me, I'm a freakin' cowboy! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
FYI it means I make it up as I go and bodge the job to fit! BUT at least I sorta stick to some guidelines and make sure the end result is useable, how I get there is a different journey each page.

It starts the same, with my master plot list the I wont show for spoilers. I write a script up for the next 6 pages and go over them with a fine tooth comb. I create a basic page layout to fit the text and lay them side by side.

Aaaaaas you can see that says ALT 08 ... thats because it gone in for a re-write >.> the orginal wasn't working so I've adapted the script to keep the flow correct, stop stagnanting, up drama but with out jarring context.

Then I sketch! Now this really varys ... most of the time I sketch into my sketch book

Hehehehe yeah, you can see the choas here in full. Sometimes I 'feel' better sketching directly into the PC so I'll scan what I have and continue to work on it there. Some panels are drawn from the ground up on the PC due to the fact on paper I couldn't get the 'feel' right. Other times in the other way around! Everything on screen looks derpy so I sketch it by hand!

At times, I've scrapped a page mid way and redone it because it just wasn't working correctly.

... I wish I understand how my mind works.

[duong99]

so what I do is I draw my comic in my book of everything (where i write down and draw everything that i need to remember) then when I get a thumbnail/ sketch that i like, I go on the computer and draw it out. As I draw my comic on the computer i sometimes make edits, add some stuff on or takes some things out. An Un-Pho-Gettable Life is a relatively simple comic so i don't have any advanced methods.

[PotooGryphon]

I like the looks of your book of everything! I have something very similar to that. I hand make my own sketchbooks from copy paper and a stapler. I get intimidated drawing in big expensive sketchbooks. Like 1 bad sketch could bring the whole book down, all the sketches in that book have to be perfect. *panic panic lol... I have less of a fear of ruining the book with a bad sketch when it a cheapo computer paper book.

[duong99]

Thats what i do! I hand make my "book of everything" with copy paper and card stock and bind them with sowing string XD

[Voltaire]

Hi guys first POSt!!

I just had to because of all the awesome going on in this thread, one of the things ive always loved in art is the process it goes through.. so this thread is heaven for me.

Im very impressed by the quality of the thumbnail sketches in this thread so far, it only makes sense that the finished products look as good as they do..

Since im new here I thought why not introduce my self by sharing my comic and nothings better for that then showing you my process and some of my sketches..
since most of my comics panels are scribbles and garbage im gonna cheat and post my favorite one to show lol..

first when begining any of my drawings I.... lighter sparks ... bubbling noise
ahem..
as i was saying first I do a bunch of free flowing sketches each reacting off the one before without much of a story thought out ahead of time.. (which in hindsight is a dumb way to make a comic 0_0 )

so when i get a bunch of these going and eventually i can wrangle a story out of them i will target one of my sketches to make a panel out

( my comic is formatted a little stranger than most of yours its just one panel at a time thing a long 1 paneled scroll)..

i then take the sketch and try to make it a little more detailed not too much just not as sloppy as before..

[Voltaire]

had to break up my post because of photo limits so heres the last part of it

from here I take it into adobe illustrator and using my wacom tablet and the blob brush i begin to create a outline on a separate layer from my sketch..

the blob brush is amazing for creating this great vector smoothness that i love and cant get anywhere else..

from there the work is basically done, I have a limited palette i work from so things go rather quickly from there..

the text is always my last thing to add and usually a afterthought entirely.. ( sadly i need to learn)

[minzinger]

@Voltaire - Very cool!

[oliviasstephen]

SKETCH PROCESS! Yay! Okay here it goes:

1. The Boring Stuff: Every chapter/vignette of my comic, Alone, is about 10-20 pages long, so first I write a synopsis of everything that happens in a bulleted list.Then I estimate how many pages each bulletpointed 'scene' will require and then I have a rough page count of the vignette. After that, I create smaller 'lists' that describe (in very little detail, I'll admit) each panel of a page. I also write out basic dialogue for each panel "J says [blank], S says [blank]...".

(extremely messy, I know.)

2.Once I know how many panels of a page to expect, I can sketch my layouts! :

My sketches are very, very, very basic. I tend to change my mind and move stuff around while I'm drawing pages and so I keep the format loose.

1. Thumbails >Blue pencils and inks > Colored in Photoshop/Manga Studio:
   
   

And I'm done.

[L4213]

My Comic Making Process is kinda weird, but here's how i do mine!

With my 4 koma strip comics, I skip the writing part and instantly go to the sketching part. usually i plan the script on the sketch itself while i sketch, The sketch becomes more complicated whenever the joke more elaborate and larger on a scale :3

This Sketch is for the strip "As the Proverbs say" its relatively simple and straight to the point, i usually go straight to inking from this.

And this one is for the strip "Shameful Display" this one is more sketchier and has parts like dialogue box placement since there are more elements that i drew in this comic! i had fun drawing this one!

And this one was for my Guest comic with Chibi Reiko! (which is a great comic that you should totally check out ) "Anxiety issues!" this was fun to draw because i tried copying Mmidori's style of comics! the script was fairly simple too so the sketch was straight forward!

i actually want to make more detailed sketches since it helps me create more detailed panels and concepts that interest readers! currently practicing with that too! especially with next week's comic i plan to make

[UltHamBro]

I finally got to do those "making of" pages. I show a bit of my sketches there

http://tapastic.com/episode/73979

[Banditt]

Mine depend on what's in my mind. If I'm just doing layout of panels, it's super lose, just putting form, slight notes on shading sometimes, and space relationship.
If I want to get more on detail out of my head, the sketches have more detail. But by the time I'm sketching detail, I'm already working on the final. I pretty much go straight from crap squiggles to detailed finished.
Examples.....

Flow and spacial relation:

Detail followed by simple flow:

And from flow straight into detail sketches followed by finishes:

Successive sketch to final steps:

I honestly just flesh it out as I go. I have the rough idea in my head, I want this and this and the story is headed this direction. Then I sit down to do finishes and create all the detail then. Let my mind go crazy without having limited myself in the planning stages.