Whats a stupidly simple thing you do that makes your comic way better than it has any right to do

[NanettesClouds]

One little thing that I do is make sure that my vertical panel gutters are thinner than my horizontal panel gutters. It helps prevent the eye from getting confused while looking for the next panel to go to. It really helps improve the overall readability of my work.

What's are some little things that you do?

[efdvorsky]

I'M....REALLY curious about what you mean by that but that's super clever if I understand it properly :0c

As for me, the backdrop for my pages are gray or a dark color to have the panels stand out. I know some people just have a white backdrop and I seriously admire that, but I think the dark backdrop helps my work more

[keii4ii]

@efdvorsky The gutter thing is very common in manga! It's definitely a very, very useful thing to be aware of. See how there's a sizable space between the rows, while the panels within the same row are super close to each other?

[NanettesClouds]

Thanks for getting that for me! Sorry @efdvorsky if I was a bit confusing. To contrast @keii4ii's example here's an old comic page of mine from before I started doing the gutter thing.

With my current stuff, the difference between my vertical and horizontal gutters is a lot more subtle than the manga example, it's barely noticeable but it's just enough to still get the effect.

EDIT: Actually I may have been doing the gutter thing - but wrong. The Vertical gutter looks like it's wider than the Horizontal gutter. Either way it could still be more gutter-ey like in the manga example.

[JessJackdaw]

Oh, jeez. I didn't know you're supposed to change the sizes of the gutters... I might have to try that out. XD

My cheap trick is colorful gradients for faux lighting. Gradients everywhere! Just slap them on put the right layer style and suddenly you got some quick mood lighting on a budget.

[mariusthered]

I speed things up by saving my sound effects.

If you are using manga studio 5 you can save things in folders and just drag them to the page as required. when i do a new sound effect (whack, wizz, bang, pop) it gets saved and i never have to waste time on that sound again.

[AnnaLandin]

Plan out speechbubble placement!

It's one of those things that, like gutter-width, is such a basic part of comics that it's easy to forget how important it is, but planning out where and why you put your speechbubbles, and paying real attention to how it leads the eye across the page is super-important.

I make sure to draw the little blobs marking where the speechbubbles go right there in the very first thumbnail of a page, so that they're there from the very start. This helps prevent me from making panels too crowded to fit the dialogue on top, and it also helps me keep track of how much text is happening on each page.

Example from the sketchcomics I do for our weekly tabletop campaign:

Those big blobby circles in the thumbnails? Those are the speechbubbles.

Other things to pay attention to re: speechbubbles.

Lead the eye across the page
From the moment we learn to read, our brains are kind of hardwired for reading. If you can read, you can't look at a word and NOT read it as you do. So our brains prioritize text when looking at a comic page. Where and how that text is placed matters a lot! Making sure readers can, with a minimum of effort, understand which speechbubbles to read in which order is important! Avoid crossing balloon-tails, know that we will read the left-most bubble in a panel first, and think that bubbles at the top of panels happen before the ones below, etc.

Use bubbles as visual storytelling elements
This one's a bit more in-depth, but you can use the placement, size and style of a speechbubble to indicate unspoken storytelling things. A regular-sized bubble with very small text in it? Looks like this person is speaking very quietly! A bubble with wobbly, jagged edges? This person is shouting, or their voice is shaking as they speak! A bubble placed in between two characters, like a barrier? These two characters might be emotionally distant from one another, or having a disagreement!

The style and placement of the bubble itself - just like sound-effects and font-style - signal to the reader how they sound through how they look. Keep that in mind when placing and designing them!

[Michelle]

One simple thing I always keep in mind is the line of action (or "180 rule"). If character A is established on the left and character B is on the right, I know I need to keep it that away unless I use a shot that lets me establish a new line of action. This ensures there's no confusion with characters swapping sides and muddling the screen direction/spatial perception.

This is also one of the most common composition/screen direction whoopsies I see in comics >u>; It's not an unbreakable rule, but if you're gonna break it, you should know why you're doing it.

[dojo]

Mine is the dumb signs I make a point of sprinkling everywhere I can in my comics. Here's a few examples:

I like doing them because not only do I feel like it helps keep the tone of the kind of comics I like writing even during moments that are more on the serious end, but they're unintrusive (I usually keep their colors pretty close to the environment and more often than not they're partially cut off so they're not distracting) and add character to the environment. The signs will always either have terrible grammar or be overly dramatic. They'll pop up more often in Paisley Brickstone than Perilous Journey, since Paisley takes place inside of a school, but Perilous Journey will have it's fair share from time to time when it's necessary. .

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I repeat backgrounds a lot and pose a character differently as they're speaking. This is because I treat my comics a little like a colorful storyboard. In all honesty, I understand animation better than comics, so I treat comics like I'm prepping for animation.

[spadesart]

I shade my lineart with a marker tool!


it adds an extra layer of value that my shading layer doesn't quite get and it makes a real difference compared to panels without it


(not much i can do other than hiding my lineart layer since i don't really want to erase everything, and it's only a portion since my color is super ugly without lines lmao)

[Kamikaze]

Slapping textures over the backgrounds. It adds a grungy kind of feel that makes the world seem more lived in. Frankly, when it's not used the backgrounds look completely artificial. :x

TL;DR - OVERLAY TEXTURES ON EVERYTHING!!

[jessicasurline]

If we are talking about panel composition, one thing I do is change up the normal panel structure for intense scenes. I tend to stick to standard square and rectangular panels to create a sense of normalcy. But to add interest and a sense of action, I throw in some diagonals to spice up the panel flow. When this is done right the readers react really well.

Example for normal structure:

Example for intensity:

[jessicasurline]

You sound like a teacher from a 3D texturing class I had in college. And I must agree! You both are totally right in my opinion! Textures make everything more awesome!

[Kamikaze]

3D texturing was one of my faaaavorite things to do in college! I will say when the textures are used on the backgrounds it's literally just an overlay on top of the photoshop color work. The backgrounds are modeled up,vectored in illustrator, then colored and textured in photoshop. :3

[jessicasurline]

Yeah texturing is a lot of fun! Sometimes you just need to slap an overlay of rust drips over a brick wall to make it look right.

[Chopythes]

Scanning it.

HAHAH; OMG I'M SO SORRY BUT SERIOUSLY! It looks way better on the computer than on the paper for some odd reason!
Here's some examples:

I rarely do any changes after I scanned it, I always make sure that they're in B/W mode before scanning. I might edit out a few things but that's actually quite rare.
Here's another fine prime example:

AS you can see, the latter was completely changed with colour, for some odd reason I thought pink would go very well with a horror story.
Follow my advice: It doesn't.

(So basically, I just scan the pages, pray to the lords all mighty and hope for the best xD)

[efdvorsky]

OOOOH!! Oh yeah I had never realized that!! That's awesome and so so so subtle indeed! Thank you and @niah146 for explaining it!

[UzukiCheverie]

I make all hair colors and pants colors that aren't black or meant to be sleek utilize the Canvas texture that you can get with SAI. Of course, I'm making the complete switch to Clip Studio Paint now so I don't know how I'm going to be able to continue to do that (textured brush I guess, buuut it's not quite the same) but I'll see what happens When viewed on the actual site though, it looks pretty nice and sorta helps differentiate tones when you've got a bunch sitting against one another.

[Tieback]

Dang, this is a tough one to answer.... I think there are many little things I do to elevate my comic. If I had to pick one, I'd say the way I go about creating the written dialogue. I draw and paint my comic by hand, and I write the dialogue by hand too. I think this gives my comic a very personable feel, and it also works well with the light hearted fairytale genre of the comic.

To make sure I write my dialogue with consistent size and spacing, I use a lined sheet that I trace over. If it's a long sentence, I might play around with how the dialogue is broken up among rows. Once I find a way that looks right, I then trace the dialogue on the final page. After the page is colored, I finish by inking it.