I usually start with figuring out where all my beats land on a beat sheet and with character designs and figuring out their distinguishing traits and interpersonal dynamics as they pertain to the story.
I write down any of the āscenesā I have stuck on my mind and figure out where they would land on the beat sheetā if they land there at ALL.
Then start on thumbnails which is also where I guess I do all my āscriptingā. (I just write real small in words only I can decipher with arrows pointing to which panel and speech balloons they belong to.) With my current project, I tried switching it up and starting with the script but I keep ending up with dialogue that doesnāt fit in the panels and worse layouts so Iām going back to my usual thumbnail dialogue method!!
Iām usually gathering reference material through every stage of the project but particularly during the thumbnailing process because its hard to predict what Iām going to need to reference until I have some sort of visual aid for what my characters are doing within the setting and how theyāre moving through it. My beat sheet doesnāt typically have any in-between scenes like āthe main character walks to her friendās houseā but it happens in the thumbnails so Iāll add it to the footnotes to look for references for a magazine stands in this era and setting.
My thumbnails get edited as much as necessary and then I start penciling.
Though honestly, sometimes I go in completely blind or half-blind but Iām trying to force myself to have some structure!!