#sequential stuff

[jpivot]

my friends and i when destiny 2's season of the deep came out a few months ago. i was pretty excited for the return of my favorite shotgun pre-sunset.

was surprised that the reissued guns had their perks switched up, tho. RIP grave robber and etc

[pivsketch]

showed up 10 minutes late to the riso class im taking and was also critically unprepared to draw something traditional in under an hour <:) oops!!! anyway the tech is all very cool.

heres a comic i made to retroactively make up context

metthew (semi-nomadic courier) and sammy (medical surgeon with chronic pre-syncope) in the humble post-apocalypse (not pictured because i didnt draw it). heres an older drawing of them

[salamispots]

when your dog starts vibrating because treat

[t4coyaki]

decided it would be nice if i posted some of my tiktok stuff (photo version) :3

[froggtogs]

trying to figure out how i wanna draw some of these dudes again

[haileyroseart]

So, a ranger and a werebear walk into a shared dream...

[bitemarx]

short comic adaptation of a scene from the haunting of hill house, done for my literature class

[narfin-frood]

how do you plan the panel layouts for your comics? i always get stuck and it feels cramped or unsatisfying

okay so i went to college for 2 whole semesters and one of the only art classes i took (and definitely the only one i retained much from) was my sequential art & comics class. so i'm gonna try to explain my process in so many words, but there's a LOT of stuff that goes into a successful comic and i'm by no means a professional. i can however throw some tips and tricks and some recommended reading your way (another longpost ahead!)

first, know what you want to do. know where your comic starts and ends. if you find any joy in writing scripts, you can also do that, but i'm not the best at writing with no visual aide so i usually script while i thumbnail, but always make sure you've got a concept and a goal.

next, start thumbnailing. my initial thumbnails usually look like this:

(incidentally, my storyboard thumbnails look a lot like this, too)

there's no real structure, and i'm just noodling my way from the top left of the page to the bottom right. if you've got what you want from your comic in mind, this part can sometimes just pour out of you. i feel a very strong attachment to these characters and the situations i put them in, so that definitely has to do with how smoothly this part goes. draw the panels as small and as detail-free as possible. i usually don't do speech bubbles, and instead treat it like a storyboard, writing my rough script under the panels as i go.

once you're satisfied with the way your story is coming together, THEN you start laying your panels out. this part looks like this when i do it:

(these are actually from a gfalls comic i never cared to finish from like. five months ago but who's counting?)

honestly, it's best to do this as small as you can possibly get it, to really get your head out of the "but i have to fit all the panels exactly as i drew them on the page" funk. remember that, at least if you're writing the comic in english or other languages read in the same direction, that you're trying to lead the reader's eye from top to bottom and left to right. this is really hard to keep track of, and i still make mistakes and flub up the readability all the time. like here:

the panel layout should be reversed here. the panels in the top left and bottom right should be smaller than the other two, so the gutters would actually guide you to read it left to right instead of top to bottom, but laziness and initial drawing blindness struck me and i never fixed it.

once you have a layout that makes sense to you, it's as simple as blowing your thumbnails up to comic-size and going over your very rough sketches with your final clean panels & inks, or, if you're doing it traditionally, re-sketching your page on your big bristol board after doing some measuring to see where your panels should actually be.

there are other rules to keep in mind when you're in the thumbnailing phase of your comic, like the 180-degree rule (something that carries from film to animation to comics to, really, any form of sequential art), which is easiest to explain with a little diagram:

keeping this in mind really helps with readability. you can do a bunch of things with your angles, you can even omit the other character, but keeping them on the side of the frame you establish them on is very helpful. this is mainly for dialogue, but it does also help if you want to display one character walking in one specific direction, or if you want a fight scene to read as well as possible, etc.

and, if you look at your comic sketch now and think, hey, this looks great, this is so clear and easy to read, i highly recommend stepping away for a few hours to look at it again, or, if you're impatient like me, sending it to a friend. you're also totally welcome to send it to me, if you just need someone to tell you whether your comic is easily readable.

to learn more about drawing comics, i recommend two things. one, read some comics. by professionals in the industry, ideally, though there are many many competent and incredibly detailed comics by independent creators out there. people in the industry will (MOST of the time) be held to slightly higher standards of readability than the average independent artist, and the workflow for professional comics involves several people at once reading and reviewing and revising what's made so that it'll be digestible to the average audience.

two, i recommend getting your hands on a copy of "understanding comics" by scott mccloud. love this book. lots of comic artists love this book. it's fun and informative and packed full of tips, while also being a comic, which makes it even more fun to read. mccloud goes into a lot of detail on stuff i didn't mention, from the gutters between panels to lettering to working with other artists and writers and finding an art style that fits the story you want to tell. great stuff. go to the library, check it out. you won't regret it.

[b4kuch1n]

​​​​            saw you.

[post-punk-revival]

"Why Are So Many Otherkin Autistic"

[cheasegary]

A familiar comfort.

[bellisima-writes]

Further Ramblings From a Very Inexperienced Writer Type Person - Drawing Your Narrative Structures?

Writer friends, do you guys ever draw your narrative structures? I've done it for each of mine stories and find it tremendously fun to look back on once they're done.

Now, I know I play hard and fast with my narratives and POVs etc, having done some funky things, especially in the Last Angel and know most stories (fanfic or not) follow a sequential narrative structure, start to finish. Like so:

Now, my first story, had a split POV and time-bound chapter structure. Meaning, each chapter happened at one point in time across two or more characters. Like so:

The Last Angel was my timey wimey one, jumping around and across different timelines. That was a fun one to draw, it looked like this:

And now, I am writing a story (not a fic) in which we start in the center, and every subsequent chapter includes a flash back as well as progress in the present, creating my FAVORITE image to date:

Do any of you guys ever jot down what your story looks like on paper? Just me? Okay, cool.

[dafpork]

the thoughts are returning (making a comic adaptation of the actor au alongside the actual writing)

[salamispots]

[the-journey-was-the-point]

With a whole lot of work, whole lot of hurt, whole lot of grace... Now I'm in a good place

POV you're in the healing halls of Valinor or whatever and there's this guy.

Don't worry, Callonduin's still himself! The Laughing Elf still laughs~

[ultfreakme]

And my feet don't dance

Like they did with you.

Dancing through our house,

with the ghost of you.