How to Make a webcomic

[† Shazi]

okay, this is probably not going to be the best tutorial in the world, but it will hopefully help some people who are starting out.

to start your webcomic, you need some sort of idea where you're going with it. maybe a story you have that you'd like to get across, or if it's a comedic piece, have some jokes written down somewhere to use.

Secondly you need characters. try to make your characters reproducable, and by that i mean you're going to be drawing these characters over and over again, make sure you're happy and comfortable with drawing their design. i spent 4 year perfecting the design of my comics characters and some of the ones that haven't been revealed still haven't got their completed design.

once you have those two you should find yourself a comic base, one that you can extend to have more panels if you need to.

this is mine

never fear that the lines are not transparent, a funky trick i learnt from a friend of mine it to throw the base as the top layer and change the blend mode to multiply!

now i use Paint tool sai to draw my comics and photoshop to do all the text, but what programs you use is totally up to you

LET US BEGIN THE CREATION OF A COMIC!

STEP ONE!

i have a base set up, with the top layers set to multply already so all i have to do is start drawing, the beautiful thing about sai is the multiply blend mode is EXACTLY the same as photoshop. another happy thing about sai is it saves things as .psd so you can transfer all of your beautiful layering into photoshop without any issues at all!

STEP TWO!

now that the base is set up, you need to start sketching out each panel you intend to draw, just use the air brush at something thick like 9 or 12 pixels, this is going to be really really rough. also a good idea to make note of what you want any text to say, it doesn't have to be exactly what the end text will say, just an idea to get you going.

anyone that knows my drawings can tell that THIS is really, really, REALLY rough for me, so don't feel bad if your sketch looks like garbage, as long as YOU get the general idea of what's going on, emotion, position of characters etc then who cares what it looks like at this stage

STEP THREE!

making the dodgey sketch look more like what you want it to look like! simple enough, make the layer you just draw that sketch on transparent, anywhere between 20% and 60% it really doesn't matter. then on a new layer, draw over it, a little better than you did before, but still sketchy. you can use a darker grey if you'd like too.

don't feel like you have to stay with the original sketch either, if you don't like how one of the panels is working out, go right ahead and change it!

STEP FOUR!

time to add the black lines for the final comic!, unless of course you're not happy with something in the comic, in which case, go back to step 2 until you think it's ready to go. anyway! use a slightly thinner airbrush size, 5-7 is usually good, and then, go over what you've drawn in black. DON'T FORGET THE NEW LAYER!!! it's an easy mistake to make and i do it all the time and have to start over.

STEP FIVE!

Save you comic, a good thing to do is to number your comics as you're drawing them rather than just titleing them, it keeps them in the right order rather than all over the place. anyway save as a .psd so you can open up in photoshop and keep you fancy layers, don't delete your sketch layers, i find it handy to ALWAYS keep them, you never know what you might need them for.

purty lines

lines with the sketches underneath

STEP SIX!

TO PHOTOSHOP! or GIMP or whatever image software you use that supports font

open up you comic, in photoshop you will notice it will be transparent, this is because SAI keeps a white background under EVERYTHING and the individual layers have transparency. this white background is not in the actual image so it won't appear when you take it over into photoshop, to remedy the lack of white, just make a new layer under everything and fill it white.

the fabulous thing about photoshop is it come PRELOADED with a speech bubble custom shape, so all you have to do is make the front colour white and drop one where you need it.

double click on the layer to bring up the layer fun box and just tick stroke so you bubble has an outline.

newer versions of photoshop are special and like to make text go all retarded when you try to drop it over top of the custom shapes, so it's easier to just start typing in a random spot and move it over top of the bubble later and make them fit afterwards.

most comics have centered text too, if you don't make it centered it will look funny, and probably won't fit in the bubble right.

forgive me for not posting more screenshots of that last step, it's a really easy one for anyone that knows what software they're using to add text, i didn't think it really needed the extra screenshots

regardless, enjoy making your comics everyone =D

~ Shazi

Edited September 22, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[idl12]

Thanks a lot for this Shazi, you explained the process better than my constant googling ever could. I will sacrifice a turtle in your name.

[† Shazi]

i had the same problem when i was going about making my webcomic, nowhere told me how to even start my comic, so i had to figure it all out for myself, which was frustrating to say the very least

[Alkin]

Awesome tutorial, also nice drawings you got going on there too xD

[Alice]

Wow...this is quite informative. I must try this once things settle down. I've been told many times that I should do a comic because of everyone liking my artwork...but I can never find the motivation nor the inspiration to do it.

[† Shazi]

Wow...this is quite informative. I must try this once things settle down. I've been told many times that I should do a comic because of everyone liking my artwork...but I can never find the motivation nor the inspiration to do it.

it's tough to find the motivation to make a comic every week. i have the story all written out, but it's a whole other story to draw it.