How I create a comic book page - Part 2

cesarlador
Feb 6
4 min read

In my previous article, I described how I went from a script to a clear storyboard to send to the publisher for their feedback and comments. There are always a few of them and I am grateful that for their time to review and comment on my layouts, page turns, character consistency, etc. They have been really good at spotting the lack of freckles on one of my protagonist. It made me realize how important initial character design is for a comic book series with four 120-150 pages volumes. It is a lot of re-drawing the same character(s) over and over again, so you don’t want to have to re-draw 123 beard hairs each time a certain character appears in your story…

Penciling

Once my storyboard is approved, it is time to start working on the “final” pages. The first thing that you do on these pages, is to “pencil” your drawings in, it is a preliminary stage where you can still rub off things and alter the art. The format or size of these pages depends on the final printed output. This is usually a decision that the publisher is making depending on their budget, the audience, the market, etc. I am usually working on a format that is 130% larger than the printed pages. So when I reduce the final drawings to the page’s final format, the overall quality improves, that is industry standard too.

Format is one thing to agree on with the publisher but another one is how much of the page is occupied by the panels, this is called the “live” area. Another constraint that is worth keeping in mind when working is the bleed line that indicates where the printer will cut the paper. Because the cutting process is not 100% accurate, industry standard is to leave some more paper where to extend the drawing to allow for the inaccuracy of the cutting process. You don’t want to end up with a white stripe along one of your page’s borders because the page cutting process drifted slightly.

Nowadays, I am pencilling digitally (in photoshop), it is more efficient as it allows to resize elements, integrate the text and see how much room I have for the art. So before I start pencilling, I usually import the text in photoshop, draw the panel borders based on the storyboard and start drawing the content of the panels. An example of my digital pencilling of Miles and Jones is illustrated below.

Miles and Jones Book 2 Digital Pencils

Inking and Painting

Once I am happy with my pencils, I am printing them very faint on watercolour paper to have some guidelines on the location and extent of the panels as well as the sketches previously “pencilled”.

Printing of the “pencils” on watercolor paper (300gsm hot press)

The lines here might seem dark but they quickly disappear once I start inking and painting. The inking process includes drawing the characters and environment outlines and details, I am using a mix of fine liners (or pens) and a brush pen, my tools are shown below.

All the tools I am using for the Miles and Jones comic book series

Once the outline and details are inked, I am taking a good old brush (but not too old…) and start applying different shades of grey on my watercolor paper. For the first book, I was planning my black and white very carefully. From the second book onwards, I kept things very loose and spontaneous, no plan, just improvisation! You can see an example of me painting a few panels on my instagram.

Regarding the paper and for the paper nerds out there, I am using a hot press paper that is pretty smooth (Arches 300gsm) as it is nicer to work on with pens (or fine liners) than cold press paper that has more teeth and is much more textured.

An example of an inked and painted page of Miles and Jones is shown below, at that point, the inking and painting process is done, off to the scanner :)

Scanning

Yes I am also doing the scanning…which I am no expert at but after years of doing it, I have learned a few things. The main challenges I have faced with this process are about managing the texture of the paper while keeping the details of the inks and the subtleties of traditional watercolor. I have been using a very specific tool in Photoshop called Camera Raw Filter; it allows to reduce the scanned texture of the paper, manage the sharpening of the inked lines AND contrast, intensity of the black and white, etc., a magic tool really!

Finalising a Page

The last few things that I am doing is done in photoshop:

adding the text in,
indicating where the speech balloons should go
Indicating the Sound Effects (or SFX) should go

and sending the lot to the editor who is finalising the text, font and SFX.

The editor does its magic, works on the speech bubbles, the text, the sound FX and finalize the page, the page that goes to print is below.

The final page that goes to the printer - Miles and Jones - The blizzard of Blobs, pages 48 and 49

A few months later, I receive a package with the printed books, I am both super excited and super nervous to discover how all the above will turn up. To be honest, I am usually disappointed, but it is the rule with expectations…