Christine Brunson

Part 4: Flat Colors
After I get the inks cleaned up then I can proceed with the colors. I use Photoshop and a lot of layers for colors. I put the lineart on top, set it to multiply and then create a layer for each color under it. This keeps the lineart visible and helps the colors bleed through the white. That might not make sense to those who don’t use digital imaging software but I’ll show you how it looks. I will try to do a more detailed description of how I do coloring in a future blog entry.

This is what we call flat colors. What that means is all of the colors without any shading. For me this is the most time consuming part. Since I have all the colors on different layers I can select each individual color and change it if I don’t feel like it looks well at the end. I usually end up playing with the colors during the whole process.

Part 5: Shading

For Undead Norm and Undead Nom, I use a very, very simple process for the shading. I don’t do this with my other comic work since I require more control over the colors. This way is quick and easy and helps with the look of the comic. I just create a lighting layer over the colors but under the lineart layer, color the lighting with white, blur it, and change the layer mode to Vivid Light. Sometimes I adjust the layer’s opacity to get it the right amount of light. For the shading it’s the same but I color it with black and keep the layer’s mode at Normal. For the most part I don’t blur the shading unless it’s a wide area like the last two panels.

Part 6: Lettering

When lettering I prefer to use Illustrator since the vectors make it easier to create the word bubbles but I did this page quickly in Photoshop. Just added some text and drew a bubble for the SLAM sound effect in panel 5. It was easy in Photoshop since there wasn’t any dialog. If there is dialog, I use Illustrator. There are a lot of really talented letters out there that can give you better advice than I can.

There’s the basic overview of how I created the page. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. In the future I may do some more detailed tutorials of how I create my comics. Hope that this was helpful and that you enjoyed it! Be sure to check out Undead Norm and Undead Nom!

Following Melanie’s example, I’m going to give you a step by step process of how I created the first page of Undead Nom. Just note, I’m self-taught and Melanie went to school for this. She knows all of the terms and tricks of the trade. I kind of just do what I think is correct. It’s not a really complex process but does have quite a bit to describe so I split this journal into two.

Part 1: Script

Here’s a look at my script for this page and my adjustments while thumbnailing it. Usually my scripts are more detailed than this but I kept it brief since I was going to be the person drawing it. As I was planning the page I noticed that it might be best to break up panel 3 into two pieces. Generally it’s best to keep panel numbers in the range of 4-7 unless you are doing splash pages or double page spreads.

You will also notice that there is no dialog on this page. I thought that it would be fun to do it kind of like a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon so the actions would speak for themselves. Being that there is no dialog, it is much easier to include this many panels. I did not include sound effects in this script but I decided to add a few later. That’s one of the benefits of doing the page all by yourself. Sometimes I find that the script needs more changes and that’s usually okay when it’s just me working on the project. Sometimes Melanie comes to me and discusses some changes in the script when we are doing the Undead Norm pages. It doesn’t happen often but sometimes she feels that it needs to be split into two separate pages. Usually this is caught in the thumbnailing stage.

Part 2: Penciling

First off, yes this is a horrible scan of it. The picture that I took wasn’t worse. Also, I wasn’t at home to scan this so I had to use a smaller scanner. For previous pages that I have done for Undead Norm’s Q&A I used smaller paper. This was done on 11×14 so I had to scan it in two pieces and chop it together. I adjusted the levels so I could darken the lines. I will do a nicer job on this after it’s inked. Another word of advice is to keep liquids and another dirty away from your artwork. You can see the water stain at the top left.

At this stage I try to put my ideas down on paper. Personally, I like to do some faint panel outlines then draw everything in them. Don’t be afraid to draw over the panel lines! You don’t have to ink everything that you draw but drawing over the lines helps you to see how the objects should look. Blue sketch pencils were used to make the lines. You may notice that in panels 5 and 6 that I added some sound effects. You don’t see many people add them in the pencils anymore due to this digital age since we have programs that make it easier and cleaner for us to do it. I added it so I could see where I would want them. Lettering is usually not done on the artwork at this stage. You should always make sure that there is enough room for it but it gets messy if you put it in the pencils.

Part 3: Inking

I usually ink with a mixture of Copic Markers and Micron pens. It just depends on my mood. No real reason for one or the other for me. I’m not great with the Copic Multiliners yet so I don’t use them much except for practice pieces. Here I inked the picture with Micron pens. Oh no! I inked some stray lines on there! Don’t panic. I just clean it up digitally so if I make a mistake I can erase it in Photoshop. Don’t use this as a crutch for doing messy lineart. It’s much easier on you if you do it right on paper but don’t throw the artwork out if you make a tiny mistake.

When I scan the artwork, I like to scan it 300 dpi and in color. Later I change the color mode to Grayscale. I feel like it makes the lineart look better but it might just be something in my head that tells me that. You can always play around with your scanner settings and see what looks best to you.

Here’s the lineart after I cleaned it up some. I just adjusted the levels, colored white over the stray lines, and drew some extra lines.