THE ARTIST'S JOURNEY - LESSON NINE: THE SIX STEP DRAWING PROCESS

When producing a piece of art it's always important that you choose the right tools to work with, be they digital tools or traditional tools. Otherwise, you won't be able to produce the desired result with what you have in hand. Trust me, my friend, I know the amount of pressure someone can be under when they have deadlines to meet, and that is why I try to establish a clear and concise workflow I can be comfortable with. 





More or less, dealing with a monthly deadline doesn’t allow much room for mistakes. Before going to print each page needs to be ready for the inker, the colorist, the letterer, and the editor to review, which is why I will always choose the most efficient, quick, and easy way to create a comic book page. What now follows are six easy steps for you to establish a simple workflow. Please enjoy.

STEP ONE)   The first thing you have to do is to download the master layout template. Please click here to do that, and while it's downloading start to read the sample script and try to make notes about what the story entails. This can include a photographic reference or a persons pose, basically anything that can be useful to create a scene. 

STEP TWO)   After that, create the layout for each page with the aforementioned template. I have developed this tool in order to help people visualize the page layouts on one single sheet. That way we can re-create the layouts in a thumbnail sized image and see what the whole book looks like on the same screen / sheet of paper.

STEP THREE)   The template has the correct specifications for a comic book page, so all you have to do is copy and paste your layouts onto the master template and manipulate it to match the right size of a comic book page. So there. The rough layout is done.

STEP FOUR)   Using the path feature in Photoshop you can create the layout itself. There are two main grid layouts I've already shared with you during a previous article, plus you can also download the grids here.

STEP FIVE)   When your layout is finally finished it’s time for you to start drawing on top of your sketches. After all, we need to clean these sketches up and make sure they're as clear as possible. So this is when your drawing abilities come in handy as well as your storytelling abilities. Now, if you think about it, your storytelling began when you created your layouts, right? So when you're creating your layouts you should think about the rhythm, the framework, the composition, the movement, and the grids etc. So hopefully, by the end of this step, you’ll have a fully penciled comic book page.

STEP SIX)   Once you get the pencils done, it’s finally time to ink them! There are many brushes and pens you can use to ink your page with and each one is used for a specific task! Now, we don’t have much time to talk about all of them here, but I’m sure you can find all kinds of resources on the net.

There's obviously a lot more to consider, but due to time and space, this is all we can cover for this months lesson. Still, it should be enough to get you started, and as we all know, an artist’s job is never done even when it is. So now that you've finished a full black and white page and it's penciled and inked, what next?

NEXT: My First Cover Process

This article was brought to you by Brazilian born, Rod Rodollfo from Alpha Brain Art Studio. Please feel free to download the Master Page Template used by Rod on many Published Comic Books by clicking here! And while you're at it, don't forget to follow him on his website, twitter, and facebook pages.