So We're Back?

We've moved back here again.  The Digital Hand Studios website is still undergoing some major changes to prepare for online digital sales.  So for the meanwhile, as long as that will be, I'll just share articles here.  We're still moving forward as a small magazine for indie comic creators, but our release date is still unannounced.   If you enjoy our articles and find the information helpful, remember to subscribe.

Articles & Topics

For those of you who have been following us, welcome back.  To all the new readers, we're a blog/soon to be a comic magazine for independent comic creators.  This means everybody who doesn't work for the big two, Marvel or DC.  Our articles range from comic art techniques to the writing process for stories.  We look into the publishing and the business side of comics, especially getting the most out of your marketing efforts.

There seems to be a few great comic art magazines out there with amazing articles, but seldom do they really speak to the unique problems that indie creators face constantly.  Most of them focus on the art, lets face it.  What we're creating here is a magazine that goes into all those issues that come along when you create a comic book for independent or self publishing. We'll go beyond just the art and get into writing stories and converting them into comic scripts, marketing campaigns that will get your book sold for a wide range of budgets, and how to register UPCs and ISBNs. Learn what you need to know to run your comic book creation business.

What's Else is New?

Moving forward to offer you guys a better experience we've added a YouTube channel to stream content related to our articles and even some cool places or neat art techniques that we can share.  We're going to have fun and explore the mysteries of creating comics...I mean come on, that's awesome!  So definitely check it out and if you really like it subscribe to it so you won't miss a video.
As it stands for now we'll be posting new articles and videos every other Sunday.  We're still a bit busy working on comic projects at Digital Hand Studios, especially for up coming Megacon in Orlando coming up in May.

Thank you for visiting us!  Remember to subscribe or check every other Sunday for new articles. 

Stay awesome!
 

Character Design Basics

 

Character design is very important.  As key element of your story they will add or take away from the comic.  Your audience should like or at least have a connection with your heroes and supporting cast while either understanding or truly hate your villains.  For comics, character designs also include costume design and powers.  Here's a simple guide on how to work the process.

Concept

This is the rough draft of your character.  Whether a hero or villain, you need to build them up and give them purpose.  Here's where you come up with the back story, name, powers, and motivation.  Make them interesting by getting away from stereotypes and the back stories.  Use things you know or stuff you research:

" Madeline, lost her sister in the war and blames Unicorp, a big war supporter and weapon's manufacturing corporation.  Madeline was trained to be the best infiltrator in the war and now after her sister's death she has gone rogue and infiltrates Unicorp for their true purpose in the war and to expose them to the world."

Get yourself a database of names.  many writers have a book of names from different cultures and nationalities.  Keep cultural websites book marked or keep reference material handy, especially if you plan to have authentic diversity in your comics.  You also want to have a list of super heroes and villain names that you might want to work with.  Try to accommodate the name to the super power or even function of your character

Choosing powers for your characters can be both awesome and frustrating.  The main thing here is not to over do it.  The more powers, the harder and more complex the challenges you have to create to keep your comic interesting.  Today's reader is constantly asking why or how come...you need to provide an intelligent and reasonable answer.  A quick search online will provide a list of common comic book super powers.

Costume design is important. Choose a design that builds or complements your character's role or power.   
 

7 Reasons Why Your Women Look Horrendous

There's an old saying that goes "An artist that knows how to draw beautiful women will never go hungry."  There's almost nothing more beautiful in this world than a woman.  Art attempts to capture that beauty in the form of illustration.  This is very apparent in comics through out history.  But unfortunately its a complex concept to grasp for many artists.  Drawing gorgeous women for your comic stories is more dynamic than just squiggling a couple of round boobs and a big butt.

Reason #1

The face of a women is incredibly important so if the proportions are off it will affect it tremendously.  Most artist have that down for the most part, but where it becomes insanely tricky is the expression.  A good deal of the attraction starts off in the face.  As an illustrator you must master the art of expression, specifically suggestive facial expressions.  A good exercise is to draw several faces from sexy advertising...or "other places".  You know what I'm talking about, don't make this awkward!

Reason #2

Hands.  Yes, hands.  Some new artists avoid drawing women's hands as much as Rob Liefeld did with drawing feet.  They can only hold bouquets of flowers for only so long.  I know it's a pain in the butt to draw those five to ten pages of hand studies but DO IT!  And remember to study WOMEN's hands.  Its so very surprising to see a drawing of a sexy comic book heroine with big gorilla hands.   Remember, thin and round off the knuckles a bit.

Reason #3

And while we are at it lets also mention FEET!  Same as with hands.  Go through those exercises and learn the correct positioning and movement of feet.  This is actually a big one.  Practice drawing toes from up close.  No one likes gargoyle feet on a nice looking women.

Reason #4

Character depth.  Personality.  The half nude women heroines in leotards might work well with the young adolescents but adults prefer to be romanced a bit with personality and character.  Don't make Latoya a black female just to have diversity in your comic.  Give her likes and dislikes, a genuine history, and make her real, in other words have her react to situations that stimulate mature thinking.  "No Don, I'm not going to be one of your side chicks.  Go play with your girls because you're messin' with a REAL WOMAN now!"

Reason #5

Drawing realistic and relevant hair.  You better believe it.  Women's hair is biblical.  You need to understand women's hairstyles and how to best draw those curls and shadows.  Please get out of the habit of drawing these 80's big porn star hair styles.  Your readers are palm facing and you're just not getting it.  Once again, use references.

(Continued in Issue #1) 

Designing Villains

The Joker is the property of DC comics

One of the biggest driving forces behind most comic book stories are the villains.  They pose or create the greatest obstacles for your heroes to over come.  They have to be as dynamic or even more than your heroes.  And the most successful villains are the ones that have levels of depth to their character.  Here we are going to learn how to create villains with such sophistication in their quality of traits that your readers will love to hate them...or love them!

Bullseye is Property of Marvel Comics

With villains we need to start at the beginning to see what makes them tick.  In most, but not all, a tragic event or accident has somehow negatively affected the villain and twisted his or her fate.  This is one of the best ways to begin to define the underlying foundation of your villain, but remember that characters are constantly changing so understand that you can always make changes later on that will be part of the character development. Marvel's own Bullseye's history is uncertain as he him self has only divulged small pieces of it for the sake of making the story interesting. Its not unheard of for a villain to switch roles and become a hero.  Back to working on your villain's origin.  The world is full of tragedy all you have to do is look around.  From the despair of a father for a child lost in the unforgiving violence of war to the son who loses his father to an illness because of the negligence of a doctor or the pain of a grieving mother of a daughter raped and killed by an unknown assailant to the rage of a daughter for the senseless attack of a church or mall where her mother and family is slain.  You don't need to look any further that the home page of any news site to get the latest dose of rampage.

After building a source of pain for your evil doer start forming their purpose or motivation.  Did the illness that caused Billy's dad to die and the perceived lack of help or empathy because of Billy's our despair convinced him to want others to share in his own grief and so he became a terrorist to medical staff and hospitals.  Was the puppy that just got run over by a careless and uncaring driver the only thing holding Diana from entering her life of an orphan assassin.  Get creative!

Dr. Doom is the property of Marvel Comics

Here's another fun part.  What powers did your super villain gain from the incident.  The plasma weapon test that kill Mark Danger's brother also imbued him with ability to manipulate electricity.  The shock of Kendra losing her Government funding for her lab and life's work created the madness that lead her to create doom's day robots and eventually into a cyborg herself.  The reason doesn't even have to be noble, sometimes people just snap.  After Harry stole Frank's girlfriend Wendy, Frank decided to become his wrestling persona "The Viper" but as a bank robber and hired muscle for the mob.  The Latverian Monarch known to many as Doctor Doom was born brilliant. In a deal with the devil, his mother sacrificed her soul in return for her son to be a ruler. He spent much of his life studying both dark magic and science.

Whatever the case is keep it interesting. Stay away from generic bad guys, unless your just introducing thugs or underlings.  Try to create at least three amazing super villains to keep your heroes on their toes and your readers at the edge of their seats!

  

       

Create the Drama Through Expression

Comics are usually stories filled with drama and there's no better way to show it than the expression on your character's faces.  To really drive the story forward and emphasize the dialogue your characters have to show what they are feeling and how they are reacting to situations in your story.  The concept is easy to grasp but its in the application that artists have trouble with the translation.

There are many expressions to match the vast kaleidoscope of human emotion.  As an artist, especially a sequential or comic artist, it is important that you not only understand the expressions related to the scene, but also know how to draw it in your characters.  Facial expressions enhance panels and take them to a whole another level.  Make it a habit to practice human expression on your character when your sketching studies.

A few basic expressions that you need to master as a comic book artist are: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, confusion, fear, and determination.  These are the fundamental emotions in almost all great comics.  Learn to build from these emotions like from anger to rage or from happiness to excitement.  Those changes elevate your scenes to create a much better story. Remember, characters need to react to situation and dialogue.  If everyone maintains the same level of seriousness the reader will find it difficult to understand the moon of the scene or even the whole comic.

Rather than starting at the beginning, how to draw a head or face for this matter, I invite you to explore the incredible amount of comic "How to Draw" books, as mostly all of them are very similar in that they introduce you to the variety of artistic tools available in today's market and the basics of drawing simple anatomy, such as that of the head.  No, we're just going to dive right in to some of the common expressions you will use to improve your comic panels and drive that drama right up there.  

Here's a drill that will help you start building your repertoire of facial expressions.  Everything is quality and time.  Take a sheet of paper, usually your sketchbook, and draw 16 to 20 faces per sheet, preferably of the characters you work with, and create as many different expressions as possible in a single view.  A single view would refer to making all the faces a front, profile, or 3/4th view.  Give yourself about 30 minutes.  Remember that working quickly will improve the quality of art per the amount of time spent.  You would be training yourself to make deadlines.

Each expression is a combination of eye brow positioning, eye exposure, and mouth shape. Learn to mix these combinations to form elaborate expressions such as despair, sarcasm, and a spark of insanity.  Practice these dynamic expressions on both male and female characters.  Don't be afraid to push the limits and try something new. 

Creating Intriguing Characters for your Comic Book

The heart and soul of a comic book is it's characters. Daring protagonists and devious villains all surrounded by an incredible cast of side kicks and supporting characters bring a story to life and spark the interest of a wide audience.  Dynamic characters bring a level of sophistication and appeal to the story that to just haphazardly create them is to spell certain doom for your potentially great comic.  Here's what you need to consider when designing a truly unique and inspiring character.

 There is a common mistake among new comic book creators when it comes to drafting up new characters for comic book stories.  For some reason there has been an ongoing misconception that in order to have a likeable character he or she needs to be god-like invincible and have the sex appeal of a porn star.  This is a stereotype carried from popular comics of the 90's during a time where everything had to be bigger, badder, and push boundaries.  But times have changed and as comic fans demand more drama and diversity in their comics the rules have changed.  Comic book characters have evolved to much more than a fancy costume with special powers.

In today's comic reading society your characters need to have depth.  You do this by giving them personality traits and human faults. Alan Moore was one of a few epic writers to change the stereotype of super heroes by humanizing them with social and personal issues.  Orson Scott Card wrote in Character & Viewpoints that characters "...readers want your characters to seem like real people. Whole and alive, believable and worth caring about."  To achieve this level of attraction between your characters and your readers you will have to build them up.

There are many traits that transform your character and bring life to your stories.  Linda N. Edelstein, PH.D. wrote a book called Writer's Guide to Character Traits.  There's a chapter dedicated to 23 personality traits with patterns of inner experience and behavior.  Such personality traits included on the list are the adventurer whose themes are excitement and boldness and the resilient, a personality type which is productive and able to face problems and take personal control.  Stan Lee writes in his book How to Draw Superheroes that there's two superhero archetypes: The S-type and the B-type.  The S-type stands for Superman while the B-type represents Batman. The S-type is a character which is bold and has superpowers.  This character is loud in the sense of being represented with bright colors and the face is visible to show expressions and to give the impression of accountability.  The B-type is a lot more grittier, typically a person without powers that is highly driven by a life altering event to perform incredible feats.

Start your character profile with all the basics: real or alter ego name, date of birth or age, sex, race, religion, culture or ethnicity, family situation such as single, married, divorced, children, parents, etc.  Next add a life changing moment or character defining event in the past, a reputation, good and/or bad habits, give them a flaw or weakness. Give them view points and biases.  Give them a bit of personality. Do they joke around? Are they a shy introvert or social butterfly? Do they hate dogs and love cats?  How do they interact with different people?  Remember, you don't need to fill this out completely before you can start your comic story, but at least have some of these answered to have a foundation to build on as your write your story.

Here comes the typical fun part, choosing powers!  The list is almost endless and feel free to be as creative as you want to be, but keep this in mind: the more powerful your character is the harder it will be to create a believable obstacle or conflict to solve.  I'll entertain the idea of listing several superpowers here to get you inspired:

• heat or laser vision
• elemental control
• invisibility
• special sight like x-ray vision
• ability to fly
• incredible speed
• shape shifting
• magic
• super sense like hearing or sight
• animal or insect like powers
• technology based powers like a bionic arm or camera eye
• super strength
• mythological power like Thor or Wonder Woman
• alien like Venom or Martian Manhunter

Give your character purpose.  People always have a reason for doing things.  What motivates your character?  Define the moment.  If your character is a certain way because a loved one passed away, make your readers understand.  Show them how happy they were or the special moments they shared.  If the reader can identify with the moment or event they will become immersed in the character.  Think of moments that people can identify with like birthdays, being sick, losing a friend, moving away, the loss of a family or friend, even the connection with a pet.

Always try to keep your characters interesting by making them dynamic with personality traits, motivations, and life changing events.  Don't be afraid to make them flawed.  It makes them that much more believable.

Drawing Captivating Sounds

Your comic book pages will ROCK with the help of some cleverly designed sound effects!  The world isn't a silent place.  Use sound effects to bring mood to those scenes.  If you need help finding words use a quick browser search for onomatopoeia.  Its just a fancy word for written sound effects.

Even though as an artist you can make some pretty amazing designs for your word art by hand you may want to consider a design program such as CorelDraw, Illustrator, or even Manga Studios for your word art.  You're going to save your self some time, especially if you decide to make changes.  I hope by know you're starting to appreciate the job of a letterer.

Word art for sound effects is pretty upfront.  Size equates to loudness, so if your sound effect is really small its considered a whisper while if its really large its practically an explosion.  Play with colors to contrast and enhance the scene.       
Font plays an important role in representing the sound displayed.  There are several helpful sights when it comes to fonts and word art for comics.  Try Blambot.com or Comic Craft for a great collection of fonts and advice about lettering.
 

Becoming a Profitable Comic Artist

At this point you have already worked on your talent and have impressed enough people to convince yourself to pursue an art career as a comic book artist.  So lets get into what you need to know to start building yourself up to a professional level as an artist. Now is the time to start taking these specific steps in order to build a solid foundation.  It starts here, right where you are, reading this article and taking notes.  I'm going to be upfront with you and let you know right off the bat that this road to success is a process that takes time and effort. It won't happen over night and you will need to invest your time and effort to carve out your spot of the lime light.

First and most important: draw constantly.  You will need to do this to keep improving your artistic skill set so draw projects, not just doodles or studies.  You need this for repetition. This will help build your creative habit.  Your mind and body will become accustomed to creating art constantly.  Take your sketchbook out in public.  This will have many benefits.  Besides getting use to drawing in a hectic environment it will expose your art to people.  Take in the compliments as well as the critics...yes the critics, too.  The art world is subjective and there are many opinionated fools out there waiting to bring you down.  Take the abuse now and develop leather skin so you can feel much more comfortable when working with an editor later.
 
Network.  You need to be on social media.  If you're already there, awesome.  If not, better get started now.  As of the time that I'm writing this article the most useful and necessary online website and applications to be on are:

Stay in touch with social media.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• DeviantArt
• LinkedIn

There are a few more but these are the basic.  Don't fall into the social media trap where you feel like you have to become a slave and check it every minute and update it constantly.  A few days or weekly post is fine.  Get into the habit of sharing your art work on each of the sites.  Learn about tools that will send the message over several of your sites at once.  Try to maintain an online portfolio on either or both Deviant Art and/or Instagram.  This will be very useful when networking and having to show someone your portfolio on the go.  Keep it up to date.  Remember to also make an artist Facebook page.  Its a good practice to keep your personal and professional life separate.  

 

Become familiar with the Graphic Artist Guild and purchase their handbook.  It contains very important information about pricing your work and contracts.  

 

Challenge yourself.  Participate in contests and trade shows like a comic book convention.  An art contest for comic or pop art is a perfect way to get exposure.  you would be surprised at the amount of people that begin to recognize your style, so always do your best.  Don't just do it.  Really put in the effort and then add it to your portfolio.  Attend comic conventions.  Get some advice from upcoming artists and support your local scene.  You'll get better information if you buy something from the artist.  Remember that you're taking up their time with your curiosity.  After 1 or 2 trips to the convention, get yourself a booth in artist alley.  

 

Don't be afraid of taking work for exposure, but learn when it is appropriate.  Many established artists won't do this, so take advantage.  When done correctly the experience can boost you up incredibly.  Interview the publisher and make sure they have the credentials: a large national or global audience that is verifiable.  Make sure that you are in agreement as to you being awarded recognition for your work and have it in writing as a written agreement with monetary consequences.  The work should be considerably a small job. Once published share it with everyone on your social media. 

 

Establish your rates and stick to them.  This will require you to evaluate the market.  See what other artist are charging for their work, especially artist that have similar talent to yourself.  Start at a competitive rate until you build up your recognition through your art work.  Try to set your price early on as to not be hassled by demanding clients, writers, and/or publishers. Stay firm on your prices, you did your research and you know your talent.      

 

Start practicing this today and mold yourself into a productive and creative artist.