Work flow changes from person to person and from studio to studio, but many have several similarities. I'm going to provide a simple work flow for a comic project from concept to finished product. I'm not going to touch on publishing or distribution. I'll save that for another post.
Practically these will be the steps you will more than likely take in create your comic. Feel free to customize it to something you feel comfortable with. This is the steps towards creating a comic project:
- Concept
- Story & Script
- Pencil Sketching
- Line Art or Inking
- Coloring
- Lettering
- Editing of Final Draft for Print
Concept
If you haven't already, get yourself into the habit of brainstorming for story ideas as a daily thing. Whether you're walking the dogs or doing the dishes (notice I'm picking simple chores and not during brain surgery or at your other job talking to customers...unless comics is your main job, of course) go through scenarios from your everyday and add something special to make it interesting. You see the garbage man picking up the trash...so imagine if he found a dead body or some sort of alien device in the bin. If you come up with something you really like then write a short paragraph like a pitch for it. Keep it simple.
This is also a good time to come up with locations. Draw some thumbnail sketches of places that you would like to use as part of your design. Create rough design for characters for the story. Come up with hero(es) and villain(s).
Story & Script
Putting together a story requires organizing those ideas you gathered during the concept stage. Decide how long you want to work your story, a one shot or spread throughout several issues. The main difference is working with a story "Arch" in making several issues work together under one main theme and plot, while the one shot only deals with the story at hand.
Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Use a 3 act structure to organize your story. When you feel a lot more comfortable with story telling explore other styles. The beginning, also known as the first act, is used to introduce the reader to the characters and settings. It also introduces o them the problem that will form the story known as the conflict. Many story tellers use a "hook" to gain the reader's interest during the first act. The hook is an enticing situation that creates excitement or intrigue. The second act plays out as the body of the story. It illustrates the challenges faced by your hero(es) to find a resolution for the conflict. At the end of the second act is the climax, or the main battle. Finally, the third act is the resolution. The villain is defeated or plan is foiled. For series with several issues plan on having a cliff hanger at the end of the story to keep your reader wanting to explore the next issue.
Once you have the story organized you'll want to break it down into a script format. This is when you start creating scenes and dialogue. Each page has panels. You'll have to describe what's going on and add the dialogue, captions, and narration for each of these panels. Keep in mind when describing the action in the panel that you're limited to an action or two. There is also a limit on how many words per balloon per panel. Pacing is very important in comics. The general rule is fewer panels per page for action scenes and more panels for slower pacing to create tension.
Pencil sketching and the rest will be explained in a latter post.
