Storytelling with Pictures: An Introduction to Comics

1. Introduction: Hello, I'm Johnny and welcome to my class on storytelling with pictures I am currently working on a weekly Web comic or posters in Braille as well as other shore comics. For Independent pathologist comics are basically a sequence of pictures and text that tell a story. But what makes them special is that you can communicate things in a way that pictures or words cannot do on their own. In this class will see some of the elements using comics to tell our stories, said Task, choosing which moments to show in each panel from which angle to do it, how to a dialogue and so on. Then we learned with a class project in which each student will choose a scene from their favorite book and adapted into a short comic. If you're ready to get started, let's move on to the next video. 2. Project: Turn a Book Scene into a Comic: the project we're making for this glasses at the AP, Tennesseean from your favorite book into a shortcoming, something between two and five pages. Before jumping into the project itself, we're going to see some of the key concepts in Planica comic page. Then it will guide us a work of my take on the glass projects that by step will start by brainstorming ideas for a chosen seen blunt how our pages were going to be as we used the concept seen in this class. And then we'll move on to the final pages, and I work. This girl will go together as you work on your own project, which you can sharing this last project section for feedback. 3. Pacing: What to Leave In, What to Leave Out: we already said that. Comics, articles, pictures this pictures are connected to tell a story. If you see an animated movie or cartoon, you have tons of pictures shown one after another to show movement and action coming. Six. Similar, But in this case, the pictures are next to each other. Distributed across the page, You're stripped and the really supposed to read one after the other to follow the story. But we're not going to draw every single action. When you're making a comic, you have to choose the key moments that you're going to use to explain what it sexually continue sequence so the reader can fill in the gaps between each panel. To an example, say we have a person host walking down the street day, bump into someone and then notice they're missing their phone. How many moments do we need to describe that? We can have one person walking down the street two per soon, bumping into someone three other person leaves. Four our protagonists missing their phone. This could be a clear sequence, and it gets her point across. Now We cannot more penalty. We want toward more detail to that. Maybe you want to describe the scene a little bit more or you want to focus our critics reaction when they notice they're missing their phone. Maybe you want to show a scene in slow motion, which can be done by you. See multiple panels. There are multiple ways to describe in action, depending on what you want to focus on. The important part is that whatever you want to communicate is clear and can be understood by the reader. Three different combinations moments adding or removing panels to see how your story changes. In our next lesson, we're going to see what to do inside each panel to better communicate whatever you want to tell. 4. Framing: What to Show, How to Show It: in our previous lesson with So how to choose which moments who want to show in each panel of our comic. Now we'll see how to work inside each of those panels a comic panels like a window that lets the reader look into whatever is happening in our comic, and there are a lot of different ways to show it. When planning your panels, keep this question in mind. One. What do you want to show and to How do you want reader to feel? You can use different angles or distances to give different perceptions of your scene. For example, looking at someone from below will make it move more intimidating. Looking at a character's bag will make the look more mysterious or distant. You consume into focus on a character sister precious or some out to focus on the environment around them. The cool thing about comics is that you can also change the shape of the panels to give up the from feeling to them, for example, and narrow panel going. Give assist of confinement to fear while a wider panel give space to breathe and feels overall more calm. You can also do a panel with a different kind of border or with the boards of zero. Try using different angles of compositions for your parents to see which combination or start the best for your comic in our next lesson will move on to text, and I look. 5. Text: Showing Sound, Visually: we already? So what? To join our panel. So let's mileage warts in comics, Words and pictures were together complementing each other. Dialogue sucked extra depth or detail to what you shown pictures. Words can also make your pictures have a whole different meaning. Here are a couple tips in that in Texas, and I love to a comic. Try not to use too much text at once. If you do that, is there feeling like you're really novel? And the spell having text and images in one year and it will be lost. If you have a long dialogue, you can break it down into smaller chunks. When doing speech bubbles. Remember to make the reading order clear in Western comics that you fall order to read comics is from left to right, top to bottom. It is also a good thing to plan the placement of your speech bubbles early on so they don't affect your composition. If you don't have your text until the end, you might have trouble finding space for it. In my case, I in my speech bubbles before inking my drawings, but you can do it in whatever or the works best for you just like with panels giving your speech bubbles. Different shaves can give different meanings and effects. Your text. You can turn a dialogue into a hot, a whisper or scream, depending on what you do with it. Remember, focus and clarity and own use more ticks than necessary. Coming so mainly official, medium so ticket bench to that, there's one thing pending and it's how to write. Taxing the comic will talk about that in the next lesson. 6. A Note on Lettering: we just talked about working with Texan. Are comic this part of the comic? Thank you processes You should know nous lettering. The first decision you have to make about your lettering is where we're going for hand lettering or using a phone. Hand lettering. Ming's writing all of your checks by hand, which can be done on paper or with the graphics tablets. You give some more personal touch to your comic, but it also takes a lot of work in. Patients. Know that hand littering isn't the same as handwriting. You have to take the time to write each letter and make it clear and easy to read. Ah, hard to read Lettering can easily turn readers away from a comic. On the other hand, you can go for digital lettering, which means using a computer phone is set of writing by hand. It's faster and easier to fix and rearrange, but think can also go wrong. If you don't use it correctly, you want to go the digital way. Make sure to choose a form that is easy to read and feed your comic style and tone Bluhm. But that comma for Sigurd selection or free comic phones. You can try trading for phone since isis until you find the one that beds for you. Comic. This lettering choices mostly personal preference. I prefer hand lettering because I haven't found a phone that looks bird with my comics on my own words, but both mental sort justice. Good. You can also try other variations, such as juicing, lower case on upper case lettering use in different lettering styles for different characters and so on. The most important thing is that you make sure your lettering is clear, and thus and destructor reader. 7. Flow: Arranging Panels Within the Page: No, we have all of our parents plan. It's time to put them on the pitch. First, you have to know the shape of the pages you're going to make. The standard is the vertical page, like the ones using comic books. But even those have variations. For example, a letter sized page won't have the same shape as an a four page. There are other page shapes you can work with, especially when you're posting them online. Some comics work with the Resettle Pages, which works great for where comics read on a computer or with Long Thing vertical comics, which are optimized to be read the mobile platforms. You can also use other shaped like Square Bages or the classic sure comic strip. The convention used for Western comics is leading from left to right top to bottom. Your parents have to be organized on the page in a way that makes it easy and natural. To read them in order. Try to avoid complicated layers that my confusion reader and make them read the comic in the wrong order or skip a panel. You can also play with the space between panels to try different compositions. It's not necessary to fill the hole, which with panels all the time, a bigger gap between battles cannot suspends or distance, among other things. If you're working with separate pages, pay attention to where you begin and end each page. Cliffhanger would look best at the end of debate. So to sum it up, choose the shape of your comic page and then place your panels in a way that's appealing and easy to read correctly. Now that we have some of the basic concepts to keep in mind when planning a comic page, we can move on to a class project. Most are working of that in the next lesson. 8. Choosing your Scene and Brainstorming: OK, now it's time to jump into your class project off adapting a scene from a book into a comic . I got us a world, my take on the project so we can go through it together for my comic. I'm going to adapt the scene from Lord of the Flies Bone. William Golding. Don't worry, I will support you. I chose a scene from the first chapter of the book when Ralph From Piggy find the con for the first time. This is an important object in the story, so I thought it would be a good scene. Try that for this project. Once I have chosen my scene, it's time to do so. Brave storming to see what I'm going to put in my comic. Let's see that keep on from these scenes, I have to character speaky and Ralph. They're exploring a nice line for the first time, so they're lost in a new environment. Ralph and Piggy just met, so they're not exactly close. It's important to have a basic idea off the mood in the scene so you can reflect in your comic pages for the stage. I took notes of the scene and made some sketches of the characters are environments I'm going to use also world some particular things I want to, including the comic, their support, the scene in which big talks a lot while Ralph ignores him. So I want to emphasize that by filling panels with biggest renting over the place. None of this set in stone, so you can write down as many ideas if you want an itty Demel later if necessary. Once you've chosen your scene and have a general idea what you make for your project, we can move on to planning your comic pages. We'll talk about that in the next lesson. 9. Thumbnails: Now that we have an idea of what to make for a comic project, we can start planning our pages. The prisons behind planting a comic pages different for each comic already is, and you can adopt disperses to whatever feel more comfortable to you. Some people rights groups of the comic pages first, but I usually start working with some nails and other dialogue in the same step. Summers are small, simplified versions of your comic pages. Where do you decide how to arrange your panels? Attacks across each page? Here's where you decide most of your composition. A good the port terminals is to draw them small so you can focus on your design and composition instead of getting distracted by the details. Here, the summers have made for my projects, which make a total of four pages. The first pages focused on growl, finding a mysterious subject, a shell. I wanted to make a panel with the characters crossing the border or the panel to make it look like they're moving towards the subject. The second and third pages are about growth. Picking up the constable piggy talks and talks about So my old friend of his that had a similar shale and stuff. The action here is Rafkin, the country, but the panel's airfield with Pigs dialogue to give the impression that it's never going to shut up. I also did a close up shot of the country when they get it out of the water, which is when they can see it with more detail. The fourth page starts with Piggy suddenly jumping a growth with the idea of using the constant called the older kids. In the first panel. Ralphie startle at this sort of movement, but in the second panel we can see him getting the idea. Then there's a moment of silence where royalty thinking of what to do with this and then turns to pick you for advice on how to use it. Sometimes you'll get your thumbnails right on your first or second or third try, but other times you might have to change them multiple times until you reach a good composition. Once you're ready with your thumbs, we can move on to sketch our pages 10. Sketching and Lettering: we already plan how to make our comics. So it's time to start working our final pages. You can use any tools or techniques you want to make your comic. I'll be working with my personal favorite, which is think I use a light blue pencil to sketch my comic a brush. Been for most of my thinking and various fine liners for details, lettering and panel borders. Then I usually scan my comments and color them digitally on photo shop. The first thing I do is draw the panels in light of the lines and make a rough sketch of where everything's going to be on the page. Then I had my lettering weights I do by hand and being speech bubbles and panel borders. Once I'm done with all this, I'm ready to move on to my favorite part in King 11. Inks and Final Pages: we're almost done with their co make. All I have left to do is in my drawings. I work with a brush. Bangui task bristles like a brush but uses in cartridges like a fountain pen. It's easy to carry and refill, and it gives a lot operation to line work. It takes some work to control it properly at first, but it gives ways or with practice. You can also going with fine liners. Ben Naves Fountain pales all of them with their own kind of lying work. Ah, lot of people also indignantly, where you can try thousands of different brushes and priests and we're done well. One panel Once I Finish Inc in the rest of the comic, I just need to scan it at some final touches, and I were ready to go. You can see these Bages in more detail in the Class Project Gallery 12. Final Comments and Tips: we made it to the end of this glass. Yeah, In this class, we saw some of the concepts used to write or make a comic. What moments? Direction to show how to friend them in the panel, how to work with text and how to put everything together on the comic page or straight. Then we went through a class project from our first brainstorming session. Two are finished comic pages. If you haven't started your private guest, they seize the perfect moment to do it. Remember to post your product on the class Project gallery so you can share with the rest of the class and get feedback on your work. What's next Then? If you want to keep doing comics, sherry work and share with other artists. Thanks to the Internet and social media, it is easier than ever to connect with the rest of the comic and Web comic community, which has lots of like minded people from all over the world. You'll find inspiration, motivation and probably some wonderful friends along the way as well. So comes are also thanks for letting me sure some of the love with you