Making comics is a whole lot of fun but it’s also a lot of work! To get the job done, I divide my creative process into steps and move through them one at a time. When I’ve finished all the steps, I’ve created a graphic novel read to be enjoyed by readers like you! Every artist has a different way of creating comics but this is how I do it:
1. The Scenes
I like to know as much about my story as possible before I start drawing, right down to how many pages a scene will occupy. Here is a list of the scenes from Shark Summer’s ACT THREE. It’s extra work to plan a book this way but it keeps me motivated to see keep track of my progress.
2. The Dialogue
I bet you’re wondering why there’s no art in these panels! It’s because I always write my dialgoue first. Like a playwright, I need to know what my characters are going to say before I start designing the scene they are in. Plus, it’s a lot easier to move around blocks of text than it is to move around sketches. I have more flexiblity to change the story if I use only text in this step.
3. The Sketches
I begin sketching my pages once I have the dialgoue in place. Sometimes the drawing does enough speaking for itself and I can delete the dialgoue! Making a good story is not always about adding things, sometimes it’s about taking things away. “Actions speak louder than words” as they say.
4. The Inks
After I’ve edited my dialogue and finished my sketches I go back to the begining of the book and start inking over my sketches. Inking is hard work on its own so it’s important that the story is finished before I get started. This is where the final look of the book begins to emerge. It’s pretty exciting!
5. Color
All kinds of artists use a mood board when planning a project. A mood board is a collection of images an artist gathers to visually represent the style of a project. I created a mood board of icons and art from the 1970s to help me find the right colors for Shark Summer.
This painting by Thomas Cole inspired the color mood for the climatic storm scene at the end of Shark Summer.
