destiny-islanders:

I always write out the scripts for my comics before I draw them. That way I know exactly what I’m going to put in every single panel– what expressions to draw or poses to use. (Sometimes I write out Tumblr/Twitter captions, too, so I won’t forget them while I’m working.)

I’ve recently tried to limit myself to eight panels per comic so that I can post them on Twitter without having to cram more than two panels in one photo. Because of that, I have to edit myself down a lot and cut dialogue. Rip some of my jokes U_U

Let’s use my newest doodle comic as an example:

Once it’s written, I draw everything, panel by panel. Typically, I sketch and draw the line-art for each panel before moving on to the next one.

Sketch!

Line-Art!

I usually wait to start coloring until I’ve drawn the entire comic. When I’m drawing comics with panels where the only thing I change is the expressions, I make sure to put faces and limbs on separate layers! That way, I can delete the changing parts without having to worry about cleanly erasing them from around the other line-art.

Then I color! (With repeat panels, I merge all color layers together and transfer them to the duplicates so that I don’t have to color essentially identical panels multiple times.)

After I’ve colored everything, I look for backgrounds. Sometimes they come from screenshots I capture myself, and sometimes I find them on Google. Tbh at this point I’ve been working on the comic for hours and the end is in sight… I just want to be done hahahaha

Then I lay out the text… A lot of the time, the characters have so much to say that they cover up outfits I poured a lot of time into drawing ;___; But it’s gotta be done. This is also when I add extra details like motion lines, arrows, etc.

Rip Prompto’s coat pockets. The last thing I do before I consider a comic done is messing around with the color a little bit with filter settings. The same comic may have panels with different filters depending on time of day, location, or mood!

And that’s about it! I’d say, on average, comics this size take me between 5-7 hours.