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All responses Most smiled responses
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Thank you very much. :D
Process from start to finish:
First I plot out the overall story in very rough form - starting with a bullet list of key events I want to include, then breaking down roughly how many pages it'd take to depict said events. I end up with a very basic synopsis for each page, usually no more than three lines - how the page starts, the key event that takes place, and how the page ends.
My general rule is to keep the pacing as tight as possible, and I think it's very important to make sure that each page (a) contains something that advances the story, and (b) ends on a note that invites the reader to turn the page. I think I broke this rule with "The Silver Chain" where there was a three- or four-page chase scene, but I justify that as necessary to build tension and help with the pacing of the overall story.
I try to keep the page number in multiples of 4 for printing purposes.
Next I sketch the thumbnails, very loose pencil on paper at 1/4 actual size, just to plan out page composition, panel layout, poses, etc. This ends up as a small scribbly A7 booklet, and helps me see how things look on facing pages. I tend to stick to a fixed range of panel sizes - usually a third of a page tall, and some combination or multiple of half, quarter or third of a page wide. This is a deliberate choice to prevent me from going crazy and having pages with upwards of a dozen panels, as I did in "The Well of Stars".
Then on to the digital work, all with the Wacom. I set up a file with the panels, borders and gutters, copy the borders layer across to a new file and shrink it to half size. "Pencils" are drawn using a 50% opacity 3px round brush, blue because it makes me feel like a pro. ;D
Once the pencils are done I transfer them back to the original file, blow them up to full size again and start inking - 3px round brush, 100% opacity. I don't use the pen tool because I really don't get on well with vectors. My inking technique is probably pretty obtuse, given that it involves making a lot of mostly-straight strokes and erasing unwanted bits to produce nice crisp angles, but it gives a result that I like.
Once the linework's done I duplicate the ink layer a couple of times, collapse those into one layer again to make the linework heavier, then Threshold the layer so it's pure black and white - no greytones. Fill inking is done with the magic wand tool on another layer - it's mostly a subtractive process, starting out with a complete black fill and clearing out the white sections.
Next I duplicate the linework layer, colour-invert it so it's white, and that gives the line reversals. Selecting the unfilled sections and expanding that selection by a few pixels lets me erase any white-on-white lines, and after a bit of cleanup that's pretty much all of the inking done.
Lettering is pretty straightforward, and it's at this stage that most of the dialogue is actually finalised. I have a rough idea of what's going to be said, but don't completely nail down the wording until right at the end. Lettering done, the whole thing gets flattened and saved as a bitmap (so pure black-and-white, no greytones), then shrunk down to web size. The original files are 8"x6" at 600dpi, the files I post to my site are 1050x700px.
Annnd that's about it. Lather, rinse and repeat for each page until the chapter's complete. :D -
It would... probably work as suggested, yes. The details are probably best left as an exercise for the reader's depraved imagination. XD
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asked by Vanilleon
Ooh, that's a good one. :o I've not put a huge amount of thought into specific theme tunes since it's tricky to find songs where the lyrics fit. I'll have to look harder.
I do have playlists to put me in the right mood while I draw - Immediate Music do some excellent epic orchestral stuff (http://bit.ly/eu3AdL), Lustmord is good for bleak and foreboding ambient stuff (http://bit.ly/eJn2PI), and the soundtrack from "Conan the Barbarian" is always a favourite.
Now I'm going to have to hunt for character-specific theme tunes, argh. XD -
Nope - Evan is in the Knights of the Dragon, Jain is in the Order of the Eye. The two organisations are distinct, but share broadly similar aims and work together when needed. Members of one group are sometimes seconded to the other for a while.
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I've wanted to Make A Comic for quite a while now - five, six years or so? - but never actually sat down to make it, as I was nervous of the time commitment involved. I had some character ideas and concept sketches but that's about it. I knew I wanted it to be in the fantasy/adventure genre, but beyond that I was kind of hazy. So I'm treating it as an exercise in exploration - I put together a general timeline of the setting, then assembled a group of interesting characters fitting some fantasy archetypes who could go and have adventures in it. The stories themselves tend to start as tiny seeds ("Deal with an Eldritch God-thing goes horribly wrong." or "Knight & Kobold vs. Cthonic Horrors" or "Sardonic Bandit vs. The Wild Hunt") that I ponder on and eventually spin out into an actual narrative.
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Influences for whom I can find websites include Mike Mignola (http://www.artofmikemignola.com), Steve Prescott (http://www.rottface.com), Brom (http://www.bromart.com), Mark Gibbons (http://www.redknuckle.com), Wayne Reynolds (http://www.waynereynolds.com), Todd Lockwood (http://www.toddlockwood.com) and D'Israeli (http://disraeli-demon.blogspot.com/). Artists I can't find websites for include Jes Goodwin (veteran Games Workshop artist), Steve Yeowell ("Zenith") and Kevin O'Neill ("The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"). So, lots of games illustrators and comicbook artists there, really.
The "Dark Places" style is most heavily influenced by Mignola, Prescott and O'Neill, I think. I love the stark black/white contrast and the brooding shadows. :D -
Done and done. :)
There's also the option to include a Formspring widget in the site sidebar, but I'm debating whether or not that'd make things too cluttered. -
Of some kind, yes - it's not following directly from "The Silver Chain", but takes place after events in "The Well of Stars" and "Hearts of Dragons".
I should probably put a timeline on the site, as not all of the chapters are going to be in chronological order.
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Steve Dismukes’s Bio
I make a horror-fantasy-adventure webcomic, updating every Wednesday.
