A presentation by Becca Hillburn and Heidi Black introducing the basic materials utilized in creating comics. Covers pencils, leads, papers.

1. Intro to Comic-Craft
Or, all the stuff you need to know to
make some manga

2. So lets make some comics!
Lets start out with the tools of the
trade...

3. Paper
You mean there's more than one kind?
& copy paper (20lb, 24lb, 28lb, 32lb – also in sizes of
letter, legal, a4)
& thicker papers (cardstock/presentation paper)
& manga papers (deleter, maxon, copic)
& bristol board (canson, strathmore)
& other media/illustration boards (for wet
media/paints)

4. pencils
& Graphite pencils – mechanical, wooden,
drafting/lead holders
& Varying lead hardness gives you different values

5. Non-photo blue pencils
& nonphoto blue pencils are a favorite of comic artists
because they can be easily dropped from art
& great for working out perspective, anatomy, etc
before committing to a line with pencil or ink
& jetpens.com sells nonphoto blue (“soft blue”)
mechanical leads
& other colors can be used – use
hue/saturation/lightness in photoshop to drop that
color

6. Inking tools
& tech pens: copic, pitt, micron, rapidograph
& brushes: watercolor/sable brushes are great
& brush pens: felt tip or synthetic bristle
& nib & ink (dip pens)
& fountain pens

7. Other tools
& ruler/t-square/triangle/straight edge
& french curves
& circle and ellipse templates
& eraser (vynl, plastic, kneaded)

8. Computer programs
& adobe photoshop – considered the standard
& adobe illustrator – difficult to learn
& corel painter – better for illustration
& manga studio – offers a lot of templates,
screentones, used by many professionals
& paint tool sai – cheaper alternative, also good for
coloring
& free alternatives such as gimp, open canvas

9. That's a lot of stuff!
Relax!
You don't need all of those things
Start simple. Find what works best for you. It isn't
the same for everyone!

10. Now we have stuff, so lets
make some comics!
Where do we start?

11. Everyone has a story to tell
& short stories are usually best to start with
& many artists do autobio comics about events that
happen to them
& gag cartoons/comic strips are also good first
comics
& try to avoid your 2000-page epic as your first comic

12. Starting with a script
& a script will keep you on track with your story
& a script can be very simple such as bullet points
and actions, or very complex
& scripts are also much easier to revise than art

14. thumbnails
& thumbnails are your first draft – they help you
visualize what you want on the page without
committing too much time/effort
& thumbnails can be very simple (stick figures)
& making multiple thumbnails using different camera
angles can help you create more visually interesting
pages

15. roughs
& a tight rough is usually page size
& refining what you worked out in your thumbnails
& this is the place to work on things like perspective

16. Pencils and inks
& some artists will make another pass at the pencils
before inking
& if you mess up, you can use white paint or a white
gel pen to “erase” mistakes.
& or photoshop.

17. screentones
& screen tones are often used in manga
& tones can be bought and pasted on original art, or
applied digitally
& other ways to make grey values include
hatching/cross hatching, dry brush, watercolor/ink
wash, and copic markers

18. Colored comics
& various techniques to make colored comics – digital
media, markers, paints, colored pencil, mixed media
& its your comic, do what makes you happy!

19. So what's the secret to being
an awesome comic artist?
Practice.
A lot.
Read comics.
A lot of them.
A huge variety of them.