{"id":4935,"date":"2014-08-12T09:05:06","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T14:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypercastle.com\/blog\/?p=4935"},"modified":"2014-08-12T09:05:06","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T14:05:06","slug":"comics-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/12\/comics-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Rules for my Comics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skew<\/em> is up to page 55 on Study Group<\/a> and I’ve got a pretty good buffer built up. I set Skew<\/em> up so that I could crank out the pages quickly in the limited studio time that I have now that I’m a father. One page per panel, three colors that mix for a total of seven colors plus white. I always try to make things easier for myself by creating rules and layouts for a project before I began.<\/p>\n

\"Skew
\nSkew<\/em> spoiler. You can see the layers that I reuse for every page.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I decided to generalize my comics-making rules, if any of y’all are curious:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Don’t proscribe. These rules only apply to my current comics project. I’m not trying to delineate absolute or universal rules for anyone else’s comics practice (including my future self).<\/li>\n
  2. Decide on the parameters of a comic before I begin (size, colors, number of panels).<\/li>\n
  3. Start each page with the same grid, which can be modified (for example, two panels combined into one) but can’t be supplanted (an eight-panel page when all previous are six).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Vortex
    \nVortex<\/em> template. I keep the horizontal and vertical panel lines in separate layers so that I can easily delete them to combine panels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      \n
    1. Draw on the computer. I want hard-edged bitmaps. I want to control whether each pixel is black or white. Plus, drawing on a computer is much faster because it cuts out scanning. The final comic is the art object, not the original page.<\/li>\n
    2. Draw with an expressively wavy line and turn off any line-smoothing effects. Computers can draw perfect straight lines or smooth Wacom-drawn lines for me so I should zoom in on my human imperfections.<\/li>\n
    3. Don’t dwell on the past. The trap of drawing on a computer is the infinite malleability. Once a page is finished, keep revisions to a minimum. This rule is the hardest for me to follow but I try to remember the words of Chögyam Trungpa: “First thought, best thought.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"One-page
      \nOne-page comic template (originally developed for my       Smoke Signal<\/em> submissions<\/a>). I drew vertical panel lines that split each row into thirds and a second set of that split each row into fourths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        \n
      1. Don’t outline my plots. The story will come to me as a draw. To outline is to kill the idea by pinning it.<\/li>\n
      2. Show what happens as clearly as possible. Keep narration to a minimum. Use as many panels as is necessary to show the beats of an action.<\/li>\n
      3. Challenge my subconscious assumptions when designing characters. Even when I’m designing aliens, I unthinkingly default to light skinned and male. Rethink these assumptions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Skew is up to page 55 on Study Group and I’ve got a pretty good buffer built up. I set Skew up so that I could crank out the pages quickly in the limited studio time that I have now that I’m a father. One page per panel, three colors that mix for a total […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[414,596],"class_list":["post-4935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics-process","tag-mangastudio","tag-skew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}