TUTORIAL: Finding your Place By Kevin Logue

Find Your Place

If I could go back a few years and give myself one piece of advice when I started making comics, it would be to find my area within comics and stick with it. When I started drawing comics I took on all art duties, you kind of have to when you’re doing creator owned stuff, the pencils, inks, colouring and lettering. It is good fun, you get to try out loads of different areas which for me is all part of being an artist, but you’ll get much better and much quicker if you just focus on the one.
For me it’s pencilling.
You’re going to need something to pencil on then. I would recommend Bristol boards 250 gsm, their great for reworking, and get a good eraser too. With bristol board your going to need to mark out the page to the correct dimensions unless you’re using pre-ruled comic board. It was one of my biggest mistakes when I started; I just drew on A3 then shrunk it down, never looked right. You have to remember that what you’re drawing will end up being printed so always consider the size of the finished book plus the required bleed.
Mechanical Pencils 0.5 or 0.7 are the best for getting a good defined line. I tend to use a 2H then a HB lead. Use the 2H to really lightly sketch up the scene then use the HB to go over and pick out the lines you like. I’ll outline the shadows then fill them in using a normal B pencil, there a lot quicker for filling in areas than the mechanicals.  Just to keep things tidy, and stop your pencils from smudging, use a few slip sheets, literally just a couple of bits of paper you keep under your hand if you have to go back over things.
Once you have your page finished, you’ll need to scan it in to get it to your inker. I use Photoshop to do all my scanning: Go to file/ import/ WIA-(the name of your printer)/ custom setting/ adjust the quality/ select grayscale/ set your resolution to 600dpi/ preview it, and from there just play around with the brightness and contrast until you get them looking how you like, and scan.
Well, that’s all for pencilling.