Portrait of the Artist as a Would-Be Graphic Novelist

Nearly finished with my short, but first here's a run-down of the production process:

It all starts with the script. Actually, it all starts with half-formed ideas in the back of my head while I try and get to sleep at night, then moves into scribbled pocketbook pages in hotel bathrooms, but the script is the first step towards actualising the idea. I'm not great at writing prose, but it helps to solidify the concept into something that can be translated into its final form. If it's a complex idea (this wasn't), additional notes and scene cards are helpful to break the story. Depending on how well it stands, more than one draft might be necessary. This one seemed to read pretty well from page one, so I went straight from the initial draft to the next stage: thumbnailing.

Okay, I cheated. These thumbs are from another project because I left the others at my parents' house. They look pretty similar; quick sketches conveying only the most basic actions, framing and camera placement for reference later. I tend to not bother adding in dialogue at this point, leaving only empty speech balloons to indicate what's being said. When this is out the way, it's on to the next step: penciling.

Going through the thumbs alongside a copy of the script, I begin to make a basic build of the page in Manga Studio. This one is a splash page showing the emotional conflict between the two principal characters during sex. I decided to illustrate this with a large opening panel establishing the scene, then fragment the narrative into little details and actions at the bottom of each page. It's still really rough at this stage, so what follows is the long and arduous process of drawing and redrawing each panel until I'm satisfied with the result.

At some point I decided to flip the action so that it reads more effectively left to right. This seemed a good idea because the page in question involves the character making advances rather than stopping an action, and I wanted this to be reflected in the way it reads.

This is what the final penciled image looks like. Pretty refined, but still obviously a digital product. That's why we have the next stage: Inking.

After printing off the original pages (they have to be separated for this step because my printer-scanner is only A4), usually at reduced opacity to aid line removal later, I then go through and ink by hand. Screwing up at this point is pretty much inevitable, but it's okay because once it's done there's still one more step: post production.

In Photoshop, I combine the two images, remove the blue pencil lines, add text, and fix any blemishes or uneven lines that look especially glaring. Looks pretty neat, huh? Well the next stage is colouring, but that's not being done until the last few pages are inked up to maintain consistency within the artwork. 

So there you have it: the (almost) complete process. As much as I love drawing beards and butts, I'll be glad when this project is out of the way. There's so much more I want to get out and create.