If you are into comic book drawings, here are some tips that can help you.
First of all, you have to develop a plot and a good setting. Even the most beautiful or impressive comic book drawings will not interest an audience long unless there’s a nice story and background that supports them.
You have to create the background first, and the plot second. The background is important because it gives coherence to every story, no matter what happens. Important information in the background should be places, distances, means of transportation, countries (or kingdoms or any type of political structure), races (if any), level of technology, type and level of magic (or superpowers), etc.
Once you have all this background settles, your characters can maneuver within its laws and be consistent.
Now, when it comes to the actual drawing, there are many techniques. I recommend the following one.
Select a number of panels that you’re comfortable working with. Although it doesn’t mean you have to follow this format every single time, it’ll get you used to a type of work that will let you make comic books drawings faster as well as to plan in advance how you’ll tell your story.
Second, divide each panel into two planes. The first plane will have the characters doing the actions that you want them. The second plane will have the scenery against which your characters do their actions.
Comic book drawings use these two planes for different effects. One of them is that the second plane will let you give an idea of the place where the action takes place without so much detail. For example, if you want to draw a crown, only the people in the front have to be somewhat detailed. Another technique common in comic book drawings is using the second plane for effects. For example, if the second plane looks blurry, it’ll make it seem that the characters in the first plane are moving fast.
Another thing you have to take into consideration when making comic book drawings is scale. Some people forget to make characters consistent in relation to other characters. In your comic book drawings, if a short character reaches the chin of a taller character, it must never reach higher or lower than that.
Finally, another important thing when making comic book drawings is patience. When we show our comic book drawings to others, we usually expect and instant reaction from them. However, it might take some time and several tries until we make something that appeals to people and can develop into a long series.
I’m lover of nature, even though I live in a city. When I was a child, I traveled often to my grandma’s ranch, where I would enjoy riding horses everywhere and exploring her limitless (to me) ranch. I don’t know how big it was, as I ignored how to measure big terrains, but I remember I could ride for very long and never see the end of it. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to go very far, and at first, a rancher was sent to watch over me and my brother, especially because our horse riding abilities weren’t too great and there were cattle that could head butt our horses.
I also loved to draw, so it was just natural that I took my notebook and pencil and drew all the marvels that I found there. Since there were rivers and ponds, I could sit and draw all the insects that I found there.
My favorites were dragonflies. I loved how they looked, so majestic and scary at the same time. I used to sit still by the pond and make dragonfly drawings all morning, listening to nothing else but the buzz of the insects, the water of the river, and an occasional neigh or two from my horse.
I made other types of drawings as well, mostly horse drawings, which I also loved. But dragonfly drawings were my favorite. With time, my dragonfly drawings became better and my friends were impressed. They would ask me for some, and I gave them away for free, being pleased that people liked them.
When my grandmother died, my uncle inherited the ranch, and we weren’t able to go there anymore. It was sad for me, because it was the only place I knew where I could go and make my dragonfly drawings undisturbed. In fact, I was never able to find a place where I could see them so close.
Later on, I went to college to study business administration, and that was the end of my career of dragonfly drawings. I’m glad I kept some of my dragonfly drawings, because they make me remember those times. In those days, cameras weren’t as common and only adults would handle them, so I don’t have pictures of that pond and the river. I wish I could have taken one, but at least I have my dragonfly drawings.
When I became a father myself, I showed them to my daughter. Not surprisingly, my dragonfly drawings weren’t very interesting for her. I guess times have changed.
