I have never designed a comic book before but I recently decided to give it a try. I am going from zero to printed comic book and have given myself about 3 months to complete the task. So far I have outlined the general steps to create comic book and looked at how to think of ideas for a comic book. There are still things which I know I will need to learn about but right now I am turning my attention to the tools I will use to create my comic book. I can split the tools in to 3 categories:
- Hardware
- Software
- Resources
Although I have never designed a comic book before I am not a beginner when it comes to digital art. The majority of these things I already had and will be putting them to good use throughout this process. Below is a picture of my setup and I will go in to more details on what I have and how I use it.
Hardware need to created my Comic Book
- Laptop – If you are going to create digital art then you need to have either a laptop, a desktop, a 2-in-1 device or a tablet. There is no getting away from this and they can be expensive. I use a HP Elitebook x360. It has an i7 processor and 16Gb RAM. It is touch screen and is very light so great for travelling. Lots of people in the design world use Macbooks but I have always been a Windows fan and that is what I use today. This will be the device I create my comic book on.
- Graphics Tablet – If you are serious about creating digital art then there will come a time when you want to invest in a graphics tablet. When I say digital art I do not just mean applying filters in Photoshop, I mean digitally drawing and painting with a pen. A graphics tablet gives you this ability. The tablet I use is a Wacom Intuos 4 (Medium). I bought this tablet about 4 years ago and I have only good things to day a bout it. I am thinking about going to a Wacom Cintiq (Digital display tablet) but cannot justify the expense just yet. Maybe if my comic book does well I will think about it 🙂
- Docking Station & Monitors – I have 2 27 inch monitors which I use when drawing and painting (see the image above). I use a docking station to effectively turn my laptop in to a desktop so that I can work with more screen real estate.
- iPad Pro & Pencil – I may not have a Macbook but I am a huge apple fan. I have the phone, the watch and the iPad Pro. I use the iPad a lot on the train when sketching or painting during my commute to downtown Chicago. I will be using my iPad to create sketches and drafts for comic page designs. Once I am happy with the sketch, I will transfer it over to my laptop setup to turn it in to a professional looking design – That is at least the intention.
- Digital Camera – I have a Nikon D90 which I bought a few years back which I think I will use in this process also. Capturing digital photos to get inspiration and maybe even turning some of them in to comic book designs using Photoshop
Software I will use to create my comic book
Adobe Photoshop – Perhaps the most well known piece of software when it comes to digital artwork & photography. I have used Photoshop for about 4 years now and still feel like a novice. One thing you will learn when using the software is that there are multiple ways to achieve the same result in Photoshop. Finding the ways which work for you is where you start to develop your skills. I will be using Photoshop to adjust, transform and maybe even manipulate images
Adobe Illustrator – Adobe Illustrator is another extremely powerful software package created by Adobe. Where Photoshop works with rasterized (made up of pixels) images, Illustrator works with Vectors which are made from mathematical calculations which create images which can be perfectly scaled. A vector image can be resized to the size of a postage stamp to a billboard without loosing quality. As you can imagine this means that rasterized images tend to have far greater detail than vectors but when creating a comic book, that level of detail is not always required. For this reason I will be using Illustraotr to create the artwork for my comic book
Artrage – Artrage is a digital painting software application which I have used for a few years now. The thing which I really like is the realistic way in which you can simulate painting. Of course it is never the same but you can create some very cool effects. All of the digital paintings I have created on this website have been done so using Artrage. Great software for digital artists. Click the image logo or the Artrage link to check out the software.
Camtasia – I intend to share as much of this process which I can. This includes creating screen captures which show my process and how I create my comic book. In order to do this I will use Camtasia by Techsmith to capture my screen. This software is not free and there are fre alternatives but they do not come close to Camtasia. Easy to use with powerful video editing features – A great piece of software I have no issues paying for
Other Resources I will use
- Google – Obviously!
- Pixabay – Great resource for royalty free images. You can sue these images without attribution and for commercial use as well. I will be using this for inspiration when creating my artwork
I am sure there will be other resources that I will use and I will add to this page. Thanks for reading and feel free to send me a message on what tools you guys are using – Now Go Create Something!