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Ideation Tips: Visual Storytelling |
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Love telling stories with pictures? Want to write your own graphic
novel? Here are some How-To’s to help you generate ideas. Find the
artist in you!
Step 1. Start with Yourself: Look at
your life, your surroundings, your identity. Those things are all
incredibly inspirational and, like great comic artists Art
Spiegelman, Harvey Pekar, and Robert Crumb, looking to your identity
to inspire your work can lead to great work!
Step 2. Tell an Effective Story: The
secret behind an effective story is a good script. This script is
fresh, entertaining and stays in your mind long after you’ve read
it. It is often defined by the following elements:
o The Players: The Characters and their roles
o Timing: Reality, Fantasy;
o Locale: World, Country, City, Community
o Setting: Neighborhood, House, Room, Inside/Outside
o Genre: Comedy, Action, Adventure, Political |
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o The Time: Past, Present, Future
o The Build: Single Frame, Strip, Book, Series
o The Story: Conflict, Humor, Romance, Good vs. Evil
Step 3. Take Your Script From Words To Art: You
need a handful of good supplies to turn your story into a working strip.
Make your story come to life by adding these to your table:
o Paper
o Pencils & Pencil Accessories
o Brushes
o Pens o Ink/White Ink
o Ink Accessories
o Ruler o Background Pencils
Step 4. Wrap Your Script With Your Art: Once
you’ve defined your basic script and your supply closet looks fine to you,
you’re ready to produce! Here’s a simple ‘step-by-step’ process to merge
your script and art.
o Basic Script: Try it and see if it reads well
o Script Revision: Make your changes
o Thumbnail Sketches: Frame out your story board in scenes
o Rough Pencil : Pencil in your frames lightly and see how they fall
o Tight Pencil: If you like your frames, tighten them up
o Lettering Guidelines: Grid your bubble and scale your words
o Pencil Lettering: Pencil in your letters lightly too see if they fit
o Ink Lettering: Ink them in
o Ink Panel Borders: Border out your frames
o Ink Outline & Finish: Outline art & characters
o Finish Ink: Outline frames
o Spot Blacks: Fill in solid black backgrounds to gain depth
o Add Tone: Dot in grays and shades
o Corrections: Fix flaws and seal
Step 5. Making Mini-Comics: Once you’ve
produced enough to make a mini print run, you’re a comic book writer!
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