Sweet and Sour Grapes - Updated Mondays

Tutorials

Thanks for your interest in how Sweet and Sour Grapes is made. I mainly use Photoshop but the basic techniques should translate into other programs. SSGrapes will one day be printed as a full color book so my process is geared toward that.

I hope fellow artists will find this article useful in refining their own creation process and the curious will better appreciate the amount of craft that goes into each comic page. I am constantly evaluating my methods, looking for faster and better ways to get things done. So these are my steps as of October 2009.

Step 1: refine script and layout page
Step 2: pencil and scan
Step 3: digitally ink
Step 4: digitally color
Step 5: text, color tweaks, and effects

Step 1: refine script and layout page

My script is printed above three rectangles that I sketch the layout in.

I already have the script written out for the entire story, broken into pages, and printed on paper like the above. My script took over a year to complete but the sense of purpose and direction it gives me was worth it. That doesn't mean it's set in stone though. As I meditate on a single page, I can usually think of a way to shorten the dialogue or improve the action.

The printed rectangles are the same ratio as the final comic. I always sketch out at least two layouts at least one day apart. It's important to me for each panel to serve the story, for the action to be easily understandable, and for the characters to act lifelike. Distancing myself from the work with time allows me to be more critical of it. Usually I pick one panel that I want to have the most impact and design the rest of the page around it. You can tell which one I choose because it won't have panel borders. Once I am satisfied with the layout (or out of time), I begin penciling.

Step 2: pencil and scan

The frames and basic figure poses have been drawn but not much else. All the details have been filled in on character clothing, expressions, and background elements.

Vector boxes snap to Photoshop guides over the cyan-tinted pencils.

I use plain computer paper for my pencils but print my own guides. The panel divisions at the 1/3 and 1/4 marks have saved me a lot of time measuring! I have no problem with using a ruler at this stage. As you can see, I try to get the figures' proportions right before I add character details. When I have difficult poses to draw I'll make references. Our digital camera is my first choice but I also have articulated dolls that I can pose. Perspective usually gets warped. I'm more interested in fitting all the important elements into the panels.

After scanning the pencils, adjust the page size and change the pencils to a traditional non-photo blue color. I could leave the pencils gray but I like being able to tell which lines still need inking easily. Next I use guides (in yellow) to precisely box in panels.

Step 3: digitally ink

So far only the outlines of the characters have been inked. The inking is finished. Thicker lines border characters and the thinest lines are used in the far background.

Here is the Photoshop window of my custom brushes.

Inking used to be challenging for me. Then I got me a cintiq! It is easily the best purchase I've ever made. I like my hand inked work though so I made custom brushes to invoke that freshly drawn Sharpie smell. The thickest line weights are reserved for the panels. Then I block everything out like paper cutouts before filling in the finer lines. I put certain lines on a different layer so I can change them into other colors later.

I fill in my colors with the paint bucket tool so I need each section completely closed up and with no antialiasing. The pencil tool works pretty good but there are sometimes small holes that need to be filled in. My husband made a custom filter that fills in stray pixels for me. He is my hero!

Close-up of small, one-pixel holes in the inked line. Close-up of the now filled inked line.

Step 4: digitally color

Basic colors have been filled into the inks. After running the filter, the colors butt up against one another where the outline used to be.

A rainbow of swatches based on CMYK mixtures.

Filling in the color with the paint bucket tool is easy. I have a color palette for each character and a general purpose palette. But usually I pick up colors from previous pages for the backgrounds. The DC Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics taught me that too much black in color mixes can muddy up the colors when printed. So I made a set of premixed colors using only cyan, magenta, and yellow to help me avoid the black channel. You can download the Adobe swatch exchange format of my comic colors here.

Colors print better when they extend beneath the black inks so I use a Bpelt Photoshop plugin called Flatten. This expands the color into all black areas. I just need to remember to copy the inks right beforehand.

Step 5: text, color tweaks, and effects

Simple oval word balloons overlay the inks and colors. Characters are shaded according to the background lighting and stars are added to the sunset.

There are three distinct versions of the letter E in this word balloon.

The font is custom made from my own handwriting with three variations of each character. I try and keep identical characters far away from each other but sometimes I can't help it. Can you see the E variations in this close up?

Next I construct the balloons with simple vector tools. I know most professionals prefer using Illustrator for this sort of thing but I like outlining my bubbles with my custom brush so it's easiest to keep it all in Photoshop.

Lae's normally bright colors have been dimmed to suit the night time scene. White dots in the background simulate stars.

For this night time scene, I shaded the characters slightly and added stars to the sky. The last traces of the sunset give me more colors to play with in the background. Sometimes this step can take me a long time if I have trouble getting the colors harmonious enough. Thankfully this one was pretty easy.

Thanks for reading! Here's the finished page: