I haven’t made many diary comics since I drew a moonlit bushwalk for New Year’s Eve, 2015 but I still make the occasional one here and there if the mood takes me. It usually starts with hearing or seeing something I find funny/stupid/weird.
Dialogue and small details are important to write down quickly before the memory clouds over.The notes give me a good mental jog for the first sketch, usually at a smaller size and quite rough.With diary comics, I try not to spend too long doing revisions.If it looks ok and tells the story it’s good enough.
After that, I draw the pencil underdrawing at full size. Depending on how long I have and how much I get into it, this step can be pretty quick, or it can take a day. This one took me probably 4 or so hours, broken up into a couple of sessions.A pretty safe work method for me is to use a decent quality, 0.3 archival ink pen for the first pass.
Then I lay ink washes over the top. This usually means less chance of the linework bleeding once they get wet. Once the washes are dry I go over it again, building up line weights with a succession of thicker pens. The thicker pens help me to create an illusion of depth while making the image as clear as possible.
I did a poor job with perspective in this drawing and I wanted something to help band-aid it without taking too much time. Separating the comic and moving the two halves apart helped and was easily hidden using a panel border.
From there it’s a mix of patience and procedure, cleaning up the scan, some repainting, tinkering with adjustment layers, removing the blue underdrawing, and generally fuffing around until I run of time, focus, or I’m done.
Putting this comic together reminded me of how I enjoyed making these guys on a daily basis, as well as why I stopped. It takes time to make a comic like this, equal parts procedure and persistence. I miss doing them sometimes though and maybe one day I’ll take up the practice again.
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Wow amazing following you for more arts 😍 ...
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This is so great @dcfisher. I’ll always, always upvote posts like this!
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Good to hear- it takes a lot longer to do this instead of just putting up the finished thing, but I also enjoy it as well. Checked out your work, amazing!
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Good post, mate. Very neat to see the process, and how a single line can take up a lot of planning and work to bring to a finish. You nailed it here, I think. The result really delivered the timing and the humour well.
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Thanks mate. It all takes time, as you know. Appreciate the comment- it can be difficult to negotiate how a reader navigates time in comics.
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I really like to read comics
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Me too!
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pretty nice! ;)
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Hey I think your perspective is great. I actually like the first take in one panel! Great job. You got skills for comics. You shouldn't write it off your list yet. I'd love to see some more! ;-) Resteemed!
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Thanks Jrej. I'll always be working on comics, it's just the diary comics I havent done so much lately. I did a daily diary comic for two years that you can check out on my site www.storybordello.com if ya like. Cheers for the resteem my man :)
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Very nice :)
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