Comic Strip Creation

So, since I haven't blogged in a week, I thought I'd give an update. Well, I've been pretty busy taking care of my foot and writing a paper for a conference at the end of the month. I'll be delivering a rhetorical analysis of Beowulf, arguing (1) that the poet purposefully crafted the poem to persuade a potential king on how to behave as king, (2) how the poet attempted to persuade his audience, and (3) with what character traits he wanted his audience to identify.  So, as a result, I haven't done a lot of drawing or sketching.

I finally finished the paper, and now I'm working on a new strip for my web comic, Fur & N3rdy.  So, while I work, I thought I'd blog my creating process.  Here goes.

First, I come up with an idea. For the strip in question, I decided that my main female character, Robin Fox, would take a cooking class. Robin has recently quit playing all MMOs, and as such, as a lot of free time on her hands. So, she's decided to improve her cooking skills.

Second, I draw the strip using non-photo reproducing blue pencils. For those interested, I draw on Strathmore smooth Bristol 5" x 17" boards. With the layout drawn in blue, I cover the appropriate lines in black, Faber-Castell India ink pens and fill in all sections that will be solid black.  You can see inked board in the following image.

The next step is to copy the image to remove the blue layout lines. Then I scan that image into my computer and edit/fix any lines that need fixing. I normally use GIMP 2 and/or Paint.Net for this process. I find Paint.Net works better for fixing the lines and doing the base color while GIMP works for more advanced layering and shading work.

After I finish coloring the image, I open Manga Studio to create the page layout and to write (type) in the text for any narration and dialogue. Once that's done, I edit the image size to make it more manageable for the viewer. Then I upload/schedule it to appear at the appropriate time on the website hosted by ComicFury.

That's the down and dirty of how I draw. I don't draw digitally, because I really do enjoy putting pencil and pen to paper. Well, that's about it.