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Official How To Make Comics Topic


Reznas

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How to make a background and a comic template: Right here

 

How to create, use, and recolor characters, as well as how to use different forms of text such as outlined text and speech bubbles: Right here

 

How to develop characters and the plots and storylines: Right here

 

Some good spritesheets to use (Courtesy of Soran): Razor kit (Huge)

Razor Kit (Small)

Chimoru Omega

Chimoru alpha

Chimoru Six shade

Rayg 2.5

Rayg 2.0

Tom kit 2

Acer Kit

RZMIK

Xaniskit

 

A paint recoloring guide if you decide to use paint for your comics (Created by Dark709):

 

improved_instructions.png

 

Hand drawn comic guides (Courtesy of Taka Nuvia): 1, 2, 3, 4

 

Helpful examples of comic styles (Thanks to Soran again): MS Paint ExampleGimp/Photshop Example

Hand drawn Example

Vector Artwork Example

 

Suggestion from Scanty Demon:

 

 

 

For anyone who wants a good understanding of comics consider reading Understanding Comics: The Hidden Artform by Scott McCloud. For anyone who wants to get better drawing for comics look up Andrew Loomis. His books are freely available online in PDF format. That's basically my advice, hope it helps.

 

Other Comic Making help: Gimp introduction

Outlined Text and Speech Bubbles

 

-Rez

Edited by Reznas
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It should be noted that not many people have Gimp or have a desire to use it. I suggest you also post some guides on how to create simpler comics with Paint, or similar programs. Similar guides to making basic backgrounds and recoloring in paint might be helpful to those who wish to start out with less complicated programs such as paint.It might also help to include a list of the commonly used sprites with links to some of the kits since not everyone likes or uses Chimoru.The title is also a bit vague since these tutorials seem to be only about sprite comics and no other methods such as hand drawn or other types.~Soran

Edited by Soran
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It should be noted that not many people have Gimp or have a desire to use it. I suggest you also post some guides on how to create simpler comics with Paint, or similar programs. Similar guides to making basic backgrounds and recoloring in paint might be helpful to those who wish to start out with less complicated programs such as paint.It might also help to include a list of the commonly used sprites with links to some of the kits since not everyone likes or uses Chimoru.The title is also a bit vague since these tutorials seem to be only about sprite comics and no other methods such as hand drawn or other types.~Soran

However, paint is very straightforward and takes little skill to make comics with or just to work with in general. There really isn't a need to tell people how to make comics with paint. Once they have their backgrounds and such, they can just look at my character and plot development. As of now, there is honestly no need to make a paint guide.That's a good idea. It would be helpful if a few people could assist me though.If you look on the old forums, the title was pretty similar. It would be very hard to make guides for hand-drawn comics. Whether it be written in words or posted by video. Similarly, making a vector art guide would be difficult as well, as I don't have the experience, programs, or knowledge about it. This is simply a topic to start off new comic makers and people who want some advice on comic making. If someone asks a question about hand-drawn comics or vector artwork, then I'm sure that some of you can answer it, but I can't make a guide for every single kind of comic style.EDIT:

I agree, I might try to make a guide for hand-drawn comics (yes I make them, but don't post them here because they're not bionicle-related).

If you want to make a guide for that, do so. No one is stopping you. But let me just tell you that it would be difficult to make a guide for hand-drawn comics, as it takes a lot of different factors to make good ones. You have to be good at drawing, first of all, and it takes a lot of skill and time to perfect them. There really isn't a way to tell people how to make hand-drawn comics, because not everyone can do it. If you think differently, however, that's fine.-Rez Edited by -Reznas-
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[...]If you want to make a guide for that, do so. No one is stopping you. But let me just tell you that it would be difficult to make a guide for hand-drawn comics, as it takes a lot of different factors to make good ones. You have to be good at drawing, first of all, and it takes a lot of skill and time to perfect them. There really isn't a way to tell people how to make hand-drawn comics, because not everyone can do it. If you think differently, however, that's fine.-Rez

I would just like to point out that while there are many factors when it comes to hand-drawn comics, it can be covered with tutorials.For example you could have a handful of basic 'How-To' guides (Anatomy, inking, shading/colouring), some tutorials focusing on comics (Panel alignment/layout, speech bubbles etc.) and some about the rest.There are also a few brilliant books that deal with making comics. I could give you a list if you want to. ^^This all doesn't make up for the practise and the time one has to invest, of course, but it can be a great help.

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 My art collection topic - updated! (21/09/2021)

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[...]If you want to make a guide for that, do so. No one is stopping you. But let me just tell you that it would be difficult to make a guide for hand-drawn comics, as it takes a lot of different factors to make good ones. You have to be good at drawing, first of all, and it takes a lot of skill and time to perfect them. There really isn't a way to tell people how to make hand-drawn comics, because not everyone can do it. If you think differently, however, that's fine.-Rez

I would just like to point out that while there are many factors when it comes to hand-drawn comics, it can be covered with tutorials.For example you could have a handful of basic 'How-To' guides (Anatomy, inking, shading/colouring), some tutorials focusing on comics (Panel alignment/layout, speech bubbles etc.) and some about the rest.There are also a few brilliant books that deal with making comics. I could give you a list if you want to. ^^This all doesn't make up for the practise and the time one has to invest, of course, but it can be a great help.
That is true, but that would take an extremely large topic and would require a lot of guides. Most people aren't going to sit down and watch multiple guides that are fairly long. I don't even know if people will take the time to watch my guides. Plus I don't find it as easy to learn from guides on hand-drawn stuff as it is to learn from guides on spriting comics and such. Watching someone draw isn't going to be as easy as copying and pasting a pixelated man into a background. :P But I can totally see where all of you guys are coming from. So please do make guides if you want. Anything that could benefit comic makers can be posted here in the topic (Guides, ideas, etc.).-Rez
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That is true, but that would take an extremely large topic and would require a lot of guides. Most people aren't going to sit down and watch multiple guides that are fairly long. I don't even know if people will take the time to watch my guides. Plus I don't find it as easy to learn from guides on hand-drawn stuff as it is to learn from guides on spriting comics and such. Watching someone draw isn't going to be as easy as copying and pasting a pixelated man into a background. :P But I can totally see where all of you guys are coming from. So please do make guides if you want. Anything that could benefit comic makers can be posted here in the topic (Guides, ideas, etc.).-Rez

What about good, old-school tutorials in image form? Like this one.And of course it's not the same, but I've learned a lot from tutorials over time, so...

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 My art collection topic - updated! (21/09/2021)

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A simple "How to recolor in Microsoft Paint" guide might help because not everyone knows the eraser trick. There are also basic functions for gimp and paint and other programs as well.Example of comic styles might help such as; Comics made in Ms paint (Link), Comics made in Gimp/Photoshop (Link), comics that are hand drawn (Link), comics that are vectored (Link), etc.Heres a list of some of the sprite kits. There are too many to list so I just picked out some of the ones that first popped into my head.Razor kit (Huge)Razor Kit (Small)Chimoru OmegaChimoru alphaChimoru Six shadeRayg 2.5Rayg 2.0Tom kit 2Acer KitRZMIKXaniskit~Soran

Edited by Soran
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That is true, but that would take an extremely large topic and would require a lot of guides. Most people aren't going to sit down and watch multiple guides that are fairly long. I don't even know if people will take the time to watch my guides. Plus I don't find it as easy to learn from guides on hand-drawn stuff as it is to learn from guides on spriting comics and such. Watching someone draw isn't going to be as easy as copying and pasting a pixelated man into a background. :P But I can totally see where all of you guys are coming from. So please do make guides if you want. Anything that could benefit comic makers can be posted here in the topic (Guides, ideas, etc.).-Rez

What about good, old-school tutorials in image form? Like this one.And of course it's not the same, but I've learned a lot from tutorials over time, so...
All that I'm saying, is it's much easier to go and make a guide for sprite comics than to go and make a guide for hand-drawn comics. The tutorial you shared only teaches a few factors in drawing, but it would take so many more guides in order to give a legitimate series for hand-drawn comics.

A simple "How to recolor in Microsoft Paint" guide might help because not everyone knows the eraser trick. There are also basic functions for gimp and paint and other programs as well. Also probably some example comics might help so people can tell the difference in certain types of comics. Examples such as; Comics made in Ms paint, Comics made in Gimp/Photoshop, comics that are hand drawn, comics that are vectored, etc.Heres a list of some of the sprite kits. There are too many to list so I just picked out some of the ones that first popped into my head.Razor kit (Huge)Razor Kit (Small)Chimoru OmegaChimoru alphaChimoru Six shadeRayg 2.5Rayg 2.0Tom kit 2Acer KitRZMIKXaniskit~Soran

Actually, I believe that Dark709 has a guide for that in the old Chimoru topic. So I'll post the image up in the main post. I will also go and put those links up in the main post as well.-Rez
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All that I'm saying, is it's much easier to go and make a guide for sprite comics than to go and make a guide for hand-drawn comics. The tutorial you shared only teaches a few factors in drawing, but it would take so many more guides in order to give a legitimate series for hand-drawn comics.

Of course it does. There is no way to make an all-in-one tutorial; that would simply be far too big. However, I could link to more tutorials in the future. It's just an offer. (and in this case, that one tutorial was just an example)

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 My art collection topic - updated! (21/09/2021)

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Here are some guides that were made by Nuparurocks which helped me with Gimp.Gimp introductionGimp Glowing Text TutorialGimp Speech Bubble TutorialSometimes its a lot easier to follow comic tutorials because you can skip through it and easily find what you might've missed. It also identifies the important things quite clearly normally.~Soran

soran_banner_1_by_soarinskies-d9ibpyf.pngsoran_banner_2_by_soarinskies-d9ibq3p.pngsoran_banner_3_by_soarinskies-d9ibq87.pngsoran_banner_4_by_soarinskies-d9ibqcq.png

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All that I'm saying, is it's much easier to go and make a guide for sprite comics than to go and make a guide for hand-drawn comics. The tutorial you shared only teaches a few factors in drawing, but it would take so many more guides in order to give a legitimate series for hand-drawn comics.

Of course it does. There is no way to make an all-in-one tutorial; that would simply be far too big. However, I could link to more tutorials in the future. It's just an offer. (and in this case, that one tutorial was just an example)
That would be great. I can link whatever guides you post in the main topic.

Here are some guides that were made by Nuparurocks which helped me with Gimp.Gimp introductionGimp Glowing Text TutorialGimp Speech Bubble TutorialSometimes its a lot easier to follow comic tutorials because you can skip through it and easily find what you might've missed. It also identifies the important things quite clearly normally.~Soran

I'll use the top link and then just go ahead and link the video I made for those other two guides. Thanks for all the help guys!-RezEDIT: The main post has been edited and now includes most of the material that you guys have provided. Thanks again for all the help and keep giving me more! :) Edited by -Reznas-
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  • 1 year later...

 

 

GIMP Recolor Help by Kahinuva This seriously helped me with recoloring in GIMP. Glad to see something like this up again.

I use Microsoft paint or is gimp and paint the same. kahinuvas isnt in english also

ummm that's in a foren language how does it help?

..... What you mean it isn't in English, heh, heh... Y'all didn't see nothin'
Yes we did please someone help me

:voyanui:

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GIMP Recolor Help by Kahinuva This seriously helped me with recoloring in GIMP. Glad to see something like this up again.

I use Microsoft paint or is gimp and paint the same. kahinuvas isnt in english also

ummm that's in a foren language how does it help?

..... What you mean it isn't in English, heh, heh... Y'all didn't see nothin'
Yes we did please someone help me

 

No, you didn't. Ummm, it's posted right up there.......in the main post...

Edited by Damaracx 7.0
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Wait what?

 

I wrote that thing in English like years ago. Where did that come from?

 

(For the record, Paint works pretty fine, but it's a lot slower and its possible to skip recoloring some pixels because you have to do a clean sweep and stuff. GIMP is faster and thorough. Photoshop is the best, though; you can literally do it in seconds. I only did the GIMP tutorial because it was free back then. And I think someone gave me a secret kit for it or something? I forget. Those were the days.)

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Wait what?

 

I wrote that thing in English like years ago. Where did that come from?

 

(For the record, Paint works pretty fine, but it's a lot slower and its possible to skip recoloring some pixels because you have to do a clean sweep and stuff. GIMP is faster and thorough. Photoshop is the best, though; you can literally do it in seconds. I only did the GIMP tutorial because it was free back then. And I think someone gave me a secret kit for it or something? I forget. Those were the days.)

Eh, well, it helped me A LOT. So, thank you for making it (years ago) it was truly quite a big help.

Edited by Damaracx 7.0
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Wait what?

 

I wrote that thing in English like years ago. Where did that come from?

 

(For the record, Paint works pretty fine, but it's a lot slower and its possible to skip recoloring some pixels because you have to do a clean sweep and stuff. GIMP is faster and thorough. Photoshop is the best, though; you can literally do it in seconds. I only did the GIMP tutorial because it was free back then. And I think someone gave me a secret kit for it or something? I forget. Those were the days.)

Eh, well, it helped me A LOT. So, thank you for making it (years ago) it was truly quite a big help.

 

 

You're welcome. Glad it's helping out so many years after it was done. But who did that translation? Was that you?

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Wait what?

 

I wrote that thing in English like years ago. Where did that come from?

 

(For the record, Paint works pretty fine, but it's a lot slower and its possible to skip recoloring some pixels because you have to do a clean sweep and stuff. GIMP is faster and thorough. Photoshop is the best, though; you can literally do it in seconds. I only did the GIMP tutorial because it was free back then. And I think someone gave me a secret kit for it or something? I forget. Those were the days.)

Eh, well, it helped me A LOT. So, thank you for making it (years ago) it was truly quite a big help.

 

 

You're welcome. Glad it's helping out so many years after it was done. But who did that translation? Was that you?

 

Nope, I just hurried to search it on Brickshelf, wasn't paying attention and thought that was the English version.

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It has been decided to move this topic to the Comics forum, since that's what it's about. :)

 

Carry on.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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I agree, I might try to make a guide for hand-drawn comics (yes I make them, but don't post them here because they're not bionicle-related).

 

I would love to help out with making this.

 

- :b: :i: :m_o: :c: :r: :y:

 

Too bad he's inactive now.

 

 

 

But hey, if anyone feels like making tutorials on that matter, you do know you're free to do so, right? ^^ Also, particularly with hand-drawn comics there are so many different ways to do it, styles to draw in, media to use etc etc that I think the more different guides there are, the better! =D

Edited by Taka Nuvia

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I sent this question to Reznas and he hasn't gotten back with me on how to do it. So I'm gonna ask it here. It's kinda relevant to comics since I might use that effect in mine...that's coming out in 2014...

The best way to do this is to find an light orb (flash/light/whatever as you called it) brush (Google search 'Gimp Light Orb Brush' or something to that relation) place it where you'd like it to be, then it would be a good idea to lower the opaqueness to what you feel would work thus making it translucent.

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Or as I see it, you could also 'just' create two white circles (or more) on separate layers, run a blur filter over them and then lower the opacity 'till it looks right.

 

Then again, doesn't Gimp have some sort of "lens flare"-effect built in, anyway? O.o

 

The two white circles is probably the best bet. At least for that specific type of effect that he was specifically asking, it looks like it would just need a combination of very few things. Mainly just feathering an ellipse by a lot, filling in the selection with white and then lowering the opacity and duplicating the layer. Same process with the 'flare' circle things, I'm not sure what they're called. I could probably create one later for you if someone doesn't already do it by then.

 

Also, the lens flare that you're thinking of that is most similar to this as far as i'm aware really only applies to an image. So if there is already an opaque image present, then the effect will be applied only to the opaque image. So fully transparent layers/parts of the picture won't have the effect shown as far as I can remember. I don't have gimp currently opened but I believe this was the way it works.

 

~Soran

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Thanks! That really helped! :D Another question is what does the paths tool do? Or more specifically, what is a path in GIMP?

 

The Paths tool in Gimp is a tool that can be used to easily create curves. When you click the tool you'll see some options from [Create] to [Edit] to [Move] as well as some other things. Frankly, I never found the Paths tool that useful so I really only know about [Create]. Basically, if you click the tool and you're on the option create, then click on the canvas. You'll see a node or a point appear. If you click again on the canvas in a different area then you'll see another point pop up as well as a line that connects the two. This line is what you can manipulate to create curves.

 

Grab the middle part of the line and drag it somewhere. You'll see the line transform into a curve. You'll also see some "handles" appear. These handles can be used to move the line as well, its normally used for a more precise curve.

 

Now if you change tools you'll see that the paths you created disappeared. Thats because you haven't made a selection yet. The easiest way to do this is to (After you've created your curve) click [selection from Path] in the tool options. The way the Selection works is that it'll fill in the rest of the curve using the two points, normally in a straight line as you can probably tell. This can sometimes cause issues if you are using only two points, so I recommend you use at least 3.

 

Thats basically it for the short insight I suppose for the Paths tool, any questions just ask.

 

~Soran

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