SHORT STORY/ONE-SHOT/ONE CHAPTER/COMICS 101 CRASH COURSE RAPIDPUNCHES’ STYLE
I’m NOT an expert but I have some working experience I can share. You need experience to become great. Here is my set of instructions, tips, and notes towards making a 12-page comic.
My method is to work backwards. Personally I work “backwards” because the end is the only wholly necessary page or set of panels in the story. Everything in between is open to editing and hacking as the most important moments are emphasized and chosen.
I even plan/draw the end page first. The end is the last page a reader sees- so spend your freshest energies on making it as epic, memorable, poignant, and beautiful as #$%^&.
If you draw the pages from 1 to 12 sequentially you run the risk of fresh to burnt out- an uneven distribution of drawing skill. (treat the first page and the 2-page splash as you would the last).
Roughly… the steps to making your comic is
WRITE
PLAN THUMBNAILS
DRAW
…BEGIN THE WRITING (DO NOT SKIP NO MATTER WHAT) like this, in this order:
How does it end?
Does the protag succeed or fail?
What is the turning point of their story?
What the protag do that led them there?
Where does it start?
Who is this protag?
EXAMPLE:
Guy gets mauled by a bear.
This is a fail on the guy’s half.
The bear must eat something or he’ll starve to death.
It’s the guy’s fault the bear can’t find other food. He caused the avalanche that buried all the cabins.
The guy is yodeling in an avalanche zone.
The guy is some guy.
CREATING “THE BEAT SHEET” Take the above stuff and reorder it to make sense.
This guy yodels.
Echoes roll.
Snow slides down.
Avalanche buries the mountain.
Cabins are engulfed.
This bear has no access to cabin food and garbage.
Bear eats this guy.
Expand. Blow up important beats for emphasis. Keep less important beats brief.
This guy is hiking in the snowy mountains.
He comes across an avalanche warning sign.
There is nobody around but him.
A dumb expression forms over his face and he yodels.
Echoes roll but nothing nearby is moved.
At the top of the mountain the snow drifts twitch.
Guy, satisfied, hikes away from there still yodeling.
Frozen snow cracks.
Snow puffs billow and great slabs of ice crash down the mountain side.
Guy sees this and hightails it to safer ground.
Animals, people, are all panicking and getting pushed over by the rushing snow.
Cabins are destroyed.
The guy takes cover by an outcropping of rocks, fastens himself securely to the rock face, and waits for the avalanche to die down.
Avalanche dies down.
A lone bear shambles over from the other side of the mountain.
The bear goes to where a cabin used to be (only roof tiles are left). Bear sniffs a dish satellite.
Bear forlornly eats a food wrapper.
Bear tries to dig.
Guy comes down from the rocks he as climbing and sees bear.
Bear stops digging and sees him.
Guy runs.
Bear chases him down.
Bear eats the guy.
BEAT SHEET COMPLETED!!!
After the beat sheet, write up all the sound effects and speech bubbles and conversation/dialogue you want to be in your comic.
Since comics are a visual medium, highest priority is given to the beats. If a story can’t be told with the art without the dialogue– you messed up and it’s time to rethink your life choices.
Try to keep all your text chunks as short as a tweet. Professionally you don’t want more than 25 words per speech bubble and no more than 250 words per page.
Next is translating the beats to pages…
STRUCTURE OVERVIEW:
[1] point of entry, in media res, hero intro
[2][3] conflict. establish conflict, setting, and mood by the third page. [4][5] rising action/false resolution to conflict/investigation
[6][7] turning point/plot twist/epiphany (this one epic image, to page spread is pivotal, spend a lot of effort into creating this)
[8][9] aftermath/“darkness before dawn”/struggle [10][11] recovery/“rise and conquer”/“fall”
[12] resolution/final end/cliffhanger
[front cover][interior] [interior][back cover]
——————–
My maximum per page is nine panels but I’ve seen pages that have way more. I like to have about 3 to 4 panels per row or less but I’ve seen the “rules” broken before. Advanced comic book artists manipulate time with the number of panels and the size of each panel.
remember, DIAGONALS!!! open up an issue of batman, superman, spider man, deadpool or whatever youre reading theyre everywhere.
———-
…DRAW IN THIS ORDER:
Page 12,
Page 6 and 7 (this is typically one large image that takes up the space of two pages),
Page 1,
and then the rest.
ONLY “DEVIATION” ALLOWED:
Page 12 and 1*
Page 6 and 7,
and then the rest.
*Draw the first and last page as a spread in situations where the beginning of the story mirrors the end of the story.
Cover is dead last.
———-
(If at the very end you find out you need more pages and it’s absolutely unavoidable and totally necessary you have to add them in fours. Try to stick to 12 pages for this crash course.)
——————–
FURTHER NOTES:
Plan and draw the pages in spreads (the twos) since this is how it will appear in print and when you submit them to an editor for review guess what, the pages with an exception to the first and last will be reviewed as spreads.
You at most only need one establishing panel of the setting and environment (scene) per page.
Forget “true to life” perspective outside of the establishing panel). Practice diagonal composition of objects and subjects within panels. For dynamism.
You don’t have to present the text all in one go (one paragraph or bubble). You can and should break up paragraphs, sentences, and if you need to single out words– to make smaller, more easily managed bubbles to scatter through the panel.
Less important moments have smaller panels and or lesser detail. More details (or more word bubbles) slow down time. More drawn detail also creates a concentration of values (it’s darker and sometimes combines together as one shape or mass)
Know your light sources. Control the blacks. Control the values.
I noticed the other day that girls usually adapt to their bfs hobbies like if they enjoy idk surfing the girls will start learning facts about it and buying cute things related to it for them and being so proud of their bf like they’re a star even if they aren’t that great at surfing just out of pure love and joy ….. But men never fucking adapt to their gf’s interests like they can’t possibly care less about makeup for example or they’ll just complain about them taking too long to get ready instead of sharing the passion for it and watching them create something beautiful and being interested in why is it that it makes her feel better to do her makeup. Men are so used to not trying at all fuck that tbh!!!!
yall are just dating the wrong fucking people lmao
Seriously, you ARE dating the wrong people. I work in a makeup store and the sheer amount of guys that are fully engaged in what their girlfriends/wives are doing with makeup surprised me. Yes there’s a lot of guys who scoff and roll their eyes about being in the PRESENCE of makeup, but there’s sooooo many that are consistently engaged, looking at colours wanting to help (even when they’re visibly confused and you can see they want to help but don’t know how). My boyfriend even knows more than I thought just from listening to me talk.
Find better quality guys that take interest in your interests and stop settling for assholes.
the person you’re dating should be your best friend. Not as in, date your best friend, but as in if your partner doesn’t engage with you at the same level as a best friend (or even just a friend), there is something wrong. It’s not long term material.
Couples that act like men and women are ‘opposite’ sides in the relationship game are such a weird concept for me. ‘Oh, we’re married, my wife is basically an obstacle to me getting a nice night out with my friends haha’ or ‘oh my boyfriend doesn’t do any of the housework ahahaha boys am I right?“
like, ?????? you,re not supposed to be on opposite sides, both pulling to get what you want. You’re supposed to be a TEAM. that’s, like, the whole point of a relationship.
Like, not only does my boyfriend know and care about my interests, even the ones I rant about that know bore him a little (and vice versa - I now know a lot about Eve Online and he knows more than he has probably ever wanted to know about star wars fanfiction), he also knows about my day to day stuff. Like, I’ll ask him to do the laundry and he’ll answer “okay but where’s the little net bag you put your bras in so they don’t get stretched in the washer?” because he fucking LISTENED when I bought it and told him what it was for.
like I said. You’re a team, conquering adult life together. That goes for everything, from getting excited and calling him over when I spot a simulator game on sale at the store (even though wtf simulator games I will never get the point of them) to figuring out the most efficient way to keep the living room clean.
*high fives my boyfriend, cartwheels out of the house*
-My boyfriend learnt how to plait hair because he knows that I struggle with it and now he is better than most girls I know. -I try my best to learn about classic cars and stuff because he loves stuff like that. - He can do my makeup better than I can - I’m trying to learn Spanish because he lives in Spain now. - He watched a full web series I love even though he hated it because I got super excited about it and he wanted to understand what I was excited about. -We went snowboarding in Bulgaria because I wanted to try a hobby of his.
We are a team, we have separate interests, the same interests and we create new interests together.
Date someone that supports you, date your partner in crime. Don’t date someone that doesn’t support your interests dude.
Like I actually do know the social pressures and bullshit that lead to women settling. As a culture it IS normed for women to learn about his interests, while making fun of men who reciprocate, and that’s a shitty thing that can be hard to overcome. But gods, it’s WORTH DOING SO; don’t settle.
my spouse watches my shows with me (even when he doesn’t care for them), he actively asks if i want or need new make up when we pass my favorite makeup stores, he likes it when i read excerpts of my current books or movies, he asks after my succulents.
I’m doing a Philosophy paper on Asexuality. Please reblog if you think Love without Sex is possible! I really need the data. Like if you think love has to have sex.
You can actually add your own images into it if you want to compare more dynamic characters or use alternate poses. And I’ll show you how owo
1. You go on the site:
2. Left click the image and scroll down to inspect:
3. You see those two links down there? Those are the image links for the sillouhettes, just add your own image (must be a url, i personally like imgur):
4. And bingo bango! You got your own custom images to compare heights with! I hope this was helpful owo
I stg if this becomes my fucking legacy as being the most popular post I’ve ever made I’m going to punch something
that feel when your own post makes it’s rounds back onto your dashboard
