How to Draw a Comic Strip
Step-by-Step

By David Wolfe

Here's a walk-through of the basic process I use to create a Paranoia High webcomic, from first sketch to final uploaded comic. Specifically, this is Paranoia High #198, where Dave, Dale, Shay and Big Mike have been bombarded with toxic cookies and have gained unusual "powers" to become "The Paranoid Four". Also, this is the process I use myself, and in no way am I saying this is the process everyone should use, or that it's even the best way. It's just the method I'm comfortable and happy with.

First I start with very loose sketches; sometimes one or several, trying to get the basic gist of what I want. I'm also doing the writing at this point, making notes or scribbling in dialog. I do these in a spiral notebook with anything I might have with me; often times while I'm watching TV, a movie or at a restaurant or Laundromat. They're very sloppy and I'm just trying to get the frame and layout to accomplish what I need.

When I've nailed something I'm happy with, I take the sketch and re-do it right onto the final artboard. I pencil with my favorite mechanical pencil - a Cushi P35G (0.5 lead) with an H lead. I use 8.50" X 11" sheets of 2-ply bristol, doing 2 horizontally on each sheet, I buy it by the ream at discount and outlet stores. I refine the sketch and work more on the writing at this point. I pencil in possible dialog and make notes to myself in the borders and edges. I pencil fairly tight, but still leave a lot for the inking stage.

Once I have all the information I need in the pencils, I start to ink. I do my inking right on the bristol, over the pencils, with a black Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine rolling ball pen. They're cheap, they're really black, the line is good and I can grab one and start inking whenever I want to. I tighten up the drawing a lot as I ink, hoping this keeps the drawing more spontaneous. I also manually vary the line width to duplicate the technique of a brush, my preferred inking method. I use the same pen to ink the panel borders. After erasing the pencil lines, I have the final inked drawing, without color or lettering.

At this point, all the rest of the work is done in the computer with Adobe Photoshop. I scan the inked drawing into Photoshop in black and white ONLY (NOT grayscale) at 1200 DPI. This eliminates a jaggy line and gives me plenty of room for detail editing in the computer. Once the image is in Photoshop, I convert it to RGB, crop it to the size I need with borders and save it as a .PSD file. Then, I duplicate the background layer containing the image and set this layer to "Multiply". I create ANOTHER layer above the background, fill this with white and merge this down - making a new plain white background layer. I add a new layer above this, sandwiched between the art on top and background on the bottom. This is where I do my coloring.

First I start with basic "flats". Using Photoshop's Pencil Tool and working on the Coloring Layer, I put in basic backgrounds and simple flat colors. The Line Art Layer set to Multiply allows me a bit of room to basically outline an area and use the Bucket Tool to fill it. I start with the background, add figure coloring on top of this, and work my way up to foreground objects until the whole drawing is flat-colored. I add and use many layers between my background and Line Art layers during this process, collapsing and merging them as needed. I frequently increase and decrease the size of my pencil tool as needed to fill all areas. I create many layers here, as I find it easier to erase a spot, or delete the whole layer, if a mistake happens. Once the flats are done, I flatten the whole drawing to one layer. Make sure you SAVE often through this whole process!

Next is the shading. I do my shading on top of the Flattened drawing in layers. I reduce the opacity of these layers by 25% to 50% - whatever is needed or looks good. Typically I will make a layer, do a broad darker shade or lighter highlight with the Paintbrush Tool and erase the areas that go over the Line Art. I will add another layer and continue this way through every panel. The flat colors in the merged background layer will allow me if I want to use the Lasso Tool to select an area and then shade in a new Layer above it.

It's not unusual for me to have up to 20 or more layers going at this point. I will alter the opacity, blur or merge these layers as needed until I have shaded the whole drawing. I add highlights, Plug-in Effects, cut and paste, whatever may be needed to complete the coloring the drawing. Then I flatten the whole drawing down to one layer and go through it at a high zoom with a very small Paintbrush size and fix and details or errors I may have. Then I have the finished, colored comic except for the lettering.

I do all my lettering right within Photoshop. I have used Adobe Illustrator before to do it, and it's indeed better, but I just like the simplicity of doing everything in one program. All my lettering and word balloons are done in different Layers over top of the colored comic. Using the Text Tool, I type the dialog and use line breaks to get it the right size and shape. Moving it and adjusting it until it's basically where I need it to be. Then, I make another layer underneath it and build the word balloon for it there. Sometimes I'll use the Elliptical Marquee Tool, or the Pen Tool to make and shape the balloon and its tail under the text. One I'm satisfied I have the selection path of the balloon correct, I fill it with black. Using the Magic Wand Tool, I select the black in the balloon and then go to Select/Modify/Contract and contract the selection by however many pixels will give me a good black border for the balloon. Then I fill this new area with white - giving me a nice white balloon with a good solid border. Once I have the text positioned well within the balloon, I merge them together, add another layer, and repeat this until the entire comic is lettered.

After basic dialog is all ballooned and lettered, I also add any Sound Effect lettering, signs, etc. that the comic might call for. I trim any unwanted areas into the borders, tighten any balloon edges I want sharper and finally add the comic Title, my name and a copyright notice to the comic strip. After doing a double-check and a Save, I flatten the image for the last time, scale it to the needed resolution and size for uploading and posting and save it as a Jpeg under the appropriate file name. This is the finished "Paranoia High #198 - "David Coppafeel":

That's about it! Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I also hope it may have been helpful or at the very least insightful about the process of producing a webcomic. Again, this is only the basic method I personally use to create Paranoia High, the way I feel comfortable working that also produces the results I personally like. I hope you've enjoyed this Step-By-Step and a big thanks to Walrus Comix and all the wonderful people who have been reading Paranoia High, you’re what it’s all about.

- Dave

*Editors Note: Please check out Dave's EXCELLENT strip Paranoia High at: http://blog.myspace.com/phantagrafix