Some Questions Answered (Patreon)

I was working tonight and I had one of my patrons message me with some questions. I thought the answers were at least worth posting here, in case anyone had similar questions. The questions were as follows:Technical questions: What canvas size do you use? What program or application do you use? What brush do you use for line art?

Drawing questions: Do you write a script or do you go straight to creating the storyboard? How do you make the background coloring look natural?How do you compose the pages and panels?And here are my replies:What canvas size do you use? - This is tricky to answer. My full-resolution comic pages have a size of: 2037x2910, a completely arbitrary size. My files tend to have it laid out so there are three pages per file. 6876x3200 is the file size that I use. HOWEVER, I use this size because I have a pretty beefy art laptop that can handle this resolution. I'd never use any resolution that lagged - that'd drive me crazy. Honestly the size is kind of arbitrary.

What program or application do you use? - I use Adobe Photoshop (I have a subscription for it; I USED to own a copy of CS4, back when you could buy photoshop). I also use Clip Studio Paint. I believe I bought a copy of it - it's a great tool with GREAT inking brushes - but I mostly use it for its perspective tools. CSP (Clip Studio Paint) is awesome, many artists solely use it.

What brush do you use for line art? - So I found these brushes on DeviantArt a long time ago: https://www.deviantart.com/mr--jack/art/TheBrush-es-118144957The second brush, looks kind of rough and swirly, that is my GO-TO brush for sketching. I feel super comfortable with that brush. When I do inking, I just do a 100% hardness, solid round brush. However, I use my favorite brush (that swirly one) for inking as well now. I just crank up the minimum flow and opacity. Honestly, just check out all those brushes and try them, really worth investigating. Additionally, I've tried inking using the pens in Clip Studio Paint; something about the pens there is just awesome, they feel so good to use and look great.EDIT: I also use a trick when inking. I set the layer to 'multiply' and use a brush with black as one color and white as the other color. I can then swap between the two colors with a hotkey, making my brush turn into an eraser and back on the fly. Really helps to get nice sharp edges.

Do you write a script or do you go straight to creating the storyboard? - The short answer is 'yes'. Sometimes I'll have a specific layout I want. And I'll just draw that and worry about words later. Generally, I have a rough story in mind. Then I'll 'draw' how the story should flow. Then I add in the words and kind of see where they'll 'fit' in the layouts. I think knowing where the story is going is important, but the exact words is whatever. That said, I have totally written scripts. BattleRads NINJAS has all the scripts basically written out, but I wouldn't think twice about changing dialogue, or a scene, or whatever.

How do you make the background coloring look natural? - I struggle with these a LOT. What I've learned is that when I draw figures I need to draw them with perspective in mind, so I know where they are in the '3D' space. If you're doing a background, always draw the figures in there too, even if they aren't fully visible. YOU, the artist, need to know where the figures are in the space if it's going to look 'real'.

As for coloring, I cheat a LOT. For the Miraculous Stuff, I'll take screenshots from the show and then just use the paint-dropper tool to grab the colors I need. For BattleRads NINJAS I had AI come up with an image that had the right vibe and then I'll just use those colors - I did that a LOT in BattleRads NINJAS. None of the backgrounds are AI, mind you. But I had AI do samples that I then used the colors from. I don't have a good eye for color, so having reference really helped.EDIT: I don't use AI for any of the contents of my comics, but I have used it to help me when I was coming up with backgrounds, color palattes, things like that. It's just kind of a faster way of getting reference than googling for it. For the sake of full disclosure, I'm including some examples of what I generated to help me. In some cases I think the AI images are better than what I actually did. But for me this was just faster than messing around looking for reference from old cartoon shows, or floundering around trying a bunch of colors before settling on the wrong ones.

How do you compose the pages and panels? - For me it's about two major things. Since I draw smut, a lot of what I think about are 'showing off the figure'. That's the first major thing. I want to try to compose angles that show off the females. If I have a moment in the story where I can be cheeky and show them off then I'll try to include that. I try to get inspiration from models/pictures and pornos that I like and then go from there. I try to find things that are 'hot' and just showcase THAT.EDIT: I don't use AI for this part, because it tends to be bad at it.

I'm PRETTY bad at composition. I think guys like Darker Eve just absolutely dunk on my composition. I tend to have a very 'flat' style? And I make images that are kind of based off of continuity editing; which works great if it were a TV show, but doesn't really take advantage of the 'comic book' medium as well.

But one thing I've learned is that the contents of the panel - if I'm not showing off a figure - need to 'support the story'. That's the second major thing. So, if a figure is angry, a closeup or more off-kilter shot would support that. If the moment is boring, a further away shot would do that, maybe even silhouettes. Honestly, I'm not that good at layouts, but I TRY to pick angles and distance that support whatever is going on in the story.Alright, that was it for the questions. If you read this far, I hope it was interesting. I'm going to get back to work; Hopefully having comics ready by Friday.