See a demo of a comics prompt: create a comic showing animal sounds and movements.
- 1 min. short (Line art tips)
- 2 min. video (comic supplies set)
- 80 min. video (draw along)
Useful comics techniques such as point of view, the “foot rule,” panels, speech bubbles, spreads, and pages in order to communicate a narrative.
Drawing demo by Teaching Artists Cat Huang and Alex Rowe.
Video Walkthrough
- Prompt: What will get an animal to make a sound?
- Example: a person steps on a cat’s tail, so the cat yowls.
- You can create a comic of any length, any number of panels.
- You can use keyboard symbols for this prompt: numbers, letters, punctuation.
- Alex’s character is a bison minotaur cowboy, using bison reference photos from our Flickr page.
- Alex’s cowboy reference photos
- Cat is using peacock reference photos from our Flickr page.
- Consider pacing, the number of panels.
- Creating a comic is an ongoing editing process.
- What is the difference between comics and graphic novels?
- Digital is convenient for comics because you can copy/paste.
- How do you verbally write the sound of the animal?
- Think about the difference between “Purrrrr,” and “Prrrrr,” and “Rrrr.”
- The spelling of the onomatopoeia impacts your comic a lot.
- Know that onomatopoeia varies a lot between languages.
- Design the text of the animal’s sound to look like the sound itself.
- Large, bold text implies a sound that is very loud.
- Small text in lower case letters comes across as a quiet sound.
- Mechanical pencils vs. wood cased pencils.
- Using an existing novel to practice drawing comics is a great way to focus on the drawing without worrying about writing a story.
Prof Lieu’s Tips
I’ve always thought that at art school, students who want to create comics should take a writing class to accompany a comics or character class.
Often it’s easy get super immersed in the look of a character. However, no amount of visuals will help if there isn’t a story or rationale to back up those visual choices you are making.
Art Supplies
- Watercolor brushes
- Sakura Micron Pen, .02
- Sakura Micron Pen, .05
- Hot Press Watercolor Paper
- Artist’s Tape
- Rapidograph Pen
- Dropper
- Pentel GraphGear Mechanical Pencil
- Rapidograph Pen Refill
- India Ink
Software used
Comics Resources
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