Comics for Beginners

How to Write & Draw Comics

Layouts & Sketching Comic Books

 

Layouts & Sketching – Episode three

Getting from story to comic book pages can be a daunting task. What is the process behind breaking the script down into pages and breaking pages down into panels? How do you decide on the best possible way to tell your story in pictures? How do you avoid the fear of the blank page?

In this episode, Palle covers all the basics in page layouts and how to plan out your story, including thumbnails, establishing shots, cliffhangers, thumbnails, splash pages and bleed – and some pitfalls to be aware of.

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Transcript of episode 3

EPISODE 3: LAY-OUTS AND SKETCHING

Welcome back! You made it! You wrote a script! No? All-right, you’re out!

No, seriously. You can watch, come on back. What I’m going to talk about in this episode of comics for beginners is breaking down your script into pages, and breaking your pages into panels.

Like I told you in episode 2, I always write a script for my comics. I don’t describe every panel, just what happens in the story.

So when I get to the actual drawing, I print out my script and read through it, marking it wherever I think might be a good idea to cut to a new page. There are techniques for this, like the cliffhanger ending, where something exciting is about to happen. That’s a great way to keep your readers interest in the story. End the page JUST where they open up the cellar door, or JUST when a hand-grenade goes through the window. All right, maybe not on EVERY page, but you get the idea. Mark your script where you think it might be a good idea to cut it, and then when you’re done, count the pages you broke it down to. Is it too long or too short? Only YOU know that, it’s your story. But try to have something at least vaguely interesting happen on every page. Not only does that make for a better read, it’s also a lot more interesting for you to draw. A great location or a great line of dialogue should do it, you don’t need hand-grenades. Be careful how much information you cram into every page, remember, you have to break it down into panels! More than 6 or 9 panels per page is usually very hard on the eyes. And more than three speech balloons in one frame makes the story hard to follow. Also, think about what kind of pacing you want. Some scenes you might want to be calm and quiet. That’s usually done with the use of big pictures, with not a lot of dialogue. You might have some key images in your head or already sketched out in your head. Make sure you leave room for those images. They’re probably one of the main reasons you are even making this story!

When I break down my pages into panels, I usually do small sketches that some call thumbnails. The reason for that is, they’re faster to draw, and you get a feel for the layout a lot easier, than with a big, expensive piece over oversize drawing board. Again, this preparation will save you time and grief, believe me. You don’t want to be halfway done with a page, only to find out it needs two more panels to work. Do the thumbnails, and get a feel for the pace, then start doing the sketches for the actual pages. I know, we’re three episodes in, and NOW he starts talking about drawing!

Well, not just yet actually. Here’s what I do: I usually TEXT my pages before I draw. Two reasons for that:

1: I want to be SURE my dialogue fits in my speech balloons!

2: It’s BORING! So I want to get it done right away.

I’ll go into details about texting in episode 5, so let’s just skip that for now.

When you layout your pages, here are a couple of guidelines:

Make sure you have an ESTABLISHING SHOT. You’ll know that technique from the movies or even better, television. You start out with a New York skyline. Then you see a house, and zoom in on a window. The next image is probably two people sitting in a kitchen talking. That scene is shot in a studio somewhere most certainly NOT in the New York building you just saw. But because we had the establishing shot, we all know and believe they’re inside a building in New York. On TV, they do this to save money. In comics, we do it to save time. We DON’T want to have to to show the whole city of New York in every panel! And we also want to give the reader an idea where we are, which helps them follow the story! If you do your establishing shot right, you can get away with drawing very little background on the rest of your page. We go over backgrounds and perspective drawing in lesson 6, so don’t worry about that now.

The next guideline I want to give you, is VARIATION. Make sure every panel is not the same.

Variation in size is good. When I started out making comics, I actually copied a bunch of page layouts just like this, just to get an idea of what to do. But variation within the frames is even more important. And that ALSO saves you some time. If you already had two close-ups of your characters talking, let’s shake things up a bit, and show them in full figure silhouettes for frame 3. Because we KNOW what they look like now, no need to show every detail. When you have a specific reaction panel, an emotional outburst or something like that, it might not be the best time for a silhouette. But then again, that might be EXACTLY right. Only YOU will know. It’s your story.

Before we go on to lesson 3 about character design, I want to give you a few ideas for page layouts.

Now you can’t really go wrong with a 9 panel grid. If you want to shake things up a bit, make some variations in size and number of panels, but more than 9 panels on a page tends to give a very hectic feel. The bigger and more detailed your panels are, the more it tends to slow down the reading of it. An OPEN PANEL here and there is great for variation, but works best with a single character, object, a car or a building in full view. You can also SKEW your grid and make irregular panels, giving off the idea of a world gone out of whack.

If you’ve read American superhero comics, you’ll know the SPLASH PAGE, a panel that stretches across two a two-page spread. You’ll also have noticed, that a lot of US comics tend to BLEED, meaning the art goes all the way to the end of the page. If you’re using this method for print, be sure to have your art extend OVER the edge of the page. Another interesting idea for a layout, is the SPLIT PANEL, where something that’s really one image is split into several panels, giving of the illusion of time passing.

When you’re experimenting with your grid, proceed with caution. Always be aware of your reading order. Your view of the page should flow naturally. If you have to stop and think about what panel or speech balloon to read next, that hurts the storytelling.

Now let’s put some PEOPLE in your comic. On to lesson 4; Character Design

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  2. The video had great information, now what about someone who naturally makes pages? My script is already cut down in to chapters and pages, I can’t free form write cause I like knowing what chapter and how many pages I’ve done. Does that make it harder or easier to start thumbnails and panels?

    • Good question, Savannah! I find it to be almost the hardest part of the process, no matter if the script is already broken Down or not. I still have to “see” the page in my head and decide how the flow and the storytelling is best served. Working with another writer – which in all fairness I haven’t been doing much – I prefer scripts that leave room for interpretation and change in panel size etc. The more specific the script is, the more restraining it feels for me as an artist.

      The thumbnails and the breakdowns is a HUGE part of the storytelling, so if you’ve already done it in your script, great! In my experience, the actual sketching process reveals snags that I wasn’t able to predict in the scripting phase. And I’d honestly rather not be thinking in panel size etc. as I’m writing.

      Hope this answers your question – If not, please write again!

      Thanks.

    • Good point, Bob! That will go in a bonus video 🙂

      The thing is though, I don’t want to be dogmatic. I can show you how I ink, but I won’t tell you how YOU should ink. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.

      Thanks for the kind words!

      -Palle

  9. Hi, i don’t know if you are still answering questions here but when i write a plot should i write like the whole story or just the story i think it is enought for the fist comic book like if i’m about to make series of like 12 chapters should i start drawing when i finish chapter one or should i finish them all first before starting to draw ? thanks .

    • Hi Ach, that’s a good question!

      It depends on the circumstances. I think it’s always a good idea to at least have an idea of where you want your story to end. If you need to get a publisher on board, they will probably need a synopsis of the entire story and one issue of script and/or finished pages. There is an article about creating a compelling pitch here: https://comicsforbeginners.com/articles/creating-a-comic-book-pitch/

      If it’s your own project and you have the time (and can afford taking the time) I’d recommend writing as much of the story as you can before you start drawing pages. It just increases your chance of actually finishing the project with about 5000 percent. You can edit later of course, but committing to specifics in a script form really makes a big difference.

      Making a big graphic novel or long comic is like climbing Mount Everest. You’ll never make it if you don’t prepare your route and pack for trouble. It looks like an easy walk from afar, but it’s not. The script is your best friend when you hit trouble in motivation or self doubt. And you will.

      Hope this is helpful, thanks for your question!

  11. Hi, I don’t know if you’re still answering questions but there is one thing I would really like to know: how much space should I leave between the edge of my paper and my panels. I read some articles about making bleed lines for comics but they all seem to refer only to American paper size which is 17×11 inches. In Poland, where I’m from, we use the A series paper size. I personally choose the A3 format which is 29,7×42 cm (no too big, not too small for comics in my opinion). The only problem I have is that I don’t know how shoud I measure my safe zone when working on an A3 paper, so that my panels don’t get trimmed off when scaled down. I would really appreciate your help. You make awesome content which greatly inspired me to start working on my comics!

    • Hey Pawel,

      I’m not sure I understand your question.. Does your art go all the way to the edge of the paper? If not, you don’t need to worry about anything getting cut off. If your work does bleed, you need the print size + an additional cm or so. You can create a template by making a print size document in Photoshop and adding a new layer with a color. Then “choose all” and scale down that layer, so there’s a cm on both sides, that should give you an idea. I work on A3 too btw, but my work rarely bleeds.

      • Thank you very much, now I understand. I use only bordered panels that don’t reach the edge of the paper so I shoudn’t worry about cutting them.

  12. Hi Palle,

    Great content here thank you.

    Hope you are well, and still able to answer questions?

    I am preparing to write my own comic book series but I am a complete novice. I have my story ideas in my head but don’t know the first thing about creating a physical comic.

    So I guess I would have a few questions for you:

    1) what is the size of each page as in dimensions? (i want to do standard comic such as marvel trade paper backs)

    2) Good places to find an artist?

    3) When I work with the artists, do they send me one drawing at a time, do they send me a complete page, is it physical pages or on a computer program for example?

    These are my first questions and any help you can throw my way would be greatly appreciated 🙂

    Cheers,

    Ryan

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