HORROR COMIC MAKING! ⭐ Let's work on it! Chatty, inspiration vid!

Hello and welcome back to Average Joey. I've got a very messy desk here. My [music] name is Steph. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you. If you're new here, this is my comic. I am going to work on my comic today and chat to [music] you guys as I'm doing it. So, if I am into comic making or anything like that, then stick around because I'm going to be yapping and chatting to you about the process of my process anyway and how long it takes me because it does take a long time. [music] This um horror comic has been in the works for about 2 years now. I mean that I I think 2 years. And [music] by that I mean I had the idea about it 2 years ago. And sort of from there I've been building on it and it was kind of like >> [music] >> just this idea of this haunted horror park. But now it's become [music] more and it's become more pages and things. Zelda. Do do do. What are you doing? A cat will always inevitably come and walk all over your stuff [music] if you are trying to do something. Just going to put these in here otherwise I'm going to lose them, my [music] nibs. And I'm going to put this guy here so I don't stab myself. I just got this pencil case so you know. What like things everywhere. What the heck is this? It's a bit of junk. Lovely. Got my coffee as well and I'm just sort of clearing [music] my desk a little bit to make headway here. These are those plastic things [music] that come with the alcohol markers that you put in between your pages so it doesn't bleed but then I I think this is not a very good design because it kind of stays wet [music] on this paper and then it kind of re like re bleeds through the page so it's just a bit if you if I don't know if you guys have that experience. [music] I did. Um these are some pencils that that to try out cuz I got them from Tiger for 5 euros, and they're erasables. I think they could be [music] a good dupe for the Col-Erase ones, if you've ever worked with those. I think in animation school, cuz I went [music] to university to study animation, they are like the holy grail. Um the Col- Is it Col-Erase? I've got one somewhere that I can show you. So, [clears throat] I found one. They are the Col-Erase. [music] They're Prismacolor, and they are just They're kind of soft, and I think Drawing with Waffles uses them a lot. They are really good like soft pencils that you can rub out. So, [music] it's quite They are quite nice. Yeah, this is my favorite ever sharpener that I got from Muji. And it just is so nice. It just really sharpens. >> [music] >> They look very similar. I think they're trying to definitely dupe Col-Erase [music] ones. It's slightly not sharp enough for my liking. Oh my god. Ooh, the sharpener doesn't like this pencil [laughter] very much. Ooh, that was not a nice experience. Okay. Well, you Those are the pencils. 5 euros is pretty good for like that [music] many pencils, but let's try it first before I comment [snorts] on how good it is. Um this is my old sketchbook, [music] but it has my thumbnails in it that I need. This has some notes in it, but this is my new sketchbook. Too much stuff. You guys saw this last week, just doodling with the alcohol markers. Um this was how that illustration turned out, by the way. It's not Zelda. So, I really like the top bit, and then I continued and and this weird bus, and then I missed like I think I was like at this stage, and then the deadline was the next day, so I just decided to leave it, cuz I just I was like, "I'm going to have to redo it all." So, if you want a little update on that, Liberty Comics. This is a little um page I did practicing with the the S the G G pen nib, which I spoke about before, which is these little nibs that a lot of like manga artists use because it's very fine tip. I don't know if these ones are G pen, but this one definitely is. So, it's just like a really, really fine tip. Sorry, if we just ignore the cat, then maybe she'll go away. And so, yeah, I was just practicing different stuff with that. I need to make a little comic about how you like get to really exciting part of the book. And then you flip the page and it's just like a really boring side character. I kind of practiced This is Zelda when you shut the bathroom door and she's just like does the swipe hand. I was also thinking um This is a thumbnail I did last week, and I don't know if I'm going to do a similar this week if I have time. But, I've really been trying to figure out some stickers for Comic-Con. And I've always wanted to make some bookish stickers. Make a like a big sticker that says like in my romantic era and then just like sparkles everywhere. And I thought that would be really fun. Um but, I also want like other genres as well, like horror. I'd love to do a horror one. I also had this idea of making a sticker of a glass, and it says this sticker was made with one glass of water that the artist drank and then just like anti-AI logo at the bottom. See if I can make a sticker about that. So, I'm just I was just like writing down things that um maybe I can make stickers from. Yeah, again the romantic. I think this is really cute actually, this kind of style. Um and yeah, I was just drawing my favorite art supplies, more sticker ideas. I don't know if you guys watch TikTok, but that like my pet who's like a shrimp, and they play that Madonna song over and people like tell their horrific stories where it's just an image of this guy. Um That's a really weird explanation if you don't know that meme. Not explaining it very well, but yeah, it's just very funny and I thought I could make a sticker out of that. That would be hilarious, but anyway, I'm getting super sidetracked because I need to work on my comic. And of course I'm going to get sidetracked because that is just who I am. So, here's my notebook that I have loads of different stuff in and I've done more detailed drawings of thumbnails and stuff as it goes along, but then I've also like just written straight stuff that I want to have the comic on. Um comic con, huh? Um so, this is sort of like I've straight written and then just like sectioning it out into pages. Sometimes I'm just super rough like with what I want the pages to look like. Sometimes I just write the dialogue. This These are like This is like extremely rough um stuff when I'm just like starting out uh what I want it the comic to be. So, like some of it is like ridiculous, but it helped me just get the story out and what helped me realize what the story was going to be. I think next time I'm just going to write straight because a really handy trick that I found was taking a photo of this page, and then I could just highlight it and uh copy and paste it into a document. Which is really useful. I mean, obviously if you type stuff on a keyboard, it's easier, but I think sometimes when I'm just trying to get my ideas out, I find it easier to write by hand. It's really strange, even though that takes longer. It's like a whole different I don't know why. It's really strange. But, there we go. And then, I've formulated formulated formatted it into my comic pages. So, this is roughly This is roughly how thick the comic will be, give or take a few pages. Um obviously, it will be I'm going to do an A3 size and not A4 like this, cuz I think that's too I did my first comic that size and I kind of regretted it. It's It looks nice, but I prefer the A3 A3 A5 size. A3 size with massive Um yeah, so I just go through and then I It helps you visualize where the pages are. I did some thumbnails here on It's like style inspo and I was thinking Um the first page could be sort of like this blue hour. I don't know if you've heard of that. It's like where everything is sort of in the dawn. I think dawn or twilight. Twilight hours. Um yeah, so that's what I do and I'll just tell you how I format it, cuz it's actually quite different to how you would format a play script or a book or anything. Or a TV script. So, basically, what I do is I make each page just have what it would have the thumbnails the panels on. So, I'll put panel 10 11 12 and write what a description. Obviously, if I was handing the script over to somebody else to draw, I would bulk up the descriptions and the shot angles and everything, depending on your relationship with your artist, I guess. Um you wouldn't you wouldn't over write something, I guess, if you had like a good relationship with the artist, you'd let them sort of figure out the story as well for themselves because they probably want some input. I'm saying that I've never given a script to an artist and never been given a script. I've only ever worked on my own stuff, so I don't know. But, I'm just guessing. I formatted this in um Word, but then it printed out weird, so it's really annoying, but it's kind of giving um the pages. So, I've gone through and stuff that I got stuck on when I was doing the thumbnails, I just went in on my script and just doodled out stuff to help me figure it out because everybody knows that thumbnails are kind of the hardest part of the comic making. It's the hard work. It's where you have to use your brain. And I've been working on these thumbnails for the past, I don't know, few weeks. Um so, they're sort of final. I think as I work on the project, obviously stuff will change. It's not iron clad, but it helps to have these thumbnails because it will tell you what exactly to draw on the page. So, up from these I will do a rough page, and then from that I will do final pencils. And then from that I will do coloring and ink on top. I'm still not sure if I want to do ink um like with the G pens or with a fountain pen or use my classic uh black pencil on top of colors cuz that's what I've been doing in the past. But, yeah, so this is the thumbnail so far. As you can see, this is my old sketchbook, but I've still got thumbnails left. So, I probably will finish this one and then start fresh um on this to finish it off because I've still got a billion pages to do. This is the longest comic I've ever made except for one that I made in university. But that was just like I don't know. That was my learning comic. This is my first like proper comic, I guess. I also said that we were going to test these out and then just re-upped on. So, this is the Colorays one and it feels nice. It's super like I don't know. It's not very um soft. But it's precise and yeah, I've seen I think Drawing with Waffles use one. Um I don't know if she's using it recently, but And here's the Tiger one which is clearly trying to be a dupe. Ooh. Okay. That just broke. Yeah. Feels Feels nice. It's You can see It's minimal, but you can see that it's definitely softer. It's more grainy than this one. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, but it's definitely more grainy. Let's see if they rub out. Okay. Yeah, those are really good. I think it's easier to rub out than this one, but that I think that's because it's like grainier. It's not as compact. I don't really know how that process works. Like how do you make a pencil? But yeah. Pretty good. I would say it's a good dupe. Obviously, nothing beats the original, but it's pretty good. Um Saying all that, it's quite funny because my favorite pencils of right now are these 0.5 mechanical pencils from Tombow. I have a few of these because I got obsessed with the the coloring the styles that they came out with. They came out with like Ghibli versions, so I was like, "Damn, you know exactly how to get me to spend money, but I just think they're very beautiful. Um I think this one has lead in it. This one does not. I need to find my lead, which is very funny. I was like, every time I find my lead, I'm like, "Okay, I'll put it here so I remember exactly where it is." And then I just completely forget that where it is. So, I need to find it again. >> [snorts] >> Okay, so we're on page 34. And also the pages don't aren't necessarily correlating because I think I've added like um, timer pieces. So, because this comic it's a water park comic that it's also sort of, I don't know if it's based if there's some sort of um, connection to string theory. But, like if you think about a water slide and then a string and then sort of like these paranormal, maybe scientific things happening then that's my sort of link there and I've just done it's not a string necessary, but it's like a ribbon. And I wanted that to show time passing in between like sections of the comic. And also like a jump between characters cuz there's multiple characters in this one. Again, I know it's the first time I've done a comic. Actually, no, I'm lying. The in the story disappearance, my other comic, I did there was a few characters in that one because it was set in Elizabethan times and yeah. So, here you can see I've just been working out some of the panels because in this book there's also girls who are sort of experimenting with witchcraft, but you know, just like how teenage girls do. Sometimes they just play around with like Ouija boards or, you know, witchy stuff. So, that's they're sort of in the comic as well. And my last page I did was 33. So, this was the last one. And I'll be doing really rough thumbnail, but that one looks quite good as a thumbnail and then transferring it here, so it didn't make sense. So, this is the page I'm on. Trying to figure out these characters, which is difficult as well. I think I realized here I needed more panels, so I think I've added like extra panels here. And that will obviously increase the page count because I realized, you know, writing down all these characters meet and then one runs away is very easy to write as one panel, but then to draw it out, you're like, actually that takes, you know, you need an establishing shot of these two characters meeting, then you need another shot of them running away. You can't just have them running away. It doesn't work like that. So, sometimes you have to break it down a little bit more. And I feel like that happens to me a lot. I've also found that um I need to figure out the characters because I sort of have them in my mind of what they look like, but as I'm drawing it, I'm realizing that I need to do more character design and figure them out a bit better. I've always sort of uh lent away from doing character design in the past because I think that's my weakest point and I just naturally gravitate more to just powering through and like wanting to complete the project. But I think I really need to figure out, like, maybe do like expression sheets and all that jazz because it's just something you need to do and I'm I'm always I always put that off and then I think it's something I realized in my last comic that I did, which was um Picture This and I realized that she kind of goes off model a lot throughout the pages and it's something that I'm not very proud that that happens to her, but it's it sort of works. It's sort of fine, but you know, it's just something that I need to work on a little bit more on this one. So, Jennifer and this girl run. Okay, so sort of here she says run on this page and then it's the next page. And I've said here as well a shadow beast, a shadow on the wall appears like a great beast behind them. But then I'm thinking, do I want an actual monster in this comic? I'm not sure. If I do, I think there is something chasing them. But I don't know what it is yet, even though I've written the whole comic. So, that doesn't really make sense, but um yeah. Okay, well, there we go. There's a shadow on the wall. I've written that, so let's just go with it. And then I'll figure it out when I get to that page because I do need to just accept that that's what it is. Or not. Well, I suppose if you see someone and you want them to run, you would like grab them like that, wouldn't you? So, she's she's going to grab her, I think, like run. And then they're going to leg it, and she's going to be like, what the heck? So, I guess she would be the the girl grabbing her would be like pulling her along. And then she would be like looking back. Like, why? What are we running from? So, thumbnails, you can keep it super super basic and just kind of get the angle of the shot. I'm trying to be more stylized in the shots I'm picking because I think I tend to just do straight-on portrait mid shots of every character, and it just it needs more variety, especially if you're trying to get like the atmosphere of the comic like something's watching them maybe. You would want to have like a pulled away shot looking at like not birds eye but just above them. Maybe or even around the corner so as if we're the monster like looking at them. So, I'm going to try to just mix up my shots a bit. I've definitely done something here. This is a while ago that I worked on this page. Okay, so this way So, the girl and they run. I've done that one. This way. This way is back up. Jennifer shouts. So, she's going to be like shouting. I have to make I have to remember to put space for dialogue. Something I always forget. I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is the whole This is the whole the whole thing of the person shouting." And then I'm like, "Well, where are you going to put your dialogue, mate? Like how are you just going to put a whole person there?" But there Okay, so this way So, this is panel two. So, I'm just going to write that in because otherwise I'll forget and then I just put it in the speech bubble. I'll just put it in the speech bubble so then I can just refer to my script like what is she shouting? What's she shouting, yo? This way is back up. And then um the girl will say "There is no up here." Which doesn't make sense. But it does cuz it's like "Whoa, it's you know, um a weird place." Yeah. And then I think I'll have her like slightly above, so she's in command of what is happening here. So, she's the angle the shot is going to be like us looking at this character. So, our main character looking at this new character like she's telling us something. So, she's the boss of the sit- situation. She's above us technically. Um and then there is a large pool. The water is dark and swampy. Okay. And then the girl wades in. So, I've done it again where I've just like done a really large establishing shot. Um which is going to be this is going to be a really large pool like decrepit and like just I don't know, not even just derelict. That's the word I mean. And then I've put she wades in. So, there's not enough room on this page for that. So, that's going to have to go to the next page. I'll just write a little little little uh thing here to tell me that that's going to be the next page. I think I put this here to remind myself that that's where I'm at. Okay. So, next page. It's good because Oh, no. I I still have a lot left of this page. Okay, full page of swampy water looking at two girls swimming out towards the swan boat. So, basically I can add a lot to that. So, there's going to be this establishing shot of this weird pool. And then I can do two panels at the top of these two last panels that I've left here. Um and then I can do Oh, that's three panels, isn't it? Because I've I left one panel. So, I'll do one, two, I'll do four panels here. Cuz we can make the girl wading out the girls wading out to the panel. This one boat two panels, and then this large one can be another establishing shot, even though the shot is established, but we can establish what this women do, which is the the derelict swan boat, which I do need some reference for, but for now I just draw a little duck swimming along. And then them sort of wading out. I think they're definitely wading through this water. It's not going to be above their hips, but we can have our main character closer to us looking back. So, she's more in the foreground, and then this character is again like in charge. She's she's showing the way to this place, so we're going to have duck swan feet, water. And the duck. Swan boat. Sort of those like pedal swan boats, I guess. And then we're going to have our character looking over her shoulder back at us, but you know, in her world back towards whatever she's looking at. And then this one was girl wading in. Okay, so we could have her facing us in the water. She's sort of there's no hesitation for her, because she knows exactly where she's going. So, she just gets in straight away. So, this is really rough drawing but I think it gets the impression across. Will be a full shot of her whole body getting into the pool. Okay, then she's going to scream, "Hurry." So, she's probably going to look over her shoulder as well at our main character, but then I've done that down here. So, I want to make it more visually interesting, what can I do? Maybe I can pull out the shot a little bit, like pull up pull out uh camera what like I I'm I'm speaking as if I'm a camera looking at these characters. So, what I try to do is like if you are watching a film, like what shot would this be? Like how would you shoot this? So, I would have her frame that she's like maybe she's not even looking back cuz she's just she knows exactly what she's doing. So, she's just shouting, "Hurry." And she's not even looking back to see if the girl's following her because she's just like if you don't follow me, you don't follow me, that's fine. Like you have to listen. I don't know. Maybe she's just like, "Whatever." at this point. But we can zoom out so it's like you can see all the disgusting water that she's sort of just like marching through. So, it's more interesting than having the same sort of looking back face twice. And see, the hard work cuz this is the thinking part of the project. The writing is thinking, but it's also something that's coming to you. Um you can see it in your head, whereas when you put it down on paper as a thumbnail, even though you have it written, you now have to think, well, how does that look? And the images in your head are fleeting, so to get it down on paper, you have to really be like, what what would that look like? Like this story, and how do I make it interesting more interesting than just straight on shot, straight on shot, straight on shot. And how do I make these thumbnails flow so your eye is directed to the next panel. I always recommend this book, um if you're starting writing comics, called Scott McCloud. I think actually he's It's not called Scott McCloud. The author is Scott McCloud, and he's written a lot of books about um making comics and how to make the eye flow and like the shots and different shots and different styles of comics as well. And I think I learned so much from that, and I think it's very good to brush up and like reread that every now and then because it helps you remember. Or even, you know, a reread gives you new tips. So I definitely need to reread that, but yeah. You can see from just this time how long it's taken me to just do four or five panels-ish. Um so that shows you just how long doing thumbnails, even though they don't look like much, shows you how long it takes to just get these final angles and these four out images correct down on paper. Definitely the hard work. Okay, so she Jennifer gets into the water. Oh no, Jennifer hesitates. Okay. Oh, I've swapped these panels around, I think. So this should have been This should be here. But, that's fine. I think we can have Jennifer standing by the water. Actually, you know what? That works cuz she can be going through the water. The new character and Jennifer can just be like standing on the edge like afraid to go in. Trying to draw her smaller than that. Sometimes it's difficult for me to not draw a character bigger and bigger and bigger. So, here we go. She's going to be like standing here on the side. That is literally just like a little stick figure. Okay, she's standing there on the side of the pool and behind her is sort of this dreary background. She's like, "I'm not really sure I want to get into this like junky junky water." But, then we can have Maybe we can have the distance that this one's made already. So, we can even pull up even further with the shot. So, we can have Jennifer standing here and the shot of how maybe large the pool is. And her going, "Hurry." down here. So, she's just sort of like swimming or wading through this water. And it'd be nice to also like zoom out a bit because it'd be nice to have more chances to draw this boggy water which is kind of going to be fun to draw, I think. Like this abandoned area is going to be really nice to play around with. Like, how creepy can I make it look? And we've zoomed out here, and also this shot here is not very interesting right now. It's literally just a shot of a pool of water. But, I think when I go to make the comic, what I'll do is just get a lot of inspirational images, put them up, and then I can make this shot way more interesting, and just try to add like creepy stuff and like abandoned stuff on the side. And just make the water like disgusting, covered in leaves, maybe. Like, sort of something you wouldn't want to just wade into randomly. And And some person is like telling you, "Get in this water." You wouldn't want to do that. So, I think that would be really interesting to play with. Okay. So, the next page is they climb into the abandoned swan boat. Um I like this that she has a golf club in her hand, the other girl. Danny, I think her name is. And yeah, so that's going to be the next page that I do. But, I don't want to do too many thumbnails. I think this video is probably long enough. I'm going to not edit it very much, just straight talking about comic stuff, and I think people tend to enjoy that. So, I hope that you like this. And I hope that was interesting and informative for you. But, we'll see. You You let me know. So, these are some of the thumbnails I've also done my other thumbnails for the other part of it. So, this is like there's five pages about a true story of me to do with a water park. Then there's the whole part of someone goes missing in the water park. And then there's a whole other story which is about these girls in the water park. So, it's a whole thing. It turned into this beast. It's 74 pages, which is a lot. Um and then you know, you can see how much work goes into just one page from what I've just explained and tried to figure out. But, I think it's getting there and I'm excited to work on it. I just [music] need to figure out how the characters look a little bit more. It's very difficult to sort of That's That's a hard part for me and I need to just suck it up and work on it a bit more. But, yeah. Thanks for watching everyone. Um let me know what you think if you are enjoying this idea and [music] yeah, I'll speak to you next time. But, thanks for watching for now and yeah. Bye.