The Business of Comics: Thumbnails
Over the past 2 years I have found that I’m doing more and more sequential illustration based upon a piece of music or script for album covers and storyboards .
If I were to give myself advice several years ago on how to work in sequential illustration this would be it:
Always work out the story in thumbnails first before you even consider doing a final illustration.
This seems obvious, but for me the urge to get started on a finished illustration (to show the client how good I am) can sometimes overshadow the practicality of making comics.
Thumbnails not only conserve your effort and time for the final illustrations, but especially in the case of sequential illustration they ensure the story works visually before you get started.
For me a thumbnail takes about 2 minutes whereas a final illustration can take anything from 1 – 3hrs. Therefore for the same time frame as 1 final illustration I can have 30 attempts at choosing the right layout, composition and viewpoint for a panel.
So how polished do you do your thumbnails need to be? Will a line drawing do or do I need to spend a ton of time on a thumbnail that the client may not like?
First of all the thumbnails are there to help you work out the best way of presenting the story in the least amount of time. Once you are happy with the story you can spend a bit more time on developed roughs from the thumbnails, which you can then show the client.
If possible, I’ve found that it best to go through the roughs with the client face to face, so they can get an idea of where you are coming from. In addition I’ve found spending some time developing character sketches of the main characters helps the client visualise the characters within the roughs.
Below I’ve included a few thumbnails along with their roughs and final illustrations taken from a project I’m currently working on.
Stage 1 thumbnails: in this sequence I was trying to work out the best way to introduce a homeless person walking along the street who is then knocked over by another person. In the end I felt sequence A was the best.
Stage 2 character sketches: to help the client visualise the main homeless character within the thumbnails.
Stage 3 roughs: once I am happy with the thumbnails and character sketches I’ll bring them into the computer and working out perspective and the position and posture of the characters.
Stage 4 finals: the roughs are then printed out in a red ink and using photos refs the final illustrations are drawn over the roughs using pen and ink.
Posted in: Comics /
Comments
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Jon Berkeley 30.01.12
Nice work, David. I often have to bully myself into producing rough sketches for my own use, and as you say it’s never time lost.
