An Experimental Life

Your template will keep you from having to perform quite so many tedious tasks every time you create a new comic. I use Photoshop, but the basic steps should remain the same for most raster graphics programs (like Gimp).

Organization

Create a directory someplace on your hard drive with the name of your comic. Inside this directory, make a subdirectory called "raw," and another one called, "strips."

Making your webcomic template

If you're using Photoshop you can follow the exact same process we do. Otherwise, most graphics programs will have some similar features, so you should be able to adjust these instructions to suit your needs. Remember to save early, and save often.

Decide how many pixels wide and high your comic will be when you post it--You should have figured that out on the previous page. If the height may vary from day to day, make it about as high as you think the tallest comics are likely to be. Create a new 72 DPI grayscale document (even if you plan to do color) of that size. Now switch the resolution to 600 DPI (Since it is a blank document, nothing will get messed up when you go up in resolution. Of course, you never want to try upping the resolution on any document that already has art in it.)

Why all these size and resolution changes? In particular, why build our template at 72 DPI if we're switching it to 600 before we save? Because initially created the template at the proper size at 72 DPI and then switching it to 600 DPI means that when you reduce the resolution on your comic files to 72 DPI, they will automatically be the exact pixel width you wanted with no more fiddling

Save this file to your "raw" directory with a name like 000template.psd or something like that. This'll keep it near the top of your directory and make it easier to find.

Create layers in your template

First off, if your background layer isnt' already white, make it that way.

Create your balloon layer(
Create a new transparent layer. Double click to the right of the layer name in your layers menu. Then go down and click on "stroke." You will set the stroke color to black, the width to 6 to 12 pixels (or whatever you want, really), and set it to inside stroke. Name it something like "word balloons."

Creating your frame layer
(There is more than one way to build your frames layer. This is the quickest way for a Photoshop novice, but I'll cover what I think is a better way later. Either way is fine, of course, and if you decide to change methods, you can always go back and edit your template later.)

Duplicate your balloons layer and leave the original in place. Name this new layer something like "frame one." (This part will be most helpful if you plan on using many frames of the same basic shape in various comics. Instead of drawing little boxes every day, you can simply duplicate this layer as needed and resize the boxes already there.)

On your frame layer, draw a rectangle about the size you'll want your frames to be (don't worry about being exact at this point) with the marquis tool and fill it with white. Since you copied your balloons layer for this, Photoshop will automagically give you a black border around the white. Simple, eh? Under the layer menu, render the layer. Using the magic wand, click the middle of the box to select all the white, and hit delete. Now you have a clear layer with a black box. You can duplicate this layer as many times as you wish, move the copies around to add additional frames, and resize the frames as needed for each comic.

Finishing touches on your template

In the template you just saved, go to Edit and scroll down to canvas size. Not image size, but canvas size. Add about half an inch to the top of the document and about a quarter inch to the bottom. This will give you room to put the comic name, etc.

Note: The following are suggested placements. Put this stuff wherever you want.

Each of these should be on a separate text layer. Type in your comic name at the top right, and "by your name" at the top left. Put your copyright notice at the lower right, and the url (if you don't have hosting yet, just type in something like, "www.mycomicsite.com" as a placeholder) to the lower left.

Play around with various fonts to see which one you think best suits your title, etc. You may want to check out some of the free fonts at BlamBot. Once you have all this figured out, crop out the excess space and save again. Voila! You have your template. Look for a good dialogue font, too--one that fits the mood of your comic. (I use Zud Juicw from BlamBot quite a bit.)

Using your graphics template

Save a copy of your template into your "Raw" directory, and name it according to the year, month, and date that the comic is for. Use a yyy-mm-dd format to help keep things organized. Scan in your comic according to the instructions in the previous page and either paste or drag it into the copy of your template that you just made, and if necessary, resize the art to fit. Put your art layer in between your white background layer and your balloon layer.

Do any coloring or adjustments you need to your art layer now, and then...

Go to your frames layer and either resize the existing boxes or draw the ones you need.

Now you are ready for your dialogue. You can do these next two steps in either order, and each has its advantages.

Go to your balloons layer and draw in your word balloons, using whatever tool with which you are most comfortable. I generally use the elliptical marque tool for the balloons themselves and the polygonal lasso tool for the tails. Some people prefer Photoshop's vector tools, or creating their word balloons in a separate vector art program and them inserting them. If you create your word balloons as vector art, you won't be using your balloons layer for them.

Enter your dialogue into text layers and adjust as needed to fit your word balloons. You may have to adjust the balloons to fit everything in.

Overwrite the copy of your template named with the yyyy-mm-dd format with a fully layered copy at the 600 DPI resolution you scanned in. (Remember, if you scan your art at a lower resolution, you can't boost the resolution without making it look horrible.) Saving a layered copy as a high resolution file will not only give you a good print resolution file, but will also give you an easily edited file in case you want to make changes later.

Follow pretty much the same steps you went through on your test run. In case you don't remember them, I'll repeat them here.

Flatten the image, reduce it to 72 DPI, optimize it, and save the result into your strips folder. This is the file you will upload. (There is no point in uploading the 600 DPI version, since it will look no better on a monitor than the 72 DPI version.)

Congratulations. You've just created your first webcomic. Lather, rinse, and repeat as necessary.

(From Jungmin Escobar with added material from Rob)
So, here's a list of super useful shortcuts in Photoshop that I've found. They should work in almost all versions. read more »