Slit Strip Tutorial
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009In lieu of a webstrip this week I’m posting a step-by-step tutorial of last weeks strip. When I was drawing it a few weeks back, I made sure to capture each stage of the process from start to finish. I’m not quite sure how long it took to finish, but it was a few hours over two days time.
I start by gesturing things out in a new layer created above the canvas in Corel Painter X. I use a brush called “What I do is secret” that I found on DeviantArt, with the opacity set low, to like 3-6 percent. I’m mostly going for rough fast lines here, starting with a few instinctual hashes and sketching out the main elements.
I reset the opacity on that layer until those gestures are just dark enough to see and create a new layer. I use the same brush and color to start defining the structure of the image. While these are still pretty rough, I’l be inking from this so I need to put in everything that needs to be there to do that. In next weeks strip, I was rushing and neglected to put Slit’s wrist accessories on and almost forgot the cigarette on his t-shirt. Even though I do ink my own stuff, it’s still important to have a tight process because if you forget something in the pencils it’s harder to fix after you’ve started colors. Working digitally does have the advantage of making fixes at any stage, however.
I rough out the finer detail in the first two panels and sketch out the third panel. I also add some lettering guides in for E.T. Dollman, letterer for Bohemian Zen. I do want to make the point that even before the rough sketch, alot of thought goes into how to make the strip read the best. Because Slit’s ‘abilities’ are so odd, I’m always trying to make it read as clearly as possible in a few panels, especially with gags like these.
I rough out the last panel and sort out the last of the details. I’ve also cut out the contents of the first panel and made slit smaller in relation to that panel in order to leave more room for lettering.
I start the inking stage by creating a new layer and lowering the opacity on the pencils. I set my color to black and reset the opacity on my brush to 100%. I pick out a size that gives me the lines I want and start cutting through the main detail. Some of the smaller detail I scale back the brush size for.
I cut through more of the detail and add the panel borders to the first three panels. I overlap the panel border in panel 2, but I did it to lead the eye toward Mitch’s expression in three. I thought it would help the gag read more clearly. I’m always trying to make them so that someone could read the title of the strip, read one and get it and I’m always pushing Jeremy to come up with strips that do that.
I ink the last panel, save and open photoshop.
I create a layer beneath the inks and flat out my main elements. I just fill the whole panels each a slighlty different color so that I can select them individualy, then get the pencil tool in Photoshop with no pen pressure variation added. I select a panel and then take the pencil tool and make a solid line around the outer edge either by drawing, or holding shift and tapping it out in short straight line segments. I deselect each figure as I flat it. Flatting out the whole figures wil help in the shading stage as well.
I lock the layer and then create a new one. I select the figures with the wand set to zero, and flat out their individual colors. I deselect each color as I flat it to avoid have to flat an edge twice. I’m stealing my colors from old strips and will be adjusting them as I go.
I open a new layer and set the layer mode to multiply. This is where those flatted figures come into play as I can select them in that first layer and just render the shading on the whole figure. I grab a light blue color and use a basic brush tool to draw in the cel shading. At this point traditional skills come into play as I’m trying to creat a bit of depth. I’m using the eraser tool to my advantage, and I go back and forth between drawing in and erasing out shade. Pay attention to where large objects cast shadow over something, Like Slit’s arms over Mitch’s head in panel 2. It can help creat a more dynamic sense of depth. Try to find a blance between the light and shadow that work for you and the style you want to create.
I shade the last two panels using the same techniques. Notice stuff like Slit’s shirt in panel three where the folds are deeper because of the shadow being heavier.
I create a new layer and set the layer mode to screen. I select the whole figures individually and deselect the shadow with the wand. I then grab my gradient tool and a light yellow, and set my gradient tool to anywhere between 10-15% opacity. Click Select, Modify, and Contract, and set the conraction to 1-2 pixels. Switching between the flat and circular gradient for whatever effect you’re going for, create a highlight gradient coming from the direction of the light source. Just enough to give the impression of light. Too much and you’ll wash out your colors. I also add a gradient to the background, and give highlights on both Slit and Mitch’s hair.
At this point I add color hold to the lines. I don’t want to go into that, but if your interested in learning, Google “color holds tutorial” and you should find something. It’s essentially making a layer mask with everything but the lines masked and colors adjusted to make the lines have a bit of color. Then we send it off to E.T. with the script and some lettering guides sketched out.
I get back the lettered page, add the title and credits and it’s ready to post.
3!LL
