I just wanted to share a little behind the scenes insight into the creation of our promotional comic for The Thunderchickens on Zuda. You can click any of the images below to see a higher resolution.
The first thing I did was grab a full screen capture of the Zuda frontpage. I immediately started thinking about how the characters could interact with the page itself. After a few ideas hit me, I broke the page up into panels, fade the background, and start penciling in Photoshop.
Then I save those pencils to a new file and start inking, leaving the background faded. I’m inking with a basic round brush with pen pressure on and a slight fade at the edges of the brush.
I finish the inks on all of the figures, and double check to make sure all my character details are in.
Next I copy just the inks to a white background, close me open lines, and run a flatting program that auto-fills all my spaces. I open the style guides we created for The Thunderchickens, and pull my colors from there, properly filling in the spaces with the correct color.
I open a new layer, and set it to multiply. With a basic brush I take a light desaturated blue/ purple and fill in my shadows. It’s all a very cel-shaded style, so I’m just making the basic two-toned cuts.
Next I open a new screen layer, and drop a few highlights in across the figures with a light yellow color. I then select just the non-shaded parts and add another highlight. I also add drop shadows in the second panel.
Next I add secondary highlights in the shadows with a color just a bit cooler than my shadows. I add a bit of a gradient to the background to add a bit of depth.
And finally I open the image in Illustrator and add the lettering, paying attention to the pacing of the dialog in the balloons, and making sure the lettering leads the reader through the page.
And that’s it. If you want to see more, please check out and vote for our entry over at Zuda.com!
And be sure to check out The Thunderchickens Super Fun Time press kit!
Gallery View
Flash Viewer
And thanks again for all of the support!
