For a comic book illustrator, knowing how to draw sequential art is essential. You have to be able to link one panel to another, and be consistent with the drawing style and objects that you are rendering over and over.
Here are a few pointers
Develop images from the larger form – can you recognize the silhouette even without the details?
You can break down the various characters into larger forms so that you can repeat the proportions and features over and over at different angles. You might be someone who enjoys starting with an eye and letting the image grow, but after a while your character will change. If you start with the larger forms and add details to them then you will find things are more consistent. Also, if you start this with the design of the character in the first place and really get to know it, you will make life easier for you later.
Design characters with sufficient details, such as clothing, style, character full faces, proportions.
I’ve been wrestling with this one for my own comic. How can I choose a way of working where each time I draw a character the reader will know instantly who it is. Judge Dredd is an interesting ball game, because he wears a uniform. It’s only his dialogue which points out who it is. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. In my comic I want much of it to be visual, and I haven’t decided yet whether or not I will colour it. If I don’t, then more than ever the details need to tell the reader who it is. Perhaps the way the hair flops, and oddly shaped nose. Or clothing. Clothing is a great way of creating form especially when you are having to render foreshortening and avoiding the arm looking like it’s too short – clothing (bangles/bracelets are great for this) provide clues as they wrap around the arm form. Imagine a cylinder – the clothing looks like a circle from end on.
My own comic world is probably going to be steampunk comics. Quite simply, because there are so many gadgets and gizmos, and prosthetic limbs, goggles and hats, it’s easier to create strong silhouettes and recognizable characters, even if my facial features are a little off.
Keep the shadows consistent
There are times when you can have a special effect, but unless the time of day changes, shadows should all fall the same way.
If using colour you can represent different places using the same colour
I might not be using colour. Although I might use it when rendering the heavenly places…anyway, the point is that you can flip through parallel scenes – something happening elsewhere or at another time – easily. The bosses office could be one colour: or you could have it where the bad guy is always seen in a particular colour and he influences the places he visits by changing them to that colour. If you use that method, then make sure the environment has strong clues to tell the reader its the same place with a different atmosphere. I find it useful looking at movie stills on google image search when I am trying to find a suitable colour for a scene – strong blues and greens are menaces. Reds and brown action. Think of a film genre, search for films in that style, then search for individual films.
Practice drawing one thing at different angles.
Grab a picture off the net and imagine it from different angles
This speaks for itself really. If you can get an image of the same thing at different angles, then use one picture, imagine it at different angles, and then check to see if you were right!
Become a great draughtsman – get used to using perspective
Perspective is one of the hardest things to learn. A great tip I picked up was to just draw the thing you wanted to draw, then mark up the perspective. Using a sense of perspective first in your rough means you aren’t constrained quite the same to rules and regulations. That said, a thing must look like a thing.
