A comic book illustrator is different from a regular illustrator in that they must be able to produce sequential art, to be part of the story telling process, and work as part of a team.
Be a producer of sequential art
Sequential art is a tricky business. When you illustrate a book the pictures, even in a children’s picture book, are fewer and often pretty much different from picture to picture. Sometimes one or two characters will remain the same, but mostly their are differences. Sequential art, particularly comic art, will produce the same items at different angles time and time again. And not more so than when dealing with faces and people in general, as well as scenes. The comic book illustrator jobs will require you to have a high expertise in being able to produce these images consistently stylistically as well as so that each character or scene is recognizable from before. You will often have to draw the same thing at different angles time and time again
There are a few tricks that you can employ to help you with creating good sequential art which will help people to be able to follow the story.
A comic book illustrator is part of the story telling process
The story is what matters. Choosing what to illustrate in the story is part of the battle, but the writer might tell you what to do unless you are a one stop shop for as writer, penciller, inker and colourist. You have to tell the story using shadows, blacks, tones, character development, atmosphere. The reader might not even notice that you have done it. Their eye will skip over that detail you have slaved over, but if you don’t get it right then the story won’t hang together correction. You are the glue.
The strength of comics over any other genre is it brings together the best of both worlds of media. It is like film in that the image conveys very quickly vast amounts of information. Books need pages of description, or dialogue to get the point across. You can do it one or two panels.
Books, however, have the advantage that your imagination is involved in creating the world that costs the film industry millions. They can build massive structures anywhere in the multi-verse, and tear them down again, hardly costing a penny. Comic books put a little more flesh on the bones, but because in sequential art you are taking snapshots of the action, the imagination still fills in many of the details.
You are part of a team
This applies even if you are a sole producer of the entire comic. The editor brings people together – and its interesting reading a number of books on penciling, writing, inking and colouring the number of people who moan that the editor doesn’t really know these days what they are talking about. Nevertheless, the ed is in charge of the team. The writer may or may not come next. The writer may or may not have dialogue. They may or may not describe in detail the panels, or sometimes it might just be the whole page that is described and you as the illustrator will have to decide how to lay out that page, and make the composition work together. How many panels will you use? You might want to change something in the writing, in which case you have to go back to the editor. The editor might want you to work more closely with the writer.
Then there is the inker! He or she is your unsung hero. They are their to make you look good, so be nice to them! They will correct your mistakes, even if you think that your work is perfect – I have a tendency to draw things at more of an angle than they should be. Talk with them and find out how much artistic freedom they would like you to leave them. Do you want to just produce outlines, or really tightly finished art for them to ink over? You will need to work closely with these guys.
And if you are having your pictures coloured, then it’s another layer.
