This week should be interesting and helpful for some of you. I get emails from readers asking me what steps do I take to create the comics. So I thought I would take this week to show the steps. For the next five days, I will update the same comic from start to finish.

Step 1: Sketch
Step 2: Inking
Step 3: Flats
Step 4: Color

The first thing I do is I make a copy of the “flats” layer and call it “color”. It’s very important that you make a copy of the flats, you don’t want to color the original flats. Use the “flats” layer to fix any mistakes in the “color” layer.

Time to color the comic.

I select the area that I want to color with the magic wand . Since I turned off the anti-alias when I created the flats, turn off the anti-alias in the magic wand options as well.

I fill the selection with a dark base color. Then I use the polygon lasso tool to form the arm by creating shadows. The step for this is basically lasso tool and fill….lasso tool and fill.

You use the same method to create any highlights.

After I’m done creating the shadows and highlights, I want to soften the colors. So I go back to my “flats” layer and select the whole arm again, see how “flats” comes in handy =)

Using a large soft-edge brush, setting the Mode to “Screen” and using an orange type color….

…I soften the arm a bit. By the way, the selection is still there but hidden. You can hide your selections by command+H on a Mac and ctrl+H on a PC.

I want to shape the arm a bit more, so I use the regular lasso tool. I select the areas I would like to stand out and use the soft-edge brush again.

I do it once more. I like to call this the “hot spots”.

There you have it, a rendered arm. I use same method to color the rest of the comic.

You will notice I didn’t create any extra layers for shadows and highlights. All the colors are in one layer.

That’s it for color. If you have any questions about the steps, feel free to ask them here. PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THREAD AND MY PREVIOUS POSTS. I’M TIRED OF ANSWERING THE SAME QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER.

Tomorrow I will talk about how to create speech bubbles and keeping them simple and clean.

Lest you wonder, we haven’t forgotten about the Urge contest. We set some deadlines and then got sidetracked by various other things like jobs, life, Hawk’s step-by-step tutorial this week, other projects, and Hawk’s school just started. Applegeeks isn’t our day job just yet, so it’s not always front and center of our priority list (although it’s certainly up there). ;)

However, we’ve waited a little too long on this contest! Apologies. So this is what’s going to happen today! Hawk and I will choose what we feel were the most promising 5 entries. Then you guys can vote on them in the forum - we’ll set up a thread/poll and all that.

Couple of things.

First, no booth babes at E3? I like looking at girls as much as the next guy, but it should be interesting to see games having to draw attention based on content alone. Some booths may end up remarkably bare …

Next, Boing-Boing has an interesting bit about gamers in the UK. A survey reveals that there is a roughly even ratio of guy gamers to girl gamers - the trick is the kind of games each demographic is interested in. However, interest in MMOs and Simulation games showed an even split of interest across gender. Interesting! I’d be curious to see stats like that in the States.

More from Boing-Boing … these incredibly gutsy students staged a protest during a speech at Georgetown. Interesting to note that CNN is the only station that showed the other protestors; live reporting from other stations angled the cameras in such a way as to cut the students out.

And lastly … this music video has been making the rounds. It chronicles the journey of the band as they search for a hidden cache of E.T. games in the desert - that’ll make more sense when you watch it.

Been reading The Postman. Interesting, but man does the author like to get melodramatic. The book is radically different from the movie, though. Also Katsucon is on the horizon. We’ll be there all weekend, doing panels and working a table. We’d be delighted to see you there. ;)

This week should be interesting and helpful for some of you…I hope. I get emails from readers asking me what steps do I take to create the comics. So I thought I would take this week to show the steps. For the next five days, I will update the same comic from start to finish.

Step 1: Sketch
Step 2: Inking
Step 3: Flats

After I inked the comic and exported the lineart from Flash, I imported the lineart into a photoshop template I created for all the comics. The template contains two folders and couple of empty layers. One folder contains the copyright line and issue number of the comic. All I have to do is change the number when I create a new comic. The other folder will contain any dialog and speech bubbles.

I set the lineart layer to “Multiply” so anything under it will show through.

Now before I start coloring the comic, I created a layer called “Flats”. What are “flats”? Flats are chunks of color that make up the whole image. They separate key objects from another object by using different solid colors. If you still don’t understand, they help you stay inside the line by selecting the areas you want to color.

How to create “flats”…

It’s pretty easy actually. However, depending how detailed the art is, it will take a lot of patience and time to create a decent flats layer.

So yeah, to create the flats, all you need is the polygon lasso tool. Also make sure the anti-alias is turned off. Otherwise you will get a white line between each color.

Basically you select an area and fill. Then work your way in with different color. For example, in the last panel, I traced Hawk with the polygon tool and filled in with a dark gray. Then I traced out his face and filled it with a lighter color. Then his eyes, his coat, his pants, etc.

That’s it for flats. If you have any questions about the steps, feel free to ask them here.

This week should be interesting and helpful for some of you…I hope. I get emails from readers asking me what steps do I take to create the comics. So I thought I would take this week to show the steps. For the next five days, I will update the same comic from start to finish.

Step 1: Sketch
Step 2: Inking

There are two ways you can ink a comic. You can either ink by hand or on the computer. If you choose to ink by hand, I recommend the Pigma Micron pens and brush. If you really want to go old school, get some black india ink and pen nibs. It will require a lot of practice to get the hang of inking with pen nibs.

I like to go back and forth when I ink. Sometime I ink by hand, but most of the time I ink directly in the computer. When it comes to inking in the computer, I like to use Flash. The lines are clean and sharp. Other words, the lineart will be all vector.

How do I ink in Flash…

I open Flash. Then I import my sketch into Flash, which is now on the first layer, first keyframe, of the timeline. I lock that layer and create a new timeline layer on top of the first one. I use the Brush tool to trace the sketch. I also make sure “Use Pressure” is turned on for the Brush.

After I’m done inking, I delete the sketch layer and I’m left with a clean line art. Finally, I go to File->Export Image…. I export the image as a 300dpi jpg.

That’s it for inking. If you have any questions about the steps, feel free to ask them here.

I’m sure a lot of you remember old school Nickelodeon. Pete and Pete, Snick (man I miss Snick), and of course, Legend of the Hidden Temple. Well, some genius went and made shirts of all six teams. I am a little pressed, but I think you can forgive me for it. Many thanks to Archer for pointing that one out to me.

Shannon passed me the new trailer for Dirge of Cerberus, the shooter sorta-sequel to FFVII, earlier this weekend. It is available here, for your viewing pleasure.

As Hawk mentioned in his rant, he is going through the comic step-by-step this week. Be sure to check back to see the work go through it’s full progress. We’ll also repost each version here, so there is a record of the process.

This week should be interesting and helpful for some of you…I hope. I get emails from readers asking me what steps do I take to create the comics. So I thought I would take this week to show the steps. For the next five days, I will update the same comic from start to finish.

Step 1: Sketch

After Ananth and I discuss what the next comic should be about, he sends me a script. The script has all the info I need to draw the next comic. Unless it’s very important, Ananth tells me a vague description of each panel. This allows me to play around with the whole comic. For example, in Issue 45, the squirrel was never written in the script. He was an idea I decided to put in for the hell of it. For some odd reason, he became a big hit.

I drew Issue 245 with the Wacom Cintiq tablet. The software I used was Alias Sketchbook Pro. The software does a pretty good job on mimicking pencil and paper.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here.

Tomorrow I will post the ink version.