Comic Tutorial page 2

Welcome to my Photoshop walkthru for creating a webcomic page! The following assumes that the reader has a solid foundation in Photoshop CS and is comfortable working with multiple layers.


Step 2:
Next, I drop the alpha, or transpency, on the storyboard layer to about 50% and create a new layer for each panel.

To help keep things straight, I name each new layer after its corresponding panel and once that's done, I work on refining the lines of each panel; basically using the panel layers like tracing paper over the storyboard layer.

The primary idea here is to solidify what is happening in each panel and to separate them into their own layers for easier manipulation later. Sometimes the art changes dramatically from the storyboard, but most of the time, it's just a major refinement from the quick gesture drawings of the previous step. The multiple layers act like tracing paper.

In addition to all this, I'll also create a group (like a layer-folder) for each frame as there will end up being three or four layers for each panel including line, color, shadows, effects, etc.

If I decide to work from reference material, I'll likely bring it in on this layer just to get things as close as possible to the final linework without stressing too much or taking a gob of time. The rough sketch should look better than the storyboard, but it will be refined even further in a future step.