Sunday, August 17, 2008

Hurt!: Page 1, Planning Comic Book Art with Thumbnails


Thumbnails are a great way to plan out your page layout. They're small and simple so you can crank out a few of them in a matter of minutes. This lets you try out some dramatically different variations to see what works best for you.

The first one above is simple and straight forward. The frames are equal in size, which may seem boring by modern comic book standards, but it offers a lot as far as pacing goes. The nice big frames allow for a lot of space for detail so that's an appealing factor. The repetition also ties the 3 frames together and implies continuity between them.

The second takes a different approach. The angle on the city is much higher up. This is a great image, and the possibilities are exciting with such a dramatic angle. The problem with it is that Table Mountain is seldom seen from that angle, and it's not as recognizable even to the folks who actually live there.

The third is not too different from the first but the frames are used as tension building device.... The outlines grow thicker and more erratic as the story progresses. With a comic book this idea seems cool, but in practice it might be over kill.

Have a look at the comic book script for this page, and have a look at the thumbnail I chose.

1 comment:

Brian the Lion said...

I like the second page the best. I think it looks more appealing at first glance, but that's just me.

Later,
Brian