Making Comic 3

Hey there. Had already read the third Fire Man comic? If you don't, leave this page or the fun won't be the same.

Before anything I want to say thanks to all people who have supported this page. You're great. Here I'm trying to answer some questions about the making of my comics. Don't take any of these tips like rules because I'm not a pro. I'm only another fan who make this for sport. I accept any suggestion.

Here I'm listing some stats for the records:

Stuff that I used

I dodn't make this part hard

• Papers:You can get  50 papers size A4 or estandard. 75 gr or more. You know, that paper used on Xerox copies. That kind of paper is common.
• Pencils: A 2B for practice in old papers. Then I use the HB pencil in the final papers, wich is a little more strong. The intention was not to mark, stain or perforate the pages. I pushed the pencil strong enough to make easy the inking process. I did all the comic from begining to end on pencil. I don't need too much detail in that stage. Later I'll explain that.
• Eraser: A good white eraser isn't expensive.
• Rulers I almost did everything with my hands, except for the panels. Any biseled ruler can help. You may use curved rulers for long curves. That helps if you're nervous. Don't waste much money.
• Inking: Here I was newbie. After this one I'd inked only 3 comics (Fire Man vs Tengu Man was inked later). Comic2, Comic 3 and a personal one. I tried nibs and paintbrushes but the work was too much for this level and my slogan is to do the things quick and good. So, I used Drawing Pens. Yeah, the cheap ones. This pens have written in their bodies this: "Pigment ink / encre a pigment, waterproof / lightfast" . Actually it does'nt need to be the washable ones. I had a fat one for the big areas. For contours and small areas I had a small one normal and a numered (0.1) for details. It isn't the same quality of a rapidograph but it worked well.

The technique

There are some quality levels. It's up to you to decide how far you want to go. I was interested in on-line comics, so ...

	Just Pencil I like to finish the whole comic like this first. The principal lines are on pencil but I didn't filled the black areas on Bass armor nor the shadows. That would be too much work once we have to erase them. You can stop here and publish (of course, giving more details). I did that once with Fire Man vs Tengu Man, but after experimenting the inking techniques, this looks dusty and unacceptable. This file is 23.7KB, considering that this GIF file has only 16 grays on its palette. Mi first comic on greyscale was 3.8 MB but comic 2 and 3 are less than 1 Mb per comic (and both have more pages). Load this with slow connections is frustrasting, the action is lost and the fun too. I don't use this anymore.
	First ink stroke A little better. I used the drawing pen on this step. There is no way back, if you make any mistake here you must correct in on the computer. This inking is previous to the final inking (WhooooOOoohh! If IRA doesn't tell that, I would never realize it!). When you are done erase all the pencil dust. It doesn't need to be a perfect erase. When you are scanning, and if you set it the line art or 2 color option, the scanner only "see" white and black. It will not consider the weak grey.
	Final Inking Oh, yeah! This is is the best stage. It takes time but the ouput is great. Take the fat drawing pen and ink the big black areas. I don't need to reach the borders. I used the normal pen to do that. Retouch and give some nice effects with the 01 pen. It doesn't matter if those pens haven't the same black tone. It only needs to be black. The scanner doesn't see tones. But remeber to set the scanner to 2 colors (line art, or something). Save this GIF with a 2 colors palette and you have a 4.86 KB file. Hell, yeah! Great performance. This loads darn quickly!
	Colors The extra final step. It's extra because, in spite of the comic looks AWESOME, the extra work is too much for one person doing everything. I might need more than two dedicated months for this. And again here's the file size problem. Saved as a JPG file for the color deep and compressed whit violence my best shot was a 26.3KB file. Waiting for page filled with a set of this images takes too much time. Anyway, it still looks greeeeat.

The pros make their comics as a team. One makes the script. Other uses the pencils. Some one ink it and another one put the text and there's still another one who colour the comic. That's a team (and a fast) work. Personally I liked the script stage and the pencils.

I hope you found this little info interesting and start your own comics, only for the pleasure to do it. I don't feel that I can teach anybody how to draw because I'm still learning by my own (right now I have a symmetry problem). Maybe in another chance I'll detail more about my techniques. See ya there.

22/Jul/99

Artwork,  page design and original characters, unless noted Copyright � Iv�n Rodr�guez Asqui, IRA
Fire Man and other Mega Man Characters are � & ™ Capcom Entertainment Inc