Clayton Barton's website, “How to draw comics.net”, has solid comic art tips and video tutorials on drawing, inking, coloring and more. There is also a free sign up that gets you a figure drawing/ heroic proportions ebook and the behind the scenes techniques ebook on comic strip creation. His story on how he got started and into the comic field professionally is a story of persistence and beating the odds.
Pinterest is
a comic creators gold mine when it comes to resources on drawing as
well as a source for inspirational reference. How about tips from Joe Kubert, Art Adams, Mike Mignola and more. Here is a Pinterest
page with awesome drawing tutorials with collections from Wizard
Comics Magazine.
You may also want to take a look at my Pinterest page to get you started. Our boards include drawing tips, dynamic poses, character design, and figure drawing reference. Click boards to see full topic listings.
Concept Art Empire is a site devoted to concept art, drawing, 3D modeling, and game design.
This software has a large following both here in the states and Japan. Here is an article from the site with the 16 top Deviant Art groups artist should be following. This listing includes drawing, digital painting, concept art creation, and animation. Deviant Art has come a long way since its beginnings and has become another tool for professional artists to post work. Awesome list! Check it out.
The Creative Bloq website features
news, how to's, and reviews on art, graphic design, web design and
3D. They are also affiliated with Imagine FX magazine, Computer Arts
magazine, 3D Artist and 3D World magazine. Here is a step by step
breakdown on planning the comic page.
Tuts Plus has been around for quite some time. Their site features tutorials and guides on design, illustration, photo, web, coding, audio, motion graphics and game development. They now go by the name “Envato Tuts +”. Link one features an article created by freelance artist Sara Berntsson, which not only covers the layout basics, how to choose the right panels and more, but has tips on importing into Adobe Illustrator, using clipping masks, and inking digitally. Link two features how to create a comic character sheet in Adobe Illustrator, creating your own ink brushes in Illustrator and some basic digital coloring tips. Sara’s style is cartoony, but info is solid.
Do you use the paint program SAI? SAI seems to have all the drawing and painting bells and whistles of Adobe Illustrator for drawing and digital painting. This link from Concept Art Empire has cool tutorials on how to maximize the tools of this software. If you know your toolset and how to use clipping masks, some of the techniques should translate to other software.
SAI is free to use for the first 31 days, after which you must purchase for continued use. Pricing is a one-time purchase, around $50 and is cheaper than the monthly add up Illustrator charge. The download is here:
The Blueprint video series features one
on one interviews of top people in entertainment and art. Here is a
must-see Todd McFarlane interview with some incredible
insights into the craft and business of comics. Todd is very down to
earth and straight to the point in his take of the industry and
mindset.
Also check out:
Top Comic Creation Resources III
Do you have some favorites inspirational sources for comic creation? Contact me at jon@tripleadude.com. Let's add it to the list.
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Note: this article was also posted on Medium
