It’s #webcomicday, a day all about celebrating and promoting your favorite webcomics! As part of this year’s celebration, I’ve made a little image breaking down how I make a Follower page. I decided to use page 25 from chapter seven of Follower, because those are some of my favorite pages in the comic (at the moment.)
Let’s take a look at a little x-ray of the comic, shall we?
Breaking it down into steps, a page is made like this:
Step 1: Script and thumbnails
Delade and I spend a while working out ideas for the chapter. We discuss everything that’s happened so far, and everything that’s going to happen eventually, and where this chapter needs to fall in that timeline. Then we discuss the important bits about what’s going to happen: who’s the focus? Where is it taking place? What absolutely has to get in in order to support future parts of the story? It can get complicated! We hash it out and then Delade gets to work scripting. (Chio Club members can get access to full copies of some of our scripts, and I’m planning to release more in the future, if you want to see our process in more detail!) We plop the script into a program called Superscript, which is just for comic script writing. It makes everything into a nice format. Then I take this script and sketch little thumbnails alongside each page, to rough out what I think it’ll look like. The thumbnails are basically unreadable to anyone but me, but it gives me a better idea of what’s going to happen with the art. I also build in space in the design of each page for whatever text needs to fit. This is easy to forget, but can be a huge pain if you don’t do it. Delade and I discuss the thumbnails, and when we agree, it’s basically done. The last part of this process is coming up with a chapter title and cover image.
Step 2: Pencils and inks
In this step, I enlarge my thumbnails to fit the size of a page and then draw on top of them. Pencils are usually more detailed versions of the rough stuff in the thumbnails, but sometimes not much more detailed than that. I’m just refining what the actual characters are going to look like, capturing expressions and important details that have to be right. At this point I usually also drop in dialogue balloons, so no matter what there’ll be space for them. Then I move on to ink the outlines.
Step 3: Flat colors
In this step, I drop in the base colors for everything. Characters get their own layers, and backgrounds on another. I have a pallette built and saved for Follower that includes colors for just about everything that appears regularly so I can keep it all consistent. This part usually goes pretty quickly because I have everything set up to be efficient; without having my standardized color pallette at hand, and my CSP fill bucket set up the way I want, it would take forever and be really tedious.
Step 4: Final shading & details
The last step! I apply several layers of shading and lighting depending on the environment. I use a lot of textured brushes here because I feel like it adds a little more depth and tangibility to the backgrounds. I give the ink outlines some subtle color; they look black, but they’re usually actually a very dark purplish or bluish color, or similar, whatever fits the scene. I used to color all of the outlines individually, but this took forever, and I don’t necessarily think it looked better. At this point I also add in a layer on top of everything with a paper texture. I didn’t always do this, but after some experimentation a couple of chapters in, I decided I liked the feel it gave the pages. Everything in this world is a little bit gritty, and it accentuates that a bit.
And then we post! To everywhere on the internet.
You can read Follower in all of these places:
💚 Subscribe on Webtoons: https://webtoons.com/en/challenge/follower/list?title_no=74968
💛 Subscribe on Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/Follower/info
🌎 Subscribe on Globalcomix: https://globalcomix.com/a/radio-chio-comics
💥 Read on ComicFury: http://followercomic.webcomic.ws
🦆 Read on The Duck: https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Follower/
You can also support Follower and get early access to work in progress, sample scripts with commentary and thumbnails, and more, when you join the Chio Club via Patreon or Ko-Fi for just $1 per month or more.
I’m a physically disabled artist with a lot of medical issues, and the Chio Club helps keep me properly cared for as well as helping keep the lights on around here, so we’re endlessly grateful for all our supporters.
You can find out about all the available reward tiers and more on the Chio Club website: http://chio.club
Want to know even MORE?
I have a whole playlist on our Youtube channel that’s just timelapses of pages being made, some with commentary and some without. Subscribing to our Youtube also helps us with visibility and the potential for ad revenue!
Thank you so much for reading this post, and I hope you find some cool new stuff to read this #webcomicday! 🥳
