Tutorial: Comic Panels

Panel setup is a really difficult thing for us photo manipulators. As we don't draw our own material, we're slaves to how the photographer originally shoots the subject. With this lack of control we have more constrains in terms of setting up the panels. We need to setup our panels based on the source material, rather than setting up the panels and then drawing the material on top.

With that in mind, I'll take a fairly different approach to panel setups. Here's what I learn from working on The Taming.

There's not enough hours in the day

Last week I started on a little project with The Taming, which completely took over most of my alone time. It's been a great learning experience for me, and hopefully the knowledge will help in the future.

I decided to release each page as soon as I finished it, mostly due to impatience. I was keen to get feedback, which in turn helped keep me motivated. Thank you for all the comments so far by the way, I really appreciate them! I'll also take this opportunity to apologise for the wait between pages as a result....

Funny thing is, releasing the story a page at a time probably worked out best for me. I've started on no less than three stories for the MC Story Archive over the years, and submitted none. I'm just one of those writers who spends 95% of time on the opening paragraph, and the remaining 5% reading other people's writing instead.

I guess photo-manipulation is a bit different, a good source image can really tell a thousand words. And words.... they're not my strong point really.. So if anyone wants to collaborate, please feel free to give me a shout.

Meanwhile, The Taming will probably go on for about another 4 or 5 pages. I was lucky to have come across a couple of Faye Reagan sets towards the end that helps me tie up the plot that I really wanted to finish on. Not so lucky on the Charlotte Stokely front though so I'm afraid it gets slightly repetitive for her.

Less word more pictures? Here're some that I got from MetArt which I plan on playing with.

Ephemeral with Indiana A

Farfallino with Katy D

Minn with Rina A

Venezia with Olga G

Tutorial: Speech Bubbles

Sometimes in MC photomanip, we come across a set of pictures that demands a more structured narrative, thus picture series are born. Every one has their preference in the style of picture series, mine is in comic styles as the dialogues are much easier to follow and more complex exchanges can happen.

I started my picture series The Taming last week, and learnt a few tricks that I'd like to share with you! Starting with Speech Bubbles!