Anatomy of a Comic - Part Four

Continuing my overview of creating a GMod comic, I will now discuss the editing process.

The process of editing your collection of shots into a cohesive sequence that matches along with your script is actually quite daunting. Or so I assume, as I don't do the editing I'm not really sure. I went and hired a guy to do it for me, but I asked him and this is what he said.

McNaire:

Well to start with, if this was a one person project the whole thing would be alot easier. It's always tricky having two or more people see what the other is thinking, so sometimes I've had to really mess with the shots given to me to make them work. But first and foremost, if you're doing a comic with someone, and you want them to edit, this is a NO-NO:

When you have anywhere from 3-6 shot choices for each frame, this is a nightmare to work with. I often jump back and forth and even return to select a new shot later and it's nigh impossible to do that without frustration. Thankfully I've broken Korerat of the habit and now he gives me this:

Which is much better.

To start editing, I first and foremost recommend getting decent editing software and no, MSPaint is not that. Just get something with Layers. I personally use Photoshop 5.5, years out of date I suppose, but good enough for what I do. In my little bit, I'm not going to really tell you how do things, it's not something short and there's plenty of tutorials about using PS and the like. Rather, to keep Korerat happy, I'm going to share my method and steps I use.

1)
I have a starter file with the comic header and footer already there. Also contained in the .psd are all the basic fonts and colors required for the comic (Font bubble colors and the like). This is basic for Opti-Pessi, a little more complicated for BLU:




2)
After reading the script I pull up the various shots to see what they look like and make sure they will work. Often Korerat likes a certain angle or shot, but once text would be added, the shot doesn't work. The bubble would hide pretty much everything interesting. This is also a danger if you like shooting first, then finishing the script later. As another side note: If you must have a certain angle, then I suggest getting three shots, one close, one a bit back and one rather far away, that way you choose the best one to fit the text.

3)
Start placing the shots. If it's like Opti-Pessi, where the last comics had no frames, then you have to take extra time to figure out what size you want each frame and how big. This is something that is also good to figure out before shooting the shots. A close up with two people is pointless if the frame has to be tall and narrow.
I always drop the whole shot into the comic then resize it to the size I need. This has two benefits. 1: You can make it just the size you need. 2: It make the shots look better. Because we use GMod, many of the shots look a tad...jagged. It's because everything is made of polys and antialising doesn't always look as good when a single frame. When shrinking it to the size I need, PS does its own antialising, smoothing out the picture so things blend better.

4)
After the frames are done, the next thing should ALWAYS be the text. It's tempting to do the PS work and adding effects, but once again, if the text bubble forces you to hide it, it's wasted time. I have found a really easy way to do good looking bubbles, and I might share that sometime.

5)
Clean-up and effects. I will not go into detail here, but you might be surprised at what was missing or in the original shots that I added/removed. This is one area where you often might go fishing for another shot to make editing easier.

6)
Send the comic to the first guy to get his approval. This often takes a few times as he catches all the little things you missed. He usually will be all high and mighty about it, disregarding the massive amount of time you have spent squinting at the screen to get what HE wants, but doesn't know how to do.

See, the concept is not that hard at all. It just take massive amounts of massive amounts of Time. especially for someone like me, who is a perfectionist. And someone like Korerat, who has a degree in innocently managing to be a pain. :)

Stay tuned later this week for part five.