Roughing Out Comic Book Story

I started roughing out the next installment of Z West and it was so much fun putting the story on paper that I roughed out the last two books.(60 pages of excitement.) It is really gratifying to see the script and the images come together as whole
story...even in a rudimentary state.

I do the roughs as two-page spreads so I can see a larger view of the story.  I concentrate on the gesture and expression of the characters to more information into the images, with the hope of telling the story visually.
Problems in story, art, clarity and design are so distinct at this stage.In the past I  have jumped the gun and rushed to the final drawing before I had a blue print for the story. Rushing only makes it more difficult to tell the story and you find yourself going back and replacing frames adding pages, etc. With the roughs, I can always come back and try new page designs and swap out panels and sharpen the images.  It is important to take time at each stage to ensure a tight and complete final product. At least that is the theory hopefully I can see it through.


At Mocca Fest in April I recently heard Jillian Tamaki discuss how she used Manga Studio pro to rough out her upcoming book.  It sounds like it may be easier to do in MSP, but I did my roughs in photoshop.



I would curious to hear how other artists plan there stories.  There isn't much out there on this stage of cartooning.

Thanks for looking,

-Joe

Book 3 cover idea

Iron Cit, Part 2