Yo how do you decide on how you set up your panels? They look visually interesting and even where legolas’ cloak touches the speech bubble doesn’t make it looked cramped somehow? Plus when you have the panel itself become like a share (the starburst one when Legolas jumps up for example)…. I suck at panelling, so any tips would be appreciated ;-;
its usually just a lot of experimenting and trying out different solutions before arriving at something, i dont really have a really special way cuz… i also feel insecure about paneling actually ha..ha but!! i really wanna do whatever i can to help so, heres the stuff i usually think about!
in film theory theres a line of filosophy that states that you create more meaning in the relationship between two shots back to back than a single shot. i kind of co-opted that, but for comics! always think about your panels in relation to each other. working super long on one panel to make it snappy, but then neglecting how it looks with the others,
in line with this, never think about just one panel at a time- work on them all simulataneously when storyboarding to see how they flow with each other.
ALSO also related to this- though this is just my opinion- avoid decorating one panel specifically so that it disturbs the reading flow. i have trouble focusing, so this may just be me, and disclaimer for the example i’m about to use- naoko takeuchi is extremely talented and deserves all the success she has, and shes a way better storyboarder than i could ever hope to be. but i mean like this, for example.
the scotch pattern is really cute, but it ruins the reading flow for me totally together w the stark black line between them if you use decorative panels, i’d say use them in a way so that they flow together, or that the decoration goes from panel to panel, connecting them. again, super subjective, but its something i personally think about
always think about how text will look when inserted! dont draw a nice drawing for then to have no space to put text.
try out A LOT of different layouts.
always have coherence first. even if you wanna do something artsy, thats not worth much if no one is gonna understand anything. so study as much as you can about how the mind reads panels and text. this varies from country to country, but its worth noting still no matter what style you end up drawing.
and last just basically read a lot of comics and study what you like/don’t like about them!
alternate panel sizes and shapes!
also, when you sketch up ideas for comics, make them on physical paper if you can, cuz its easier to compare the pages to each other, as well as better gauge how it reads since most people are more used to reading physical comics than on a screen. i have a sketchbook specifically for comic layout sketches, and it looks like this:
that’s.. i think everything i think about so… ehhh i hope it helped and was coherent… .
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