That Blue Square Thing

Creative iMedia

This unit is one that I've taught so there are resources for it.

R097 – Characters and comics – Skills for making comics

These skills make use of Photoshop, which is my preferred way of making comics. Certainly it's my preferred way of editing images for comics.

There are some practical skills to develop here.

1 – Using panels and preparing assets

PNG iconPanels to use – these are about 80mm by 80mm square

JPG iconImage to work on

Some guides on how to prepare images:

PDF iconPreparing assets slides

PDF iconPreparing assets for print quality comics

Another two images to work on – prepare and then use:

PDF iconPreparing images quick guide – use with the piano image

PDF iconRemoving backgrounds – use with the firedrill image

Here are the images:

JPG iconPiano image

JPG iconFiredrill image

2 – Creating pages and panels

You're going to have to be able to create your own panels. Fortunately this is easy.

PDF iconPreparing pages slides – slides from class

Instruction sheets:

PDF iconBasic panel creation guide

PDF iconMore advanced panel creation

3 – Word balloon skills

PDF iconWord balloon method

PDF iconWord balloon – method 2 (Curvature Pen Tool)

Some more advanced methods:

PDF iconAdvanced word balloons – slides from class

PDF iconText gallery – examples

Some more detail on joined and linked ballons:

PDF iconCreating joined balloons

PDF iconBasic linked balloons

PDF iconAdvanced linked ballons – using the curvature pen tool