Scott McCloud: Lettering Comics in Illustrator (2 of 2)

Part Two of my quick tutorial explaining my lettering process in Illustrator, this time focusing on my template, and exporting to Photoshop. (Best viewed in 720p)

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhsqRjBehmw

Category:

Education

Tags:

• comics
• tutorial
• lettering
• adobe
• illustrator
• balloons
• tails
• how to
• borders
• comic books
• graphic novels
• yt:stretch=4:3
• yt:quality=high
• tips & tricks
• graphics software
• howto
• instructions

[AceCorona]

Scott, have you ever used Manga Studio? I was wondering if I should draw in Manga Studio and letter with Adobe Illustrator, or letter in Illustrator first then draw in Manga Studio.

[mccloudvideo]

@AceCorona Haven't used it myself. Not crazy about the balloon results (though apparently the workflow is pretty easy). A lot of people like it though. Not sure what the import/export options are...

[Car2nsbysketch]

Wonderful tutorial Scott, greatly appreciated. Unfortunately I also have what seems to be a simple "duplicating question." When you made those "tails" for the voice balloons, how did you duplicate them into the circle pattern? Sorry for the simple question.

[mccloudvideo]

@Car2nsbysketch To make a circular pattern of tails, I take a single tail, copy it, rotate 180°, and place directly below or beside the other. Then I group that pair, select the group, click on the rotate tool and choose, say, 30° rotation with copy (can be any amount, provided that it's an even fraction of 360°). Repeat until you have a circular group of tails.

[mccloudvideo]

@mccloudvideo Whoops. Answered the above before I saw this post. Sorry! That system is fine. :-)

[mccloudvideo]

@Car2nsbysketch You can make a ring of dupes like that using the rotate tool. Just choose your center point while the object is selected, double-click the rotate tool and choose a number of degrees that fits into 360 (15, 20, 30, 36... there are a lot of choices) and hit the copy button. Repeat until the circle is filled out.

[SpikedSkull]

A nice tip for selecting layers like your balloons: hold ctrl and alt, then right-click on whatever you want to select (a life-saver with tons of layers!).

You can do all of this in Photoshop, which is how I do it. I guess it's all just preference. I think it would take longer to switch back and forth -- Photoshop can keep everything vector (text/balloons/etc.), and you can modify it at anytime. I literally do my whole comic with vector shapes in Photoshop (see GrammarComic com).

[mccloudvideo]

@gregg0v Resizing type in either program is never a problem, so long as it's not too small for your target resolution. And you can record and replay any series of steps in Photoshop using the the program's own Actions palette.

[gregg0v]

Thanks for the information. Very helpful!

Could you please comment on text size and readability? I saw that you were using 8pt. But you have a custom font, so I wonder if that affects your choice. Does resizing the text after typing make it look skewed or print differently than choosing a larger point size?

Also, could you please comment on your custom action in PS? Is it javascript based? Would you say that with a little head scratching an intermediate PS user could make similar actions?

;)