Creating SpaceHunter

Creating SpaceHunter_X

The step-by-step process of creating a page for SpaceHunter_X, something I did purely for the fun of it ^_^

page 3, thumbnail Step 1: Preplanning
When I draw SpaceHunter_X, I don't have a script, just a general idea of what is going to happen in an issue. I start up from where I last left off, and try to fit the ideas that I come up with into an issue without rushing or cramming. The farthest I've ever gotten in the planning department has been jotting down a short (one line) description of what happens on each page. I've recently started drawing small thumbnails to give me an idea of what the layout of a page will look like, though, and I've found that this makes for better page layouts.
(Yeah, I do these with a brush pen, and I'm perfectly aware of the fact that they are out of proportion and hard to understand. But I can understand them, and that's the only thing that matters. So nyah. : P )

click for a larger version
Step 2: Pencil work
I start out by dividing a 9"x12" page in my sketchbook into two 6"x8.5" parts (the spiral of the sketchbook takes up half an inch, thus the 8.5" height). Each part will eventually be a single 6"x9" page on the computer. I try to make up for the missing half an inch in the height by taking off an eighth of an inch from both sides of the 6"x8.5" page.
I only scanned in one part for this demo, but you can get the basic idea of what the pencil version of a page for SH_X looks like. A lot of the time, the pencil version is (in my personal opinion) better than the inked version, because I often mess up on the inking. If I could, I would do away with inking entirely, but I can't do that, since I'm a very messy penciler (this is actually one of my "cleaner" pages). For a larger version of this page, click on the thumbnail.

click for a larger version
Step 3: Inking
Here is the same page, inked in and with all the pencil erased. (I am very proud of my inking. I tried to be very careful this time in order to make sure that I didn't mess up. Yay! ^.^) It looks pretty much the same as the pencil, only darker and cleaner. I use a marker to color in large black areas (like if someone is wearing a black shirt or pants) since I'm not going to be shading those areas on the computer anyway. I also use a lighter marker to color in X's mechanical arm, since I tend to forget to color it once I have the page scanned in.
Sometimes I end up adding things that I forgot earlier when I ink a page. I tend to forget Thero's mechanical tail, but in this case it was X's backpack strap. After I ink, I scan in the page (usually at 200 dpi), and put it into a Photoshop file where I work on it. Before doing any shading, I erase any mistakes and I mess around with the page so that it will fit in the 6"x9" format. I also use "Levels" (command-L) to intesify the black and lighten the background.
After clean-up, I make my lineart "transparent" (i.e., I take out all the white bits) by command-clicking the "Gray" level under "Channels" (for those of you using Windows, you would control-click). This selects all the white parts. I invert the selection by doing command-shift-I, thus selecting only the black lines. Creating a new layer, I fill in the selection with black. Finally, I select all of the Background layer (the non-transparent version of the page) and delete it, leaving a white background.

click for a larger version
Step 4: Shading, part 1
All my shading is done on different layers than the line art. The first step of my shading process is simple, but also rather tedious. First I outlined all of Thero's skin using the polygon lasso. I use the polygon lasso because it's easier to handle than the regular lasso, and I don't have to worry about the straight edges anyway because they're hidden under the line art layer. I have a file that is dedicated solely to the different shades of grey that show up in the comic (Usako-Gi skin, Thero's hair, SpacePort floor, etc.), so next I open that up, choose Usako-Gi skin, and then fill in Thero's skin. Same thing goes for Tavi's shirt.
The biggest change at this step is the addition of a graphic that I nicked from an earlier page. By putting this in the last frame, I have all the characters in the room shown in one frame, but I only had to draw three (Thero, X, and the CFT) for this page. (My dad says that this is cheating, but I say it's okay, since I know for a fact that other online manga-ka use it, as well as professional cartoonists.) I use the same images over and over again for Thero's shirt as well.

click for a larger version
Step 5: Shading, part 2
After using the lasso to shade skin and clothing, I color in the hair of those characters who have dark hair. I generally use the airbrush tool to do this, since I've found that it looks more natural than using the polygon lasso and filling in the area.
The next thing I do is use the dodge tool to create highlights on the areas that I filled in the previous step. The burn tool is used to create shadows, and though all of this is a bit boring, it gives very nice results.
The last part of shading is adding any tones that I want to use. Here I used a "dot tone" to emphasize the fact that there's an awkward silence occurring in the last frame. When I'm all done with shading, I merge all the shading layers with the line art layer.

click for a larger version
Step 6: Text and speech bubbles
The very last thing I add is the text. This is hard because the text that I want often doesn't fit into the frame that it's meant for, so I end up altering the text, using a smaller font size, or letting the text overlap the picture (which I truly hate doing). All text, when completed, is merged and made a single layer above the "picture layer".
For speech bubbles I have a white square with rounded corners that I've made. It also has the added bonus of a drop shadow with a distance of zero, which causes the shadow stay right behind the square. I copy and paste this, resizing it to fit the text. Sometimes I use an oval when someone only says one or two words (like Tavi here in frame three). I then use the polygon lasso to make the triangles pointing to the character speaking, filling them in with a white brush. When I'm all done with the bubbles, I merge them to create a bubble layer under the text layer.
The last step is usually changing the page number at the bottom of the page, shrinking the image size down to 72 dpi (I usually work at 200 dpi, though pages in earlier issues were done at 100-150 dpi), and finally saving it as a JPEG file for the internet.
And that's it. ^_^

F.A.Q. | SpaceHunter_X | m a i n
SpaceHunter_X is copyright © 2000-2007, A. R. Harter. All rights reserved.

The step-by-step process of creating a page for SpaceHunter_X, something I did purely for the fun of it ^_^
	Step 1: Preplanning When I draw SpaceHunter_X, I don't have a script, just a general idea of what is going to happen in an issue. I start up from where I last left off, and try to fit the ideas that I come up with into an issue without rushing or cramming. The farthest I've ever gotten in the planning department has been jotting down a short (one line) description of what happens on each page. I've recently started drawing small thumbnails to give me an idea of what the layout of a page will look like, though, and I've found that this makes for better page layouts. (Yeah, I do these with a brush pen, and I'm perfectly aware of the fact that they are out of proportion and hard to understand. But I can understand them, and that's the only thing that matters. So nyah. : P )
click for a larger version	Step 2: Pencil work I start out by dividing a 9"x12" page in my sketchbook into two 6"x8.5" parts (the spiral of the sketchbook takes up half an inch, thus the 8.5" height). Each part will eventually be a single 6"x9" page on the computer. I try to make up for the missing half an inch in the height by taking off an eighth of an inch from both sides of the 6"x8.5" page. I only scanned in one part for this demo, but you can get the basic idea of what the pencil version of a page for SH_X looks like. A lot of the time, the pencil version is (in my personal opinion) better than the inked version, because I often mess up on the inking. If I could, I would do away with inking entirely, but I can't do that, since I'm a very messy penciler (this is actually one of my "cleaner" pages). For a larger version of this page, click on the thumbnail.
click for a larger version	Step 3: Inking Here is the same page, inked in and with all the pencil erased. (I am very proud of my inking. I tried to be very careful this time in order to make sure that I didn't mess up. Yay! ^.^) It looks pretty much the same as the pencil, only darker and cleaner. I use a marker to color in large black areas (like if someone is wearing a black shirt or pants) since I'm not going to be shading those areas on the computer anyway. I also use a lighter marker to color in X's mechanical arm, since I tend to forget to color it once I have the page scanned in. Sometimes I end up adding things that I forgot earlier when I ink a page. I tend to forget Thero's mechanical tail, but in this case it was X's backpack strap. After I ink, I scan in the page (usually at 200 dpi), and put it into a Photoshop file where I work on it. Before doing any shading, I erase any mistakes and I mess around with the page so that it will fit in the 6"x9" format. I also use "Levels" (command-L) to intesify the black and lighten the background. After clean-up, I make my lineart "transparent" (i.e., I take out all the white bits) by command-clicking the "Gray" level under "Channels" (for those of you using Windows, you would control-click). This selects all the white parts. I invert the selection by doing command-shift-I, thus selecting only the black lines. Creating a new layer, I fill in the selection with black. Finally, I select all of the Background layer (the non-transparent version of the page) and delete it, leaving a white background.
click for a larger version	Step 4: Shading, part 1 All my shading is done on different layers than the line art. The first step of my shading process is simple, but also rather tedious. First I outlined all of Thero's skin using the polygon lasso. I use the polygon lasso because it's easier to handle than the regular lasso, and I don't have to worry about the straight edges anyway because they're hidden under the line art layer. I have a file that is dedicated solely to the different shades of grey that show up in the comic (Usako-Gi skin, Thero's hair, SpacePort floor, etc.), so next I open that up, choose Usako-Gi skin, and then fill in Thero's skin. Same thing goes for Tavi's shirt. The biggest change at this step is the addition of a graphic that I nicked from an earlier page. By putting this in the last frame, I have all the characters in the room shown in one frame, but I only had to draw three (Thero, X, and the CFT) for this page. (My dad says that this is cheating, but I say it's okay, since I know for a fact that other online manga-ka use it, as well as professional cartoonists.) I use the same images over and over again for Thero's shirt as well.
click for a larger version	Step 5: Shading, part 2 After using the lasso to shade skin and clothing, I color in the hair of those characters who have dark hair. I generally use the airbrush tool to do this, since I've found that it looks more natural than using the polygon lasso and filling in the area. The next thing I do is use the dodge tool to create highlights on the areas that I filled in the previous step. The burn tool is used to create shadows, and though all of this is a bit boring, it gives very nice results. The last part of shading is adding any tones that I want to use. Here I used a "dot tone" to emphasize the fact that there's an awkward silence occurring in the last frame. When I'm all done with shading, I merge all the shading layers with the line art layer.
click for a larger version	Step 6: Text and speech bubbles The very last thing I add is the text. This is hard because the text that I want often doesn't fit into the frame that it's meant for, so I end up altering the text, using a smaller font size, or letting the text overlap the picture (which I truly hate doing). All text, when completed, is merged and made a single layer above the "picture layer". For speech bubbles I have a white square with rounded corners that I've made. It also has the added bonus of a drop shadow with a distance of zero, which causes the shadow stay right behind the square. I copy and paste this, resizing it to fit the text. Sometimes I use an oval when someone only says one or two words (like Tavi here in frame three). I then use the polygon lasso to make the triangles pointing to the character speaking, filling them in with a white brush. When I'm all done with the bubbles, I merge them to create a bubble layer under the text layer. The last step is usually changing the page number at the bottom of the page, shrinking the image size down to 72 dpi (I usually work at 200 dpi, though pages in earlier issues were done at 100-150 dpi), and finally saving it as a JPEG file for the internet. And that's it. ^_^