After Inking, Cleaning Up the Inks, and a side step into Screentoning, It’s time to get on to the lettering phase of Incident at the Game Store. If you’re up to having a signed physical book of Game Store for yourself, you can stop by my Etsy store and grab a copy!
In this step of my multipart tutorial, I’ll be talking about how to set up text and word balloons for comics!
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Again, I’m making the pages with print in mind, so I need the images in as high of a resolution as possible. I often do my heavier text editing in Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape is a freeware alternative that is as good and better than Illustrator! For now, these next steps are in Illustrator. I make a new file with six art boards to the pixel size of the pages I plan to import.
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Illustrator gives me more options to mess with my text than Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint. I import or “Place” my images in Illustrator, so they’re all in one large file to look at!
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I get myself started by dimming my art and typing down my general typing and lettering. If you have a script typed out in a word processer, you can copy and paste to your heart’s content! I’m not worrying about the exact font at the moment to start getting the words out.
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I refer to my thumbnails for the bubble placement to the art and the original post image to the dialogue. Not only that, but I cleaned up the dialogue at the feedback of my mom, so it lacks teeth compared to the original post.
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I’m not as confident with my ability to draw word balloons myself, so I generally do it separate from the artwork digitally. Most of what I know about making word balloons is from this tutorial by John Roshell.
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I begin the real lettering by arranging the dialogue words in a centered diamond pattern. I take time to putting words on different lines until it looks more professional.
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Next, I expand the balloon size and set it up to “anchor” to the top of the panel. I use the Rectangle tool to make a new shape and put it on top of the balloon shape. Then, in the Pathfinder Box’s Shape Modes (Shift+Ctrl+F9), select both of the shapes, select Unite. The paths of those shapes will merge into one new shape.
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Time to create a balloon tail to point to Fatty. Using the pen tool, I can draw a rough tail shape and use the Direct Selection tool to work the shape to a pointed tail. The same steps to Unite the tail to the balloon to have a connected balloon.
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Now make more rectangles and arrange to align to the borders of the panel. I get rid of the fill color for a short time, only seeing the lines. The rectangles must arrange over the round balloon. You can select Object>Arrange>Send to Front) or Ctrl+Shift+] to send objects above each other.
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After that, select the rectangles and the word balloon. Next, select the Pathfinder’s Shape Modes, and select Minus Front. Cut out the balloon shape for the panel anchoring.
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These steps work for most of the dialogue bubbles I did in this book. For one of them, I made a yelling balloon. Found this tutorial for making yelling dialogue balloons by Jim Campbell.
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I go on Page 3 to do some work on this charging scream from the boyfriend character. I convert the text into an image and then re-arrange and resize the letters. The results are a nice, disjointed scream that emphasizes the dude’s rage well!
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Now that my letters are in a good position, I can punch the screaming up with bold outlines! I used some tips from Comicscraft‘s book on making Emphasis Bubbles.
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I make a new little speech bubble and move it to the middle white letter stroke color layer. Next, I manipulate the shape of the ellipse to make the stroke size 10 pt. Then, I adjust the bottom black letter stroke color layer to make it look seamless.
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I use my previous balloon-making techniques to build up a new balloon shape.
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I rearrange the bubble back in the proper place. Plus, I fiddle with a few more adjustments in my vector nodes, and I’ve completed a new screaming balloon for page 3!
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Now I do a little to figure out what I can do for page 4 and the fat guy’s maniacal laughter. I try out a Blambot font called Torn Asunder. I created outlines out of the typed font, and edit each letter with the lasso tool to make it look pretty decent.
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More progress on the laugh. I make it easier for myself to arrange the lettering in groups and manipulate them into sections.
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Fore Page 5 Panel 1, I was laxer, and I stuck with using a Warp filter to the text.
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Did some more work on some other panels. For the gross sound effect, I used Torn Asunder from Blambot again!
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I didn’t plan enough for sound effects, but it will help to have them. I’m using the Damn Noisy Kids font from Blambot.
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I’m very close to the wrap-up phase of lettering. I first started to use the Newsflash font from Blambot for my title and endings, but I still didn’t feel it was right.
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But then, I looked up GameStop’s logo and learned something hilarious and pitiful. GameStop uses the Impact font, a terrible free font that’s in most computers and terrible image memes.
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Now to start wrapping things up. First, I unlock full of my usable layers, making sure Overprint stroke is checked on all my balloons. Next, I Select all the letter stuff in the panel.
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I go to Object>Rasterize and Set it to the Highest Print Res that I have.
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That’ll make it easier to export the text back to Clip Studio or Photoshop as a transparent layer. I can overlay this on top of all my pages.
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I did some last-minute stuff to add a new reaction bubble for Panel 1 of Page 2.
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Now it’s time to export my stuff from Illustrator. The original digital file is at 600 dpi because it’s easier to shrink than to expand them. So I save to 72 dpi to keep space low.
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So I export it as a transparent PNG so it will fit in the pages with the screentones that I’m still working on back in Clip Studio Paint.
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After importing the rest of my lettering, I use my Layer Masks to clean up the text to fall behind the monster on the page.
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I fiddle about with my Lasso, Magic Wand, and Hard Brush to work with my mask. The lettering is now behind the monster, as I need it to be.
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So I do this for the other pages in the comic, fiddling with other lettering areas.
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I’m not liking how straight one panel looks, so I curve it down a bit.
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One sound effect kinda blends into the line art, so I did a bit of toning work to get it to pop out more.
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I’m pretty much finished with the lettering now, I’m 90% finished with this story! This step was a large learning experience for me! I knew that lettering is an underappreciated art that’s very easy to mess up. I wanted to do my best with this comic, and that includes getting more familiar with lettering. There’s much to still learn, but now I can press forward with Game Store’s tutorial!