Sunday, May 6, 2018

The Templates

From time to time, you might have heard be mention making or updating the templates. Today I thought I’d share with you what one of my “templates” actually looks like. Mind you, the actual template is quite a bit higher in resolution. This image is only 500×270, but the actual template is more like 7500×4000.

Because using the rotate tool creates “jaggies” and other artifacts, the limbs on the template are at commonly used positions. I select the body parts I need for the character, and discard the rest. I then have the move those pieces into position and cajole them until they look just right.

While I use several tricks to get the most out of this technique, it still has some serious limitations. One of the most frustrating aspects is that sometimes I’ll make a template for a character and then never actually use that template because I end up upgrading the template before the character comes up in one of my arcs.

But when I’ve come up with a script, and it’s time to get crackin’, I break out the templates, sets, speech bubbles, and tails. Hundreds of hours of handcrafted templates allows me to make a great looking panel in under an hour.

Is it ever really that simple? No. Never. In real life the template method I boxed myself into never works like I’d hoped. Last minute custom art has to be forged, and even then it never looks quite right. Then there’s the back and forth decisions and trying to get the phrasing just right (only to later discover a serious typo)… Well you get the idea.

So I hope you enjoyed a little peek behind the scenes. Thanks for stopping by, and as always…

Pax,

-f2x

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