After having taken a break to draw this (and another comic that I haven’t posted yet), I’m now working on the next chapter of Sexbuzz. I’m still in the writing/thumbnailing stages, so I thought I would talk a little about what that process is like for me.
I start by compiling notes from my various sketchbooks into one place. Some of these are ideas for Sexbuzz specifically, but a lot of them are images, snippets of conversation, etc. without any direction connection to the story but which I think might come in useful at some point. I also read through the comic so far and take notes on that. Eventually the very wide contours of the chapter’s plot begin to emerge. At this point I tend to do much more writing than drawing.
Once I have a general idea of the plot I start trying to refine it by breaking it down into scenes. I’ll then devote a separate spread to each of those and jump back and forth between them, writing dialogue or plot and doing some thumbnailing as well. At some point, I decide that I have a good enough idea of what is going to happen, and I move on to the real thumbnailing stage.
This is my final product before the production of the final art – I don’t do a script or anything like that. Most pages go through a few iterations at this stage, and I often tape in replacements for individual panels as well. I do some editing once I’ve finished all of the thumbnails for a given chapter and then change a few things when it comes time to draw a page as well. This is perhaps more inefficient than planning everything out beforehand, but it keeps things interesting and more spontaneous, which is very important for me.
So that’s my basic writing process. I’ve thumbnailed five pages so far and hope to have finished all of them within a week or so. Hope a few of you find this interesting/informative.