Transcription
Hi Guys, my name's Marcel S-Still, and you're trying to make your own comic, manga, or Webtoon, or whatever, and it's kinda hard. But that's why I'm here! I've got some experience in this topic. I've drawn and published Germany's biggest indie manga/comic. I've been doing this for over half a decade. And in today's video, we'll be focusing on how to plan out your very own manga or comic and how all of this works. I'm also gonna show you how I'm constructing my manga from the very beginning and what mistakes you DEFINITELY want to avoid! … Mostly mistakes that I already made.
Alright then, let's make some manga together - like a sir! When making a manga, webtoon, or comic, the common misconception is that there's a person with a story in their head and then… well, that person's going ahead and drawing the pages to this story. And my god, do a lot of people still believe that this is how it works! I like comparing making a manga or comic to making a movie. There are a lot of steps involved, most of them have to do with planning. The actual part where you get to DRAW things… is actually WAY less than you might expect… like, AT MOST half of the work is drawing. So, the Drawing-part is not even half the battle of making projects like these. Like I said, it's very similar to making a movie, where the part where you're filming is important. But it's definitely not even close to being the only step. Because in both mediums, it's not just about flexing with the way your project LOOKS. You're also trying to tell a story, after all! So, there's the visual part of actually TELLING that Story,… but there also has to be a part where you're planning all of it out.
In case you're still at this stage, there are actually tools for that. Whenever I have projects like these, I'm using tools that help me to collect ideas like outfits for the characters, locations for the scenes that I want to draw for my manga, etc. The tool that I'm using right now is called MilaNote. I've asked them if they wanted to sponsor today's video, and they actually agreed. MilaNote's a tool that you could use to organize projects like these. That's not only working for manga, though! Earlier this year, I've animated a commercial for a fashion brand, and it's also super helpful to have tools like these in order to have all of your references ready and organized - because having a whole project in mind means having a lot of ideas, notes, and references that you have to keep around somewhere. It's also super easy to start new projects since there are over 100 templates to choose from. Let's take character designs for example. You could easily use a character-design template where you can just replace the photos with your own images. For the anime commercial that I animated, I obviously needed a storyboard! You can just use MilaNote's motion design storyboard, and you pretty much get the exact same thing that I have, since you can also just replace the images. This storyboard was the backbone of this project. I added the whole dialogue and ALL of the ideas and notes I had for this. This also goes for references and anything else. Actual animation studios also use tools like these in order to organize their anime projects because you can also use MilaNote online together with your colleagues! This is especially helpful when you're working together with a storywriter, like I do. There are actually some built-in tutorials for it that explain all of this, but I think it's all pretty self-explanatory since most of these features are simple drag-and-drop. And how much does it cost? Exactly; it's free if you're using the link down in the infobox to sign up to Milanote. Big recommendation, because like I just said, this "collecting ideas, notes, and references stage" is definitely a big part of any creative process.
So, to put these steps even simpler, the rough stages would be: WHAT's the story that you envisioned - HOW do I translate that story into drawings -.. And then DRAWING it. And that's the workflow in EVERY medium with visual Storytelling, be it drawing and filming, but also animation, videogames, and everything else. Even THIS video right here took me hours of scriptwriting, BEFORE I actually started shooting it…. And then animating everything… y'know… like… several days of work…. That… you could support… if you didn't already. Okay, I'll shut up.
The first part would be stuff like writing your story. That obviously comes first. The last part is drawing and making your pages, that's basically what my whole channel is about. And this part, this bridge, where you figure out how you visualize your story….. Yeah. That's what this very video here is about. So now that you understood what exactly we're doing with a storyboard, let's take a look at one!
This is a storyboard I drew for the last volume of my manga series. And in case you never saw a storyboard before, you immediately notice that this storyboard only really consists of thumbnail sketches. These are just scribble versions of the finished page. That's because we're just brainstorming here. You have your story already at hand, and now you're trying out different ways on how you could visualize this part of the story. There are dozens of ways you could portray an action like this, so this is another reason why these storyboards are just thumbnail sketches. Because you shouldn't be afraid to erase your idea again in order to replace it with a better idea. I mean… look at my old storyboards. If you look closely, you can see that I erased a lot of things in the process. There are so many instances where I went, "Yeah, I think I've got a better idea," so I just erased it and drew it again in a different way.
Additionally, with storyboards like these, there's also the THUMBNAIL EFFECT. Maybe you noticed this while drawing sometime, where you're working on a detailed spot and you're like, "Oh yeah, that's it, this is gonna work out GREAT-" but in that moment, you're neglecting to see the artwork as a whole. This is a classic digital artist problem because you're able to zoom in all the way - but this can also happen traditionally, of course. And with comics and manga, this is ESPECIALLY important, because you always need to carefully construct and plan the page so that the flow of the reader is as smooth as possible and isn't interrupted by clunky page composition. And you CAN'T really judge the composition of your page if you're working detailed on it right away. Having a whole overview is way more helpful. Page composition and the flow on how to construct a manga is a whole science for itself. If that's something that you're interested in, I did make a whole video on it already. Maybe check that one out if you still make pages that look like.. Well.. This.
Anyways, don't underestimate how much effort storyboarding actually is. From experience, I'd say storyboarding a story can sometimes even take just as long as making your finished product. People tend to underestimate how much work goes into the process of visualizing your text and getting ideas for how to lay out these panels, to make these panels actually flow in a smooth way, to have the page turn happen at a reveal or a shocking moment, having actual impacts happen at double spread pages, and so on. And the more detailed your storyboard - the better your finished product is going to be. But… that also means that the better your finished manga is supposed to look, the the more detailed you have to be while storyboarding. So if you want your manga to not look like THIS… but rather THIS, you also have to plan out a lot more things in beforehand while storyboarding. Like I said before, it's like in a movie, where storyboards are going to be a guide on how to make the final product. On where the light's going to be set up, how the camera's positioned, and so on. So while storyboarding scenes with more details like shading, you also have to think about how to execute things like this - do you want shadows later on to be harsh black and white? Or maybe the light isn't as strong, so you want your shadows to be drawn a bit weaker instead? So yeah, don't take storyboarding lightly. Chances are, if your storyboard's more detailed, so is your finished product going to be as well.
I KNOW, I KNOW, but just believe me when I say that, every time when I boarded a whole chapter and I noticed how things didn't work out at the end or how the cliffhanger didn't fit where I wanted it to… I was SO glad I didn't already draw finished pages but I was only still planning things. If you don't believe me, you can believe all the thousands of professional mangaka out there. They're all using a storyboard even despite being under such enormous time constraints. So it really is that much of an important step. Not doing this basically is a death sentence for your project before you even start it. Just don't forget the notes the same way I integrated them before. Because the worst thing ever is to just be sitting there and thinking - "Well… uh… what the hell did I mean by that?"
So here's the way I'm constructing storyboards, including the notes. My storyboards include:
* References - in case you're drawing something specific and there's a neat reference you had in mind.
* Speech bubbles - which, yes, are obvious, but it's VERY important that you plan these out religiously! You wouldn't believe how many times I had dialogues not fit into the finished speech bubbles. You also don't want them to look stuffed, so always make sure to leave a lot of space. Better plan these too big rather than too small, #sizematters.
* Also make sure to clearly identify your characters. Be it via the hairstyle, clothing, or any other trait; worst case, make some references if your drawings are getting too small. Believe me, there's nothing worse than mixing up characters later on where you're drawing the wrong character at the wrong position.
* Speaking of characters - at least hinting at their emotions or expressions is a big help. I like to do that by adding eyebrows, they mostly do the trick here.
* Backgrounds are kind of self-explanatory, just try to depict the background and the angle as unambiguously as possible. Again, worst case, you can just add notes if it's getting too small.
* Last but not least, do not forget directions. My signature move is the always, and I mean ALWAYS adding these crosshairs to faces just so that I know exactly where each character's looking. Also, in case you're still a beginner and still struggling with depicting dynamics, you can also add some arrows just so that future-you understands what you meant by these crude drawings. After all, a storyboard's a guide or instruction on how you're supposed to tackle all of this, so try to really drive the point home on how this whole scene works.
TL;DR - make your storyboard as foolproof as possible, so that even when you'll have to read it in a month or two, you'll still remember what you meant by this. Believe me… your future self's gonna be thankful….
I'm sorry guys, I actually wanted to end out this video out by making a storyboard TOGETHER WITH YOU by using the original script from my manga. But making this video took me half a month already. Animating a 20+ minute video's just way too much for me, and I'm kinda disappointed in myself for not being able to do it. Though, I don't even know if that'd be too boring… watching me.. Scribble a random storyboard. But if you actually want me to do this, I will make sure to finish animating that part once I.. Got some sleep. However, I did make another video with storyboard exercises at the beginning, that's my video on making and drawing fight scenes. And also, you can check out my manga if that's something you're interested in. Thanks for all the love, see ya next time.