Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs

Good morning!

Well I wanted to give you an idea of the progression of the comic – at least how I do it. Just in case anyone was interested. This is when I render the comic completely in digital format. So here we go!

Note: You can click any of the images for a larger version

Weekly Concept
Where is the comic going this week? Although the comic now follows a loose thread, each week or two is different in it’s specific theme. For instance – last week was about Rick racing and this week we have Milton discovering Rick is Super Stickman. Yesterday’s comic featured Milton toiling over whether he should tell Rick, wary of the possible consequences. Let’s look at yesterday’s comic starting with the concept for the week. “Discovering Super Stickman”

The genesis of mediocrity…

You can see I break down daily a general idea of the comic.

Daily Scripting
One of the things I get complimented on (okay the only thing) is the banter between Rick and Milton. With just blank squares and the general idea of the daily comic and weekly theme, I usually want to put Rick in a situation where there’s conflict. Either naturally based on the circumstances or where his personality is driving or forcing that conflict.

Using a spreadsheet, I stage the conversation of the strip each day.

This is just a few rows of a large spreadsheet where I keep about 50 comics on a tab. I use other tabs to work out the writing. For instance, the first row will have a crude conversation. The next row I will work on the flow or try to add some kick to the punchline. Each comic usually will have up to five variations. That’s just in the initial scripting process. During the sketching, inking and final edit it may change a few more times.

The Template
I use a vector-based application to layout the comic. I do this because it gives me the most flexibility with sizing and I never have to worry about resolution until the final JPG is created. Just a quick note on flexibility here: simply put, Vector images are loss-less in a sense that the lines are mathematical algorithms that don’t rely on pixels. If I wanted to make my comic the size of the Empire State Building, I could and it would retain it’s mediocrity entirely. It also keeps the file sizes down. It’s roughly one-fifth the size of a PSD file. I also don’t have to worry about accidentally flattening the image and re-editing is easy as pie. I immediately add the text for the script so I can get everything ready for sketching.

Just a basic four rectangle layout in a vector-based program like Adobe Illustrator

The next step is adding the script.

Sketching
It’s rare when I do the sketching digitally, but in this instance, I was experimenting and I started with wireframes. You can see the crude figure which allowed me to quickly render the body language that would hopefully help tell the story of how Milton was agonizing over his decision. Sometimes what you don’t say is as important as what you do say.

The basic wireframes give reference to the staging.

Inking is a work in progress. I may ink a single line a dozen times – sometimes at least twenty to get a stroke that doesn’t suck as much as the others.

As you can see, I don’t stick to the wireframes 100%. Once I’m satisfied with the way the inking has gone, I’ll fill in and color the characters.

Hahaha, you should see the HTML titles to these images.

The Background
In this instance I added the background after the fact. Occasionally, depending on the setting, I’ll do the background first. Most of the time I’ll incorporate the background as I’m inking. It gives me a good frame of reference to work with.

This is a basic background. Backgrounds are the things I experiment the most with.

The Bubbles
The last thing I draw are the bubbles. If you’ve followed Rick the Stick, you’ll know this is a recent addition to the comic. It used to be that only Winchester Havercamp (the caveman) would talk in word bubbles. It was a poor way to represent his British accent, but I’m working with the Silly Putty inside my dome and it only takes me so far folks!! Regardless, I’m still experimenting with them too.

The bubbles aren't perfect. Actually none of it is and I'm relying on that being sort of charming in a modest way as to not sound as anything else.

Masking
The final step before publishing the comic is masking the overflow from inking and backgrounds. I generally keep everything within the whiteboard I start with because it makes exporting to JPG easier. I set up a layer that are a duplicate of the frames and are on the second topmost layer. I mask each frame separately. That’s the last production piece of building the comic. I actually started adding little quips below the comic just for the heck of it. I am still toying with that as well.

Just tweaking the copy and making sure I didn't make any horrendous mistakes (not 100% foolproof) and I'm ready to upload the comic!

So there you have it. Yesterday’s strip is here. Let me know what you think – feel free to comment. If you have any suggestions or tips of your own, I’d love to hear them!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken