How to Draw Comics

It can be difficult to know what to make when staring at the empty white void of a blank page. Where do you start? What tools do you use? It doesn't have to be difficult.

Follow along as we guide you through the creation process of some vintage inspired artwork made using our FREE Steal This Brush Pack available for Procreate, Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Affinity.

In this tutorial, we're going over creating stunning retro artwork including:

• A full detailed breakdown of the sketching process
• Inking your artwork.
• Coloring your artwork and adding texture effects.
• So much more!

You'll be able to follow along and make something fun and authentically retro.

So, let's get into it!

Watch Our tutorial Video

Drawing Comics? Click Here to Download Your Copy of Steal This Brush Pack FREE

Brush Overview

The Steal This Brush Pack includes everything you need to make an illustration.

Before we get into the exciting part, let's break down the brushes that are included in the pack. It only makes sense to know what you're working with. Take the time to play around with them and reference their intended purpose so you'll be ready to go when it's time to get creating.

• Standard Pencil #1: A workhorse sketching pencil perfect for ideation, thumbnails, and sketching.
• Ramen Brush: Your go to inking brush. Responsive, flexible, and versatile.
• Jumbo Marker: Great for covering large areas of color while maintaining a hand drawn feel.
• Dry Brush: Recreate dry brush effects used in mid-century art or to give your work a bit of grit.
• Carbon Tab: A unique brush mimicking pencil or charcoal textures perfect for shading.
• Halftone 30%: A hallmark of vintage print techniques. Hard to recreate certain styles without it!
• Ink Spray: For recreating print effects. Simulate ink spurting under the pressure of the press.
• Ink Destroyer: For wearing away parts of your artwork to give it that lived in, real life feel.

That's a whole lot of brushes! Thankfully, you have plenty of time to get acquainted with them. When you feel you have a handle of what each brush does, you can crack open your drawing software of choice and move on to the next step.

01. Brainstorm

Use mind maps and word association to help generate ideas.

Now that we have the tools we'll be using taken care of, where do we start first? There are many different brainstorming techniques to get the creative juices flowing. Here's one used in our video tutorial.

1. Start with a word, any word. In the video we used steal inspired by the name of the pack.
2. Free associate words that are similar or that make you think of your original word. For us that was steal > money > evil > devil > fire. There are no right or wrong answers. Keep going until you find something that inspires you.

If you're still having trouble, take to the internet or anywhere you can find references. You can use websites like Pinterest or Instagram to help inspire you. It's okay if your ideas aren't unique because we're just using this as a starting off point. You can expand or adjust in the later steps.

02. Reference

Use references to help inform your original artwork.

One of the greatest art myths out there is that great artists don't use references. That's simply not true! The greatest artists of all time used live references or photographs to help them make their work, so don't shy away from this powerful tool!

Once you have your idea, start looking for anything useful. Poses, source material from the era, clothing, you name it. Put it all into one file so you can look at it all at once. If you're worried about your references having too much influence on your work, you can always put it away while you're drawing and bring it up again if you have a question about how something should look.

03. Paper Texture and Canvas Settings

Paper textures help make your artwork look more realistic.

If you're going to be making retro artwork then one of your first steps needs to be incorporating a paper texture. Not only is it going to make your work look more realistic, but it's been scientifically proven to eliminate Blank Page Syndrome. Okay, maybe we made that last part up.

The main point is that the artwork we're trying to emulate was originally printed on to paper or other physical media, so this is your first step to making your work look authentic.

After you've added your paper texture, take the time to make any adjustments to your canvas. Different applications have recommended document sizes. Knowing what these ratios are will save you from headaches down the line including compression which will make your artwork look like a pixelated mess.

If you want to be able to use your artwork for multiple different purposes, start with the largest size then duplicate and resample.

💡Top Tip: If you are using halftones in your artwork, be careful when resizing. You may need to redo this part of your artwork to avoid unsightly optical effects.

04. Thumbnails

Make thumbnails to test out different ideas.

The ideation phase is where you outline all the possible ways of drawing your idea. Try out different composition options, paying attention to balance, mood, and other ways of depicting the same subject. Often, the first few ideas we have are a mix of cliches, easy choices, and other less than stellar options. Making multiple different versions gets those stale ideas out of our heads and clears the way for something more exciting.

The total amount of thumbnails you make isn't a set number. You could make 5 or 500 before arriving at something you like. Sometimes it's down to a matter of time, such as deadlines with a client, other times you'll find something you really love after busting out a good chunk of thumbnails. You don't have to exhaust yourself, but don't stop yourself short either.

05. Rough Sketch

Create a rough sketch to hash out composition and other basics.

Once you've settled on an idea it's time to create a rough sketch the full size of your document. This is the time to lock in proportions, compostion, and other basics. You'll also have time to do more experimentation in this phase, so if new ideas come into your head, test them out!

Once you feel everything is where it should be, you can move on to refining your sketch into something more solid.

06.Clean Sketch

Rewark your rough sketch to establish details like lighting before inking.

With your idea firm in your mind, it's time to give your sketch some structure. Many artists just jump from their rough sketch straight into inking, and this may be your preferred method of working. However, you might find working this way saps all the life out of your ink or gives you wonky results. Refining your work with a clean sketch takes the mystery out of things and makes your process more intentional.

Cleaning up your sketch also gives you time to establish a light source, planning out your highlights and shadows. Don't leave this to the last minute or your inking will suffer.

07. Inks

Use the Ramen Brush to ink your work, focusing on line weight and lighting.

If you're still getting comfortable with inking your work, check out our tutorial all about digital inking. It can be intimidating for beginners, but it's not as scary as it seems.

The first step to setting yourself up for success is choosing the right brush. We love the Ramen Brush for its versatility and subtle texture. It perfectly emulates inking with a well loved round brush in real life.

If your hand is unsteady or you just like reliable lines without all the hassle, turn up your stabilization settings (this will be called something different depending on your software.) It's not cheating to use a tool that you're meant to use, so feel free to ramp it up as much as you need. Just be careful not to put it too high or you'll take all the character out of your work and it will be hard to work with; defeating the purpose of having it in the first place.

08. Halftones

Halftones give your work an authentic vintage look.

Halftones are a halmark of specific printing processes that were used heavily during the mid-century. If you're looking to recreate certain styles of art made during that era then they are indispensable. You don't have to be limited to just retro styles of artwork, though, these brushes are great for adding texture and shading to any work.

Use halftones to change up the value in key parts of artwork, to establish shadows, or even just to introduce some texture.

Something to consider when using halftones, avoid making them too small. Real halftones were ideally made as small as possible so that the viewer would just see a solid block of color. This was because the process for making different colors or greyscale was difficult and expensive. Halftones were essentially made to fake variations in tone. We don't have that problem in the 21st century.

Nowadays if you make your halftones too small you'll end up with an ugly mess. Not what you want! It's better in this case to be inauthentic so that your artwork is visually pleasing while still maintaining that retro flair.

09. Coloring

Color helps bring your illustrations to life.

Now to bring some life into our illustration with color!

First, start with a color palette. It's best to get that planned out first so you're not having to recolor later. Not quite comfortable choosing a palette just yet? Check out our tutorial about color theory.

There are as many ways to color are there are colors, so how you choose to go about it is up to you. Here is an option that work for us.

• Fill each area of your artwork with a solid color.
• Add highlights using a new layer set to a clipping mask and the blend mode set to Overlay or Screen. Use a pale-yellow color to create a subtle rim-light.
• Add shadows using a new layer set to a clipping mask and the blend mode set to Multiply. Use a cool blue or purple wherever needed, lowering the layer's opacity until it feels natural.

How you approach lighting and other effects will depend on the style of art you're recreating. Commercial work didn't contain a lot of detail typically. Go back to your reference if you need help making decisions.

10. Print Defects and Misalignments

Print Defects and other quirks of vintage printing techniques give your work authenticity.

Print is a physical media subject to mistakes and the natural wear and tear of existing in the real world. We can recreate these effects digitally using a few easy techniques.

• Ink splatter: find high concentrations of color and place a few subtle stamps moving away from the artwork. This simulates ink spurting out when the print plate hit the paper.
• Ink wear: chooses the darkest colors and places where the artwork might experience the greatest amount of stress (e.g. from folds or handling) and slowly remove the color. Start small and subtle and build your way up for a more natural feel.
• Misalignment: old school printing required colors to be printed one at a time. This introduced the possibility for misalignment. Simulate this effect by grabbing one or two layers and nudging them out of place.

Incorporating these effects will help place your artwork in a specific time and place in the mind of the viewer lending it realism. The most important consideration is subtlety. Don't throw everything at your artwork without considering the why of it being there. For example, not all retro artwork needs to be misalgined to make it believable. Go back to your references to see what original versions of this artwork looked like, and model your decisions after that.

Drawing Comics? Click Here to Download Your Copy of Steal This Brush Pack FREE

Final Thoughts

It may be tempting to think that your next great masterpiece is locked behind some special brush or texture, but you can accomplish a lot with just a few smart choices.

Steal This Brush Pack was designed to have everything you need to make authentic vintage artwork just like the real deal or like your favorite contemporary artsits are making.

To recap, we guided you through our process of creating a vintage-inspired illustration by:

• Thumbnail sketching and gathering resources.
• Creating a final rough and clean sketch.
• Inking and coloring.
• Adding print defects and misalignment.

Hopefully, you'll be inspired to give it a go yourself. You can share what you make by tagging us on Instagram. We might even share what you created!

Dig Deeper into Vintage Art Techniques