Does anyone know any good text bubble tips?

Zombiehobo · Post by **Zombiehobo** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:27 pm

I draw mine by hand or on paint so does anyone know tips or good programs that can help me?

Black Sparrow · Post by **Black Sparrow** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:34 pm

Try this thread.

It relates to Photoshop though, so my first advice would be to get a copy of Photoshop or GIMP.

Hope it helps.

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:43 pm

or you can be experimental and make a comic with no words.

just imagine the demographics you could reach!

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:52 am

Photoshop works for me. The Lasso tool and polygon tools make it all work easy. It's just remembering to draw the picture with space for the words.

Castle_Builder · Post by **Castle_Builder** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:14 pm

HAND DONE

If you do it by hand make sure you are using a pen thick enough and dark enough and that gives a crisp enough line that it can be scanned without becoming fuzzy. As I've mentione before I am a fan of the double tipped sharpie pens, but also a Micron 5 or 8 would work well.

Before you start writting, I would use a ruler and draw SOFT pencil lines where you want to write. This helps to maintain a straight line but it ALSO helps keep the height of the writting at least close to consistent.

For the bubbles I would use something like what is shown here:
http://www.reuels.com/reuels/page428.html

These are drafting "rulers" and the curved ones are really helpful for doing word balloons by hand. Sure you could freehand it, but this just looks better in my opinion. Makes it more crisp.

COMPUTER DONE

I would agree that you should use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator for this. There are a number of tutorials out there for these programs.

An easy one is here:
http://evilbeaver.homestead.com/HowTo2.html

Personally I only have some half ass PS edition that does NOT have the GODDAMN tools I need to do it right, so if you look at my comic I do it kind of weird.

I use the circular dotted line slecetor tool thing to select an area on a clear layer sheet between the words and the art. I fill it with black. Then I do it again but smaller and place it within the black cicrle and fill that one with white. This creates the circle. I then delete/erase anything that falls outside the panel. And for the finishing touch I use the "moon" shape and stretch it for the little arrow pointing to the character.

My approach is a waste of time in my opinion, but the result seems to work and until I can get a full program I am limited in what I can do.

What I would not do is use MSPaint. And since my loathing for "the paint" is well documented I will stop there.

ALSO IF you do it digitally you should check out:
http://www.blambot.com

Go the Font section and look at the free fonts. They are bloody awsome. I don't praise many things but Blambot has made me their biznich dur to their seriously awsome product, and the fact they allow people to use some of their fonts for free still boggles my mind. Seriously good times.

Hope some of that helped . . .

Zombiehobo · Post by **Zombiehobo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:08 pm

Thanks for all the help.

Anvil · Post by **Anvil** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 12:29 pm

On a slightly similar note, would people reccomend text put in first, then pictures, or vice versa?

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 12:51 pm

I generally lay out where I want the characters on the page.
Then I write in where I want the text to be to make sure there's room.
I draw the characters and backgrounds, usually obliterating the text.
Scan, stitch, resize digitally.
Add digital text.
Add word balloons around the text.
Fix the word balloons as needed.

ChaosBurnFlame · Post by **ChaosBurnFlame** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:44 am

Illustrator... Circle tool, white fill, black outline.... 2 pt thickness... create to fit text...

Pentool, make tail, Pathfinder tool to combine shapes into one shape...

Make speech bubbles on demand.

Wendellpdipmier · Post by **Wendellpdipmier** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:56 pm

ALSO IF you do it digitally you should check out:
http://www.blambot.com

I use all of Blambots fonts in my comic book WANTED:HERO. I would sign up for the newsletter as well--they let you know when they have new free fonts, and direct links to get them.

Steve Hogan · Post by **Steve Hogan** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:50 am

I do mine in Flash by creating an appropriate sized oval on the layer below the text, pulling up the corners with the arrow tool to create a more space efficient (And traditional) shape, and then adding a tail with the line tool. (Using the arrow tool to ad a curve.) Fave font: witzworx.

Traditional handmade methods definitely have their virtues though.