The Secret Lair

Generally, the Overlords don’t condone the sharing of Secret Lair behind the scenes information with just anyone. They have a Secret image to uphold, and all that, you understand. However, I have been given special allowances on this fine day to divulge previously classified data with you, the fine readers of The Secret Lair. That’s right, today I get to share with you a behind the scenes look at what it takes to put together a TSL webcomic.

Down in the Archives of Unspeakable Knowledge, the Overlords and myself share access to the official TSL webcomic script. As we think up of, or in many cases, actually experience, witty and humorous situations¹ occurring around the lair, we record the details using the ink of a virgin cuttlefish into the  parchment of a thousand Antarctic wasp nests, where all TSL webcomic scripts have been written down since the beginning of time.²

After a single script has been created, work on illustrating the script doesn’t occur until a special committee of inter-dimensional consultants give the okay.³ We don’t ask how they know when the time is right time, we just accept it. They are paid professionals, after all.Working from the script, I first go about creating a rough sketch of the comic. Sometimes this happens on actual slaughtered trees, but most of the time it’s directly in Photoshop.⁴ I have a template that I work from to save time. Depending on the comic I may need to adjust the borders a bit. For the most part, the various templates I have work for just about all scripts.

After the sketch phase, I create a new layer to start drawing in the ink. I use a slanted brush with pen pressure dynamics turned on to allow for line weight variety when I draw.

Once the ink is down, I go over the image one more time with the ink brush and thicken up the outline of the characters, giving them more depth.

Now that the ink is finished, it’s time for color. To speed up the process, I go through and select like colored areas and fill them all in at the same time on a different layer. I go through this select and fill process until everything is filled in. I then go over the image one more time and touch up any spots that may have been missed.

At this point, I create yet another layer, set at something like 30% opacity, and with a black colored brush, I add some shadows. If the situation calls for extra depth, I may go in a do the same thing with a white brush to add highlights.

Finally, the text from the script is added. I spend a little bit of time moving each dialog around to make sure everything fits, checking for spelling errors, and just making sure the script is good to go. Once I’m satisfied with the text positions, I take my slanty black pen again and add dialog bubble outlines. Then these get filled with white. The “Spiffy Title” gets changed to the actual spiffy title and additional authors get added to the credits.

If everything looks good, I package up the comic and send it to the Overlords for scheduling.⁵ Then, at some point deemed appropriate by the Overlords, the comic gets posted.

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1. In retrospect, of course. [↩]
2. i.e. Google Docs. [↩]
3. i.e. Whenever I get around to it. And you thought we had schedules. Schedules are for the weak. [↩]
4. That’s right, The Secret Lair is a GREEN establishment. Even the bits we use are 100% recycled. [↩]
5. So, um, you know how I said earlier how schedules were for the weak? Well, that’s entirely true except when it comes to the Overlords. They, of course, have absolutely, positively, no weaknesses whatsoever. Oh, and sometimes we do have schedules. So, yeah, that other last statement was a lie. [↩]

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Tags: comic, drawing, howto, making, tutorial, webcomic

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 7:45 am and is filed under Comics, Featured Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.