Halo 3 Webcomics

One of the most important things about making comics is creating good text balloons, and it seems that a lot of webcomics creators have trouble creating balloons that have properly sized flags and that leave enough room for their dialogue. This tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop to create balloons that will look sharp and clean and that won’t crowd out your text.

Start by creating your canvas. I filled mine with grey to make it easier to see what’s happening in each step. Then, add in your text because you’re going to need to build your dialogue balloon around it. (The dialogue I’m using here is from a recent Reclaimer comic.)

Create a new layer and put it under your text layer. Make this new layer your active layer. All our work from this point forward will be done here.

The first part of creating a text balloon is making the flag. This tutorial will describe how to make a curved flag, since these are more involved than making a simple, straight flag. Using your pen tool, click right next to your text to set an anchor point, and then click again at the point where you want the point of your flag to be. Without releasing this second point, drag your mouse to create the curve that you want.

You’ll see that your new point now how two tails coming out from it. Alt-click on the point of the tail furthest from your text and drag it around so that it lines up with the other tail. You can lengthen or shorten this tail as you see fit; I usually shorten it up quite a bit.

Both tails should now be pointing back in the rough direction of your text. With the pen tool, click next to your text again near your original anchor point. The goal for this third point is to set it close to the anchor without being either too close or too far away. You don’t want your flag to look too thin, but you don’t want it to look extremely fat, either. Once you’ve made several text balloons, you’ll start to get an idea for what looks good.

Now, again without releasing this point, drag your mouse to make a curve that roughly makes your first curve. Try not to make it too extreme in either direction since doing so can adversely affect the shape of your flag, especially near the point.

Again, you’ll have two tails for this point. Alt-Click the upper point and drag it down so that it’s pointing directly at your original anchor, shortening the tail as you do.

Click on the original anchor point to close the path.

Now select your Ellipse Tool (U), and make sure that ‘Paths’ and ‘Add to path area (+)’ are selected on your top options menu. Here you want to create an elliptical path around your text and overlapping the path you created for your flag. I usually start my ellipse just above and to the left of my text and drag down to just below and to the right of my text.

As you can see, there is some space between the ellipse path and the text, but even if there wasn’t, we’re about to make some adjustments to make everything just right.

Use your Direct Selection Tool (A) and click on the ellipse path. You’ll see a couple of boxes and tails appear on the path. Click on the top-middle box, then click on the right-hand tail and drag it upward, squaring the top-right corner just a little bit.

Repeat for the left-hand tail, then click on the bottom-middle box and repeat the process for the right- and left-hand tails. When you’re done, you should have an ellipse that is a bit more squashed-looking than your original round ellipse. This modified ellipse should leave plenty of room for your text so that your dialogue isn’t jammed right up against the edges of your balloon.

In your Paths window, you have three tabs – Layers, Channels, Paths. Click on the Paths tab, and you’ll see a box with text ‘Work Path’ next to it. Ctrl-click on the box, and your flag and ellipse paths will turn into the marching ants of an active selection.

If you haven’t done it already, hit ‘D’ on your keyboard to reset your color tool to the default (black in the foreground, white in the background). You can actually use any colors you want, but let’s use the default colors for now to create a white balloon with a 2-pixel black border.

Alt+Backspace will fill your selection with black. Your text isn’t visible at the moment, but we’re about to fix that.

From your navigation menus, go to Select—> Modify—> Contract, and type in ‘2’ and click ‘Ok’. You can make your border any size you like. I find that 2-pixel borders usually look the best.

You’ll noticed that the marching ants have pulled in by 2 pixels on all sides now.

Typing Ctrl-Backspace will fill your new selection with white. Ctrl-D will turn off your selection, revealing your new text balloon!

This is the method I’ve used for quite some time now to make all my balloons and text boxes, and I find that that it’s the most flexible for making my balloons fit my text every, single time. The edges are always crisp and clean, and my flags always have a nice, sharp point. You can use this method to make just about any shape balloon you want, especially if you don’t limit yourself to just using the Ellipse Tool. It’s a pretty easy method that gets easier the more you use it.