Then when I was almost done the strangely long guide (almost 700 words, which is surprising, considering the fact that the subject is…)

Okay, I’m done with backstory now. The point is: I erased the work I did to replace with an even better idea: Making a plan for your comic’s story. It’s actually pretty easy. Here’s the first step:

Open up some text-writing application, like Microsoft Word, or Notepad, or something like that. If you lack any of that (... how is that possible?) then don’t fret. Just grab a pencil and paper. If you lack the applications, or pencils and paper, or ANY writing skill, I suggest going to school before attempting something like this.

Anyway, start off with the thing that will allow you to identify it easily: The Title. Also be sure to save it as what you wrote in the title.

Example: if I’m writing the Drawl Origins plotline, I call it “Drawl Origins Plotline”. If you have more stories, repeat step. If you have too many, just put it all into one document and call it “SUPER-AWESOME COMIC PLOTLINES” or something along those lines… Or you can call it “HolyJunkie sucks”, because you can. In fact, I’ll probably give no dollars to whoever actually calls their “general plotline list” as “HolyJunkie sucks”, takes a screenshot of it, and then shows it on the forum.

Of course, it won’t achieve anything, but it’ll be fun… Okay, back off the irrelevance wagon.

Anyway, after the title, put in a Character list: Example:

DEAD:

• Jakob Meredith


• Usne Racot


• Colonel Harrison


• Frank


• Lars


• Jon


• Helen


• Rled Kajalee


• Philip Mason


• James Kordak


• Nurse


• Sate


• Advent


• Yoral


• Assorted survivors

The planet DEAD is based in is a pretty resource-rich planet. If the effort is put up, a single entity can survive on the planet. It’s not majorly covered in ocean, giving more land for sentient creatures to cultivate. All in all, a resource-rich planet that has yet to be discovered by either the Humans or Covenant. (This is a nutshell, by the way)

After that, you type out a list of the Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, all the way to “Final Chapter” or “Epilogue”. Once you do that, you start writing out a general chapter synopsis for each chapter.

Once you have the general idea, you can work on the details. In my case, I can’t really work on the details unless I actually get the characters on Halo 3 and position them. It’s then that I start getting the real details, mainly because I have the visual.

Again: Example via DEAD.

Prologue: N/A

Chapter 1: Jakob awakens after crash-landing from Anthroforge. Begins land-based exploration of new planet. Ambushed by Usne, saved by Frank and Lars. After a bout of schizophrenia, Jakob splits from the two and attempts to take on Usne. Due to underestimation, Jakob is downed easily. Usne was about to finish off Jakob when Colonel Harrison saves Jakob with a flamethrower. Harrison leads Jakob to Survivor Base Crete

Chapter 2: They arrive at Survivor Base Crete, a Forerunner facility that has been proven to be Usne-proof.  Whether it’s the fact that it’s high on a cliff and an island that I doubt anything, let alone Usne, would be able to reach, or some other happenstance, I actually don’t care that much. It just works, lol. Anyway, Harrison and Frank discuss Jon and Helen’s find. Harrison then takes Jakob to Nurse. Jakob and Nurse exchange background stories (takes a while). Harrison and Jakob then join Lars to fly to Helen and Jon’s position.

Chapter 3: They arrive at the “abandoned Covenant Arctic Base”. The only place that hasn’t been searched is an underground Forerunner facility below the base. The Crete Survivors don’t yet know about the Forerunners, considering they’re been out of the war for over six years. One year before the discovery of Halo (in the Haloverse.) Usne arrives, and wounds Harrison before retreating again. Jakob, unsure of how to get Harrison out of there on his own, is helped by the only survivor of the Arctic Base, who hid in the Forerunner Facility to avoid Usne. Said Elite is Rled.

I won’t get into any more details and stuff, but that’s the actual chapter synopsis I wrote for DEAD. I would show all of the others I have, but I don’t think I want to. Nyah nyah, lol.

Being able to write is a must. If you need help writing, just randomly type stuff… preferrably in a language people can understand. If you just randomly bash your hands on the keyboard, you’re not learning anything. You get actual technique if you do it right. That’s something Kung fu taught me.

Anyway, HJ signing off with his ever-so useless reports of How-to guides.
-HolyJunkie.

Nearly everywhere else people always inform you of the rule of three. This is the basic rule of screenshots, and photography in general. Divide the picture into three sections and there should be something along the lines or at an intersection.

Above you can see how this works. Get a basic idea of where to position your shots for a good one.

Another thing to do is to get onto the same level as your subject. Don’t be looking all up and down, it skews it a bit too much. Of course if you need a birds eye view then that is where this doesn’t really matter as you don’t notice.

Now compare the next two images…

The first has a lot of dead space. No matter what may be going on in the background it’s essentially dead. The second shows it off differently; in facing into the shot people follow the eye line of subjects and scan across the image.

Now tips for comics.

Here is a comparison of the size of two pictures of mine.

I crop my pictures to be 340×317 pixels. This allows a nice gap of 5 from the side edges and the top, and a gap of 10 from any other picture. I do change it for longer shots by combining and whatnot but that’s beside the point. The problem with doing this is that if you fill the original shot with your subjects, you invariably cut off some of them. Unless however you want to fully resize the image but you end up with them all squashed up. What I tend to do is leave dead space to one side, or centralise as much as possible.

That’s all for now folks. Use those basics as a platform to jump off and develop your own styles. Remember to also leave room for speech otherwise it ends up cramped.

Next time I’ll give up a chunk about effects in game. Enjoy and have fun snapping.

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.