Other Things to Keep in Mind: Graphic Novels

I didn’t realize how much I learned from Sharee Miller’s workshop “From Picture Books to Graphic Novels” at the NJ SCBWI Conference until I went through my notes. At the end of her workshop, she had a bunch of tips to keep in mind when you are creating graphic novels:

Don’t crowd the page. Text needs room to breath.

Choose what is most important and give that the bigger space.

Don’t crowd your panels.

Word bubbles need to be horizontal.

Draw the art on a different layer AND make sure you are drawing it behind the word bubble. (That way you can move around the word bubble if you need to.)

Leave room for the words in you panels.

Create a cheat sheet or files of repeated elements. things like: Posters, T-shirt graphics, clothing patterns, accessories, Designs. Remember that readers only look at the image for 3 seconds. Most will not take the time to see if you repeated a background element in more than one place.

Use Reference!

Create a color palette for you and any colorist/flatter

Explore your character. Experiment. Draw them everywhere doing all sorts of things.

And the 180 Degree Rule. Check out the next Blog post for more on that!