The thumbnails that you won't find on your hands.

Once I have the outline of my story laid out the rest of the process becomes more streamlined, allowing me to push ahead with production in a way that would not be possible if it were not for an efficient method. (as a side note I should mention that, when I say 'efficient,' I mean that my efforts are more focused on a goal so that the time I spend is better spent. I do not mean that I make progress quickly. I work very slowly.) After the outline the next stage of this process is thumbnailing. I find that thinking, for an artist, is often a visual process that will not adequately develop without visual aids. That's what thumbnails are. Just like the outline needs to develop on paper to help me retain my thoughts, each scene needs to be composed with simple thumbnails (often the same scene several times) in order to allow the composition to evolve to its highest form. I you have ever played Fl0w then think of it like that. Each thumbnail composition gets devoured by a larger more evolved form until the final result is a large self-confident beast, highly evolved and attractive to the females.

I usually start by breaking up the page into the moments that need to happen in that space. I then try several different visual arrangements of panels until I find one that I think is dynamic or visually stimulating in some way. From there I start working with the images that will occupy each of those panels. Thumbnails help me keep track of how all those images will look when placed next to one another. Professor David Tammany used to tell me in 2D Design that no one could know what two colors would look like together until they were placed next to each other. I believe the same is true of comic panels. You might think you know how a composition of space marines seen through an alien telescope from another planet will look when placed aside a dogfight in an asteroid field, but you don't. You will miss something if you just try and put it together in your head. You need to plan more carefully than that. I want the panels to vary from one another to create diversity of viewpoints, subject matter etc. while still retaining the compositional value of the page as a whole so that the panels work together. You see, the panels need to have contrast and diversity, and yet still be unified.

It's the oneness of duality.

Once the page layout is thumb-nailed I work on different compositional arrangements for each of the panels, again, still bearing in mind the layout. Thumbnails are not about detail, but form. The lines should be loose and electric, defining forms with quick strokes. I hold the pen further back than I usually would when I thumbnail because it forces me to surrender some control and in exchange I get more energy out of my lines. It keeps the focus of the thumbnail on composition, focal point, and motion. That energy is what ought to carry you into the pencil sketches that will be used in the final composition.

The first thumbnails I do are usually just establishing work. I'm working out what is going to be included in a scene and how I'm going to present it. The second round is often just to come up with alternate arrangements of form and to experiment with ways to make the scene look more dynamic. Some quick perspective work is helpful as well to establish how I want to incorporate the view point into the final sketch. This is also the time that I set aside to work on poses, design, and expression. If one of my marines is using a piece of alien technology then now is the time to do some concept sketches for what that piece of technology will look like. The design that goes into any object that appears on the page is crucial to having a believable world. It is so crucial in fact that I will break off abruptly here in order to devote the next whole post to the process involved in the design of unreal elements in art. Look forward to it!

That's an order Space Cadet.