Learn the art of comic book lettering—designing word balloons, dialogue, sound effects, and more—with Adobe Illustrator.
Overview
Syllabus
Introduction
- Welcome
- What you should know before watching this course
- Using the exercise files
- The main goal: Storytelling
- A brief history of lettering in comic books
- Tools and prerequisites
- Getting ready to letter
- Arranging a line of dialogue
- Typographic traditions
- Drawing a basic balloon
- Drawing a tail
- Joining tails and balloons with the Pathfinder panel
- Joining tails and balloons with the layer method
- Butting and masking balloons
- Working in lowercase
- Emphasizing words with typography tools
- Emphasizing words in a sound effect style
- Creating a jagged burst balloon
- Creating a double-outline burst balloon
- Fitting into tight spots
- Thought balloons
- Whisper balloons
- Weak or "deflated" balloons
- Electric and radio balloons
- Special voices
- Voiceover captions
- Narrative captions
- Creating a basic sound effect
- Enhancing sounds with the Free Distort effect
- Adding outline stroke effects
- Creating a large, hollow sound effect
- Creating a sound effect palette
- Designing a title, credits, and a tagline
- Creating signage
- Adding color
- Looking back over the page
- Rhythm and consistency
- Creating PDF proofs
- Overprinting and using rich blacks
- Generating output files
- Basic compositing in InDesign
- Charging for your services
- Being professional
- Conclusion
Taught by
John Roshell
