Crafting a Visual Story: The Basics
By Liz Glein, Illustrator
I’ve worked as a freelance comic artist and have storyboarded for shows such as Amazon Prime’s Danger & Eggs for almost 10 years and, in that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a wide range of incredible artists. Collaborating with other artists and adapting to idiosyncrasies with their processes and craft is an important experience. It helps refine your process with your own work!
Here is how I approach storytelling in my work and some basics that are good to know when tackling visual storytelling when working with a writer or script:
Ask, clarify, and brainstorm
Take time reading the entire script. Highlight anything that stands out or confuses you. It’s encouraged and welcomed to ask questions and check in with script writers and collaborators to ensure you are all on the same page before getting into the task of brainstorming a scene visually. This clarification check can make or break the project and avoid potentially having to redo days of work. Take your time in the beginning stages. Using sticky notes, create quick thumbnails and bounce ideas off of collaborators before moving to the next step. It’s easier to redo a thumbnail than it is to redo a finished scene—it helps avoid burnout and can save time.
Embrace the process—and the mess
Thumbnails. The word “thumbnail” alludes to the small size of an image or picture. In my profession a thumbnail is a small quick-sketch representation of a larger image, usually intended to make it easier and faster to look at or manage a group of larger images.
Creating thumbnail sketches enables me to get any and all ideas that pop into my head quickly onto paper, my tablet, or whatever medium I’m using at the time—it’s very much like taking notes! It’s usually pretty messy and can be hard to interpret for anyone other than the artist. It’s a great way to start figuring out what direction you’d like to go in, what looks most visually appealing, and what fits best within the parameters of your project. Not everyone enjoys this part of the process, but getting accustomed to creating and using thumbnail sketches is one of the most helpful and useful skills to learn in crafting your visual story.
Refine and finalize
Once you’ve settled on your direction and thumbnails, it’s time to put in the work to make those small sketches into refined pieces for anyone to view. This is where your technical skills and personal flare shine. For me this is the fun part—getting to see how it all translates visually. You especially know it’s working if you can get a good sense of what’s going on without any text or voice-over.
If I feel stuck, there’s a storyboard exercise I learned that helps. You take a step away from your notes, put on your favorite movie or episode from a series, and sit down with a sketchbook. Start sketching thumbnails of how the scenes look and how they’re visually set up. Take a good look once you’re done. Now study how someone else approached a scene—it will help the creative gears get back into motion!