How can i make thought balloons ?

[Static]

I was wondering if anyone has any tips on making thought balloons illstrator 10.

[Comics Commando]

Merge a bunch of round shapes together.

Kurt Hathaway
Cartoon Balloons Studios
Lettering / Logos / Fonts

[Static]

thanks CC I'll try that.

[Clem Robins]

Try first running your balloon through the "roughen" filter, leaving its size setting at zero. This will produce a series of nodes around the outline of your eliptical balloon.

Then run the balloon through the "pucker and bloat" filter.

You can automate this procedure, but you'll need to watch over it for different size thought balloons; the same settings will not work for a big thought balloon as they will for a small one.

Using a series of small circles, united, will make a less mechanically perfect thought balloon, which is nice, but it takes quite a bit longer.

I do almost anything to defeat the sterile perfection of computer lettering, but I have never found using filters to make thought balloons terribly offensive. I'm sure glad that thought balloons are seldom used anymore, at least for the books I've got.

[eDuke]

Thought balloons are making a comeback. The last couple of books I lettered had 'em. Gah!

[blue_kang]

When I make thought balloons I just use the pen tool and place the dots in a circle (the final point is clicking again on the first point, thus closing the circle). Then I use Filter->Distort->Pucker & Bloat.

After that I draw ellipses for the dots leading to the character's head.

I tried using captions instead of thought bubbles in a six-page back-up story. The captions for the superhero's thoughts were a different color and had the character's emblem in it to set it apart from the regular captions. It was an experiment for me, but I'm going back to thought bubbles.

If you look in the newspaper comics, thought bubbles are still the standard. I'm trying to keep my comic "user friendly" to readers who might not be up on the current conventions. I know, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the caption-style of scripting the character's thoughts. I'm just still a fan of thought bubbles.

-Riel