My first attempt at lettering. Suggestions/Critiques would be awesome.

[Jeff LeBlanc]

Check out this recent post by Nate ... http://www.digitalwebbing.com/forums...d.php?t=161779

[Jeff LeBlanc]

Also, Jim's Illustrator lettering tutorials over on his site: http://clintflickerlettering.blogspot.ca/

For now, work on the shape of your text blocks. Right now, they all look like square pegs in round holes. Your text blocks need to be much rounder.

Also, try not to make such wide, narrow text blocks.

[spectre216]

Okay i'm sure you're all getting pretty sick of me at this point (hell i'm starting to get sick of me lol). I tried to follow both the tutorials (as much as I could with inkscape) to give my text more space and the advice to make them less wide and narrow.

[JimCampbell]

You need to pay much more attention to the shape of the blocks of text. I turn every line by hand, meaning that there's a manually inserted return at the end of every line. Just for this panel, I tried three arrangements of the second balloon before I was happy with the way that the text balanced:



Edit to add: Also, your text is too small. Put your sample on a page that's actual size for a US comic and print it out.

[Jeff LeBlanc]

Text block shapes are getting better, but still not quite there yet. Really try give a consistent, rounded shape to the text blocks and don't let this happen:

LONG LINE OF TEXT
A BIT SHORT
LONGER LINE AGAIN
SHORT AGAIN
LONG LONGER LONGEST

INSTEAD,
LET THE LINES GET
GRADUALLY LONGER IN
THE MIDDLE AND GIVE YOUR
TEXT A SHAPE THAT WILL
FIT COMFORTABLY IN
A BALLOON.

I admit it's hard to keep oval shapes when you have a long-assed word like FISTANDANTILUS at the beginning or end of a text block. Hyphenating an unfamiliar word is not ideal, but might sometimes be necessary.

In the first panel, it now looks like dude on the left speaks first. The problem is exaggerated by letting the two speakers' balloons be separated by a long staff.

Several balloons are still pinching too closely at the text blocks. Give some breathing room.

You still need to do more careful proofreading: see "camehere" in panel one.

When you've only got two or three words in text block, don't be afraid to stack them:

WE
KNOW
THAT!

YOUR
SON...

[lordmagnusen]

I think we can all agree that this page is hardly a good start. It's designed to be hell!

[spectre216]

Ok, I decided a to try a different page, as I think it will help more to try different pages than keep tweaking the same page over and over again. I really thought this one would be easier, but everywhere there's a lot of space there's not a lot of talking and then when there's less space there's a boat load of it, so i think I may have been wrong.

I tried to round the text more and give it more breathing space. I also increased the font size.

[adityab]

I think this one is much better than the other page. The balloons look more organic, and the stacking is definitely better.

A few quick notes:

The space you leave between the text and balloon edges is inconsistent - but I feel that generally gets better with practice. Your caption borders are a bit too close to the text, especially in the first box.

Stacking: you could still stack 'start what?' into two lines, if you moved it to the left, so you don't have to move the next balloon down.

You've used the crossbar I to start a couple of sentences. Opinion is divided on whether this is okay, but I felt I'd let you know that some people think it's a bit off. And you've missed a crossbar I in the third panel (why am I starting something), and missed a period in the same panel. Proofreading is very important.

But the biggest problem I can see is the reading order in panels 3, 4 and 5. We're supposed to read the guy's lines in panel 4 right after panel 3, but the balloons in panel 3 draw the eye to panel 5 ('But you've let ME down.'), especially because that balloon cuts through the top of the panel 5 border.

I'll do a version of those panels tomorrow (busy right now), but in the meantime, what I'd do here is:

Move 'Start what?' into panel 2, move the next balloon up, move the one after that ('We've been over this') to the left, link it with the balloons of panel 4, which I'd move a little towards the right. And since we have three balloons here, you can create a trail that leads to panel 4. Finally, if it seems necessary after this, I'd move the panel 5 balloon ('But you've let me down') to below the woman's face and to the left, into panel 6, while keeping the tail to the woman in panel 5.

Now I don't have the page in Illustrator in front of me, so I'm not COMPLETELY sure this'd work, but I'll give it a go tomorrow.

PS: This is something I used to mess up a LOT when I started - you need to keep all the text within the 'live area', which - if not specified, and in a page without bleeds - would be at least a centimetre away from the edges of the page. Always draw guides.

[Inkspot]

First, I have to say that I really like these lettering activities. They do a lot to show how people approach the pages set in front of them, and what different aesthetics can be achieved.

I don't have much to add on the D&D page, but your progress is obvious from the first pass to this new one, even if there are still some issues. I have to agree with lordmagnusen that this page is not easy. I doubt it's intentional, but it's good to start with something this difficult. If you can manage this, pages that don't have such bizarre demands will be a snap.

The most major issues on this new page are flow and font size. With a bigger font, you have to put balloons where they will fit, even if it covers up art. Even if it covers up art in other panels. When it does that, you inadvertantly lead readers to art they aren't meant to see yet. Something else to watch out for, that I flub myself, a lot, is the border of the page. If you have dialogue butted up against the margin, you risk losing chunks of it when pages are printed and trimmed. I had to learn that the hard way on a (very) small print-run I did of a mini-comic I wrote and lettered. Now I try to make it a top priority to keep things more confined to bleed space.

Overall, in the few days I've been following this thread, you've already shown that you take comments and critiques to heart, from pros and amateurs alike, and implement them immediately. Eagerness to learn and improve is a wholly admirable trait.

[adityab]

Here's my attempt at this page, I decided to do the first 2 panels too - I realised that the font you're using is basically too large, which was part of the problem. Secondly, this page is a real bitch. I'm amazed you tried it out on your second attempt.

[JimCampbell]

Aha. I knew I'd had a bash at this page, just not for this forum! I hope chillipenguin (who posts here) will forgive me posting my crit of his efforts from two years ago on the 2000AD forum, but I think some of this is still relevant…

[chilipenguin]

Not at all Jim. Been a long time since I've looked at that page. All I can say to the OP is that after a while, things start to click and you'll just instinctively avoid making these kinds of mistakes. Page flow is key.

[Sean Rutan]

Yeah, the changed that Jim made in the last panel were of great benefit to the flow of the story.

That said, improvement is already evident in the last panel that you did. Your balloons and font were already drastically better. Once you master the flow of the story, you'll be well on your way.

[Scribbly]

I am amazed on how many variations the lettering for these pages can have.

[spectre216]

Ok, here is my latest stab at my arch-nemesis, the D&D page. This'll probably be the last attempt at it (at least for a while). I enlarged the font size and tried to round my text blocks better.