How dose it all go?

[Violet]

Amelius...I looked through pritty much everything here but I noticed we really don't have a consept of the process you go though to make a charby comic...I've always wonderd what you do to get to the wonderful end result that is a new page to out beloved CTV so I was wondering could you tell us how it gets from a thought to an actual comic page...you don't really need to go into alot of detail ...just give us a general idea of the steps, or somethin' to that effect ( I don't know I just have always been curious about that)

[Momo]

I heard somewhere that Amelius has done this kind of thing before, but I can't find it either. So... I second Violet's request.

[Amelius]

Why sure, I dunno if I've ever done a real description, if so it may have gotten lost long ago in the old forum or the notes from the old site. I'll try my best to make sure this isn't confusing ^_^ (I will type more than you bargained for, I warn ya!)

To do a page, I start with an idea...I may have had this written out months ago, or it is a joke I just made up recently. Heck, a lot of times it is something inspired by real life around me, or even music. Sometimes places give me inspiration too.
CTV as a whole, is completely thought out in my head, sometimes I do quick notes just in case but a lot of it is based on going things over and over in my mind. I know what I want to do with the comic in future times, but I like to leave flexibility so nothing is firmly absolute yet.
When I get an idea though, I like to think of what it will effect in the storyline or if it will do anything at all. Even in random comics I like to leave something in that will effect them later. It's like one of those moments when a friend does something silly and you think of it again later. It may not have been profound, but it was a part of your life experience that makes your reality what it is. So, even when something seems random (say like a comic about mood rings) I'll adress it much later ( like with mood shirts). Sometimes I tend to subtly mislead and confuse the reader with stange things too, and often people catch it and think it's a continuity/logic error, and I have to get around it without seeming like I'm making things up.
Just adressing the comic in question would raise suspicion ^_^

So here it is for an individual page, my "checklist"

What is the purpose?
How will it effect person X or whomever else?
Does it explain something previously unrevealed?
Does it raise any questions?
What is the character's goal?
How many are involved?
What is the joke, and punchline?
Will this spoil anything?
Should I hide "clues", or mislead the reader to shift suspicions?(not to be mean, just sneaky!)
Does this accomplish anything profound, or is it filler?

But let's face it. I'm not always that organized. A lot of times I'll just think of a joke, and I'll insert character developlemt into the mix. Sometimes it's the opposite, I need to show a character development, but I need a joke or purpose for it. But I'll have NO idea how I'm going to lay it out, and I haven't even thought of a punchline, or way to close it! Often times, I have no idea what I'm going to do!
So this is how I do it. I sit down with my pencil and paper, and draw the first panel. Depending on who I end up drawing (or as story dictates, have to draw) I make it up as I go along. Yes, it comes out that randomly sometimes! By the time I get the basic idea out, it's downhill from there. Often times I don't even have the punchline until halfway through the comic! This is not always the case though, there has been times where I had a punchline thought out and halfway through I thought of a better one. I love when that happens!
So I get a basic, vague idea, draw to get creativity/imagination flowing, and it just balloons from there.

My story arc writing process can actually sometimes be compared to a tween (as in "between")animator/animator relationship. In animation, you have the main points (let's say, a person frowning) the first animator draws points A:man with nuetral expression, B: Man with slight downward tilt in expression, C: full out frown. 'Tweeners draw points in between those, so the transition is more fluid.
Instead of choppy blinks of 3 different expressions, you can watch the whole movement of the face. A lot of CTV is the tweens working with the main points.
For example, the comic where Charby counts seeds on the porch, it accomplishes character development, sets a trend or gag we will see later in the comic, but won't necessarrily harm the comic if it didn't exist. Of course it helps to know that Charby is OCD with counting things and he also knows how to get around things, so I used the simple joke to carry this info out.

I'll use one of the current pirate days pages for an example now. The original one left a bit to be desired for me, so I revised it a bit. I felt the fight with Captain was too short, too hokey, so I added a bit to it. Yes, Robert fights for his life instead of just dying like a punk. Charby starts to feel weak at the end of the fight. This is the bare bones of the script.
But for the page, I had a few options for what I was going to do...I could have ended it, but I decided that would be too sudden (may be last page tomorrow)
I cannot give away the end, but the start went several ways (I even sketched 3 different pages)
Idea one: Cuts to Charby checking himself out in the mirror, Robert is dead and Charby is sitting in a pile of glass shards that he has already counted out, narration accompanies, he feels weak, after a bit of inner turmoil Charby hooks into Capn's guts and feasts on the blood, comic ends with..well, it is seecret for now ^_^
Idea 2: After extracting Rob's eyeballs, Charby immediately slumps weakly, nearly falls off the shoulders and in an attempt to right himself swings a hook-weilding hand upward, sticking it straight into Captain's neck. (I could NOT get this to look right!) resulting in gush of blood from jugular veins, Charby sees it, snaps, and rips violently into his neck.
Idea 3: the page I ended up with ^_^ all I did was keep the weak slumping and instead have him drop off his shoulders to whine melodramarically. Originally though, Captain fell, but where Charby's legs are would have made for an awkward landing for both. I changed Cap's crawling away to still walking upright but flailing blindly about, trying to asess his surroundings. Even though I went over the dialogue in my head as I drew it, I still made heavy edits/revisions to the text, and I was going to have Robert cussing Charby out but decided against it since I only use cartoony"#$%&" swear-words and I'm told that looks goofy (meh, so what, I just don't swear, so I won't type it either)

When I think of an idea it pretty much plays out like a cartoon or movie in my head, I see the expressions, hear the voices, etc, and my mind let's what I know of the characters dictate their actions. I know, it sounds totally spontaneaous, but that's how it works ^_^ This is the dreaming sort of idea though, if I'm not stuck scribbling desperately for ideas to come to me.

and what I draw is not always in order either! Sometimes it takes at least 3-4 oages of art for one comic, because some panels have bigger pictues or more detail. I only loosely lay out where things should be but most of the time it's a disorderly art explosion on the paper.

Now that I'm past the idea/sketch phase, I move on to the inking. My pencils...oh, I'd pity anyone who had to ink over my stuff! I don't use guides so much as I've just memorized the shape of character's outlines (while guides ARE super heplful, I'm just impatient and skip them) I go over the lines with a Zig pen, or a Micron but basically a pen that cost 2 dollars and write in smooth, dark ink (like India ink I believe) and it doesn't smudge easy, so when that is done I erase all the pencil. Now to the scanner! I scan it to photoshop HUGE. The resolution is at 600 dpi in Black and White. This is a good thing for colorists to do, the bigger the image is, the easier it will be to color in fine detail and get those annoying gaps with ease. I've noticed in my old pages where I had 100dpi, whenever I colored the lines would thin out (due a lot also to having the fill tool set to default 50 pixel threshold, now it's at 5) and I'd have to go over them again with my mouse. Oh, big mistake! None of the tools matched my inkwork so I'd have thick gloppy, pixelly lines. Nowadays if I need to make an edit, I just draw it again and paste it in there!

After it's in photoshop, I do the basic flat colors, then select the entire image, and cut it out, pasting it onto its own layer. I clear off all that is not colored so the background can be drawn behind the characters. On a topmost layer I make the borders with the pencil tool, moving and resizing the art to accomodate as I go. Sometimes images are out of order so those are moved to their proper spot. Then after the BG's are done, I do the finishing details on the characters: Shading, hair, highlights, lighting ambience, whatever needs to be done. Then I go back to the background and make shadows and lighting. After all is looking good, I flatten it, shrink it, do a quick save then add the text. I add text when it's shrunken down as a precaution, this way the text is pure because it didn't go through resizing, and therefore easier to read. My pages are always 690px wide, so the font size somehow equates to being around 1.5 points as the smallest readable size for most fonts. After all the bubbles and text are layed out I add the speech indicating arrows, accents to the bubbles for shouting and such, flatten it again and it's ready to go!

[Violet]

Wooo thanx Ameliys that will help me alot!!! I was sick of sitting there and scrtching my head saying "How dose she do it?" Yeeee!!!! *runs away to photoshop*