The Story

What if you woke up one day and realized you were no longer a normal boy?

The Story Behind the Story

I’m an artist, designer, and child at heart. My sketchbooks are filled with random ideas and stories itching to be told, and I’ve always wanted to make them come to life. There’s always been some self-doubt for me when it comes to art because I don’t have a formal background or education in the area, but I really wanted to push through and complete this project.

This particular story about a boy robot sprouted from a series of sketches I did several years ago while I was transitioning from being an engineer to a product designer. I liked the idea of exploring a very different perspective, combined with the delight of discovery. As children, we encounter something new almost everyday, but as we become adults and experience more things, the concept of doing, seeing, feeling something for the first time becomes more rare. I wanted to be able to capture this feeling once again in the stories I tell, from the eyes of someone else. The story you just read is only the beginning of a bigger story and world I hope to create.

The process of creating a comic

A comic starts with the desire to tell a story through images rather than through words

Writing the Story

The general process of creating a comic starts with writing the story. Much like doing product design, writing out the story first is the first step in brainstorming and insuring a cohesive and impactful comic.

Storyboarding and Thumbnailing

I was creating a 5-page comic, so I had to figure out how to visualize the entire story into that constraint. I created quick thumbnails of what scenes I wanted to create and how it lines up with the story text. There was a lot of erasing, merging, and simplification of scenes to prevent the comic from becoming 10 pages!

Creating the Character

I already knew I wanted the main character to be a boy with a human head and a robot body. One big thing to consider when creating a recurring character is making sure I knew what they look like from all angles! I had scenes with him in various positions, so I need to make sure I knew what his back side looked like, what defined his side profile, etc.

Defining the World

In any art medium, the setting makes a huge difference in defining the tone of the story. Especially since my story is set in a fictional world, I needed to make sure I capture the feeling I want the reader to experience as they make their way through the story. For the opening scene, I created a large field of yellow grass with silhouettes of buildings and junkyards to give a more dystopian feel.

Drawing in Pencil

I always begin drawing with pencil because it gives me the freedom to make mistakes and to play around with different body movement in characters. I experimented with a plethora of facial expressions as well, to ensure the character is embodying the right emotion.

Tracing in Ink

To give everything more definition and permanence, I traced all my pencil drawings with ink. I made use of tracing paper, which is slightly transparent and allowed me to reuse some of my drawing ‘components', such as when I want to use the same body position but with a different facial expression.

Adding Color

I photocopied my ink drawings onto marker paper, which gives me a better medium for adding color and as insurance in case I messed up the coloring, I can just make another copy. I used Copic markers to add the color, taking into consideration the direction of light to ensure proper shading of the characters and props.

Lettering the Dialogue

To give the comic a more casual feel, I chose to handwrite rather than type all the dialogue. The toughest part here was making sure I wrote in straight lines! I also considered where I wanted the dialogue to fit and determined the width of the block of text with that in mind.

Compiling the Frames

I scanned all the text and drawings and converted them to digital images. I then used Sketch to start layering the foreground, background, and characters into different scenes. I was able to do some color adjustment and rotations as well, allowing me to again reuse my drawn ‘components’ whenever I could.

Laying Out the Comic

The final step was the layout. I needed to make sure there was even spacing between frames, and the color was consistent across the pages. I know the common tool for doing this is InDesign, but since I’m a product designer, I ended up using Sketch to complete this step. :P

The Experience

Throughout the process, I got to hang out at a lot of different cafes around Palo Alto, with my pen and papers spread out, enjoying a latte or smoothie. Special shoutout to Coupa Cafe for being open late. :)

I also got the opportunity to display the first page of my comic at an art gallery inside the Palo Alto Art Center, which was super exciting! It was the first time I got to showcase my art in this way.

Finally, I want to say a special thanks to Daniele Archambault for her guidance throughout the journey.