Modesty Studios

Introduction In this short how-to article, I'm going to go over some character development and writing tips for comic artists specifically. I hope to cover things like, building a character, writing dialog, and some exercises for you to try. Beginnings of a Comic Character Comics are a very visual medium so most people will care first about what your character looks like. However, I'm not going to cover visual design of a character but what we can do is get a basic idea of what this character looks like in words. First, despite the style of comic you are going for, character development will pay off in the long run. Not every character needs to be super in-depth but it doesn't hurt to make them pop off the page a bit with development. Even gag comics can have endearing characters. So let's hop to it and work on building that character. When I first create a character, I usually don't have a story in mind or only a vague idea. But I do know at least that I'm goi...

Recently, I've started writing a character that is completely unlike who I am. It worries me if I write a "gay" character in a convincing way or not. In general I write males in a fairly similar fashion. They're either family oriented (which a majority are) or very singularly focused. Part of this problem is that I don't like loose ends like "open relationships". But this isn't about relationships...I'll write that later, this is about sexual orientation. I have had one character that I've written for online role play who is a gay character. At the time, I was just experimenting and ended up going on some very cliche routes. Most of it was for reaction purposes because I was role playing with many young, straight males. The character, Demonycus, was openly and flamboyantly gay. He'd be flirty with other males, cross-dress, wear "alternative" clothing and had an obsession with snakes. As the role play progressed other players wer...

So the first thing that usually happens is this: You get hooked on an anime series or video game. Then because you have a slight talent for art draw some short comics and decide to post them online. Voila! You're a webcomic artist. And now you're addicted. People like what you drew and you decide it's time to become serious and not just make random comics but make it a series. In the beginning you make lots of mistakes and usually after awhile you get bored with your idea and abandon it. Such is the fate of many a beginner. I think it's how nearly everyone gets started. It's certainly how I got into it. Although for me, I was unaware of this concept called web comics. I just liked posting my pictures online and some of them were short fan-comics. This was back at the new millennium when telnet MUDs were the MMOs and geocities the only real place to upload a free website. Around this same time I discovered my first few web-comics by veterans NeonDragon and Luka Delan...