Comic panels building

[SovietTiger]

Hello hello, comrades. By the inspiration of @Trapp, I made a while ago a short comic named "Smell the Flowers"

When I made it, I didn't use any kind of template to try to give it a comic or manga style using panels, just the photos and the text squares. I feel I have no issues in writing, because most of the thing's I've published here are basically chronicles that need no plot. It's just a story, something that allegedly happened. 

But now I'm going to make something new. A story with a plot, and the plot's simple: Rassía and Malena go out on a date, and Rassía learns that Malena has a type of women she likes the most... light skinned brunettes with pretty green eyes. Based on that discovery, Rassía interrogates Malena about her sexual fantasies. Malena, being an introvert, has the most "I just want to say I have a fantasy" by naming a 3some. and then Rassía gets in a little crusade to make that fantasy a reality that very same night.

I'm building the poses still, I haven't really took any pic and the story is simple enough to making it out of thin air.

Now, the issue I'm in front of:  I don't really know how to design the panels. I grew up reading Batman's comics (from the appearance of Tim Drake to the Contagion arc) and I know that the panels' design isn't something written on stone... But I'm such a square when designing things, that I don't know how to make them appealing. 

I know the issue maybe do not look like something too complicated, but any advice I can get in this matter, would be very appreciated. 

[Trapp]

Okay, for comic creation, you can go two routes:

The "official" one is to get yourself a license of Comic Life 3 by Plasq, which is the software that @Oz70NYC and I use for our stuff. That is a FANTASTIC tool with several different comic templates, fonts, styles and customization options that really can bring uniqueness to the way you tell your stories. When I started, I downloaded a cracked version of the software and I honestly wouldn't recommend going this route, since the Keygen for it is easily detected by Windows as a "virus". The software is only 30 USD as far as I can remember, so I went and bought it. I can help you out with looking for something to dip your toes into the software if you want!

The second one, and a totally free alternative, is using Canva. I used that for this comic:

What's kinda cool about Canva is that you can customize the text in many different ways and on any template you create, you can add blank image boxes to set up as if they were customized panels. I'm not sure if you can modify the panels to have a more angular look like in other comic books, but if you want to test it out, it can give you similar results to the comic you made. On that note, that comic is probably one of the most wholesome things I have read on this website!

So, if you need help getting Comic Life, I can be of assistance. I still have the files and can help you get setup.

[SovietTiger]

15 minutes ago, Trapp said:

Okay, for comic creation, you can go two routes:

The "official" one is to get yourself a license of Comic Life 3 by Plasq, which is the software that @Oz70NYC and I use for our stuff. That is a FANTASTIC tool with several different comic templates, fonts, styles and customization options that really can bring uniqueness to the way you tell your stories. When I started, I downloaded a cracked version of the software and I honestly wouldn't recommend going this route, since the Keygen for it is easily detected by Windows as a "virus". The software is only 30 USD as far as I can remember, so I went and bought it. I can help you out with looking for something to dip your toes into the software if you want!

The second one, and a totally free alternative, is using Canva. I used that for this comic:

What's kinda cool about Canva is that you can customize the text in many different ways and on any template you create, you can add blank image boxes to set up as if they were customized panels. I'm not sure if you can modify the panels to have a more angular look like in other comic books, but if you want to test it out, it can give you similar results to the comic you made. On that note, that comic is probably one of the most wholesome things I have read on this website!

So, if you need help getting Comic Life, I can be of assistance. I still have the files and can help you get setup.

Now, thank you very much for the info... I didn't know those existed. But I might have been not clear enough, because I didn't mentioned it: I already own Clip Studio, the son of Manga Studio. Back in the day when I had a job that I hated but gave me lots of money, I payed that fancy software just because. And that has panel templates. 

The question is more to... how to pick the panels? Is there a method to pick them or just go with a random one in each case?

EDIT: And they are all Manga like. Maybe if I search for it, I can find western style templates, but no matter. I can work with I've got now and search for other stuff later.

null

[Trapp]

23 minutes ago, SovietTiger said:

Now, thank you very much for the info... I didn't know those existed. But I might have been not clear enough, because I didn't mentioned it: I already own Clip Studio, the son of Manga Studio. Back in the day when I had a job that I hated but gave me lots of money, I payed that fancy software just because. And that has panel templates. 

The question is more to... how to pick the panels? Is there a method to pick them or just go with a random one in each case?

EDIT: And they are all Manga like. Maybe if I search for it, I can find western style templates, but no matter. I can work with I've got now and search for other stuff later.

null

Oh right! Well, you got a pretty cool selection there! Those are pretty much the same style I use for my comics, and I think Oz will definitely agree with me. The thing here is, when choosing a panel, I first want to focus on what I want the page to portray.

For both Oz and I, something I noticed regarding our comic pages, is that we usually go with two panel pages if we want to focus on big images we don't want to crop too much. As in, panoramic views or something like that. Now, the image selection plays a great part on how to choose them. There is no "right or wrong" approach to what we do, even if some professionals might disagree. It all comes to what you want to emphasize. For example, the one panel pages, I use them to emphasize important things that highlight an action within the story I want to tell. For others, I'll just go with my gut since I don't have someone to advise me on how to do it. Reading a lot of manga and Hentai kinda helped me create a sense of what visuals to apply to certain scenes, so it's all up to taste and what you wish to portray!