The tools are the first place any artist has to start. A painter must have some sort of paint, and an architect must first have supplies. Just like the painter would need to know the diffent kinds of brushes and types of paint, so too a comic book artist needs to know what tools are available to him/her.

I can guarantee, my comics were done completely different when I was younger. Everything was by traditional means and the pages got colored with colored pencils. That was very inefficient and time consuming. Selecting tools that are appropriate to the task are important.

Simple as it may seem, we have to have paper to sketch on. It can take many different ways, but in essence we always have our paper. Even digital artists who never even sketch on paper use a digital page. The main reason I mention paper is that many comic artists want to know what kind of paper to use. Well, it's not really that complicated. It really can be any paper; whatever fits your preference. The only case that may not be true is if you are wanting to do certain methods like producing a comic completely traditionally, as explained in the next paragraph.

A common misconception is that all comic book artists work on the oversized paper. On the other hand, some people have never even heard of it. It's as simple as it sounds. For many years, professional comic artists worked on large sheets of paper somewhere around 18"x24". They could work bigger, which allowed for more details. So if you plan to produce a proffesional comic completely without the aid of the computer, you should look into it. The paper is hard to find nowdays, but it is almost the equivelant of a fine drafting paper. If you plan to use the computer, you should just skip out on it, as it really doesn't matter in the slightest. In fact, it only complicates things if you don't have a large enough scanner.

Now then, as for what kind of paper I prefer, I use typing paper like you would use in a printer. Of course, I don't use just any typing paper, even though it won't matter just a great deal. When you buy paper, you'll notice different characteristics listed: mainly the weight and brightness.

A package of HammerMill paper

The brightness of the paper you use actually is very important to consider as the brighter the paper the less it will dull out your colors. You usually want to stick with a brightness of at least 90 or above. The weight it important mainly because the higher the weight, the more durable the paper is and less likely it is to get damaged. It also factors in that most typing paper is a little rougher as it gets heavier. That actually helps as it is less likely to smear off and more willing to accept art. You usually want a weight of at least 20 lbs or more. Unfortunately I don't know what system is used outside the U.S.

Pencil vs mechanical pencil
First off, you're going to start with a pencil or a mechanical pencil. The choice may not seem all that important, but it's actually more important than you think. A plain pencil is more benneficial in most cases, but the mechanical pencil does have its times. The general rule to follow here is, if the work you're going to produce relies heavily on the traditional means, use a traditional pencil.

Pencils are more dynamic in how you can get thick or thin details. If you are trying to produce a comic that is simply a pencil comic, you can make the lines much more impressive. If you are inking your page by hand, it's much easier to erase the marks left by a plain pencil over a mechanical pencil. Though, if you plan to actually just scan your work and ink the page digitally, you may actually want to consider using a mechanical pencil. It provides a clean line that won't get messed up and will be easy to follow later.

Coloring techniques
If you plan to do the colors on paper, as some like to, you're going to need to choose what method to color in. As I stated before, coloring with colored pencil doesn't usually make sense. Unless it is a style of yours to use colored pencil, you're going to want to go the marker route.

As for which markers to use, the two mainstream choices are Prismacolor and Copic. Really, there isn't a huge difference overall. You can do the same thing with both of them. The real difference is that Prismacolors seems to be easier to produce the cel-shading style and the Copics are a lot more capable of creating the a natural blend. Both of them can do just about anything, but it's more about preference in which one you choose.

Watercolors are actually used quite often for doing backgrounds, the same as airbrush, so you may want to look into some of those kinds of techniques if you plan to work traditionally. Colored pencil can play a part in areas too for a stylistic edge. It can also be used to add highlights as markers can only darken and there is no way to add more brightness once you've darkened an area.

The scanner
To get your images from your paper to your computer you're going to need a scanner. You really don't need a high end scanner if you don't plan on inking on the paper itself or working traditionally. The basic scanner should work if you are going to ink on the computer. Really you can get away with a fairly cheap scanner even if you are just scanning an inked image. The reason as high end scanner is more necessary for traditional scans is that a more expensive scanner can properly scan images colors.

Whatever you choose, you want to set your scanner to scan at at least 300 DPI. For the non-techies out there, basically the higher the DPI, the larger the image. You want to produce something that is high enough quality that it can be ready for print.

The digital tablet
For all those interested in inking on the computer, the digital tablet may just become your best friend. Not that you absolutely can't ink with a mouse, just that it doesn't look very good, nor is it easy...at all. The digital tablets are a fairly common thing nowadays. Simply draw on an area and it appears on the screen. Simple enough?

Well, if you're going to invest the money in a tablet, it's important to know what kind of tablet to get. I can't be any more direct than to just say...get a Wacom. Wacom produce excellent tablets that are not any more expensive than other brands, especially in quality. You can see a lot of them at their site. There are three to four types to choose from: the Graphire, the Bamboo, the Intuos, and the Cintiq. The Graphire and the Bamboo are still great pens, but they are more for those on a budget. If you want to go professional, you will most likely want to go for the Intuos. The difference is the Intuous has a lot more precise control, from the angle you tilt it, to the pressure sensitivity. It is about twice the price of the of the other two, but it is worth it if you can afford it and will use it. They're going to start at around $150. The Cintiq is pretty much for professionals only. The difference being you have a lot of control and you work directly on the screen. One of these will cost around $2,500.

Tablet settings
The basic tablet setting can under a tab near the top right of the workspace under the tab "Brushes". You have several brush presets that you can set up to react to certain things the tablet does. For instance, if you set up something to react to "Pen pressure", the harder you press with the pen, the more you'll see the effect selected.

Under "Shape dynamics" you can adjust things like where the pen pressure will make the line thicker the harder you press. There's a lot of setting you can play around with here as you prefer. You can also set the pen's tilt to affect something, and you can set either the tilt or pressure to more than one thing at a time. Just keep in mind both effect will occur at once.

Adobe Photoshop is the norm for working digitally. Sure there are other options, but none quite as versatile. Corel Painter is one common option, and while it create beautiful realistic painting effects, it's not quite as good at the overall process as Photoshop. There are many programs available online for free that can work as well if you are unable to acquire Photoshop, just don't expect as great of results.

Photoshop's layout
I'm not going to go into lengthy detail here as it could take a book to show someone how to completely use Photoshop. As the guide continues I will explain what to use to make the same results, but that's as far as I'll go. Of course we need to start with the basic design and arrangement.

My basic layout for working on comics in Adobe Photoshop CS

You can set up your workspace by grabbing the little tabs that look like filing folder tabs and dragging them off and on to one another. Along the top where it says "Window" you can bring out other working elements that aren't presently visible. If you click on the image and vew the larger version, you'll notice along the top near the middle of the right hand side, there is a tab that says "Brushes". If you are using a tablet, you can change the tablet's settings here. You can chooose how you want Photoshop to react to your tilting the pen as well as the pressure here. At the bottom right-hand corner you'll notice a box called "nik Color Efex Pro". It is also related to the tablet and has to do with how it performs, so not to worry if you can't find it. It comes with the tablet.

Important basics
On of the most important facts to remember in Photoshop is that you can work in layers. On the right near the middle, you can see my Layers tab. Layers work pretty much like they sound. To best get the idea, imagine each layer as a sheet of glass. If you paint a guy on one layer and a girl on another, you can move the pieces of glass around to arrange the two of them. They are seperate from one another and can be manipulated individually. If you create a solid background across one of the layers of glass, it will cover up anything under it. So whichever layer is on top covers up all the elements under it. The only exception is when it is partially transparent. If you painted with a watered down paint on a layer of glass, it wouldn't be solid and opaque. You could see part of what was under it. The same applies to Photoshop. If you work with transparency, you can paint where you see part of the layers under it. This is the main technique often used in painting on the shadows in cel shading. You simply play with the overall opacity, which is the solidness of the color. 100% opacity would be completely solid and nothing below it would show up. 0% opacity on the other hand would not appear at all. It would be completely invisible. There's a few other factors you can add into play, but I will only explain those as they are needed.