Thumbnails, Layouts, and Roughs

Thumbnails, layouts, roughs...these quick, small drawings can help artists visualize their stories. They can also help creators and collaborators plan, understand, and revise ideas and compositions. Jim and Ed look at examples from Steve Rude, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, and Dave Gibbons. From EC Comics to Watchmen to Playboy...layouts and roughs can be a powerful tool in a cartoonist's toolbox. They also share some of their own layouts and their thought process behind this practice.
fast sketches are an important part of many artists' process when it comes to planning a drawing or page of comics. Jim and Ed show examples of different cartoonists' layouts and share some of their own as well.
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[@FacundoComix]

I love making comics, there's something about that first stage of writing and scribbling that's pretty damn close to what I'd call "magic".

[@doublekix338]

Very liberating. A year ago when I saw Jim Lee erase something and start over. It was an epiphany. I started up drawing and tooning again!

[@IANMILNE333]

This is gold. I'm prepping a book now and it's great to see these roughs. I've been storyboarding in animation for years and just now looking at getting a book made. It's such a different medium than film/tv. So intimidating!

[@mrvic9395]

i just finish watching and youtube sends me here Clip Studio Paint Webinar: Watchmen Co-Creator Dave Gibbons' CSP Workflow
and Dave shows his thumbnails, layouts, and roughs, really cool the sharing of knowledge

[@barlotardy]

I remember it coming as a great shock to me that inking directly over your roughs wasn't the norm....

[@Stagefire420]

I'm enjoying the content on this channel. Lots of gems!

[@russworks2882]

Great stuff. I remember reading that the Silver Age artists were often required to write in all the lettering with their pencils, which the letterer then worked over, and we know the EC guys got their art boards already crammed with Leroy lettering. It's such a big piece of the composition and yet there was that period at Marvel in the 70's where neither the writer nor artist had enough experience to plan out the panels, so you had art and text fighting for space as writers attempted to explain what the art was saying. If you don't start from a full script, the thing to do would be to script from the layouts and then take that to make a second layout, adjusting to blend in the lettering and fine tune body language and facial expression. There's got to be a million ways to work on these problems; it's just fascinating.

[@bobfisher1992]

So good. Thanks for showing your thumbnails

[@davidmoses6434]

Thank you guys for doing this. Would love to see a vid about both of your approaches to hand-lettering at some point

[@KarenB88]

Love videos like this, is so cool to see all the different ways artists work at different stages, and the thumbnailing of pages is so often overlooked. Really awesome seeing not just a video on the subject, but one as in-depth and analytical as this one, with lots of great examples to boot. Subscribed.

[@sevenzerofiveseven5220]

this is a great video. love seeing the process. more please. big kayfabe fan here.

[@timwitowich2126]

Great video. Love seeing layouts. Also good to see Pittsburgh being represented.

[@hoodieinfestation]

This channel is rad! Very helpful stuff! Thanks for sharing.

[@necromorph238]

Lots of really helpful stuff here. Thanks guys.

[@chorizobrain]

Thanks guys.

[@ScottD]

Fantastic video, guys. I love seeing this kind of process that really shows the thinking behind the work.
You guys should be tossing up some Amazon affiliate links if you're going to be showing all these amazing books, too. Get a little side cash for these great recommendations!

[@mattkund7708]

Thanks for the insight

[@amandasemler5880]

Appreciate the knowledge!!!

[@tstechsc]

Loved this! Thanks so much. Would be great to get some of this kinda stuff from your shoot interviews.

[@azimovist]

Yeah, thumbnails serve a lot of guys really well, and then there's Kirby, Crumb and Moebius, etcetera...

[@RyanBrown314]

Please please please elaborate on Mazzucchelli's "dumb line". I assume this means the loose improvisational line that he used to ink these tight beautiful layouts. I'm just wondering what the theory behind this method was. Where did you obtain this information? THANK YOU! (ALSO GREAT VIDEO)

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

That's exactly right. The line is less about slick, sexy, or polish. It's not seductive but purely a graphic device. The first time I heard about this was on a panel with Dash Shaw. And since then, I've seen it mentioned here and there by various artists. - Jim

[@RyanBrown314]

Cartoonist Kayfabe thank you so much because of your reply I was able to track down the Dash Shaw lecture-great stuff. Always wondered if there were any Mazzucchelli handouts floating around I would love to get my hands on those.

[@INDIANXxhgpp9907]

9:20 old comic paper

[@doomdazed]

Wutching the Wutchmen

[@zep909]

$7.98 - ///That's a good price for that Watching the Watchmen book.

[@TheKins]

They must have WAY overproduced that book or something, because you can typically find it pretty cheap at those pop-up book shops that take up vacant space in dying malls. I probably got mine for that much.

[@dronefinger]

🧠)))