Lights, Camera, Action! : Picking the Best Panel Shots

Rohit p -

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! With the first week of my project over, I finalized my characters Marcus, Jules, and Amber from being concepts to concrete designs and profiles for the story. These profiles display their infoboxes, which detail their basic attributes and personalities, and give a full idea of what kind of impressions they should have on the reader. Along with these character profiles, I’m almost complete with the storyboard for the pilot chapter, where I placed most of the roughly sketched thumbnails in the comic panels on each page. Doing all of this independently made me realize how pressuring it must be for other comic artists to meet their deadlines to release chapters weekly and even monthly. 

As my blog title suggests, this week I was primarily focused on how to layer the comic panels so that each one portrays a distinct view of the characters and their environment. Each panel takes a specific shot, like in a film shooting. But choosing which type of panel to sketch and from what angle to depict the characters’ faces and figures became a problem. Although part of the reason was my mind pinpointing the faulty strokes and shapes in the rough thumbnails, another large part of the problem was not knowing the meaning behind each type of panel. For example, it turns out that wide, long shot panels serve better to draw the environment than a small close-up panel. After researching how the panels differ, and how they interact with the gutters (the space between the panels), redrawing the panels and the figures became simpler. 

That said, this pilot chapter only portrays the exposition, so the panels only show the basic context and boring dialogue. However, once the story’s main plot picks up in the upcoming chapter, the panels will become more detailed and, in fact, larger to fit a scene with exciting action sequences. I am still looking forward to inking this rough draft and displaying a clean set of pages for everyone to read. I hope you take your time to enjoy the story as much as I do!

My Character Designs and Part of the Storyboard: Blog Post #2 Media 

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Comments:

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    jacob_p
    Rohit, I love your description of the different panel types and the considerations you have to make for them. Have you started giving consideration into the color scheme you’d like to go with for the comic book? Do you plan on using crazy vibrant colors, muted dull colors, or a midrange color scheme?
    February 24, 2025 at 11:05 pm - Reply
    rohit_p
    @jacob_p With the amount of time we have in the senior project, I won't be able to apply a distinct color scheme even for the 3 chapters I'm sketching out, so the colors will be more monochrome and in black ink. But this does mean that I'll be able to focus on details and shading as well when I am inking each page. When I have more time for this story afterwards, I'll be able to render it digitally with a variety of colors.
    February 25, 2025 at 4:56 pm - Reply
    allison_h
    Hi Rohit! Your drawings are just so impressive, I had to comment on your post. This is oddly specific, but I love how you drew the shoes for each character, I've always struggled with the shoes in my drawings. Will there be any other characters in your comic besides Marcus, Jules, and Amber?
    February 25, 2025 at 5:31 pm - Reply
    ashwyn_k
    Hey, Rohit! Your drawings are actually so good you never fail to impress me! I'm just curious, but how long does it take you to sketch out each one of those characters? I assume you probably have previous sketches of them from before you even started the Senior Project, but I'm so interested in knowing how long each one of those takes you. Great job so far!
    February 25, 2025 at 8:18 pm - Reply
    Rohit Panga
    Thank you, @allison_h, the shoes were honestly one of the hardest parts to finalize a design for each character because structuring the feet was a bit of a struggle for me, too. As for your questions, there will definitely be more characters coming up soon (ones that I have not actually sketched out yet, but have a design planned out)!
    February 25, 2025 at 9:42 pm - Reply
    Rohit Panga
    Actually, @ashwyn_k, it kind of depends on what I'm drawing specifically. Depending on the perspective or angle, one character might be easier and take less time than the others to draw. On average, when first designing a character, it took me about 2 hours to finalize a full design. Later, when I got to drawing them over and over, it took only about 5-10 min to finish each one in a single panel. But once I get more of the characters sketched out, their figures will be different, so my opinion could change on this.
    February 25, 2025 at 9:49 pm - Reply
    dina_i
    Rohit, it's really cool to see how much thought and detail goes into panel composition. Your comparison to film shots makes it so much easier to understand, especially to someone who is new to comics. Your sketches are incredible! Are there any specific artists or comics that influenced your approach to paneling? I'm excited to see how the action sequences play out!
    February 26, 2025 at 8:38 am - Reply

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