Natural World Production Specs

Original artwork

Materials

• Strathmore 400 series 4-ply bristol paper with vellum finish
• Hunt 513 EF nib
• Dr Ph. Martin's Black Star matte india ink
• Winsor Newton sepia watercolor for washes

Sizing

• 6-¹⁄₄; x 8-³⁄₈ inches
• ¹⁄₈ inch gutters
• Generally there are 3 rows of panels, evenly divided. Most layouts are 2x3, with some rows having variations on the sizing and number of horizontal cells.
• A page template in Illustrator format is located at \comics\natural world 1\layout templates\2x3 page template.ai

Process

Print out the thumbnails at the scale of the final artwork.

Lightly and loosely block out the speech bubbles, character positions and major background elements on the final sheet.

Trace guidelines for the panel borders, then draw the borders freehand with a Hunt 513EF nib and Dr Ph. Martin's Black Starr matte india ink.

The lettering is done first with Pilot Precise V7 fine (I think that's the correct size. However it's possible that it's v5 "extra fine" instead.)

The line work is drawn first with a Hunt 513EF nib and Dr Ph. Martin's Black Star matte india ink.

Watercolor wash is applied on the same sheet as the line work, with two shades of Winsor Newton sepia watercolor.

Scanning

Current workflow

Each page is scanned twice.

Scan at 800 dpi color for the artwork.

Scan at 800 dpi bitmap for the text. (I don’t know if I have done this in the past, but do this before applying the watercolor shading, so it’s an option to use the line work in the future.) Scan line artwork @ 800 dpi grayscale. (Then apply threshold filter in Photoshop)

Drop bitmap text on top of original text as scanned with the original artwork. Then erase the text in the original artwork layer. This ensures that the text is black and solid, and not gray.

Legacy workflow

I don't know if this makes a difference when it’s printed professionally, but it doesn't make a difference when the comic is printed out on a laserjet/photocopier.

However, scanning at 1600 dpi for NW2 isn't really an option because it takes for-ever. With Natural World 2, the text was scanned as a bitmap at 800 dpi and dropped in place of the text in the color scan.

PDF containing samples of the two text treatments side-by-side: text-test.pdf

Photoshop

Applying threshold filter

With line artwork scanned as grayscale, a threshold filter is applied with a value of 178.

Processing page artwork for print

• Each page document is the size of the final page. (5.5 x 8.5″ @ 1000 dpi).
• Color correction is applied with curves and saturation adjustment layers.
• Artwork is centered on the page with guides.