How I letter my comics

I do all the lettering in "Night Owls" in adobe illustrator. With these programs, there's a bunch of ways to do things. This is the way that works for me.

NOTE: I use a Mac. It might be slightly different on a PC, but the gist is the same.

STEP 1: Set it up.

The art is done and saved in Photoshop! I open a new file in Illustrator. 

In Illustrator go to File> Place... select your file and lock it into place. (Object> Lock> Selection)

Now you can work over the art without accidentally moving it out of the way.

First thing I do is add the type.

STEP 2: Add the type

Find a good comic font. Blambot and Comiccraft both offer some good fonts. Blambot has some free ones, but you might want to pay for one of the pro ones anyway. It's worth it.

Set it to whatever point size works for you. 

In the paragraph menu, set it to "centered" and untick the hyphonate button.

Select the text tool and drag a text box. Type in the Dialogue. Add any italics or bolds you need.

STEP 3: The Balloons!

Select your ellipse tool and drag out a white oval with a black border.

Go to the stroke pallete. The point size of your stroke is a matter of personal preference. Where it says Miter Limit, change that to 40. That will make the tails sharp and pointy.

Now take your Direct Selector Tool (the white arrow next to the black one) and click on the oval. You'll see these little blue lines with blue dots on them. Click a blue dot on either side and drag it up (or down). Hold the shift button while you do this if you want the lines to stay straight. Do this for both sides, top and bottom.

Now your oval looks a little squarer and not as circular. 

Why do I do this? Because a perfect oval makes an inefficient word balloon. Too much wasted space. This shape is much better.

Now take your new imperfect oval and put it over your text. Hit Command-[ to send it backwards until you can see the type over the balloon, then resize the balloon to fit.

For the tails, use the Pen tool. That's the one that looks like a quill pen.

You can add the tail with three clicks.

Click once inside the balloon, once near the speaking character's head, and once back in the balloon.  There's your tail!

 

Side note: If you like a curvy tail, use the Convert Anchor Point Tool (hidden under the Pen Tool) and drag the tail anchor points inside the oval to make them curve.

Now select both the Tail and the balloon. Be careful not to select the text box!

Open your Pathfinder Pallet. (Window>Pathfinder)

Click the first button under Shape Mode. That will make your tail/balloon one solid shape. Click the Expand button to the right to get rid of any extraneous points.

You might notice that your text has disappeared. It's under your balloon. Just hit Command-[ to send the balloon down under the text again.

There's a couple of things to look for if you're picky and you bought one of the pro fonts.

In the pro fonts, the capital letters look slightly different than the lower case letters. If you have two of the same letter close or right next to each other, use alternating caps and lowercase, to give your text a more natural look.

Also, mind your "I"s. If you're using the letter I as in "Me" or "myself", use the capital I with the crossbars. All other times the letter I appears, it should be the lowercase version; just a straight line. I incorrectly used the capital I in a couple of Night Owls episodes, and I'm still kicking myself for it. Don't make the same mistakes I did!

STEP 4: Putting it all together

Hit Command-A to select everything (You'll just select the balloons and text, since the image is locked).

Command-C will copy it to your clipboard.

Go back to Photoshop. Command-V will paste the balloons as a new layer over your art. Place it where it belongs and you're DONE! Ta Daaaaa!