Basic Digital Lettering with Adobe Illustrator
Today we are going to go over how to letter using Adobe Illustrator.
Before we get started you are going to need the art file, fonts, and the template. So go ahead and snag them from the links below.
Adobe Illustrator Template
Right click and select “save as” to download the .ai Template file.
This is the template I made for lettering “Holiday Wars.” It’s very basic and will serve as a cheat for you guys.
Comic Page
Right click this link and select “save as” to download the .Tiff file.
Comic Fonts
Over time you should aquaire a whole library of comic fonts to use. I personally really like Comic Geek which I bought off Blambot. However I don’t want you spending money for the sake of this tutorial so for now, snag the free Blambot Font called Digital Strip, which we will use for dialog. Also download BaddaBoom which we will use for a sound effect.
To install your new fonts on a mac follow these directions:
- Close all running applications.
- In Finder select: HARD DRIVE / LIBRARY / FONTS
- Drag the font files into the FONTS folder.
- Re-open your programs and the fonts should be available for use.
If you have a PC you can follow Blambot’s instructions on how to install a font.
Comic Script:
This isn’t the full script. This is just the dialog you will need to letter the above page.
Panel 2:
SFX: CLANG!Panel 3:
The Bunny: Go ahead, arm yourself with Memorial Day’s knife.
The Bunny: She’s got no need for it now.Panel 4:
Taylor: I’ll $#%&@ Kill you!Panel 5:
Taylor: She was the love of my life.Panel 6:
The Bunny: Key word being ‘was.’Panel 7:
Taylor: This ends now.
Lettering:
Alright, now that you have everything you need it’s time to start lettering!
The first thing you want to do is open up the template file in Illustrator.
Once open, select “File” from the menu bar and then “Place.” Find the .tiff file you downloaded and select it. It will import the file into Illustrator.
Once it is in Illustrator, make sure you move/resize it to match the art-board (the rectangle). Once you have it in place, go to your Layers Pallete and make sure the art is on the bottom layer named “art.” Once it is, lock it in place.
This keeps your art at the bottom and prevents you from accidentally moving it when lettering.
Using your script, fill in the needed dialog.
Some things to note. Your goal is to make the dialog fit inside of a balloon. To do this make sure you the paragraph set to “Alight Center,” the font set to “Digital Strip,” and the size set to 7.6. When you work on your own project you will most likely use a different size, but I already know that for “Holiday Wars” 7.6 is perfect for the web as well as for print, which is why I suggest using that here.
When arranging your dialog your goal is to make it so that top and bottom are small and that the middle section is fat. It should look something like this:
Once you have the words spaced out you will want to resize the balloons around them. Make sure they are as round and even as possible and that you have a nice space between the words and the edge of the ballons.
For the yelling piece of dialog I also made it bold and bumped up the size so it seems stronger and more intense.
After you have the balloons you will want to place them on the comic. Once you do, you may need to resize or adjust them to make sure they fit within the art.
The next step is making the tails. For that we will watch a short video!
So go ahead and finish lettering the rest of the dialog.
Once you finish with the dialog watch the video below that will describe how to deal with a basic Sound Effect.
That’s it. You’re done. You now know the basics of digitally lettering with Adobe Illustrator.
_________
To see more of Scott King’s work checkout his comic “Holiday Wars.”
10 Comments
Thanks for sharing. I’ll be passing this along – even though I letter by hand.
Is Illustrator a better choice for lettering than Photoshop?
I wish I could letter by hand but my handwriting is worse than your average doctor.
Generally speaking Illustrator wins over Photoshop because it is vector based (meaning you can resize and never have a drop in quality). Plus it gives more control over the ballons and allows you to create those nice more traditional looking ballons as opposed to those overly elliptical looking ones. It also makes it easier to get those nice looking curved tails.
Dude u should never letter in photoshop.
Not true. For example if you wanted to have it so that a SFX is partially obscured by something in the foreground using photoshop might be quicker then taking the time to do a mask in Illustrator.
What size do you work at? DPI and physical dimensions in inches?
For lettering in Illustrator it shouldn’t matter much was size/DPI. Illustrator is vector base so you can resize it on the fly without loosing quality.
In regards to the artwork before lettering, it is 8 X 10 inches with a resolution of 300.
You didn’t spell CLANG wrong!
I need to practise using bezier curves properly. I usually draw it with straight lines and then make the nodes into curves (in Corel). The result’s the same, but your way looks quicker.
I’ve tried making straight lines and curving them later but personally I had problems with that in Illustrator. I’ve not used Corel in ages, so maybe it is easier to do that in it.
Doing the tails this way in Illustrator only takes a few seconds once you know what you’re doing, but it does take time to get a feel for where you should put your dots or how much you should curve the tail.
hello!
one day i want to go back and fix some of the lettering on some of my older comic pages. the problem is, i make my bubbles traditionally…
i’d go back to fix them in Photoshop but the problem is i only own a mouse. im good with a mouse but when it comes to making vary straight and clear lines, its something i mess up on, or it takes me a very long time (hrs).
ill give you an example if you need to see one. but i was just wondering if i can get a few tips? =].
In terms of lettering a comic, just about everything you can do in Illustrator, you can do in Photoshop using paths. If you are working at a high enough resolution, you will never need to worry about upscaling.