| The
first thing you will need to do is bring in the
drawn page into Illustrator. I find it is a good
idea to use a low dpi version of the page in order
to free up more memory for Illustrator. I usually
paste the image into Illustrator directly from
Photoshop. You will find it useful to have the
background art on a separate Layer than
the text and balloons. By clicking on the box
next to the eye you can Lock out the layer,
which will prevent accidentally moving the background
art while working. |
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| I
also recommend double clicking on the layer name
to enter the Layer Options Menu. The layer
option menu allows you to give the layer a name
as well as Dim the images. I find dimming
the background art to 50% makes working with the
text and balloons a little easier on the eyes. |
 |
| Next,
you should create a new Layer on which
you will begin to letter your page! The best way
to add the text is to start by defining a Text
Rectangle.
First,
select the Type tool from the toolbox,
then click and drag diagonally; the text rectangle
you create is unpainted (not filled or stroked).
When you enter the type into the box the type
wraps to fit inside the defined area. You can
see in the example at the right how the layout
of the text changes as you adjust the size of
the Text Rectangle. I find the best way
to add the text is to cut and paste it in from
another program.
|
 |
| Next,
you will need to pick a Font, the Font
Size, and Leading of your text. Your
font size will depend on how much room you have
in the art. Leading determines the amount of vertical
space between baselines. A good rule of thumb
is to keep the leading at least .5pt higher
than the font size. Comicraft recommends 9.5(size)/10(leading)
for full size art, or 6.35/6.75 for printed size.
This is on the small side, for books which are
heavy on copy. Go a half or a full point bigger
for lighter copy books. I personally find 7.5(size)/8(leading)
seen at right for print size to be a comfortable
size. |
 |
You can find excellent comic book fonts at these sites:
Once
you are comfortable with the layout of the text with
in the text rectangle it is time to add the balloon
around the text. |
Topic
#3:
Balloons!
