How to Start a Comic: From Script to Thumbnails

I use the 5W1H method to both write the script for my Webtoon Comics as well as plan out my Comic Thumbnails~

The Dreaded Thumbnail Brain Fog

Why is it so hard to get past the script stage of your comic and move to the illustrative stage?

Usually for me it’s because I’m focused on drawing the story as a whole and not focusing on drawing the one key emotions of a scene or line of dialogue.

When I finish my script and get my pencil to start drawing I freeze…  Because all I see in my mind when I try to visualize everything are just grey, foggy figures moving around a grey, foggy surrounding. 

I’ve struggled with this a lot in the past and still struggle with it off and on now but I’ve learned a few things that help me finally clear out that fog and finally move from script to thumbnail sketches.

What are Thumbnails?

Thumbnails are just another way of saying storyboarding or sketching rough drafts. 

The basic explanation that I can give about what exactly is thumb-nailing – it’s a simple drawing of rough images – particularly ones that I visualize after reading the script and scribble them down either into a sketchbook, folded sheet of paper, or in an actual thumbnail book.  Thumbnails are sort of like the visual itinerary of your comic. 

Why is it helpful to Thumbnail?

I discovered that creating thumbnails before the main draft is helpful because… 

• This helps me make sure I’ve mapped out the story as thoroughly as possible (so that I don’t miss any important scenes).
• When I don’t thumbnail I usually run into a problem where the story doesn’t flow smoothly enough. 
• Thumbnails help provide a visual to see where the story will end

The Supplies I Use to Make Thumbnails:

• My thumbnail book – to keep my thumbnails organized
  • With the paper ratio the same so that when I enlarge it, the same amount of images fits in the page when enlarged or decreased so no panels aren’t cut off and the flow of the page is thrown out of whack
  • It also helps me keep everything organized so that the images don’t get out of order. 
  • There are also books that you can make or use online to help you make your own thumbnail book but usually I just fold up a paper in tiny squares and number the corner edges but do whatever works best for you!

Visualize thumbnails from my script:

• I use this helpful tool to help keep everything in perceptive when I’m trying to visualize the story like looking through a camera lens so that I can draw out what I see.  Using the 5w1h (who, what, when, where, why and how) helps me to turn that grey fog of shadowy figures in my mind to a clearer visual.  It helps me to stay focused on visualizing and drawing the things that are essential to the story and ignore the nonessential random things that might pop up in my mind.  Here is how I use it…
  • Who is in the scene?  Boom, I now see the characters.
  • Where are they in the seen?  Boom, I now have the location.
  • What are they doing in the scene?  Boom, you now have the actions that they need to be doing.
  • When is this taking place?  Boom, I have the time surrounding conditions like if it’s at night or during the day.  

• Now the last two (How and Why), I sometimes don’t always have one because they’re usually found out when you put all the scenes together after drawing out the whole story but if you like you can still use it for example…
  • You can use the Why to help visualize why this is happening and that way if you need to draw up any foreshadowing this can help you remember to do so. 
  • For the How you can use it to look over the whole script and see if it answers the question “How did the story go?” and – after you look at your thumbnails – do the images you’ve drawn explain all that?

Remember to have fun! 🙂

Trying to visualize your story can get overwhelming so using this can really help you keep the important things that need to be drawn in perceptive.  Thumbnailing (or storyboarding) along with keeping the 5w1h in mind are great tools to help you convey your story from your script as smooth and concise as possible!

Don’t forget that you can use anything to draw your thumbnails on.  To help keep things organized I’d suggest making sure to fold and number your paper, or you can use basic blank sketchbooks, or even thumbnail books that can be found online.

What should you do next?

If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment down below and I’d be happy to answer them!

I also have a free ebook where I cover how to make, publish and monetize a webtoon comic for beginners!

Also if you’re looking for a wholesome, fake marriage trope, AMBW manga webtoon to read to pass the time then you might want to check out Catch Me! Fight Me! Love Me!

Now get back to that awesome script of yours and get to thumbnailing!