Help....My lettering sucks!
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King White
Member
Any suggestions on lettering would be much appreciated! I have an example of my horrible hand lettering, then some lettering I used with the MS Paint.
Posted 2 years ago #
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Ha. Great thread title!
Okay, here's the first place I would start. This is Comicraft's overview to computer lettering, with links explaining pretty much everything: http://www.balloontales.com/articles/overview/index.html. Comicraft is one of the originators of computer lettering for comics, and not only do they have lots of great info about the how-to of computer lettering to share, they also make some of the best comic fonts around (I use lots of their fonts and love them!).
Don't worry if you can't afford their fonts right now, there are lots of other free fonts available online that, while not as good, are still workable (search "free fonts" and you'll find dozens of sites with thousands of fonts). However, if you sign up for Comicraft's newsletter (click the NEWSLETTER link at the bottom of their fonts page), they will inform you of when their fonts go on sale, which is obviously the best time to buy.
Blambot also makes some great fonts and offers a number of them for free. I would explore both the Comicraft and Blambot sites to see what info they have.
Also, here's some free word balloons and sound effects from Blambot: http://www.blambot.com/resources.shtml.
Note: make sure you read the licenses on any free fonts and other downloads. Lots of stuff you find online is free, but some, like Blambot's fonts, are only free for specific uses.
Here's Comicraft's humorous take on hand lettering. I'll see what other more detailed information I can scare up on this in the next couple of days.
Ex animo!
Rick
Posted 2 years ago #
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Did I say couple of days? How about couple of minutes!
Here's a great in-depth look at the tools and techniques of hand lettering the way all comics used to be done, courtesy of our friends at Blambot: http://www.blambot.com/handlettering.shtml.
This is pretty thorough, so it should give you a good start. Once you understand how to use the Ames guide and rule the lines to keep everything parallel, hand lettering is mostly just about practice (as is a lot of art, really).
Alas, hand lettering is a dying art I'm afraid. In mainstream comics these days, if it's used at all, it's mostly for irregular or specific lettering that can't easily be done with computers. But even that is changing. In fact, you can get a free version of your own handwriting at Yourfonts.com. I haven't tried it, but I'd love to hear if anyone does.
Posted 2 years ago #
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sbarks
Member
I really like the book Comicraft put out on lettering though I think the website you linked to has pretty much the same info.
If that's too big to digest here's a real simple tutorial for lettering with Illustrator I found.
--Steve
"That which does not kill me makes me stronger"
Posted 2 years ago #
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sbarks
Member
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King White
Member
Thanks guys. I have been out of the loop so long, that I wasn't sure what would be acceptable to readers of a web comic. Thank god people aren't demanding hand-lettering!
Posted 2 years ago #
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One more excellent resource for learning lettering is the book The DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics, by Mark Chiarello and Todd Klein.
Chiarello covers the coloring, and Klein covers the lettering.
In addition to a nice overview of digital lettering (including making your own digital fonts) it has a thorough explanation of the art of hand lettering, with many invaluable illustrations.
I ordered it from my local public library, which is the way I recommend getting most art books until you find you absolutely need them in your own personal library (or you have unlimited resources).
Cheers.
Posted 2 years ago #
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