Thinking about doing a graphic novel - need a partner
cwl
Posts: 21
I didnt see anything on this subject already posted so if its a violation of policy, sorry up front.
I have written 3 e-books in the Sci-Fi genre and they are selling pretty well. I have been considering doing a Graphic Novel on them now for quite a while but see it would take a considerable amount of time for me to do so starting from scratch. I am thinking about partnering up with an established artist to create them, but have no idea onthe costs.
any of you out there doing this already?
thanks!
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Sounds interesting but you just joined the forum yesterday it seems like.
There are a few folks around these parts who make graphic novel, including me.
I'm not really looking for work at the moment, but I can offer some general advice.
Good luck with your project!
Before hiring someone you should look at a bunch of existing comic books/graphic novels and figure out what style/look you're going for to reference for the artist. I've done comic book covers, but doing sequential work is really time consuming, especially if you have a lot of panels per page. I charge $300+ for one image, I can't imagine someone doing a whole page for $50 unless they are really young, in school, or from a country where the dollar is worth a lot more but styles of art from other countries can often look very different depending on the country... There are also some good books about creating comics you might want to read first. I'm blanking on the name of the book or author but I think it's something like "Making Comics". You can check on Amazon.
Now I'm waiting for the inevitable 'but ... exposure!' part of this conversation.
Actually, you should draw it yourself. Draw it, ink it, & scan it. If you must, do it with Moho 12, Sketchbook, or Krita and a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Jack Kirby will always be famous artist, lol, even though I consider even myself and many others to be a better comic drawing artist than Jack Kirby was, so put a bit of yourself into your art work as you've done with your writing. One thing is certain, when you saw a Jack Kirby drawn comic, you knew it was a Jack Kirby drawn comic.
I sent you a PM cwl :)
I'm a comic artist and $50-$60 a page for sequential pages (pencil work) is pretty standard for many companies. But then you have to hire an inker and then a colorist - all for around the same amount per page. So you're looking at $150-180 per page for pencils, inks, and colors. You can cut that down quite a bit (and a lot of companies are doing this in the past few years) by cutting out the inker and just having the colorist color penciled pages.
For 3D art though, that's a whole new world for me, so I have no idea how much someone who's experienced in it would/should charge per page for 3D sequential comic book type pages. You're looking at 3-6 images/panels per page (give or take). The price would/should rely pretty heavily on the amount of detail the scene requires (or how many objects are required for each scene) and how many scenes per page. If a page has 6 panels but they are all rendered from the same basic scene with minor adjustments to posing and camera placement then that would take a LOT less time to put together than a 6 panel page where each panel is a different scene - which would of course take a lot longer to set up and render.
Time is money. So it sounds, to me, like a 3D artist has to throw away the whole "per page" standard way of charging, that has been the traditional way of charging for sequential pages, to perhaps a new "per scene" way of charging. Using the same scene for more panels would be a lot less time consuming then setting up many different scenes.
Yes I did :). I have been playing with DAZ for months trying to assess my talent in creating the graphics myself. My conclusion is I will finish a book in about 3 years......
Yes I have been researching this and believe your estimate of one scene, multiple panels is right. I take this quote from the Shane Smith testimonial in User Stories "Once a scene is set up, I can produce three full and completed pages of artwork in an hour." I can't draw freehand to save my life, which is why I was looking at digital.
Things to consider:
1) these books will be based on my existing novels, so there are some constraints on charactor creation and settings. I will buy any figures, settings or such as well as pay the artist for the work. I need someone who can make these fugures look like the charactors in my books.
2) I have had success with my books, so I think the existing market will jump on these, if done well. I am not shy about dumping a couple grand into this project on spec, again for the right artist.
3) I dont make my living with these but have done very well on the side. I am looking for someone desiring the same. As an ebook novel its only going to sell at about $2.99-3.99. At that price I can hope for 8,000-10,000 units to sell quickly. that return is ~$25,000. Paperbacks have a higher return but also cost much more. Print on demand makes that market less attractive due to the higher cover costs.
LOL no, I'm not playing that card. I pay, but not a full time salary. ;)
Here’s a test page.
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/blue-angel-test-page/2699784/
It took me a little over an hour to complete. The advantage doing the way I did it is that it doesn’t require a penciler, an Inker, a colorist, or letterer. I’m not interested doing this, but I can offer you tips and show how to do it yourself. I have 15 years of experience in Poser and DAZ Studio. Just out of curiosity, describe your main character and I’ll see what I can come with.
Wow that looks pretty good. OK here is what I have
Jake Thomas– 32, 6’ 200 lbs USMC Capt. - I'm thinking a cross between Ryan Renalds and Sam Worthington
the core story is a guy who wakes up 150 years in the future to find earth has been bombed back into the 1800's. he lives in a space age underground government facility run by a Artificial Life form in a computer.
Something like this
Yes. pretty good! I tried manipulating figures in DAZ and didnt have a lot of luck. do you use Poser?
I've been working on one - teaser/draft- doing text and changing expression)
Well i'm sure you can manage stick figures & panel layout. If you are going to being paying someone you need to have those things ready for your paid artist(s) in advance.
Ikyoto,
Nicely done. If you wouldn’t mind a suggestion, brighten up your characters. In several panels they’re almost lost in the background.
Yes, I was expecting to have to do a story board with page number references to the sections of the text book they represent. What i wasn't so sure about was what a std length Graphic novel was (Page count wise ) and the page count cost. assuming a ~$50/page ~$100 front and back, a 30 page book is $3,000. That I can do.
I'm actually surprised from what Diva said that comic book artists aren't paid more money. That pay rate is only an hour's work average college grad salary pre-taxes. So that's an entire page an hour? They must be really fast. I takes me hours of drawing to get anything good, let alone an entire page.
Are you nuts! Is your novel that good you can spend $3000 Up front?
LOL book 1 has sold 25,000 copies in 18 months. all totaled the 3 have gone over $100,000
That's business. It's not actually expessive although personally for $3000 I'd prefer a hand drawn comic book. The author however has a particular style in mind and it's up to them to communicate that whoever they hire.
Actually no, I dont object to hand drawn. My ex was an illistrator for Hanna Barbera and we talked this over but I cant afford that. we both know that takes a lot more commitment and time. As Shane said earlier, properly staged scenes can return multiple panes an hour. my book could work with a select number of scenes not requireing extesive legwork.
Maybe now is a good time to reitterate, this is a spec book. I dont know if Graphic Novels sell as well as straight eBooks. I would need to sell about 1,500 just to recoup my investment. As its the Kindle market is techie, I am guessing the DAZ 3D format would be more appealing, but if anyone has experience in this area I am very open to suggestions! :)
Also I am being overly open about the finances because I dont want to miselad. as some have already stated this is not enough money for them to mess with.
The public indecency kind or the other one? I hate the first one, it's never anything interesting and the authorities seem to frown on it.
Alright, let's break this down - it sounds like you'll likely need three different artists and maybe a letterer.
1) You're going to want to hire a sculptor or morph artist to recreate your characters as close to what you have in mind for what they look like as possible.
2) You're going to need to break down your novel into pages and scenes - this can best be done by either writing up a comic script "page one, panel one - overview of run-down warehouse at night. Page two, panel two - a dark figure (silhouette of main character) is seen creeping into the building" OR it can be done by story boarding the pages (actually sketching out what each page needs to show). So you're going to want to hire someone to read your novel and break that down into scenes or story board it (but ideally you should do this yourself if you can - you know your work and what you want to see in the graphic novel better than anyone), you don't really need any drawing skills to story board the scenes - it can even be stick figures.
3) You're going to want to hire someone with comic art experience or at least someone who is VERY familiar with comic art/graphic novels and can reproduce the kind of scenes that comic artists gravitate toward. This includes creating dynamic poses, visually interesting angles, good visual story telling, etc.
4) Hopefully the comic artist will be able to do the lettering as well, but if not, you might need to hire a letterer or do that yourself. A lot of comic creators greatly underestimate how important good text/lettering layouts are. So do consider hiring someone who knows what they are doing. It's not just slapping some text onto the page (you CAN do that, but your not going to engage your audience as well and may even lose your audience). Here are some quick tips by Nate Piekos, but this is just the tip of the iceberg:
Ideally the text should also be visually appealing.
I hope you found some of that helpful. I wish you luck with your project. :)
I think, it is a great offer and if somebody take this job, it can also be good for her/his own portfolio, as well.
Just saying...
Very thanks you so much.