How To Draw Your Stories | Illustration - Comics

In this drawing lesson I go over some techniques and strategies for thumbnailing out scenes.

I think thumbnailing is one of the best things you can do to build that creative muscle for story.

It's important to start building the muscle for turning your ideas into actual images. This can be challenging because it takes ages to complete a finished illustration... and the skills required to do it well take a long time to develop.

But thumbnailing is not just about the finished result it's about the thinking process. You start to learn how your idea looks when you sketch it out... and this helps you to refine your ideas to suit your medium... in this case the two dimensional page.

The more you get used to thumbnailing out your ideas straight away the easier it is to check how good they are... to start thinking of new ones. To brainstorm. To get into creative flow.

This has been really helpful to me over the years. It's one of the main tools I use to plan my images and also to get my stories down onto the page quickly.

Remember these don't need to be great drawings. They are there for you to think through your imagination.

Happy Drawing!

Tim Mcburnie

[travisnobleart]

This video, perhaps unintentionally, really captures the struggles we feel when brainstorming and trying to put new ideas to paper. When you were working on the second panel, you seemed to have some doubt about what to put down, and it showed in your monologue where everything is just sort of this or that, and that's kind of the same thing I find myself suffering from so often, like I'm just not sure if this is okay, but let's try something here, or this is a cool idea and I like it, but maybe it doesn't fit for my story (those are the hardest ideas to say no to, e.g. kill your darlings). So I just wanted to thank you for really showing the struggle of this process, and I totally resonated with it. Giving yourself all of those casual thumbnails really is a great idea, opening up the playing field, and giving yourself something other than a blank page more room from the onset to allow for mistakes and just play around with ideas.

[sophieinspired]

Your sketchbook looks amazing! Those pencil drawings are just stunning

[omalga]

Thank u! That’s exactly the channel I was looking for YEARS! Like a lot of videos on YouTube cover beginner stuff like “how to draw head” etc. that’s good and important, but there isn’t much content than covers in depth topics like this one. Also a lot of videos on YouTube talk about pretty art, but art without a story. I aspire to tell stories through my illustrations and now it’s not the problem about “how to do something?”, but “how to tell the story I want to tell?” . Ur video shows ur thought process really well, and is long and I can really get a lot from it. Thank you it’s amazing! Subbed! ✨

[deardeaddays]

I find your channel incredibly valuable! Thank you!

[Simon-ethu]

Your thumbnails really show how your idea is clarified a bit more with each iteration even when starting with a simple sentence. It seems that the little drawings we do also feed into our head. It's a great reminder to allow the first drawings to be loose and "bad" because they serve to tell us what we really want. That's so interesting and thank you for this lengthy video :)

[aroset]

Thank you so much for this video! I'm teaching myself how to tell stories visually and you breaking this down so thoroughly has been perfect.

[Procione]

i really like the composition of yor sketches. A lot of prospective and deepness in the scenes. The BGs create a lot of 3dimensionality in the draws. Very cool!

[echocloud]

I love his work!!!! ❤ it’s super beautiful and pretty. They’re very creative and awesome ideas and thoughts that he puts onto the pater. I can’t stop watching his videos and how he creates his work sometimes. Keep up the great artwork.

[mvpracing]

This is the video I didn’t know I needed. Thank you so much. I think this might be one of those videos that I watch more than once because there’s so much useful tidbits in it. :)

[leo-zfvo]

I have no specific question because you explain really well, just commenting for the algorithm ;) thanks for your videos man !

[koiturnbull]

New Pinch and zoom ability on YouTube really made watching this video even more informative as I was able to zoom in to certain details you were concerned we, the viewer, would miss. Very good video. Thanks

[rachelloof]

i love this channel makes art super soothing and inspiring tbh.

[CharlieWritesPaints]

I tell you this, I love your drawings. If my bunny story gets picked up, you would do well for it, I think. Never know, how things go, I'm new. But I love your drawing. You got a beautiful hand. There is real beauty in it.

[stevenseale]

Awesome video, Tim does a great job of drawing and explaining the process, playing with ideas, being fluid and playful. He shows what makes an image visually interesting, So inspiring, a great lesson for artists, or anyone interested in learning. Personally, I've been looking for inspiration to help get out of artists block, This really helps reminds me to have fun and play around with creating my own little storylines and to think of the most interesting image from them.... Thank You Tim.

[Michaelangelodesign]

Once again Tim thanks for your gifted inputs they all help in the evolution of the creator within each of us a sort of unleashing the dragon! Trust in the process. I am just catching up with all your inspiring courses. Thank you so much .. is that a Scottish twang I hear? A bit Sean Coneryish!! Ha ha ... kind regards

[artwhat..]

Codex..good stuff as always, art supplies, I think once an artist wantabe figures out the medium they want to focus on, it's good to get the best.. bye'eeee..

[DippedInInk]

Just bumped into this and I’m locked in. Not a thumbnail person but since I’m working on a graphic I see I have no choice but too.

[lpgibbo]

Great stuff, subbed & liked after the 1st ten minutes 😊

[ezekielmcville]

Your videos are simply inspirational and motivational

[bryanchristianabrigo]

Ngl. I feel relaxed just listening to the video on background while doing my own drawing. :D