How (why!) do they do it?
A week or two back, one of our regulars asked how Nick and I “work” together at creating Head in the Clouds.
It’s actually a pretty simple process. I have a long list of ideas which I believe will work for the strip, to which I add whenever the muse strikes (she’s pretty casual). This gives me enough material to have quite a few strips drawn out in advance. Every few weeks I just scratch out several onto scrap paper to see if they look ok. These get scanned and uploaded to Nick for his perusal.
I think this is useful, since obviously not all of the ideas are any good, or even slightly funny, so it gives Nick a chance to pick and choose ones that he hopefully also thinks work for the strip before he sits down and starts drawing “for real.”
Here’s an example of the sort of thing that I send over for him to work from. How he turns this into the finished article I’ll never know:
Storyboard for strip dated 29th January 2009 - click the image to see it full-size
Once Nick’s picked ones he can bear to draw, he usually does two or three at a time, and often a couple of variants for each - minor changes to the image itself, or to the dialogue if it seems a bit clunky. This is usually a few days before they’re due to be uploaded to the site.
At this point we have short discussion on any changes required, although actually I’m usually so pleased with what he’s done that it’s simply ready to go in my opinion.
Right now I’ve about another 50 or so storyboards in the pipeline, and I’m trying to maintain that sort of level to maximise the chances of actually stumbling across an amusing one 
January 29th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
that’s really cool.. so in this case you actually draw an initial storyboard which conveys the basic idea,and nick goes from there.
it’s a really interesting and unusual method of collaboration — i’m sure there are teams where one writes and one draws but it’s just interesting that in this case it’s more like you are doing the first draft, and then nick does the final but changes the content too as he goes from draft to final. interesting!!
it might be fun (and unique!) for each strip to include a little link to the original sketch that inspired it!
January 29th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Thank you mouser.
One day I’ll throw open the doors to the archive, but I’m afraid all my artwork is at the same level as the image in the post: very rough and ready. I reckon I spend about 5 minutes on the whole illustration.
Last time I tried to draw the strip “properly” it took me blimmin’ ages. I don’t know how Nick manages to do such a great job every time and still retain (vestiges) of his sanity.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
(who ever claimed to remain sane?)
behind closed doors, we’ve discussed posting the original strips that Tim does - maybe even doing them as guest strips - which would be novel: Tim guest stripping on his own website, that must be a first in the comic world.
the original strips that Tim sends me help take a great deal of work out of what i’d otherwise have to do. they provide a jumping board without which i’d probably just find myself staring at a blank canvas for several hours.
it’s like i have my own HITC comic strip to read that no one else can see. i like how they capture the expressions of the characters even though they can be totally different to the final strip i draw. a major reason for starting HITC is that Tim had already got a lot of ideas and strips already drawn - it was obvious that he had the imagination and writing skill to produce enough work so that the strip wouldn’t dry up after a dozen or so strips. without that i doubt i’d have made any effort to do something alone. i think Tim’s ease at writing for the Codex Transportica also demonstrates his creativity and writing talents.
for those of you interested in the technical side of things…
each strip is drawn using a Wacom Cintiq running Alias Sketchbook Pro 2. i find this to have a more natural and realistic feel when compared against something like Adobe Photoshop - though i still use several layers during the process.
regardless of how quick i try to do a strip it always seems to take an hour at least. even when trying to be clever an reuse elements from previous strips it still takes over an hour - it would probably be wiser to just redraw everything.
after that, the image is transferred to Adobe Photoshop. small corrections can be made and the text added. this may take anything from 30 minutes to an hour.
i know a lot of comic strip artists will spend a lot longer on their work. (they must be crazy if they are doing it for fun.)
final word: cobbe and twiggles will eventually have a consistent style and appearance - i’ve just got to get the hang of using the wacom cintiq and pen.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
i just think it would add an extra element to each strip if we could see the original draft sketch that inspired it.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I’ll say it before anyone else does: original *daft* sketch more like
February 1st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I didn’t know your artist does not live near you. How far away is he from you?
February 1st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Nick’s over 200 miles away (or I am).
We’re both in the UK, but I’m in Brighton on the South Coast, he’s way up North somewhere in the freezing arctic wastes near Nottingham.
Still, it does looke like they have electricity up there nowadays
February 16th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Ah the marvels of the internet bringing together artists tha live far apart in fantastic collaboration. This is the first time I have seen this particular tecnique too. Great comic. The only crit I will make is that the picture is a bit small.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:09 am
That’s very true - without the internet (not just email, but of course skype and ftp and and and) then this strip would simply never have existed.
Thank you for your comments - at some point we will redo the site, and somehow include a larger strip size.