Avalon: The Warlock Diaries
Behind the Scenes

Join us as we take a look behind the scenes at the making of the upcoming Avalon: The Warlock Diaries manga!

Step 1 - Script

The first step is for the writer to script out the story with locations, action and character dialogue. One thing that sets manga writing apart from traditional American comic book writing (which is written panel-by-panel) is that the script for a manga is written in screenplay format like a movie. This allows the artist to control the pacing of the book as a Hollywood director would a big screen movie.

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Step 2 - Script Breakdown & Roughs

Once the script is approved, the artist reads the script and, with the length of the book in mind, starts plotting out the pages. Some artists will do very quick sketches of the panels called "roughs" while other artist may skip this set entirely and move right onto...


Step 3 - Pencils

With the script broken down, the artist will begin sketching out in pencil the various panels and characters and scenery within the panels. This is where the actual book begins to take shape and an artist can see if a sequence is working. If not, changing it is as easy as a quick rub of the eraser.

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Step 4 - Inking

Once the artist is satisfied with how the page looks in penciled form, it's time to move on to the inking process. The artist will go over their pencils with an ink pen to give the artwork solid black lines. Once the page is fully inked, the artist will then erase any remaining pencil art leaving only the inked artwork behind.

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Step 5 - Scanning & Retouch

The artist then scans their inked artwork into the computer as a high-resolution image file. This image file can then be opened in Adobe Photoshop and cleaned up further to remove any stray lines and fix mistakes they may have made.


Step 6 - Lettering

With all the artwork complete, the book then moves to a letterer who draws all the word balloons and places the text and sound effects onto the pages.

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Step 7 - Toning

While the book is being lettered, another person known as a "tonist" takes the artist's black and white artwork and adds what is known as "screentones" to the pages. Since manga is only black and white, the dots and patterns that make up screentones give the artwork a much needed depth and texture so that it really stands out!

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Step 8 - The Completed Page

Once all the tones are finished, the letterer then combines the toned pages with the lettering to produce the final pages. We're still in production on volume one right now, so we don't have any of those to show you just yet. But be sure to check back in April for a full preview of Avalon: The Warlock Diaries!