The last stage in preparing a set of storyboards, is, naturally, making them look good. What we've crafted so far are a rough template to what the rest of the world will see. They may make sense to you, but will probably not make a whole hell of a lot of sense to anyone else.

"What's that, a foot?"

"Yeah."

"And what's this thing here?"

"That's a broadsword."

"A broadsword?"

"Yeah, a broadsword."

"Hmmm."

Cleaning Up

I generally work on the computer for all my drawing these days. The advantages in the clean-up stage make it completely worthwhile. You, yourself may still like the feel of drawing on paper, and that's fine. You should scan your rough (or even detailed) sketches in at some point though, so you can take advantage of some of the time-saving that a program like Photoshop can provide.

I use a big-ass Wacom tablet and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro (formerly Alias Sketchbook Pro) for 90% of my storyboard work. I love Sketchbook Pro, it's the closest thing to drawing on paper that I have found yet, and it just keeps getting better with each version.

First thing I do is open a template that I created specifically for storyboards. Through a lot of trial and area, I finally set upon a good resolution that delivers some pretty clean looking 'boards. No sense in you going through the same process, so you can download these templates here (zip file).They've been set up for use (in .tiff format) with Sketchbook Pro (there's a separate layer for the frames themselves so you won't wreck everything when you have to erase), but you can use them with any computer drawing program, or, what the hell, print them off and just use a pen and ink. It's entirely up to you.

There are three templates included in the set, one for each of the three most popular aspect ratios (1.85:1, 16:9 and 2.39:1). For an explanation of these different sizes, see the first tutorial.

A benefit of working digitally — in our example — is that I can copy and paste my thumbnail sketches into the template, which will save a little bit of time.

I've added a couple of extra layers below the "frames" layer in Sketchbook Pro: "sketch", "sketch2" and "dark". You don't need to do this yourself (the downloaded copy only has the frames layer and one blank one below that), this is just the way I've gotten used to working over the years. "Sketch" are my pasted thumbnail sketches which I've resized to fit the frames and faded a bit. "Sketch2" is where I'm going to do my actual sketch, as I've only really made stick-figures for my thumbnails. "Dark" is where I will rough in the final drawing.

I've also shifted a couple of the frames on the left side of the top layer. There are quite a few arrows in the third frame and I want some room to work on them without hitting the edge of the frame. No one says all your frames have to line up in perfect rows.

Here's some progress, working on the "sketch2" layer:

Notice, I moved some things around, like Ashley's head position, which I managed to screw up a little bit on the thumbnail sketch. You don't have to be perfect on this layer, as you can see, but you need to flesh in all the details that will be in the frame. In this example, I've gone deliberately rough with the buildings in the background, giving the impression that they will be out of focus in the final shot.

I find it's best to do all the sketching on a page before moving on to detailing (on the "dark" layer). This way you're not switching back and forth between rough and final. But, once again, that's just how I work, you may be different.

Below is a real world example from another project of a full sketched page. Notice I've thrown in a lot of background detail in this step. I like to get what's in the frame out of the way at the beginning, so I really don't have to think about anything except drawing when I make the next pass.

Also notice I've included a sweeping, dynamic arrow on one of the (connected) frames, indicating a camera move. You can get as wacky as you want with the frames and arrows, as long as it conveys a sense of what the shot is about. Here are a couple more examples of this in action: 

 

Back to our zombie movie example, I next fade the two sketch layers and pretty much trace a new frame onto the "dark" layer: 

How much effort and detail you put into this really depends on what type of storyboard you are doing and what its intended audience is (read more about storyboard types in the second tutorial). The above would work just fine for storyboards intended for a shoot. You might want to add a bit of color if you have time: 

Now it could potentially be used for a presentation storyboard to get investors interested in kicking in some funds. 

"Lucy, you've got some 'splaining to do..."

The final step is to take your carefully crafted frames and lay them out in a nice format for people to absorb. If you've done a great job, you shouldn't need to add a lot here, you can let the frames speak for themselves. If there are some hazy areas, or your target audience is perhaps a bunch of people who don't look at storyboard frames everyday, then you've going to have to include a bit of text to let them know what's going on. 

Photoshop is great for a task like this, or you could use Microsoft Word or something like that. Any kind of page layout program that will let you mix images and text will do nicely. 

Below is a page of presentation 'boards whose audience were film neophytes like the kind described above, so, even though the very detailed pictures plainly tell the story on their own, text, frame numbers and script dialogue were added so there would be no doubt everyone is on the same page (so to speak): 

Your Turn

So, there you have it, that's all there is to it. I hope these tutorials were helpful to you. Be sure to check out the other examples on this site and don't be afraid to forget everything you've learned here, break the rules and make your own style. As long as you convey the spirit of what the finished shot will be, you can push the artform to its very limits. 

Best of luck! And if you want to share what you've done, just drop a line to zombiespirit@gmail.com and I'll include it here on this site.