PART OF MY COMIC STRIP PAGE LAYOUT SERIES

The previous article in this series was about how Don Low uses a comic strip layout for his urban sketching. In one of his posts he mentioned the impact that Andrew Tan had on his sketching style. So today we’re looking at how Andrew Tan uses a comic strip layout when sketching scenes with people.

Comic Strip Layout Inspiration from Andrew Tan

Andrew Tan is a comic book artist and illustrator from Singapore, and I’ve pulled two of his Instagram posts, so we can delve into the concepts and approaches he’s taken with his comic strip style spreads. I’ve also included an overview of his informative Skillshare class about how to sketch quicker and more simply using contour lines.

Instagram Post #1

In this first Instagram example, Andrew uses the classic 6-on-one comic strip layout, but rather than using bordered boxes to contain his sketches, he just divided the page into six equal sized areas. This double page spread features a mix of close up and mid-range sketches mostly of people, but there are a couple of sketches with just objects.

If you squint at this spread you can make out a rough v-shape of darker areas (made up mostly of hair and clothing), whilst the other sketches are simple line drawings without the blocks of black.

Instagram Post #2

In this second Instagram post Andrew uses two equal sized cells, one is a wide shot and the other is a mid-range shot. These are quite simple sketches and seem more reminiscent of thumbnail sketches rather than finished sketches. The focal point in both of the sketches is accentuated by areas of high contrast.

I often think my sketched layouts of people would benefit from some thumbnail sketch planning, but my pages evolve organically. When I start a sketch page I’m never sure who is going to make it onto the page, as often the people that do get added, aren’t currently in the scene – I’m still waiting for them to arrive.

My usual approach is to start urban sketching people and let my layout and focal point evolve. But this example from Andrew Tan has given me an idea about how I could approach my scenes differently, by reverse engineering the composition.

Rather than sketching people and build the scene around them, I could thumbnail a pleasing page composition, and when the right people to enter the scene I could place the figures according to the thumbnail layout.

That could mean moving people from their physical position, and sketching them in a different position to fit the layout of my thumbnail sketch. This moving people to new locations is something I already do when there are interesting people sitting at different tables in a cafe. I often sketch them at the same table to make a more dynamic sketch.

Andrew Tan (Dreamscape) on Skillshare

Andrew has an easy to follow class on Skillshare that covers how to draw quicker, smaller and simpler. The main concept is breaking people and objects down into big shapes, and then filling in the detail, as a way to avoid getting overwhelmed with complex scenes. It doesn’t take long to work through the classes, and it’s a really good example of how using contour drawing can help to simplify your sketches. Once you’ve mastered the concepts of seeing the world as a series of shapes instead of objects, Andrews introduces, simple textures, tonal shading, and perspective.

Andrew Tan’s website Drewscape, and Andrew Tan on Blogspot and Andrew Tan on YouTube