Draw stylised comic panel art

Igor Wolski orchestrates a range of characters to tell a story in a busy, detailed scene, done in the ligne claire style with dynamic perspective

Igor Wolski tells a story in a busy, detailed scene, created in the ligne claire style.

The process of creating an artwork is a little like writing a story. While I never sit down with a blank piece of paper without an initial concept, the actual idea of what I’m trying to show is only fully formed once the sketch is done.

During that process a character’s position or expression might change them from a protagonist to a villain, or the location moves from inside to outside, because a pillar looks better as a tree. I love going on these imaginative trips, because I never know where I’m going to end up (sometimes it’s nowhere special, but that’s also okay).

When cramming information into one frame, you have to think about how the viewer’s eyes are going to travel across it, what’s going to pop and what’s going to be subtly hiding in the background. Every element might be just decoration, but can also be a piece of information for the viewer to pick up on.

In this workshop I’ll try to break down my process of how I usually go about drawing anything, whether it’s illustrations or comic panels. Both of those visual mediums have an ability to tell a story – that’s why I focus on that aspect in the tutorial. Here, I want to also point out how important it is to be creative not only with the designs, but also with composition and space.