Creating A Graphic Storyboard

When working out the initial storyboard, working it out into workable words first is the essential part, usually I do this with a ten minute brainstorming session detailing words that could make up a story element, for example if I wanted to develop a fantasy/science fiction story idea I would list all of the descriptive and relevent words that I would want from that genre in my story, like this:

dragon,

wizard,

witch........and the list goes on until you should have enough ideas and things to include.

Then using this list you start building your story in rough using a cheap notebook and a pen(or your computer), first you would start to add relationships between the listed character types, for example the witch could be the wizards sister and they don't get on, in fact they hate each other, when you do the relationship building, more often than not you will spark some excellent ideas for your main story theme(so remember to jot them down)This is the best exercise to build your story from the very foundations, so spend a little time on it.

The next step for your story is to try and come up with a:-

A Beginning

A Middle

An End

Again you can do this from the exact method described above and once these 3 parts are in place you can begin to concentrate your attention fully to sketching out your action packed panels.

The main reason I say to get your story set down in a written workable form is so that you can progress with sketches and designs to add a sequence of order for your camera-like panels that will begin to tell a story.

Films and TV are the main area that utilizes the potential of the storyboards to help all the creative people involved, plan how the story should unfold on paper and on film, directors may use them as a guide and may change anything that does'nt work for the camera shoot, however storyboards can be used for other things such as, planning of a graphic novel or comic book, a cartoon or even a theatre play.

Good storyboard panel layouts depict the important information of the action above everything else and the background may not be too important unless it is specified that the background needs to part of the story somehow, so for sure it is the direction and focus of the story that is the most important element for progress to proceed.

Inspiration for creating storyboards can be found within the world of movies and other related media and you can take ideas out from your favourite films ( within reason! I mean with dynamic camera angles and methods of advancing your story, you don't want to be taking large recognizable concepts out of films, you could get into all sorts of legal,copyright and trademark trouble.)

Each panel that you finish, add a couple of sentences to explain something in detail, a certain camera angle or descriptions of other points to note, do this in pencil and then you can type it in later.

In with your main story arc try to think of at least 3-4 seperate sub-plot stories to split the action up, these are usually interwoven with the main story arc to add depth of characters,heroes and villains etc for added interest, while this is'nt hugely important I usually do extra work to then cut back when editing.

When you are finished, clean up your story boards and attach them to either sheets of cardboard or protect the artwork with protective plastic sheets and place them into a folder for storage, you dont want to ruin your all your hard work.