Introduction.

Hi! I am Bsamsas.

On this occasion I want to share with you some ideas and tips to create onomatopoeias or comic sound effects that attract attention, for when we want sound to take center stage!

First of all, onomatopoeia are words that imitate sounds, noises, actions, visual phenomena, smells, and even feelings or moods. They are very effective in complementing the sensory experience that drawings and texts allow.

OK! Let's do it!

First of all, we must know what sound effect we want to use. If you are not sure, calm down. You can look up examples on the internet. I also recommend you use this web page What is an onomatopoeia dictionary !:

I'll start with a classic example: Booom!

It's a word that mimics the big bang sound!

Sketch

First of all, it will be enough to make a sketch of the form that will correspond to the onomatopoeia. For this generally, it will be enough to imagine the word in context, it will depend on the shape of the panel and the space that is empty. In this case, the "booom!" will fill an entire panel.

You have the freedom to sketch with the settings that you like best. Still I share mine, in case it serves as a reference.

I use the "darker pencil" tool that clip studio paint brings, with the hardness set to maximum and the stabilization at 86.

As for the layers, I create one to sketch, to which I apply "layer color" by clicking on the blue box in the properties bar of the layer. This color can be changed in the layer property tab, this time I use blue by default.

 

Now, we must assign a place for each character, for this, it is advisable to write the word and separate each character to be able to list them, as shown at the top.

Well, our onomatopoeia has 6 characters, the "B" takes up more space because it is capitalized, the "o" take up less space because it is lowercase and in a simple way, the "M" takes up more space because it has a more complex shape. to be in capital letters, and finally, the exclamation point ("!") that occupies very little space due to its simple form.

We will flee each box of each character towards an imaginary point, this to give dynamics, because a square onomatopoeia may be inappropriate for this occasion.

We run from each upper corner to an imaginary point, remember that these are guide lines, and we do not need to make them perfect, so as not to lose the "human" emotion.

 

Add a layer on top of your first sketch, I prefer to use layers as much as possible. I put the new layer in red (Apply layer color) And I lowered the opacity to the previous layer (Extratip: The bar that determines the opacity of the selected layer and the opacity percentage of each layer is indicated in the image).

In this new layer we will determine the upper and lower limits, as well as half of our sound effect.

Remember that these lines are only guides, we will let ourselves be carried away by our tastes, but we will use the guides as a reference.

We can proceed to sketch the letters following the guides, try to make a sketch that is quick, it does not have to be clean or the best, the important thing is not to be afraid.

In this example, we see that the letter "B" must be large and above all, as is usually the capital letter. An extra tip for this letter is that the top should not be wider than the bottom.

The "o" are smaller, we must remember that even the circles have to follow the escape guides. The "M" is larger, it does not matter that it is not completely symmetrical in this case, it also follows the leak guides. The exclamation point is separated a little from the other letters, this is recommended to improve readability.

Extratip: Remember that when designing, the decisions are yours and your tastes, but you must follow some rules to be able to connect with other people, for example, now we choose to have the letters well together with each other, and we do not break that decision unless there is good justification for that.

 

Lineart

Next, we will prepare the lineart.

First we will create a new layer on top of the others, we will right click on it and select "Convert Layer" (shortcut H).

We will get a window in which the only thing that we will change is the type of layer, we will put it in "Vector layer" now we will press "OK". Extratip: The vector layer helps us to edit the lines by control points, so we can correct them in detail, even after drawing them.

We will configure the drawing tool so that it has a uniform stroke, which does not depend on the pressure of our hand, nor on the inclination or other factor. For this we will go to the box next to "Brush size" and we will deactivate any activated box, we will do the same in the "Brush Density" section.

We draw the lines on the vector layer, we look for fluid and well defined lines. Extratip: We can use the rule by holding the shift key. It will be useful on straight lines.

Remember that we can correct the lines that did not come out as we wish, it is quite simple: Choose the "Line Correction" tool later, with the "Control Point" sub tool we will have enough options to manipulate the lines at will.

Color

For the color, we create a new layer below the lineart. We also designate the linart layer as the reference layer, by clicking on the button with the lantern icon.

We choose the "Fill" tool the "Refer to other layers" sub tool. Next, we select the option in reference to use the reference layer as a guide, once again it is represented as a lantern icon. We can continue to color the letters in an appropriate color, which is associated with the idea we want to convey, in this case, red is quite associated with an explosion.

We are going to make strong shadows for the letters, for this, we first duplicate the vector layer of lineart.

We place the copied lineart layer below the color layer.

We will increase the line thickness of on this layer with the "Modify line width" tool.

We choose the option "Increase" and set it to a high value, I opted for a value of 10.0. With this tool we select all the lines without letting go of our stroke.

It should be something like this.

With the move tool, we move the layer a little to the left, thus creating projected shadows for the letters.

Details

We will create a new layer below the others, which will be to sketch a decoration for our onomatopoeia, a sparkle from the explosion.

Since the flash is like a star, it is very helpful to use guidelines that are concentric, a circle cut out like a pizza will suffice. As you can see, I have lowered the opacity to the upper layers to be able to work better.

We create a new layer just above the sketch layer for the flare.

We can use the continuous line tool to facilitate the drawing.

There will be something like this, using the guide lines to maintain a certain concentricity.

We will create a new layer for the color of the flare, always below the corresponding lineart. We also make it the only reference layer.

We proceed to color it with the fill tool, as we did in previous steps. After this, returning the corresponding opacity, and hiding the sketch layers, we get this result.

But, we can do even better. The secret is in this step, we only have to free our imagination and add details that relate to what we want to convey.

We add a new layer below everything for details.

I have decided to draw clouds of smoke and stars. You can unleash your creativity and add other elements, for example: Rockets, bombs. debris, etc. We can also add reflections and shadows to increase the level of detail.

For the shine, we create a new layer on top of all the others, except for the lineart of the letters. To this layer, we change the combination mode from normal, to "Add brightness"

We paint the gloss with white, using the pencil tool that we have been using. And we continue with the shadows.

We create a new layer above the details layer, we are going to shade the smoke cloud. We change the layer combination mode to "Multiplication"

We can use the tool we want to shade, I will continue to use the pencil as always.

After shading the clouds, we already have a satisfactory result. We'll look at another example to go over the design steps we learned ...

Summary

First, we choose the onomatopoeia that we will use. In this case we will use the word "Splash" that transmits a Dip! Next, we make the base shape of our sound effect, and we count the number of characters to use, in this case, they are 6.

Second, we draw the lines that define the top, bottom, and center of our characters.

Third, we trace the letters according to what we want to convey. In this example, since we have a "watery" action, I decided to give the letters a liquid and dynamic appearance with drops that are ejected.

Fourth, we draw the lineart, always on a vector layer to repair possible errors.

Fifth, we fill in the lineart with color. On a new layer below the lineart layer. Remember to assign the lineart layer as a reference.

Sixth, we add the details that come to mind, remembering that everything must be related to what we want to convey.

Lastly, you can add highlights and shadows if you wish.

Let your imagination run wild!

Thanks for following this tip! I hope it has been helpfull! Until next time!