TWCL

[Marscaleb]

I've been spending the last few our laying out the floor plan for the house one of my characters lives at, and where much of the upcoming story will take place.
As the day rolls to a close, I began to wonder how many other comic authors put such effort into their comic. On one hand, some comics keep to such basic views and simple gags that they rarely need more than a gradient to serve as a backdrop. On the other hand, I've seen some comics that, even for simple gag-based content, draw well-made establishing shots of the houses and rooms.

Myself, I come from a drafting background, and on top of that, my brain is naturally wired for locations and space. For the few houses I've seen I've naturally planned out how the space is used up and where the rooms fit; I just cannot allow myself to proceed until this is done, even if I only see two or three rooms from the whole house.
And for the house I'm working on now, since I'm going to have a lot that takes place here, I'm giving it the full treatment to lay out a complete floor plan, measured and planned as if I were designing the plans for a real house.

But that's me. I'm wondering how much planning other comicers put into their environments.
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My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

[mcmasters]

I'll have to learn perspective and interior settings on the fly. My first comic takes place in a bathroom, so all I could muster was "minimalist bathroom" and that took me forever. I would like to reach the point where such things are kind of intuitive and I can sketch interiors and details that "feel realistic" without insane amounts of effort. I have another one that I haven't put up yet that takes place in a kid's bedroom and again, took forever and doesn't even look that good.

http://mcmasterscomics.com

[Traegorn]

I use the floorplans of real places I've been. Makes it easier

[wendyw]

I have floor plans for some places, but not many and more often than not it's just individual rooms. Trying to work out how the actual buildings work would be pretty headache inducing I'm sure.
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[allentmatthews]

My webcomic doesn't work in a consistent spaces so I don't worry about floor plans. I come from a drafting background as well though, so whenever I draw interior spaces I do try to make them in such a way that they make sense, but keep the details to a minimum.

If I were to do a series of comics located in one building however, then I would do sometimes similar to how The Simpsons does it (I know it's an animated show, but follow me on this). For their house, there is a basic layout to how the floor plan works but, because the show is meant to be funny, sometimes they take liberties and change it up a bit for a certain joke. It would be kind of jarring if there wasn't consistency, but I say it's ok to make a small change for a particular joke to work.

[iaviv]

I just build the stuff in Sketchup. The model is already a floor plan AND it helps with perspective.
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[Zoe Robinson]

I've not planned a single floor plan* for any of my comics. I prefer to not be restricted by something I laid out before the comic began. It's worked out nicely so far.

* Which my phone decided to autocorrect to "floodplain". Apparently my phone was not designed with interior decorators in mind, or something.
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[nsanelilmunky]

I do and I don't. I have a floor plan of a main character's appartment and sometimes have a map of a city that I'm working in, but a lot of the time, I'm winging it. I put entirely too much detail in my environments as it is without learning drafting. I still need to get better at the perspective stuff and integrating my characters into said environment. As it is, they look a bit out of place as they were drawn free-hand and the buildings/rooms/etc were drawn with a ruler.

[ttallan]

Occupational hazards of doing a science fiction comic: when you set your story on a ship, everyone expects you to make detailed blueprints. (Though I suppose there is also a similar hazard to doing epic fantasy, in which everyone expects to see a world map.)

Anyway, I really don't enjoy the kind of drafting it would take to produce a proper set of schematics and floor plans for Galaxion readers to peruse (so I haven't made any, alas), but I do make thumbnail-style sketches of floor plans of rooms and areas that show up in the comic. Sometimes I'll try to fudge my way through a scene without one, but I usually get so frustrated trying to figure out what goes in the panel backgrounds as I shift the camera angles around that I wind up having to scribble out a last-minute floor plan anyway. I do these as needed, so I don't have lots of places mapped out in advance or anything. I have a rough guide to how the ship is laid out, and that's about it.
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[Spencey]

Fun fact: The living room of my (Earth-based) characters' house is actually just MY house! I changed the colour of the sofa and swapped out a mirror (because I didn't want to draw reflections all the time), but other than that - it's my house.
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[dpat57]

iaviv wrote:

I just build the stuff in Sketchup. The model is already a floor plan AND it helps with perspective.

Ditto!
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[Montanto]

dpat57 wrote:

iaviv wrote: I just build the stuff in Sketchup. The model is already a floor plan AND it helps with perspective. Ditto!

Here as well. Run it through a line art macro and then the stamp filter and it looks just like line art for the background.
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[Eve Z.]

My characters live on a campus. I didn't draw a plan of the campus. you just see lots of walls, buildings, and I gotta admit that I got lazier since I started, because I stopped drawing all the details, like windows and such.

My characters just move a round. Maybe I should draw a plan of the campus with the college and the canteen and coffeteria and the wards, where each is situated.
I have the plan of the rooms well-set in my mind though.

I remember in SL,I drew the house where my characters lived once, but lost the sketch. :p
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[Marscaleb]

allentmatthews wrote:

I come from a drafting background as well though

allentmatthews wrote:

If I were to do a series of comics located in one building however, then I would do sometimes similar to how The Simpsons does it (I know it's an animated show, but follow me on this). For their house, there is a basic layout to how the floor plan works but, because the show is meant to be funny, sometimes they take liberties and change it up a bit for a certain joke.

I've heard someone else talk about The Simpson's house not being set, but it always bugged me because it's just not true, their house is VERY defined, and I could draw you out the exact floor plan.
As to your comment that they make changes for certain jokes, while I believe it, I've never seen it happen for their house. The city, yes, the neighborhood, yes, even the back yard, yes, but I've never seen them make a change to their house.

Montanto wrote:

dpat57 wrote: iaviv wrote: I just build the stuff in Sketchup. The model is already a floor plan AND it helps with perspective. Ditto! Here as well. Run it through a line art macro and then the stamp filter and it looks just like line art for the background.

I'm told that Dan Shive does this for El Goonish Shive as well.

And to be honest... I'm building this house in Maya.
I'd do it in Revit if I had a copy, but this is what I got. (I'd be done by now if I had Revit.)
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My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

[Valgrim]

Like someone said before 9/10 I base the floor plan on somewhere I've been. Once I have the setting in mind I build the "set" in Vue. I LOVE Vue. Well worth the cash.

-Val