What would give the storyboard you create more of that “bite”? What would make it a really good—no, slash that—a really badass, killer of a storyboard? Here are some of our tips!

1. Draw out of the box

We mean this literally—let some of your lines cross the border of the box! As much as we’ve said a storyboard looks like a manga, it’s now time to remember that it’s actually not. The manga is the end product, while a storyboard is a step towards the end product. This means the storyboard doesn’t have to have the same level of polish and finish as artwork in a comic. The drawing of your storyboard serves to suggest the larger environment (that’s bigger than the box of the sketch) and what is unseen around the scene. Your strokes don’t have to be stifled in the box, let it “breathe” more, suggest more. You can always clean it up at the end.

As we have explored in the previous article, the storyboard is crucial to the sucess of a project. The better the storyboard, the more clear the direction of the project. In this article, let’s look at various elements that need to be incorporated in a storyboard.

1. Scene

In a one minute video clip, there might be anywhere from 15 up to 100 scenes for a complex clip. A scene itself is a series of sketches that represent what is happening in those scenes.

2. Caption

Written notes are often added to the illustrations to further describe dialogue, events of the scene, and other details from the director.

So. Here you are, thinking hey maybe being a storyboard artist for a studio would be really cool. You’ve got a passion for drawing, and you love manga and anime. That’s the best start! In fact, the more comics you read and dissect, the more ideas you’ll have in your head for the storyboard you’re tasked to do. Now what are the skills you need to master in order to be a fabulous storyboard artist?

1. Drawing

A storyboard artist will constantly be drawing, so put some serious time into your drawing lessons. Practice away with various styles of artwork. The more styles you’re able to draw, the richer your portfolio.

A storyboard, folks, is where it begins. A storyboard is a visual representation of the story. It comes in the form of a series of sketches or images (that just might look a lot like manga!). This sequence of sketches or images, in turn, comes from the script, which comes from the writers. The storyboard shows things such as what and how many characters will be in a certain scene, what the environment will look like, how the plot progresses, so on and so forth.

The storyboard is important for both the client and the production team. For the client, they will actually get to “see” what the production team has in mind for the script or story. For the production team, making the storyboard helps them to calculate precisely how many animated scenes are needed in the video (or short film, or film), and thus to work out the length of the video, how many artists would be needed in the production team, and how long it would take to create it.