What's on Your Mind? Speech Bubble Tutorial

      Since people on Instagram have asked me how I make my speech bubbles, I thought what better to do than make a tutorial! Today I will be showing you how my drawings and doodles get from paper to finished product, using this Feminist bubble as the example. (If you haven't been introduced to feminism yet, it's wonderful, I highly recommend it) This is the method I use for my bubbles as well as my other drawings. 

You Will Need: 

+ blank paper

+ pencil

+ pen

+ picture-taking device or scanner

+ GIMP (download it here!)

      First, think of something to write or draw. It can be anything! Then, of course, draw it. (In pencil first). I've developed a habit of making an italic bubble font, but don't feel like you have to copy me! Look at other fonts and experiment with other styles of lettering. 

       It usually takes a few tries for me to get the letters and the bubbles just the right shape.

        Once you've got your drawing just the way you want it, go over it in pen. I love my micron pens but anything will do, as long as the ink is dark and consistent. Then erase any leftover pencil lines.

       Then, take a picture of it! (you could also scan your drawing but I don't have a scanner and I get by just fine). You can use a fancy camera or just an iPhone, just make sure the lighting is okay because grainy photos make the in-computer part difficult. 

       Transfer your photo to your computer, and open it in GIMP. Desaturate it to get rid of any bad white balance situations.

        Go to colors>curves and in the value channel, drag the curve so that it's pretty much a vertical line. Use your judgement to decide where that line is so that the lines you drew show up the right thickness.

       Next, use the paint bucket tool to color things in. 

       Continue doing this. (It was a bit more complicated with this multi-bubble drawing but it should be pretty simple if none of your lines overlap). Just drop "paint" on all the lines and empty spaces. 

        Keep experimenting with colors. It always takes me lots of tries to figure out what colors I want my art to be. Usually I look to my art and design board on Pinterest for color combo inspiration.

      Now I'll show you how to add the glitter overlay I often enjoy adding. (You can do this with any pattern or texture). 

       First, find a suitable texture for free online. (I just googled "free gold glitter texture").

      Next, go to the select by color tool and click on the region you want to cover. (As you can see, the text is selected here).

       

       Import your texture and resize it if necessary.
       + Go to layer> transparency> add alpha channel
       + Go to select> invert (or command + i)
       + Go to edit> cut (or command + x) to remove the pieces you don't want.

      

       In this case, I used the eraser tool to take the glitter out of every other letter.

   

       After messing with colors a bit more, I decided on a pale pink for the remaining letters instead of yellow. And there's my finished product! (sometimes I like to add a filter at the end too).

      If you make any drawings with this method, be sure to link to them below or tag me in your Instagram posts, I'd love to see them!