5 steps to finishing a storyboard

When I first started to draw storyboards, I scoured the web and libraries for anything I could find on the topic. And although I found a lot of articles about storyboarding, there was not really an article explaining how to get started in creating your first storyboard with an original story.

My first storyboard never got finished, neither did my second or third, I did not have a process to follow and I would get partway through before realizing that there was a crucial step that I missed and that it would be easier to just put it aside for now and start a new project.

Which is what I did for a while, I probably started around 30 storyboard projects, all with varying levels of success, but they all ended up falling on their face. And I learned a lot from all those failures, but I can talk about that another day.

So through trial and error I discovered some steps that personally helped me to successfully start and finish a storyboard.

I am going to share that with you today, and I hope you will find it helpful.

Step 1 - STORY

Story is king, have you ever heard that? Well, its true, and its called storyboarding for a reason.

You need to have a story, and it needs to be good, it doesn't have to hold up to Shakespeare, and it should be simple. One of the first stories that I wrote for boarding that ended up working was this simple: a man trapped on an island goes to catch a fish and the fish bites him. That ended up being only 41 boards, but I told a story from start to finish, and that is what people want to see.

You should be able to sum up your entire story in one or two sentences.

I am talking about original stories, not taking something from an already existing script. I know a lot of people recommend that but as a storyboard artist I think it is important to come up with ideas and be able to write. So why not start exercising those muscles now.

Step 2 - Characters and world building (planning)

Once you have a story, you are going to end up with some characters, and they need to be designed.

Designing is not making really cool looking things, it is solving problems. And as a storyboard artists the problems you need to solve with your characters are how they will animate, can your character express a variety of emotions, what does he/she look like when angry or jumping up and down or running? You need to sit down and play with your character, draw them a for a while so you get the hang of them, it may seem like homework but it's worth it. All of these questions are very important. But I don't spend too much time on this, it's easy to get sucked down the design rabbit hole. And if you find yourself liking the design process more than the storyboarding process maybe designing is a better fit?

You also need to take into consideration backgrounds, they are just as important, if not more so than the character. Take some time and explore the world, I recommend that you just have fun with the environment but still design them. These drawings are like model sheets and no one will see them but they are valuable to you as a storyboard artist.

Step 3 - Thumbnailing shots and making a beat board

You are going to run into a lot of problems here, this is where your knowledge of cinematography comes into play, I like to use post it notes and just beat out the story, sometimes you will need to do this two or three times to get the storytelling just right so that no one watching would get confused.

I keep my drawings rough at this stage, its more about how I tell the story through an imagined lens, I look to solve any story or pacing problems. Also through doing this I get some clear angles for backgrounds that I need to draw, and I start thinking about that.

Most pros estimate that they draw around 100 thumbnails a day in feature animation, probably even more per day in television animation. (thats 100 per day in addition to the 300 cleaned up boards per week)

Step 4 - creating the storyboard

Now its time to get into the nitty gritty, and you can do this in many different ways, sometimes I will board on paper or on the computer. Whichever way is fastest and lends itself to better drawings.

This is when you show your value as a storyboard artist, you need to be able to draw well, that means having clean drawings that are easy to communicate what is happening.

Look at boards from television and movies as an example, theres a fine line in showing too much of an action and just enough. I always repeat this mantra, this is for an animator to use as notes, this is for an animator to use as notes. You are not creating a piece of fine art, and you are not animating, your sequences should be clear enough so that an animator can go ing and easily tell what the action.

Step 5 - clean up

Everyone has to clean up, In television the storyboards need to be as clean and crisp as possible, they are going overseas to Korea and the language barrier leaves lithe room for sloppy drawings, If you look at final TV boards, the lines are crisp and clean always. Clean up is important in feature as well, they need to make sure there is a drawing continuity in their boards and that they add value/ color if needed so that when showing it in a reel there is no jarring drawings that would take the viewer out of the experience.