Why It’s Important to Thumbnail the Artwork First

Spider-man and Spider-Gwen

I often get into a bad habit of drawing whatever comes to mind. I mean to say, when I start an image I don’t always know exactly where I want it to end up. When I see myself do this too many times I get back to the basics to fix it. That is when I go back to drawing thumbnails like a good little artist should! 😉

Thumbnailing helps you to know where the artwork should end up. It is a way to establish a set of ideas without wasting a huge amount of time. Another way to say it is just “rough sketching” but I think thumbnails are the preferred terminology in comics.

You can work out things like poses, composition, camera angles, movement, energy of the shot, and shapes of shadows. In my opinion, you want to get as much information about the end result as you can within about 2-5 minutes of sketching. This also sparks creativity immensely!

After rough sketching about 5 thumbnails I am usually pretty set to go on my drawing but hey at 2 minutes long no big deal if you need to create a few more, right?

If you want to see a video of this drawing from the thumbnail sketch to the finished pencils you can watch it here on my Youtube channel –