Mastering Visual Storytelling - Angles, Shots, and Camerawork for Comics

Dive into comic making and learn more from Mike and other Marvel pros in the premium course - proko.com/marvel
One of the unique storytelling features of comics is how an artist choreographs story beats and action through intentional camera placement and movement. Veteran comic book artist Mike Hawthorne provides an introduction on how to use camera angles and shots to pace visual storytelling in comics. He compares comic layouts to cinematography, advising artists to choose shots that best convey the story, like closeups for emotional moments and long shots to establish settings.
Mike demonstrates how to use different angles like worm's eye and bird's eye views to build atmosphere and perspective. He analyzes example comic pages, explaining how he mixes shots on a page and moves the camera to underscore character relationships and lead the reader's eye. Mike also stresses the importance of research and acting choices to make the most of angles and advises using extreme closeups sparingly for biggest impact.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:41 - Building the Right Shot
01:18 - Long Shot
03:14 - Medium Shot
05:13 - Close Up
06:02 - Extreme Close Up
07:59 - Low Angle & Worm’s-Eye View
09:24 - High Angle & Bird’s-Eye View
10:27 - Mixing Up Your Shots
13:43 - Outro
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ABOUT PROKO:
Instructional How to Draw videos for artists. My drawing lessons are approachable enough for beginners and detailed enough for advanced artists. My philosophy is to teach timeless concepts in an entertaining way. I believe that when you are having fun, you learn better. I take pride in producing high-quality videos that you will enjoy watching and re-watching.
CREDITS:
Artist | Instructor - Mike Hawthorne (thinktankcomics.com/draw.html)
Producer - Stan Prokopenko (www.stanprokopenko.com), Sean Ramsey (www.peoplewhodrawstuff.com), Patrick Bosworth (www.patrickdavidbosworth.com)
Production Assistance - Patrick Bosworth, Sean Ramsey, Stephen Clark (www.peppermintgentleman.com), Kristian Nee (www.kristiannee.com/) Editing - Ash Lo Russo (www.artstation.com/ash_lorusso), Charlie Nicholson ( / shloogorgh )
Publishing - John Birchall, Alex Otis
Music Used with Permission from the ABC Music Library

[@ProkoTV]

Dive into comic making and learn more from Mike and other Marvel pros in the premium course - proko.com/marvel

[@loredo182]

Damn, I wasn’t expecting this one! Mike is an amazing artist and I always get fired up when I see his artwork 👏👏

[@ProkoTV]

He's a skilled artist and did a great job sharing his knowledge in the full course!

[@seandamienhill]

Mike is one of my favorite artists, the perfect one to explain storytelling

[@abhilashpanda5758]

Thanks for the comic book series. Comic book storytelling is not recognized enough

[@thehackingdom2868]

Babe wake up, Proko just uploaded

[@ProkoTV]

😂

[@Whothe11]

Proko always comes to the rescue! Very helpful video 🏆

[@ProkoTV]

Glad it helps!

[@Heaview]

Low angle and worm view makes the characters look very authoritative and badass. Berserk shows the villain Femto in such a angle in one scene, and it gives a sense of him being strong and hella scary, untouchable also. Talking about close shots, in the manga Monster, by Naoki Urasawa, it is cleverly used to show Johan's psycho traits through the story, and in the classical scene which he points to his forehead asking to shot him. Angles tells a lot in the scene, immerses feelings even stronger. I think a good exercise would be us drawing 3 panel sequences exploring different combinations of angle in our drawings. Also, trying to reach this "feeling-throught-angle" in conceptual sketches.

[@Dmg6um]

Great video and clearly articulated. I do have to point out on the last daredevil page, panel 3 breaks the 180 degree rule. There are 2 occasions when you can break it, but this is not one of them. To clear it up it would have been an idea to leave daredevil in the panel behind foggy facing away from us to continue the relationship between characters. Or to go with a Birds Eye showing the distance growing between them. Or, turn foggy away from us and have him looking over his shoulder. Panel 4 maybe needed to be flipped also. But, deadlines are rough and he may not have had the time to clear it up. Just needed to clarify that.

[@breadpirateoverhere]

Loooove Mike, he's such a friendly dude. His patreon has a lot of great storyboarding pieces in it too

[@articulando526]

Excellent course, dude. I should pay lots of money for a study like this. Masterclass.

[@ProkoTV]

People don't have to spend a ton now! They can save 20% off courses for the rest of the month 😉 Thanks for liking the video!

[@lunakent69]

Every time I draw I feel like the director of a movie! haha! excelent video

[@aglcomics]

Excellent video and Absolutely right! Storytelling in comics or in a visual medium, is telling a story in sequential images and knowing what is going on without words. The best way for any comics creator to learn how to do this is to look at comics greats like Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, John Byrne, George Perez, Neal Adams, Art Adams, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee and any other comics artist of the 80s and 90s when comics, in my opinion, were created by comics creators who had a good grasp of storytelling in comics. AGL

[@VtotheKelley]

This was such a fantastic breakdown. Also, sir, you have beautiful hair. 😍

[@ProkoTV]

Yeah, he does!

[@BionicRambutan]

Love to see a fellow Boricua sharing his talent!

I love Mike, such a great artist, so stylised yet so solid. I've got an anatomy reference guide book he did on kickstarter and it's amazingly good.

[@Thollis1987]

Birds Eye view and worm’s eye view are great dynamic effects for positioning your character❤

[@ntbored7727]

Thank you for making full minute videos.

[@hugopetruspons]

Oh, a bit of my inking work appears in this video, over ACO's excellent work! Nice!

[@wrensart1335]

YO THEY GOT MIKE

[@Paul_LaSalle]

Great Lesson Mike!

[@PacoMedina]

Excellent explanation.

[@samankucher5117]

very informative thank you guys :)

[@Truestratusx]

The Mike Hawthorne! Niiice.

[@ProkoTV]

He's the best!

[@CHICO-bw8hs]

I STRUGGLED WHITH TRANSITION SCENES THANKS AGAIN PROKO

[@eeknation]

Nice job explaining the process. 👍

[@mattfr11]

Great video ❤

[@vickyboss5498]

thanks sir

[@17th_Colossus]

Very helpful

[@KillerTacos54]

Great artist

[@gat-susama7409]

When is perspective starting in the main drawing course?I cant wait for perspective

[@Ashutosh-anime]

hi proko can u please make a video on how to draw indoor like room kitchen guest room and outdoor arcitecture like street house from imagination and fast please i have NID design exam next month this will be great help

[@harshitadas1435]

are y'all stalking me? i started character designs on my comic today ;-; anyways, fantastic video

[@Waferdicing]

🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗

[@Ishika_01]

First!

[@gantzmann.]

Hi

[@yueza24]

Second

[@poopdealer9399]

get ryan ottley next!

[@ProkoTV]

Definitely on our list!

[@BrooklyFire]

SHOUTOUT to the editor! This video wouldn't pop without him/her. Next, I want to show off that I'm watching your videos to make a semi comic-animatic. (About 1-1/2 fps) thank you I'm exited! Last, I don't want to seem ignorant, I do get the magic feeling of drawing by hand but you say you have to cut some meat out. Well i think the hiperdetailism probably takes most of the time, and I feel like its distracting from the story that's being told. Can't you like..get some screenshots from google earth, slap some "ink" or "comic" effect on them and insert them to save time if you want that same level of detail on a basis? My style (I'm not professonal or anything 😢) is to lay the basic outline of the objects then detail using colour. Would you shine some light on my point of view? 👁️ 👁️ U

[@ProkoTV]

Some people do that, stylistically. In manga, using posterize effected images for backgrounds is pretty common as a time saving measure. It's something that's not as typical in western comics. There are other situations where showing a building is a copyright protected thing, like the Empire State Building. Marvel artists drawing New York have to get approval or otherwise avoid showing the building in an issue or there is a fee to pay.

[@borisdorofeev5602]

This man has hair given by the God's

[@lemonix.12]

First

[@Heaview]

Didnt know James LaBrie worked for Marvel 😂😂😂

[@susanroche597]

It’s $249 for course.. how about 15 instead