Lettering...

The_Ronin13 · Post by **The_Ronin13** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 18:14 -0700

Hey... I'm a cartoonist and I'm curious what would be the best lettering for the words? All captial, and how small?

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 22:50 -0700

Well, if you're going to letter your comics digitally, my personal preferences would be Wild Words and Anime Ace. If I remember correctly, 12-14 pixels should be good.

Of course, it's good to have a lot of different fonts as it's good to use different ones when an occassion calls for them. There are some great sites out there that provide tonnes of free fonts.

http://www.blambot.com

http://www.dafont.com

There's others, just Google "Free Fonts."

And if you're going to letter by hand, I can't help you.

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 22:54 -0700

Shishio wrote:
And if you're going to letter by hand, I can't help you.

I still do my lettering by hand. If that is the route you want to take, you first should pick up an Aames Lettering Guide. It is available for a few dollars at most art supplies and drafting stores.

The_Ronin13 · Post by **The_Ronin13** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:52 -0700

Thank you!

Blambot · Post by **Blambot** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 15:32 -0700

There are two schools of thought on the caps vs. sentence case lettering. It really just comes down to preference. Caps is the standard, and is visually more compact. I say do whatever compliments the art best.

If you're lettering at print size, most lettering fonts look best between 6 and 9 pt. (depends on the font).

If it's hand lettering you're interested in, I've actually written an article on that:

http://www.blambot.com/handlettering.shtml

Enjoy!

~N