How To: Create Word Balloons

Alright so you got your piece but you don’t have the words to give it life. That’s where this little walk-through comes in. First up, load up the image you want to use. We’ll use the picture I had loaded form the last tutorial (But with colors finished, etc) First up, create a Layer that’s on top of the list. This layer will be the one where the Balloon will be created with.

Next you will choose the Circle tool as seen here. Make sure your main color is White, since the balloon will be white.

Next you will click and drag til you got the shape you want. You’ll get a outline of the circle you’ll want, like so:

Now right click and choose Fill Path. Hit Ok. This will fill in the Circle.

Now the next step is to get the tail. First hit Enter. This will remove the current path (Which isn’t needed anymore)

First choose the Pen Tool:

You will then want to click once, where the tip of the tail of the word balloon will be. You will then make a second click/drag inside the word bubble. The dragging is to help you get the curve you want for the tail of the balloon. Once you have the tail you want, just let go of the mouse.

Third is just to click on the bubble to help prep for closing the tail.

Finally, click the Starting point of the path, aka the first point you made. You will hold down the mouse button like before until you get the curve you want.

Right click and Fill in the Path like you did when creating the circle. Hit enter afterwards to remove the path and the image should look like this.

Now to give the word balloon that black lining. To do this, the layer in which the balloon was made, you will want to Double Click it. Do not double-click the name or else it’ll ask if you want to rename it, but double-click the area that’s to the right part of the name where it’s open. This window will be brought up:

Next you will check mark Drop Shadow and select it so it is High-lighted. This will allow you to set up the properties of the drop shadow.

What I like to do is set up the setting “Pin Light” in the Blend Mode. Opacity set to 100%. Distance: 0. Spread: 100. Size: 5. And uncheck Global Lighting.

Once you are done, hit Ok. Insert your text and you are done!

Hope this How to guide helps a few of you in making comics. I’d appreciate any feed back of course or questions. Cheers!

-Dalis

PS. If you look at the clock on the top right, you’ll go “Does it really take this long?” No it doesn’t, it took this long only because I was making the tutorial and taking screenshots, etc :P