How to make a comic book of yourself

Comicpix makes this guide and one of the four options. There are four ways to make a comic book of yourself: draw it yourself, build it from a comic template in a design tool such as Canva, commission an artist, or use an AI comic maker such as Comicpix or Picsart’s ComicMe. They differ in who does the drawing, how much of your time it takes, and whether you end up with a hand-made piece, a design file or a digital comic.

Drawing it yourself and using a template keep every panel in your hands, and the time is yours to spend. An artist draws it for you on terms you agree with them. With Comicpix you add a photo of yourself and a short story, and the comic is drawn for you; the cover comes first, in about a minute, and the preview is free.

None of the four is the right answer for everyone, so each section below ends with “Fits best when”. If you only want the photo-to-comic steps, the photo to comic page has them in full, with photo tips.

You write a short script, sketch a panel layout, and draw yourself as the main character, page after page. Paper and pens or a drawing app are enough to start; the hard part is drawing your own face so it stays recognizable from one panel to the next, and lettering the dialogue so it fits the balloons. The time it takes is the time your script, layout and drawing take: nothing is done for you.

Fits best when: you like to draw, you want every line to be yours, and the making is part of the gift or the fun.

Canva’s comic strip maker gives you templates with panel grids; you place images in the panels, add speech bubbles from its elements library, then download or share the design. Canva’s template gallery describes them as free printable comic strip templates you can customize. A template gives you the layout; the drawings, photos and dialogue that fill it are yours to add. Canva’s comic strip page also points to its own photo-to-cartoon tool, which turns an uploaded photo into a cartoon-style image you can open in the Canva editor.

Fits best when: you have your own drawings or photos, you want a clean layout without drawing panels by hand, and a strip or a few pages is the size you need.

A human artist draws you from your photos and your brief. Price, page count, format and the timeline are set by each artist and agreed per order, so ask for them before you pay, along with how many sketch or revision rounds are included.

Fits best when: you want one hand-made piece and are happy to brief an artist and wait for their schedule. If you’d rather have a printed hardcover than a file, the personalized comic book page compares a printed personalized book, a commission and a digital comic, with the seller’s own prices.

Comicpix is an AI comic maker: you don’t draw, you choose. Pick a style, add a photo and a name, choose a story, and Comicpix draws your cover in about a minute. The cover preview is free; the full comic needs a monthly plan, and you can cancel online.

You steer the comic with the style and the story rather than with a pencil: one illustration style for the whole comic, and a ready-made story or a few sentences of your own. On the web, the cover is drawn first, then the pages are drawn one by one after you unlock it, to read online or download as a PDF. It is a drawn version of you, not a copy of your photo, and it is digital: nothing is printed or shipped. Comicpix isn’t the only AI comic maker: Picsart’s ComicMe, for example, builds a comic from your photo with a genre, an art style and a tone you choose.

Fits best when: you want to see yourself drawn before you decide, you’d rather not draw, and a digital comic to read online or send as a PDF is what you’re after. The step-by-step version, with tips on which photo draws best, is on the photo to comic page.

Every one of the four ways works for a partner as well as for yourself; only the photo and the story change. With Comicpix, a comic can star two characters: your hero and an optional second character, each from one photo of a person or pet, or a ready-made character. So it can be about them alone, or about the two of you.

For him alone, the personalized comic book for boyfriend page shows “The Saturday Hero” next to the sample photo it was drawn from: the block party starts at noon, the grill is dead and the wind has plans of its own. For her, for him, or for the two of you together, the personalized comic book for couples page covers how-we-met and anniversary stories.