PANELLING
We have many tricks up our sleeves to keep our work to the minimum. Once we have to start drawing and such we'll have enough to do.
The idea is, we generally use 3 or 4 strips per page, very sometimes 5, divided in either quarters or in thirds. These are set measurements (set by ourselves) so we've made a page with all the possible strips and panels. Petra used CorelDRAW for this though obviously Adobe Illustrator is fine as well. She opened a new page, did a bunch of calculating and started adding lots of magnetic help lines. Saved the file for future means but made one copy adding coloured lines using the help lines. For example, green is for the 3 strips, magenta for the 4 strips and pink for the 4 panels, orange for the 3 panels and so one. This file was then printed and taken to a copy shop to have it enlarged to A3-size. We draw at A3-size, you can get more details this way and it just draws better. Later the panels will be shrunk again using the computer.
We must note that when you work big, panels bigger than A4-size obviously can't be scanned unless you have a very large scanner. Either have the finished panels made smaller by the copier (which might cost a bit) or draw those panels on A4-size straight away.
It's a bit of work at first but once you're done you have a template you can use over and over again. We simply lay a blank sheet of paper on the template and trace the necessary panels with a yellow felt-tip pen by hand only (the yellow won't show when you scan your page as line art). In this case a light-box isn't an absolute necessity but it does make life a lot easier if you work on big projects like ours. Petra has a big monstrosity for A3+ sizes and a handy-dandy slim-line one, about 2cm flat and just bigger than A4-size. Both cost the same funnily enough. But without this you can always use a well lit window, after all, if you continue to work like us, you don't need lovely straight and inked lines, just a vague idea where the panels are.
The old way would be to take your ruler and create panels as you go along. You have more freedom this way (though we've found our template offers more than just average shapes), but make sure the spaces between the panels are equal (ours are 4mm), it looks neater. You might try both to see what you like best. That we prefer working with set measurements doesn't mean you will. Whatever you do, you will hopefully end up with a stack of papers full with panels ready for some real artwork.