Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Webcomic Artist

I was pondering whether to do this again this year, but sososo many people tell me they want to start their own webcomic. I love the medium and I want to provide as many resources and advice as I can!

I have about three years and over 300 pages of experience under my belt.

I'm so happy to talk shop and help in any way I can!

How do you decide how many panels will go on a page, is it only how many will fit, or is there a vibe to it?

How do you stay motivated? A lot of people (me included) get these hyper-fixations that, while industrious at the time, only last for so long. What's your secret sauce?

It depends on a lot of factors, some of the obvious ones being:

- How much action on a page
- How much dialogue on the page, how many different characters are talking, etc.
- Whether the scene needs to be particularly impactful (big reveal)
- The genre of the comic
- The size of your pages

Every artist kind of has their own feel for things, and in the webcomic space there's a lot more room to be creative than in published comics. (For example, take a look at King of Sorts, where the same character appears multiple times in a panel to show evolution of emotion!) I feel I tend to have fewer panels than the average artist, but one of my current goals is actually to increase the number of panels. I asked for input on an upcoming a page recently (sorry, I can't share it because it's not completed yet, but it's 5-25 for those who want to watch out for it). The advice was pretty uniformly "Add a small panel to show reaction / emotion" and ... that advice was 100% correct, it made the page a lot stronger. So I'm trying to be more compact so I can show emotion more frequently.

For me personally, the biggest thing that has helped is community! I always look forward to getting home from work, jumping into VC and hanging out for several hours with all my other comic buddies. It's made a very solitary hobby very social.

If you don't think that's enough to keep you motivated, you might need to look at the big picture and think honestly about your goals. Is there a part of the process which slows you down and you actively avoid?

Don't like colouring? There's nothing wrong with black and white comics! (and they're cheaper to print!)
Is it the slow process of lineart keeping you back? Keep it loose and sketchy! (Content warning - I just noticed the most recent page has a f-bomb on it)
Struggle to get the sketch on your page? Use models to make sketching easier
Can you just absolutely not commit to a 1000 page epic. That's fair, a lot of people can't! Focus on short narrative.

And the truth of the matter is, there's nothing wrong from hopping from project to project. Comics are for your own enjoyment first and foremost. If you want to quit part way and pick up a fresh new story, there's nothing wrong with that! Each project will be its own learning experience and you will gain a little skill and knowledge from each one. There might be a little grumbling from fans, but I think they tend to be they're more supportive than you expect.

Thank you!! That's really good to know and think about as someone who wants to delve into webcomics.

1: Is there a character in your webcomic that you struggle to draw?

At the moment it's probably Sierra, if only because she appears less frequently than the other characters.

But if you compare the designs of my characters from the start the the most recent page of my comic, they've all shifted a little bit to be easier for me to draw. If you're drawing them several times a page every page you gotta work out a way to make it easy on yourself!

I have a couple questions!

1. Where is a good place to find references? I think what's mostly been stopping me from branching into making comics (I have a tone of scenes from rps I would love to draw!) is I'm intimidated by having to make poses/facial expressions and backgrounds as I'm mostly self taught and I'm not sure where to look for references for what I need.

2. Do you have any tips for shading/lighting? I try my best with my art, but it always looks a little... weird.

3. Any art program recommendations? I currently use Medibang as it's free, but I'd love to look into others! I've looked into Procreate, but I don't have an iPad or anything like that (I currently use an HP Pavilion laptop, but it is getting pretty old, so I may be switching soon) so any other recommendations would be nice!

What is a facial expression or emotion that you feel is the most difficult to draw?

Do you have a favorite part of the process?

Humans:
https://www.deviantart.com/adorkastock (the OG)
https://www.deviantart.com/theposearchives/
https://www.deviantart.com/jookpubstock

I will note that both AdorkaStock and JookPubStock are transitioning away from DA due to its policies on AI, but I kind of find their new galleries a little difficult to navigate orz

3D Posable model
https://webapp.magicposer.com/

General stock sites:
https://www.pexels.com/
https://unsplash.com/
https://pixabay.com/

I also use paid stock sites Like... you can't copyright a the vibe of a hand. Or a tree. If I need to reference something small as part of a larger image I don't have any personal problem using a photo to get the general 'gist' of how something looks.

I used this tutorial when I was starting out, and in broad strokes I haven't changed my method to this day. I see in your question below that you use Medibang, and this tutorial uses CSP - but I think it should be largely applicable, even if the UI is a little different. Also, this tutorial is a little focused on people in the industry and has the assumption that the flatter is going to pass the work off to a colourist. Since I'm a one man show I've simplified by cutting out some of the steps and leaning heavily on this tool to simplify my flatting. (Ice Cream man, you the real MVP what would I do without you)

I use CSP, and most of the webcomic artists I know also use it. But, I know people who use Medibang, Procreate, Photoshop, and Krita! If you are comfortable with Medibang, there is no reason why you can't keep using it.

CSP was originally created for professional manga artists, and it has a lot of features not available in the other programs specifically for comics - such as paneling, dialogue balloons, instant tones, focus lines, and other things like that. Unfortunately the feature I find most useful (page management) is locked to their incredibly expensive EX version of the software. Unless you very specifically want that feature, I honestly can't encourage people to buy EX over the core version.

I believe the tablet version of CSP has a free trial version, so give it a try if you want, before committing to purchasing

Genuine smiles! They're so hard to not look like the character is forcing a smile!

I don't think many people have this experience, but for me it's everything except sketching! I think that shows something about my lack of skill in the fundamentals ahaha. The sketch is the slog up the hill and everything after that is a breeze.

I've tried my hand at web comic and visual novel creation through several different projects over the years and the issue that always stops me dead in my tracks is lack of engagement. Like views will constantly roll in, sure. But nothing in the way of comments, critique, or feedback either positive or negative from any prospective audience.

Is this something you've dealt with? How do you deal with it? How do you manage feeling like you're only sharing your creation with the void and/or how do you remain motivated in spite of it?

This is a difficult thing, and I think a lot of comic artists (and artist in general) struggle with it. And with the shift of online culture to centralized platforms like Webtoon, a lot of creators who have been making webcomics for more than a decade say that the amount of engagement they get has decreased. My comic isn't very popular, and I don't get many comments. Each time I get one fills me with power for like 24 hours haha. Actually becoming a webcomic creator myself has caused me to leave waaay more comments than I used to because I know how good they feel!

But realistically, if you have views steadily coming in... you're probably doing better than like 90% of webcomic creators out there.

Some creators like to screen shot every single nice comment they get and save them all in a folder so when they're struggling with mind games they can go back and look at them.

One major motivator for me is seeing art improvement. I wasn't a bad artist when I began, but I wasn't a very consistent or a fast artist. And working on the comic has put me in the art-improvement fast-lane. I know that quitting is going to put that to a stop. So even if I don't get the external validation that I need, I can look back at my old artwork and feel good about how far I've come.

And this is another reason I think that joining Webcomic communities is a great factor in keeping up with the hobby. Just spending time with your friends is a joy in itself, and it makes the marathon of comic creation much easier. You're all in the same boat, and you all understand each other's struggles. You get excited about other's projects, and they get excited about yours. You participate in community events, and big group promotion pushes, and build off each other.

Have you received any fanart? If so, what's your favorite piece, and why?

I have received quite a lot of art though various trades and games in webcomic communities. But out of the blue fanart, not so much.

A member of one of those communities binge read my comic in the VC server and getting the live reaction was so flattering. When they were done they drew this:



I also received this in this year's art fight. A reader of my comic tracked me down (easier said than done, my username is radically different on both sites) and drew their favourite character: