Your not quite so dead if you contribute something

YES! A lot of things!

If you’re not familiar with doing a whole lot of comics, don’t jump into a long series. Start small and work up: 4 page shorts, 10 page shorts, 20 page shorts, etc. After a few projects are complete, THEN consider doing long form. You have to learn how to start, climax, and resolve stories. Endings are the hardest part because people usually don’t get to do them!!

Design characters that are easily replicated cause you gonna be drawing them 200000 times. I’m used to drawing more complex characters but if you read my comic start to finish you’ll see I simplified them over time cause OOF. It was too much even for me! And honestly if I started over I would make things sooo much easier to draw.

Make SMALL casts too. You’ll regret drawing those group shots of 20 characters in one panel. *looks at @tristikovart 👀* I can’t exactly tell you a recommended size but 1-2 mains at minimum you always follow.

Come up with an art style that’s also easy to produce quickly. I’ve had to experiment with this for years to find a good place. You have to update frequently to get readers and to do that you have to produce pages quickly. So don’t digitally paint your pages or draw every head hair unless you KNOW you can produce them quick enough to make it worth it *looks at @tristikovart again 👀*

You’re gonna wanna redo your pages because the style changes over time. Resist. I’m not against revamping at all cause I have and WILL do it, just make sure you can still produce NEW pages too! If you pause producing new pages to redo your old ones, you’ll get stuck in a perpetual loop of reboots. It happens to a LOT of new comic artists. Get used to imperfection. YOU CANT BE PERFECT.

Be reasonable on story length if it’s your first too. It doesn’t have to be your Magnum Opus. Round it out at 300 pages, 500…. idk. You don’t have to make a 10,000 page story. Please don’t in fact, if it’s your first go. Please.

IT WILL TAKE YOU A VERY LONG TIME TO FINISH SO YOU GOTTA COMMIT TO THAT. 5 years, 10 years. 20 years. It’s gonna be your fictional child you’ll have to raise and put through comic college. Do the math: there are 52 weeks in a year. If you update once weekly that’s 52 pages each year. If you have a 500 page comic? That’s gonna take you around 10 years. Twice weekly? Still gonna take you 5 years.

That said, take breaks if you’re mentally unwell to handle it! Breaks are fine and needed sometimes and if people complain they can DEAL 💖 you are giving people free entertainment and you owe them nothing if they start bitching. True fans will understand and support you!

Write outlines and scripts. Know how your story will start, climax, and end. Know where things will lead at LEAST roughly. Long form changes a bit over time, but so long as you have a guideline you can keep the story consistent and it’ll save you many headaches!

Experiment and have fun! It can be hard finding time to do Webcomics and financially and mentally taxing at times. So when you’re able to do them, just do the best you can!! They can be a LOT of fun and very rewarding!

These are my PERSONAL hot takes from my on and off 12 years of experience. I made a lot of mistakes so I’m trying to save others from my fate! Hope it helps you, Anon, and anyone else who reads it too!

adjustment layers: specifically the hue/saturation slider in this case, allows you to color correct quickly

lasso tool: for sharp edges!

alpha lock: useful for painting within a pre-defined area (especially useful when painting characters)

x (hotkey) : toggle between foreground + background colors- let’s you easily blend between 2 colors

ctrl/cmd click : quickly change current active layer. Especially useful if you’re burdened with too many layers (or just very disorganized)

clipping mask: similar to alpha lock, but can add details without changing/ painting directly on the previous layer. I often use them to test out + apply gradients.

layer styles: I didn’t use any in this image, but the possibilities for layer styles endless, from simply adding a quick outline (useful for die cut demarcations when making stickers!) to creating more seemingly complex appearances. Here’s a gif of Nick Carver using layer styles (a combo of drop shadows + inner shadows) to quickly make the illusion of snow but with simple strokes.