(Made this thread on Twitter and thought I’d share here, too.)
Good morning! I have some thoughts about making webcomics that I’d like to share!
This one goes out to any of you who have been talking about making your webcomic but haven’t jumped in yet for one reason or another.
No shade, just right, let’s go.
If you have never made a comic, never drawn a comic page, only done a few pages for a class or for fun… Quantity > Quality is important for you right now. I believe that it is better to make an absurd amount of mediocre comic pages than it is to have technically perfect compositions right out the gate.
When you try and make something perfect the first time you do it, you’ll never get done and it’ll never go anywhere. You haven’t learned the basics, you haven’t gotten a feel for making comics yet, and your comic-making endurance is low. It’s going to take you longer to make an outstanding comic page than someone with more experience, because you don’t have the same foundation they do.
You’re essentially trying to build an elaborate mansion, when you should be building a sturdy shed first.
Make a ton of comic pages to get in the groove, become used to the length of time it takes you to make a page, and build up your eye for layouts and flow. As that becomes easier, you’ll find yourself naturally ready to push yourself and your comics. You’ll start to think about interesting angles, dynamic compositions, foreground and background elements, etc. as you gain a solid understanding of making comics and understanding your own comic-making pipeline.
It is unfair to expect your first comic to be perfect. You didn’t expect your first drawing to be anatomically and structurally perfect, did you? Probably not. You probably just wanted to draw something because it was fun. Comics are harder than just drawing, and you need to be okay with building up the skill with practice and time if you’re serious about wanting to make comics. You can’t be perfect when you’re just starting.
People LOVE to talk about art evolution and how inspiring looking at long-running webcomic backlogs are – but no one wants to make their own bad first comic pages.
Go make your bad comic pages and stop worrying about it.
(You might not even actually want to make comics! Have you tried? Maybe you just want to do animation, maybe you want to do storyboards, maybe you just want to draw your characters looking hot. All are fine! But how will you know unless you just make a ton of comics?)
Also, that ‘perfect’ first page you’ve been chasing that’s been keeping you from making your webcomic masterpiece? Once you get experience and mileage, you’ll be able to churn out comic pages that are far better in a few days/hours than that 'perfect’ first page which took you a year to make.
Making a comic shouldn’t cause you distress. Comic artists like to complain and joke about certain things being hard, but overall comic artists love making comics and the enjoyment far outweighs the difficulty. I LOVE making comics, no part of the process actually upsets me.
I’ve been making a webcomic consistently for 5+ years, and only now that I’m on page 250+ am I at the point where I am actively pushing my backgrounds and compositions. I am now confident enough in my basic comic ability that I can focus on pushing my comics and trying new techniques and honing my weaker skills without detracting from the overall quality of everything else in my pages. My foundation is good, I have trained my auto-pilot well.
TL:DR – Go make your bad comic pages. Make a TON of bad comic pages. You need to build up your endurance and eye for comics before you should be worrying about the really nit-picky and technical aspects of it, just like any other skill! I love you and I believe in you!!
stormborns
baratheonpilled
titsay
vaporwave
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