How much time do you spend making your comic?

[Ratbert]

About 45 minutes. Then again, I could spend 3 hours doing it, getting everything perfect, but I don't think it would help much. Nobody has ever read my comic because it looked good. Trust me on that.

[RPin]

A day to draw, and another to color.

Plus all the interferences, it usually takes a whole week to get one comic finished.

[Mr Ekshin]

About 3-4 hours to pencil, erase, repeat...
About 15 minutes to ruin everything with ink.
About 1 hour to scan, repair most ink disasters in photoshop, border, add dialog, and then upload.

Most people here draw with things I haven't heard of, ON things I didn't know existed, then do stuff I haven't learned how to do on the computer.

I use a snazzy .5mm auto pencil I got at an art store near the local college. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to show a special permit or wait 5 days to get it. I'm not sure what kind of lead it uses, but when I push the button, more comes out. The pencil and I have adopted a binding agreement that as long as I don't question it too much, lead will continue to flow.

I got a ream of high-gloss 8 1/2 x 11 printer paper. When I need more, I reach over and take another. It's been working well, but I think our relationship may need to grow, as I've been having thoughts recently about other paper.

If I need boxes to draw in, I use a big cheap blue plastic ruler to draw them.

I don't really have a desk, as is shown in the comic. I sit on a folding chair with the side from a computer case on my lap. I draw in a semi-fetal position. It's good training in case I ever have to draw a comic while serving on board a submarine, or (I hope!) a space ship. If there's ever a nuclear apocalypse, and everyone is relegated to living in underground tunnels like rats, I'll be the last one left able to draw a web-comic. At least that's my plan.

I draw by attempting to delineate the destiny of my will. Just like reality, what I get isn't always what I've wanted. What's cool is that I get to go back and try again and again until - somewhere within a group of 15 lines, I percieve the correct one.

Then I bust out a giant parallelagram shaped yellow eraser that a friend picked up for me in Thailand (yes, true). I then carve away at the lines until only the correct one remains. I swear that this is the real drawing process: Drawing a curve? Draw 20 little curves that are all wrong and then erase to leave the proper one.

I love my eraser, and would never leave it. I don't know if Thailand has much of a reputation in the art supply business, but I'm here to tell you that they have absolutely nailed eraser technology. Their engineers must be really smart. If they ever hold and Eraser-con, expect to see me there..!

drunk...

I have one simple skill: I can tell when it looks right. Welp, that's about it. Doesn't mean I can draw what I think, just means I can eventually get there if I persist. That's why a comic that looks (even to me) like it should be doable in 10 minutes actually takes 3 hours. I persist through dogged determination and seething anger. That's my quest.

I've learned techniques for deft subtleties in facial expressions. How the smallest changes can yield drastic differences in expression. I'm proud of that.

Then I fuck it all up with ink.

I use a pilot razorpoint. Yes, the kind you buy in the check-out line while wondering how Kevin Costner ever hooked up with Christina Aguilera. It's like trying to use a paint bucket for a blood transfusion. All the nifty subtleties and detail get obliterated. One of these days I'm going to start scanning in my pencil originals and try to ink in photoshop.

I set to scanner to 40% light so that it just picks up the ink, and not the pencil lines I didn't have the coordination to trace along. Then I look at it on the screen and despair before trying to fix it with photoshop.

The scenes are all in my head, as is the dialog. I usually dream them up while sleeping in my car on the way to or from work. I draw the scenes to go how they should. I don't actually write anything until I get it scanned into the computer. The dialog part is the skill I actually trust, so I don't mind doing it last, and on-the-fly. If I had my way, I'd make a robot to draw the strips and just write the dialog.

I won't cut and paste, or copy frames. When it looks like I may have, keep in mind I DO use a ruler. Sometimes I end up drawing variable poses just for the practice and learnin'.

Then I do a manual update at 1:am because I always miss the deadline.

Like I'm about to again...

Oh well, gotta draw.

[Xmung]

Then I fuck it all up with ink.

try practicing on photocopies of your pencils - you can stuff them up as much as you like and learn various skills in the process

[KittyKatBlack]

Well, I've only been working on my comic for about a week, (well, 5 days) and I've got four comics done. I'm actually pretty surprised they didn't take as long as I thought. When I first thought about making a webcomic I assumed it'd take me a week to try and draw a decent comic, but strangely, I've been pumping out work that I'm actually not totally upset with. I have major problems with inking too, since I lack good pens. I have these brush like pens right now that I have to be really careful with, or they bleed. If I leave a splotch, I have to fix it in photoshop. Most of my comic is done in photoshop, which saves me a WHOLE lotta time. I think that the longest process, short of the drawing itself is the cleanup. Celaning up my drawings after adjusting levels and setting contrast and then erasing all the stray lines manually, all at 300 dpi... well, it takes quite a while. After that though, it's pretty easy. I use the picker tool to get the colors from my past comics so all the characters are the same color tones in all the comics.

I draw each character individually on paper, ink them and then scan them in and color them seperately. Then I shrink them down to fit in a template I made:
(example)


Then I fill in the backgrounds behind them with simple shapes to represent the area I'm trying to display since I'm horrible at drawing backgrounds. I HAVE thought about just drawing a bunch of backgrounds and scanning them, coloring them and just having them on file for C&P for generic scenes, but I haven't gotten that far in the comic yet, so I don't know what locations I'll be using most often. I used a cell shading style in my comic, so coloring isn't that difficult. I just fill in the basic areas with the base color, and add shadows on another layer.

As for the dialog, generally I come up with the joke before I start drawing, but the exact dialog isn't written out until I start typing with the Marquee tool. I found a nifty way of producing speech bubbles in like 30 seconds with Photoshop 5.5:

1. Type your script, place the lettering where you want it to go.
2. Make a new layer below the lettering.
3. Use the Circle select tool and circle your text.
4. Switch to the vector lasso (Polygon select)
5. Hold SHIFT and then draw a triangle with the select tool pointing to your character.
6. Edit->Fill->white
7. Edit->stroke
8. All done!

Using SHIFT to add selections together is REALLY helpful for making complicated speech bubbles in seconds. If you get a pixelated look on your bubbles, just blur the bubble layer by about 0.3 pixels, and that should help some.

After that I change the number on and 'comic name' (I.E. Stupid quote) to match the situation, save it as a .gif, upload it and update my dropdown and I'm done. Generally, I think, this takes me about 4-5 hours all together. It might be more around 3 but I have a bad sence of time, so I'm not sure. I'll try looking at the clock before I start and then again after I'm done. So far I think I've been doing pretty good as far as time goes. My comic isn't the most beautiful or detailed one out there, but I think it's at least somewhat visually pleasing and helps carry the joke, which is the main point of the comic anyway. Occationally I'll use Copy and Paste, but I really try to avoid it. And if I do copy and paste, I try to change some part of it, like the eye position, mouth, or something else, just so it doesn't look like an exact copy. Most of the time I only C&P when the comic requires the same image in two panels, not just because I was too lazy to draw more. (Well, I sorta WAS too lazy to draw the entire thing I just drew over again, but... I mean who honestly would do this EVERY time?). My latest comic uses way more C&P than I'd liked, but generally I try to avoid it.

Wow, ok, I've written a lot. Anyway, yeah. That's how mine's going so far. I only have 4 comics done at this point, but I think it's going pretty well. We'll see if I'm still in this mood in about a month... ^_^

[Mr Ekshin]

Just wanna say thanks to YarpsDat and KittyKatBlack for info that helped me figure out how to make text baloons. I put text balloons in today's strip. Hope it looks better now.

[YarpsDat]

I have one simple skill: I can tell when it looks right. Welp, that's about it. Doesn't mean I can draw what I think, just means I can eventually get there if I persist.

Same here, same here.
I envy the people that just draw and it looks right. I spend many hours actually drawing everything 3-4 times untill it looks good enough to be acceptable.
(BTW, when you think something you've drawn looks good, look at it in the mirror. Sometimes you may be unpleasantly surprised.)

[Noise Monkey]

I average about 4 hours per comic. It could be faster, but my computer REALLY sucks. I could probably knock it down to 3 hours total if it weren't for that. I spend roughly an hour and a half on the concept and pencils and another half hour on the inks. I wish I didn't suck at inking so much. Anyway, then its another 2 on the computer for clean-up, colors and lettering.

Same here, same here.
I envy the people that just draw and it looks right. I spend many hours actually drawing everything 3-4 times untill it looks good enough to be acceptable.
(BTW, when you think something you've drawn looks good, look at it in the mirror. Sometimes you may be unpleasantly surprised.)

I am usually pretty pleased with the drawings...until I ink them . Stupid shakey hands....

[SuperSnob]

I'm guessing I average 4-5 hours a page. It takes about 1-2 hours alone just to do the pencil sketching. Inking takes the longest because that's where I make everything look like an "actual drawing" as opposed to the chicken-scratches my sketches usually end up being.

[[AOD]]

I draw about two strips per day, on one sheet of paper, and that usually takes upwards of 2-3 hours max. So... 2 times 7 days per week means 14 hours. Maybe more, depending on the content. On weekends I might mass-produce something like 3 pages with 3 strips per page, which usually takes a lot less time than some would think - about 3-4 hours for the whole kit and kaboodle.

So yeah. AoD cheaply and uglily mass-produces multitudes of strips in relatively little time. Wheee........!

@~AoD

[Fadedflame]

Well now that I ink by hand instead of on the computer it cuts my time down, literally, by half.

Storyboard/Scripting- I do six pages at a time when I story board and it takes me about 30 minutes for all of them so..5 minutes.

Pencil- About an hour, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the complexity of the page/scenes.

Scan/Clean up- About 10-15 Minutes

Color/Adding Script- usually about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours, sometimes longer sometimes less.

In total, probably around 3, 3 and 1/2 hours total for one page.
Not counting the one or two breaks I may take.
~Faded

[LAGtheNoggin]

Woah, thread resurrection! But now I can answer since I'm actually updating, wooo! (- not with comics though...)

Sooo, let's see. Every sunday evening I think "GOD! I HAVE TO DRAW SOMETHIGN!!!111" for a minute followed by sitting down for an hour drawing crap. It doesn't matter if it's crap crap, it doesn't matter if it rocks, all that matters is I draw something, it's all good - and surprisingly easy! - Someday I might even get back to drawing real comics again, with, like; panels, text balloons and story, cor, that'll be the day ^__^

So in total it's about 1 to 2 hours drawing + 1 minute of fretting. Times that total by about a million when I start drawing comics again though, eugh...

[Van Douchebag]

I have no idea. Anywhere between 2-5 hours per comic.

See, I have a problem - it stems from the fact I'm easily distracted by pretty much anything.

So I end up doing things, but very slowly. Like watching TV while sketching. Or like cruising message boards while coloring.

[Gage Kronos]

I have no idea. Anywhere between 2-5 hours per comic.

See, I have a problem - it stems from the fact I'm easily distracted by pretty much anything.

So I end up doing things, but very slowly. Like watching TV while sketching. Or like cruising message boards while coloring.

What he said, though I've currently been so distracted these past weeks that I haven't done much of anything. That's okay though, since I'm not worrying about updates and keeping schedules until I a) have my site and b) know how heavy my school load will be.

But if I weren't so distracted...

scripting: ongoing, in my head, typed up, whatever
storyboarding: I do these by notes on my script and laying out everything in my head...so not very long at all.
sketching: around an hour...+/- 30 minutes depending on things
inking: about 15-20 minutes a page
scanning/coloring: From 2-4 hours a page...I think.

[Patch]

Just like an hour to draw it and ink it but im really lazy so i just draw it take the rest of the day and the next day i color and letter it

[Malediction]

Usually takes somewhere around an hour for me to draw one, then from two to three to colour and letter it... so around 4-5 hours.

[Superlance]

Let's see... last time I posted in this thread, it took me three hours to draw, and thirty minutes to color.

Now, it takes me 1-3 hours to draw, and 4-6 hours to color.

Does that mean I've gotten better, or worse?

[JexKerome]

I draw and ink one day, process the image the next. I take about 3-4 hours drawing and inking, since I do it in the family room, so I'm also watching TV, listening to music, fighting with my brothers and/or checking out what they're doing on the PC, etc. I use non-photo blue lead mines to draw, Staedtler eraser and disposable technical pens (0.1, 0.5, 0.8) to ink.

When I process it's another 2-4 hours. Scanning is a zip, done as line-art at 300dpi, 100% size. I clean the line art, add the panel margins, fill in black areas and add any straight lines I was too lazy to ink, like doors and furniture. I save at this point as a GIF, to keep the original scan.

Then I convert to 8-bit grayscale, add the shades and the occasional bitmap/pattern (now that I've managed to keep the images sizes down, I can afford to use a better quality on my JPEGs). When all the shading is done I add the aural effects with one font, then the dialogue with another, and finally the balloons. All text and balloons are on their own layer.

I step back, and check everything. I try to be thorough, but sometimes I have let slip bad dialogue, wrong/incomplete shading, and missing text.
Once I'm convinced everything is okay, I save again, this time as a Corel file, so I can go back to it and edit it, in case I need to (like for that often-mentioned language change I want to do).

Next I flatten the image, resize to 750 pixels wide, and drop the resolution to 72dpi. I then select each individual panel and save it in turn as a JPEG with 25% compression and zero smoothing, giving me a file size of about 5k-30k. For cover and other large drawings I split them in two files, each roughly the same size.

Now I pull out my page-building script (finally got it working right), which basically makes an HTML table to my specifications, those being the number of images, the names of said images, and how many of them to put in the same row. I play around with the layout to enhance the story's timing, then save the script as the HTML file Autokeen will recognize and update.

Finally, I rev up my copy of AceFTPro, put the HTM file in wokrspace/comics/, the panels in public_html/comics/, and am done.

Of course, all this time I'm also watching TV, fighting with my brothers, etc. A lot of time is wasted like that, which is why I never take less than two hours. I average three hours, so it's about 15+ hours each week, average.

[War]

Look back at the most recent Digital War comics, they took about 5 hours apiece. I have my entire process down to pat so it's pretty quick these days.

[Phact0rri]

Ack... it takes me forever to churn out a strip. I seriously envy you all who color full page well drawn penciled to ink to colored full pages every other day. me... i'm to damn slow.

My comic usually comes down like this.

three strip batch one week.

the next week I do that colored version....

usually for the black and white ones I spend about three to five hours drawing these as sketches on my tablet then I take them to illustrator and spend another hour or two to fix my horrid line art. then I write the dialogue, which takes maybe an hour to do all three strips.

for the colored ones same process except two strips ( I use a stacked strip method but I'm thinking about changing the colored ones into comic style page layouts), and I spend an extra two hours in illustrator laying down gradients and basic fills then do the flat shading in photoshop.. and stuff.

takes me to darn long... and thats why my little tiny four panel masterpieces take me a week to make.

but I am getting faster.. and better with the tablet. which is the reason for the comic.. so all is well.