Advice/Discussion: How much detail should you sacrifice in comic art for the sake of time?

[TedGravesArt]

Yeah, I second this. You're telling the story of the characters, so if the characters aren't actively focused on something in the environment, or you don't need the environment to establish spacial context, then you probably don't need to draw the environment in that panel. We're simulating that character's experience.
Sometimes it even helps sell an idea. Take this set of panels for instance:

The first doesn't have a background because the characters' attention is locked on this horrible creature. The second panel has a background because the character (Nira) is changing locations and interacting with the room, and naturally her mind goes to what she's going to land on. She's aware of the room, so we're aware of the room. The third panel not having a background makes it feel like this aggressive creature is the only thing in the world right now. It simulates Nira focusing only on this one thing. Likewise, in the panel after that, it feels like the second character (Savina) comes out of nowhere like she's flying in from the void, which fits the moment.
Backgrounds are an extremely necessary element, and it's important to draw them to tell the story and keep the reader in the world, but omitting them can also tell a story.

[thepenmonster]

Comic nerds have proven that. The audience didn't give a shit when he was in his prime which is why he blew his brains out in the end.

[Lensing]

Ok we disagree on this

[darthmongoose]

Definitely on team "If the background isn't relevant to what's happening and it won't look weird without it, leave it off." here... I think only about half of all Errant panels at most have backgrounds depicting the environment, and the rest are just colours and patterns!

That said, I often use this deliberately to do fun stuff. When characters are thinking about a certain person, you'll see the background is in that character's associated colour, or if a character is dominating the scene, the background will match them, so a lot of pages go a bit like:

So, talking about Jules, purple background, then we have an actual background because the panel is illustrating Crow moving through the environment from Jules over to Rekki. Then two blue panels because the person being talked about is Sarin (blue), and then a background because again we're illustrating movement through the environment, in this case, Crow is walking away from Rekki.

But also, backgrounds tend to vanish in combat scenes unless the environment is very relevant to the action...

Other than being faster to draw, less detail makes a panel faster to read too, so it makes an action panel feel faster. Detailed panels tend to feel like they last longer, because the reader will spend more time looking at them, and it'll take longer to understand the image.

Sometimes, simplicity isn't just for ease of creation, but actually does help tell the story.

[bunny]

That said, I often use this deliberately to do fun stuff. When characters are thinking about a certain person, you'll see the background is in that character's associated colour, or if a character is dominating the scene, the background will match them, so a lot of pages go a bit like:

i love this idea ! conveying feelings with colored BGs is a nice touch.

[darthmongoose]

Feel free to use it yourself! It's a really fun way to play around with colour and can sometimes add extra meaning to a page. I also tend to integrate it into backgrounds too. So places where a character is comfortable or that they dominate are often tinged in that character's associated colour. I'll often push weather and lighting conditions in scenes for this effect!

[KSlinger]

I'm definitely pro taking the details down a peg for certain panels or segments, but I think the success of it depends on the quality of the illustration throughout the story at large. Sometimes cutting corners isn't noticeable, sometimes it's glaring you in the face. You have to play it by ear and see what you're comfortable with but I certainly wouldn't feel bad about doing what works for you.

These panels are both from the same page:

Meh. 🤷

[TroyVSTheWorld]

Personally I like to leave the background undetailed if there aren't any important objects to display to the reader, and just go ham painting whatever I feel like back there instead of leaving it blank or dropping a gradient or something.

[AmandaJ-art]

Sometimes I find alternatives to time wasters. I used to shade with every color separately. Now I use just one and it speeds up the process. I love adding backgrounds but one every page sometimes is just too much.

This took me way longer to draw and shade than:

But for the comic I published I just did cell shading and made it black and white. It is much faster than the first comic.

This is my stress relief comic and each page takes 2 hours. It doesn't even have shading and it's the most popular of the three.

[DarkSena]

Oooof, a hard one XD
I'm still trying to put as many details as possible even after so many months of being hooked on the comic lol but of course not every single panel does come with an extravagant background so there's time you save right there.

[TheLemmaLlama]

and it won't look weird without it

This is the part I struggle with lmao I find it hard to tell if a panel doesn't-look-weird without a background, because it always looks weird to me, at least when looking at my own stuff XD I envy and admire those who could make a backgroundless scene feel like the character is actually in some location instead of floating in a void :'D

Maybe I should just shrug it off and reassure myself that readers don't notice this stuff when they look at each panel for like 2 seconds, but I'm aiming for an 'atmospheric' artstyle where the point is for it to feel grounded and 'real' so I suspect I have reason to feel paranoid :'D

[darthmongoose]

I think sometimes... you just gotta take the plunge and trust that it'll be okay. I completely get where you're coming from though, because it's so easy to be like "...they're gonna notice how weird this looks... they're gonna notice..." The pages I felt most stressed about this have been the car scenes in Errant, where I wasn't sure if people would be okay with seatbelts kinda vanishing off into the ether to avoid drawing a ton of car interiors in every panel (uughhh).

This page in particular, I was like "this isn't going to work...is it? I can't just have the back seat floating in space...can I?"

But.... I think it works! The audience certainly didn't comment "lol floating car seat" (and my audience probably would call me out on something if they thought it looked weird ) Because it does what I wanted it to of preparing us for Rekki's flashback and showing that she's drawing into those memories and sinking into her deep feelings, and right now, only she and Subo exist in that moment, exploring Rekki's teenage regrets.

Basically, believe in yourself! Believe in your ability to make choices that will engage the audience emotionally, or amuse them or dazzle with enough strength that they get caught up in it all and stop really even noticing the stylisation, and the visual metaphors will feel like they're telling an emotional truth rather than simply not telling a literal one. You can do it!

[doomed4art]

I don't know how to articulate it but I feel we can definitely learn from traditional medium. In digital it's just so easy to obsess on cleanliness and a "finished" look as a digital portrait painter or maybe anime artists would do. While in analog tools, your results are limited based on the tools you use. I try to think about that while finishing my pages alongside planning which details I leave out as early as thumbnailing.
In this page I kept the top panel muted so I can focus working on the background heavy 3rd panel.

Knowing that I'm, my own boss and am doing this as a hobby/passion project also helps ease out my feelings for cutting corners here and there. Or alternatively spending such a long time on a page.

[darthmongoose]

HGNGH OH MY GOD THAT PAGE IS GORGEOUS.

I have got to check out your comic.

[candiedcotton]

Use 'em where they matter, as people have said.

I use them to establish shots, and little else. It depends on context (as people have also said).

I'm a fan of backgrounds that are simple, unless you're really needing the environment to push the story. Otherwise you can lose the focus of what matters (like the characters) in too much detail.

I've also learned to use models a lot with backgrounds, which can help tremendously. Obviously you shouldn't just drop models in and render it as is, but you can use 'em as a base and draw over/color/shade to fit into your scene quickly.

I used a really basic building model for this and then added all the detailing and curtains and so forth myself. But having the basic structure really helped make it faster.

[TheLemmaLlama]

it does what I wanted it to of preparing us for Rekki's flashback and showing that she's drawing into those memories and sinking into her deep feelings, and right now, only she and Subo exist in that moment, exploring Rekki's teenage regrets.

Now if only our 'not sure of background looks weird' moments were always at story-appropriate moments like that XD I guess I want to get better at implying actual literal place without drawing the place; like the page @TedGravesArt posted feels like it's all taking place in an actual location even though there's a background for some panels but not others -- whereas I can't help but feel like when I do backgrounds sometimes and none other times, it always feels like my characters were temporarily teleported into a void (which you can use to emphasize the mood of a scene like you did, but it's not always story appropriate to do so XD)

planning which details I leave out as early as thumbnailing

That might be the way to go ... though if I start thinking about details, I have a tendency to be unable to stop and then the thumbnails turn into full on sketches XD

[TedGravesArt]

Something that's present on that page that might help you is that there are still elements of the environment in those blank background panels. Mentally I still know where they are in the scene. Just because you can't see the whole scene doesn't mean it's gone. The rays from the window, the dust, the light angle and color scheme remaining consistent, and the texture in the background make it feel like they're still placed in the world. Having subtle elements that carry that thread helps a lot.

[TedGravesArt]

Also, @darthmongoose's technique of incorporating colors assigned to characters to associate a beat with them is a great idea. I might use that in the future, thanks!

[VersusVII]

When I first published my manga I was unemplyed and I had all the time in the world to draw my pages. Chapter 2 has an insane ammount of details, I still wonder how I did them. Now that I work and I have less time to dedicate to my manga, I'm finding solutions to speed up the process.

How I worked before.

After reading a manga narrative manual, I think I will apply some of their tricks: do a big detailed establishing shots and use gradients or screentones that represents characters emotions when there are close-up panels. I will add backgrounds when characters are moving or to give the idea "they're not floating around". I also reduced the screentones for the background, they made the page too full.

I'm also using the perspective rulers in clip studio to help me drawing backgrounds, it tooks me less than hand drawing them. I also downloaded pre-made brushes to help me add textures.

Example of how I work now: draw by hand the characters, add the background later in clip studio.

[doomed4art]

I have them really incredibly sketchy and small so I don't focus on detailing but on blocking and composition.