Advice on Building a Webcomic Buffer?

[NanettesClouds]

Hey there, I have sorta a weird approach to my buffer that I thought I might pop in and share.

So for my comic Skeletons in the Closet (cough..) I have a 10 page buffer of sequential finished pages, that's about 2 months for me because I'm uploading at a page a week.

BuuuUuut I have another 20ish pages that are in a state of work-in-progress, because I work on multiple pages in a week, all of these pages are in different stages of production as well, (for example lets say pages 18-20 are almost finished and just need some cleanup while pages 15-17 are just thumbnails/rough pencils and pages 10-14 have rough flat colors.) because of this, I can always find something to do depending on how much energy/time I have, (for example If im watching a show I can do some flat coloring because that doesn't take much focus, but if I've got a lot of time to focus I can finish up a page and do a lot of detail work.) These pages last me for the rest of the year.

I feel like this method is sorta a hybrid of the two approaches that @punkarsenic was talking about, it has the pros of keeping you on your toes because you only have a short backlog of finished pages, but it also lets you have a bit more control as far as planning your story goes (assuming you arent working from a complete script like I am) As an additional bonus, this method keeps the artwork across a long stretch of pages more consistent, so you wont feel like you're not able to show your best work (or at least not as badly)

I'd reccomend giving it a shot, and if you dont like it you can easly phase into either a long buffer or a short buffer, whichever you think you'd be more comfortorable with.

Hopefully that made enough sense? lemme know if I can explain anything better.

[ratique]

My advice to building a webcomic buffer?

Well, I never had one and I can advise you to never do that, because it stinks.

It has a few pros, or I wouldn't have done it for over two years - but I would never do it again for my new project.

Give your best to work ahead and not let your buffer disappear. The advice here is already great and I wish I had considered it more back when I started.

[punkarsenic]

thats an interesting opinion. what stinks about a buffer?

[ratique]

Oh, no, I might have written it funny.

I meant: Don't go with no buffer, because having no buffer stinks.

There. Poor language fixed. ; )

[punkarsenic]

ohhh oops. that makes more sense haha

[heraclus]

My advice is to not have buffer , finish the whole thing , scheduled it and have a nice summer!

[EdenStar]

I'm a writer not the artist on my projects but I pay for work so I do have some control in this respect and preferences. I'm planning a 5 page opener so people can have something to get hooked by rather than having to wait a week until the first page after the cover comes up. Then a 20 page buffer with bi-weekly release date initially planned but a weekly page production schedule. It will go to weekly updates if patreon goals and general enthusiasm for the series warrants.I have a soft ending planned so that if it flops I can call it at a set point and have a decent ending still rather than leave it in limbo or have to do something ridiculous to wrap it up on the fly. If it works out then I have the hard ending already planned at a much later date.

I know not everyone writes with the ending in mind but I find it takes pressure off in my case and the soft ending makes it so I don't feel locked in if the piece doesn't happen to find an audience in a reasonable time frame.

[NanettesClouds]

unfortunately this isn't always the most feasible thing, a lot of artists depend on the revenue and feedback and support from their readers in order to make the comic. And most webcomic people tend to have very long projects in mind. Also if you dont have anything posted it becomes very tempting to re-do your older pages, and eventually you get in a loop of constantly remaking things and not making any progress.

While having the whole comic ready in advance is great, in practice it doesn't work so well for anything much longer than a minicomic.

[Chopythes]

When I started in the webcomic area, I went with having about 60 pages finished. 3 years later I ran out of the buffer.
So it's always a good idea to start with as much as possible but I understand if most people go with just 2-3 months.
Having to look at old art sucks, but at least you have a buffer in case something happens and you're unable to make a page that week.

And like some also stated: Don't go with 2 pages unless you know you'll be able to pull out more than that.

In order to keep my buffer, I only post 1 page/week, but I try to make around 2-3 pages so that my buffer won't run out.

And as a reader POV: I usually wait a few weeks before binging on comics, so I don't really mind all that much about the consistency.
But.. Always be on time with one page, than never with 2.
It looks better and you'll feel better about being able to keep the time frame.
win/win right there ;D

[thoughtfulboxful]

Hopefully that made enough sense? lemme know if I can explain anything better.

So basically you're saying do what you want to do when you feel like doing it? I've tried jumping around like that on other projects, and I ended burning all my previous work and starting fresh (because image 13 looked better than image 2 and all that angst).

Plus, that would require me to have the story completely planned out, which also kind of trips me up because I'll get stuck writing and eventually lose interest.

Perfectionist woes...

[thoughtfulboxful]

I went with having about 60 pages finished. 3 years later I ran out of the buffer.

(⊙_⊙)

I'm impressed. And extremely tempted.

[NanettesClouds]

So basically you're saying do what you want to do when you feel like doing it?

Not quite? It's more about finding something to do in the time that I have. If I were to go at it page by page (which I've done before and I hate doing it) I would end up in situations where I don't have the time or energy to do the work that's needed to be done on the page where I'm at. Say I have a busy day with lots of bus rides, If the page I was working at was at the detailing/line-art step I wouldn't be able to work on it because busses are bumpy and it needs a steady hand, so all that time on the bus would go to waste listening to podcasts or something, with the method that I'm currently using I can use that bus time to do quick messy flat coloring or sketching, which takes up a lot of time but not a lot of focus or precision, on days that I'm not super busy I can spend them doing that complicated detailing work or doing thumbnails (which take a lot of mental energy because its basically writing a draft of a scene for me.)

It's not that I'm only doing what I want when I feel like doing it, it's that I'm finding things to do with the time and energy that I have, rather than letting that time go to waste or something else.

that would require me to have the story completely planned out

Not necessarily, for my comic I have an outline detailing all of the major story beats and a rough "page budget" for each scene. It's nowhere close to being completely planned out. Having some sort of a plan for what your story is going to be is really important unless you're planning on making a journal comic or a gag-a-day. At the very least I would recommend having your basic Beginning, Middle and End planned out.

Perfectionist woes...

Perfectionism isn't something that comic artists have time for :V its so much better to get something to the point of being good enough and moving on and making progress, and if you notice a mistake just learn from it and do better next time. I get it tho I really do, but perfectionism is a trap that leads to multiple false starts and a ton of abandoned projects that could have had potential, I'm speaking from experience here.

[69Michi]

Buffer is indeed nice to have. Personally I run my series with absolutely no buffer whatsoever because I just can't find enough time to churn out enough page that I can keep back for later. (I update every 2 weeks with approximately 20-30 pages per update, it's really impossible to have a buffer at my posting rate) I see the pros and cons of buffer, but I also see how hard it is to contain yourself from spoiling just by knowing the script ahead of time, so like if I have a big buffer... oh boy, when I'm excited about something, my readers are on a totally different subject, it would suck very much haha.

But advice wise, everyone here have given you a lot of good advice, so you do you!

[indagold]

After some experience I started a buffer with 2 pages per week with more than 5 months of comics, where I can take vacations, still manage to balance my full time job, if I get burnt out I can relax and start again in a week or more. Some people do shorter I guess to catch up with fans and not feel less invested, but eh, I don't want to be stressed with the impeding doom of running out.

[heraclus]

I respect your opionion but i don't agree with you , sorry.

[thoughtfulboxful]

@niah146 Thank you for explaining!

[jennula]

ATM, I have about a 50 page buffert. But I work a bit oddish, I usually work around the clock (or the hours between my full-time job and sleep) January-April to get those pages done, and then test and plan the next chapter for the rest of the year. I hope I can get a headstart with the next pages a bit earlier this time around though. But until September, I'll probably just rest and have a vacation, maybe loosely plan out the next chapter or something

[GrimRose]

When i do get around to making the pages for my comic I will try and get around 1-2 month buffer if i can since i get sick often and have a unpredictable work schedule.

I plan on updating weekly or every two weeks at first , so however many pages i can create per week times 8-10 (around 2 months)

[kgriffuggle]

I'm sorry, but what the heck is a Buffer in the realm of comics?

[DarkChibiShadow]

What's helped me a lot is: making sure my scripts are in order, making sure my thumbnails are in order, not skimping out on doing sketch pages, AND, not zooming in too much with digital art. (This is a huge one in terms of time...) Really, just organization and strategies to keep art fast and fun.

Alternatively, setting some deadlines or "challenges" for yourself (those these should never be too serious or else they can become stressful) but for example, saying, I want to finish x chapter by x time can sometimes be a good motivator. (That's how I developed by 60+ page buffer. I focused on book releases rather than updates online and ended up with lots of pages, hehe.) This isn't for everyone though, just something I found personally works for me because I love setting a goal and then getting it. >: )

Good luck! Everyone else here seems to have a ton of good ideas about this too