Anybody with a daytime job here who also does comics on the side?

[honeyandcreambutter]

Thank you so much! I'm both nervous and excited about my first ever full time job

That's a great routine! While 30 minutes doesn't seem much, it's still progress and any progress is better than none! I think setting it to 30 minutes instead of an hour also puts less pressure on yourself to fulfil that hour. And agreed! I think it's best not to force yourself into doing work when you don't want to. When i get into those tired moods, I end up working slower and the quality takes a complete nosedive into the ground.

Ah yes! I've seen that comment about the 70% thing! I used to pay attention to every little detail (even the shadows of blurred background characters) and although it's pretty much useless, it honestly makes me happier than I was able to put in 100% of my effort into each panels. But now that I'm going to have a full time job, I probably need to sacrifice my perfectionism instead :') You're completely right about the panel serving its purpose!

Checklist is a great idea! One of the most accomplished feeling ever is to mark things off I'll probably do that when I create my schedule! Thank you for all your wonderful tips!

[honeyandcreambutter]

Hopefully I can find a schedule as soon as possible since I don't want to continue fumbling around for a very long time

Your experience gives me some comfort that sometimes if you don't have the energy then there's really nothing to be done about it It makes me feel less pressured to be like other creators who can juggle their time really well.

[steffiemusings]

I do.

After several tries, I usually try and do extremely rough sketches during the weekend and slowly do some clean up during the following week.

Having a buffer helped a lot.

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

haha, thank you. ^.^ I wish you good luck too

[mroverlord]

Yep I work at a local grocery store in my area and I do a webcomic here and I've been doing youtube videos, working on a game, making my portfolio for graphic design.

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

I work full time and have a side job in addition to making my comic. Best advice I can give is to take breaks. If you have time build up a buffer so that it will save you when you’re too burned out or too busy to create.

[jgreene2433]

My humble advice, get yourself a Samsung galaxy note phone and become real comfortable with drawing digitally. You can work on your comic anywhere and produce real quality work.

[MzBun]

I have a full time 9-5 job Mondays to Fridays, I only started uploading my comic 2 months ago, but I have a set schedule for myself and what needs to be done every week or every day depending. It's an art related job so it can be pretty draining on the creative side for me, so I have prepared a list of ideas on what I can draw and a backlog of several pages ahead of schedule, so I can properly prepare myself if I need to work overtime.

Remember to schedule in time to take breaks and take exercise for your body, esp your wrists if your work is art as well.
Also, you can try finding a workflow that is most efficient for you, don't worry if you are using assets like 3d that people seem to consider that as cheating. What people see is the result of your work, not the process.

[jcmraz]

I imagine most adults on here do lol Very few people actually end up making a living doing this. I work one full time job with a little OT at 45 hours a week and an hour commute and I have a part time job that I work 5 hours a week at. I also try to kep in shape and squeeze in two work out days a week. Plus I also now have a new baby so it's not easy lol I was doing biweekly but I may need to drop to monthly. We'll see though. I got an ipad pro gen 3 so I could work on sketches while in bed or during slow times at work. So I might be able to find new time in little crevices of the day lol

[blackanimelover]

Personally, I work a full time 9-5 while doing three webtoons. The thing is, I REALLY HATE my job, so much so that it completely drives me to keep working on my series until I can support myself with that and finally quit my job. So idk if that'll work for you, but that's what keeps me going without going insane.

[summermcallen]

I'm also working full time from 9 am- 6 pm (often also till 8 pm) and try to draw my comic in the evening.
I have a boyfriend and a dog, so I can't draw every evening, but I set myself fixed days to work on it. But to tell the truth, it's really hard

[Fuzzyman818]

I work a part time night shift job. Not something I'm usually used to but even with that, I still manage to find time to work on my series and improve my art. I'm actually starting to pick up some steam on this site ever since I started to engage in forums.

[WOSTR]

Yes, it's exhausting!
I use to work and write and couldn't focus (still can't) yet summoned the courage to start a comic during lockdown, been back at work since but lockdown has returned and I'm knuckling down.

[PaulDevers]

I guess the answer is how I do it is that I just kind of... try and make time? Bad advice, bad advice, I know, but I don't know if I have any better to give? I stay up a little later, get up a little earlier, and instead of doing things like playing video games and muck about on my phone, I draw. That's how I get my weekly pages done.
That, and I also have a good buffer so if I do louse up and don't finish in time my schedule won't suffer. Probably not very helpful, but it's all I got! Good luck, hope everything works out.

[GabiWolf]

I work a full time job from 9-6 with an hour lunch break. I am currently working on three comics and produce four plus pages a week of full color comic. It took me a year to finally get to this level. So most importantly give yourself time to figure out your footing and what you can handle. The more your draw the faster and better you will get. You'll become more familiar with your characters, and be able to draw them faster. If you miss a update believe me (from experience) your readers aren't going to abandon you simply because you missed one update or your still getting your footing. Most readers are very understanding and realize that the creators here are not making a full time living off their art, and have a day job. I feel like there is always a lot of pressure to do 'consistent updates' but do what you can and give yourself time to figure out what best fits for you.
I get up early in the morning and spend about three hours on my comic before work. I'm a Moring person so this doesn't bother me. I also work on my art and comic on my lunch break. When I get home I don't work on my comic, that's family time. On my days off I spend all morning on my comic. My wife usually sleeps in late so I have from 6 am to 11 am all to myself to work on my art non-stop. After brunch and some more family time I spend the rest of the day working on my comic if we have nothing planned or the wife is working. If we do have something planned I will put that first and wait until the evening to continue working on my comic. I don't feel burned out and my partner doesn't feel neglected, so I've found a good balance, but again this took me a year to achieve so give yourself time, and don't be to harsh on yourself!

For tips I'd say this. Draw your backgrounds separately. Before I start a chapter of my comic I draw out most of the background setting that way I can just copy them and arrange them depending on the angle. It saves time instead of redrawing backgrounds every panel. Also another tip I got from another artist, is don't zoom into your art, you start to try to fix everything. Not zooming has helped me make pages much faster

[N1ghtm4r3]

oh yeah i work 6 am to 230 most days and i try keep up a good schedule by either coloring a page, or inking a page or pencil a page ,i remember that if i want this to go i have to make it happen

[nauko]

I work from 8-5pm , Mon-Fri. And I usually upload a page a week.

A lot of people mentioned doing something in 30 mins during a lunch break or whatnot, but I feel like I can only do something significant in 30 mins if I have my draft completed and ready to be inked & toned on the page. I spend a lot of time thinking while working on actually setting up my page, and I often change sentences or how things looked in my thumbnails, so 30 mins in my draft phase can easily be like 5 mins of significant actual work on the page lol. And then I have to warm up my thinking process everytime I take break or leave for work and come back in that stage, so I tend to do continuous stretches of work on the draft at once, usually starting a few hrs before starting my paid job.

Everyone has their habits and best approaches to these things. I would experiment and find out what works best for you..!

[honeyandcreambutter]

This is one of the very rare occasions I've seen someone mention that they're a morning person. I'm a night owl so most of my productivity starts really late in the night. I was wondering whether working on comics would be better in the morning than at night since I expect myself to be incredibly drained after a day shift. However I feel like because I have something important to do (my job) right after, would it be easy to concentrate on working on your comic when you have that urge to get ready for work? I always get a little anxious to sit down and relax when I know I have something important coming up. On the other hand, in the evenings, since I would have finished my shift, I don't have anything else to do but to sit down and relax.

But yea anyways I might do what you're doing and try to wake up a little earlier before my job to do my work! Thanks for sharing your schedule ^^

[GabiWolf]

To me working on my art in the morning it very relaxing, like how some people sit on their porch and have a cup of coffee/ tea. I don’t feel rushed, I have two alarms, one to let me know I have an hour left to work on my comic and one to let me know to walk the dogs and get ready for work and leave. Granted I don’t put on make up and I have short hair so there isn’t much “getting ready” so it depends on your routine too.
Good luck!

[mcarrowolga]

I ditched some activities to make time for drawing. Stuff like watching TV or eating breakfast. No big loss to me but I don't think it can suit everyone.
So my advice is: make your pages in batches. Like: sketch 3 pages, ink 3 pages, colour 3 pages, add speech bubbles to 3 pages. It saves a lot of time, you won't believe how much.