Attractive thumbnails

[Diabolo]

Personally I find it a bit frustrating when the thumb is an incredible digital painting, but the comic itself is a b&w manga.

I really Do agree with you.
I understand that people want their comic to be attractive and put a lot of effort into their thumb ; but sometimes the gap between the art style of the thumb and the actual comic is just too wide. I found it incredibly frustrating lately to click on full-digitally painted thumbs and end up in a comic with rough frames as shading, at best.

The color is not even an inssue there. The issue is the huge difference between what's promised in the thumb and what you actually get when you've clicked on it.
Manga have full-colored covers, but the art style stays consistent.

[getsuart]

I agree there too. i(ve clicked a lot of time on promising thumbnails, then,... I don't know what happened, but the art style was so much under the thumbnail !
It should reflect your current art style, not promising big thing and in the end.... having a "beginner" level.

[Delete]

After reading this forum I changed my thumbnail from this:

To This:

I think the new one is a little more interesting.

[Ayumi]

I love thumbnails!
My problem is actually that my style changed a lot with time, and I still upload the old pages of my comic/comics. Maybe it can be disturbing that I use a thumb in my actual style, but I kinda hope people'll think "Oh! She developed a lot!" and become curious :3 But on the other hand I don't wanna mislead them. That's why I changed a thumbnail of mine which shows one of my characters with vampire fangs while the story has no vampires in it (I made that art for a reader of mine, but I hadn't got any better image to use that time) ^^;

[Doubtcent]

I've been meaning to change the thumbnail of my comic for a while, but have not gotten to it. (I've also been meaning to do a better banner as well, but that'll take much more time)
However I've no idea on what sort of thumbnail to use to bring in the readers. No idea at all.

[Jelw]

I went and looked at your pages and the thumbs you currently have for your series to try to give some feedback if it's alright!
For English Project Shorts I think it's good you have an image rather than just a logo, however I don't feel the image you choose may be best suited for a thumbnail. First of all, I feel like if you wanted to use that particular part of the comic for the thumbnail, you should have cropped it a bit better. At the top and the bottom there are little bits of the other frames you can see and it makes it look a bit messy.
Additionally, the cropping led to the 'I'm TIRED' being partially chopped off which makes it look a bit thoughtless. The words are also barely readable. I'm fairly sure the words weren't meant to be a focus point of your thumbnail but because of the limited space a thumbnail gives you, I think it's really important to think it out and add only important elements to the image.

What do I think you should keep in mind if you make a new thumbnail? Well, for you in particular, since your style is sketchier, be careful to make whatever you draw in your thumbnail simpler as opposed to more complicated. The thumbnail is going to get scrunched! I think the comic's main character is usually a good way to go for thumbnailing, which you did in your current one, but the character doesn't really pop or act as focal point in your current image.

I can't really say exactly what makes a good thumbnail image but here are some from my reading list that I think really work well!

Otter Kind of Comic
Undying Happiness
Missing Dream
The Squirrel Prince

I wish I could give more articulate exact advice, sorry!

[zelkats]

@Jelw, gyaah! Thanks for using my thumbnail as an example! XD;

For those who are working on long form comics, I think it's a good idea to treat the thumbnail as a simplified version of the front cover of chapter 1 or volume 1--- to avoid spoilers. In my case, I ain't gonna show the skeleton dude in his full pre-skeletonised self right off the bat, lol. If your comic has a love triangle, even if you've already decided on the one true pairing in your mind, don't show them together on the thumbnail! I think it's perfectly fine to tease the readers (new and old) a bit. But don't slap on anything that's irrelevant.

Use whatever attractive elements you have in your comic to your advantage. UH relies quite a bit on wtf moments, so having a skeleton in the thumbnail doesn't hurt and hopefully when people see it, they go "wtf?" and click, lol. The art in the thumbnail was originally printed on a manga magazine cover for school, so I put various thoughts into it for it to represent my comic. I made sure that the girl's hands are shown in the thumbnail for added expression of (hopefully funnily exaggerated) horror because there's comedy in the story.

@Iron's Otter Kind of Comic's thumbnail is pretty awesome and quite suitable for a cute, silly and sometimes weird comic strip series. Look at the thumbnail. An adorable otter in a psychedelic pattern and colours. And it's all strangely relevant to the comic. It's easy enough on the eyes and it makes you wanna click! XD

As long as the thumbnail somehow represents the overall feel of the comic and gives the readers expectations that can be fulfilled in the actual content, then it should be alright

[blop]

I usually don't mind if the thumbnail is really better than the drawings inside the comic, cause I know how hard it is to make people want to check on your comic.
When most of the thumbnails are in color, and really attractive, it's hard to say, oh ok, I'll just do a quick doodle in black and white because that's what my comic really look like in the inside.
Of course as a reader I'm a bit disappointed when the comic don't match the thumbnail, but I just close the window and I check for other comics, but at least I had a look at it.
I understand why some artist do that, so I don't really mind it.

[Doubtcent]

@Jelw
Wow thanks or the great insight. And yeah, I've been working on the thumbnail since yesterday. I've replaced that thing like four times, and I just couldn't find or crop the right image... so until then the current will take the spot by default, that is until I draw a much better one.
Thanks!

[Iron]

Aww thanks Zelkats <3 :3

[purrlpankras]

I've had that when I've been looking for something in a same style to my Likho comic
This is the thumbal for Likho

And of course the comic is in that style too.

I found comics whos thumbals look in that style but the comic wasn't.
Personally I like to keep the thumbal and banner in the same style as the comic it's self.
But yeah in some comics it might work idk.

[fanyart]

This discussion kind of scared me, TBH I never really gave thumbnails too much thought. I know they are important in attracting new readers but I have always just cropped a square from the comic.
Now that I think about it, I still have my old thumbnail of Trivia from Nature cropped from the first episode, but the tone and focus of the series has shifted a tiny bit. But at the same time, below the thumbnail is always the title of the comic "Trivia from Nature" so I guess people make it out somehow that DRAGON + NATURE must mean some jokes from nature... at least I hope?

There was one episode thumbnail people seemed to like, with a puffer fish, should I change it to this?

I personally don't really mind when people use their best image for a thumbnail of their comic that's a B&W sketch, I can always close the window if I don't like the comic itself, like @blop said.
But it's worrying to see that a lot of readers care about it that it might even prevent them from clicking on suspiciously great thumbnails... This way creators using their thumbs like this hurt creators whose comic is the same quality as their thumbs

[jessiepolfliet]

The thing that made me check out your comic was the dragon thumbnail, so it has done it's job. Besides who doesn't like dragons?

[fanyart]

The thing that made me check out your comic was the dragon thumbnail, so it has done it's job. Besides who doesn't like dragons?

Aha... That's good, thanks - I guess I will leave the dragon as the thumb then But weren't you disappointed that it really wasn't about dragons?

[Doubtcent]

I've redone my thumbnail to reflect the series a bit more. But I shall never be satisfied! HAHA

[jessiepolfliet]

Dinos are a sort of dragons.. :s Besides it is good even without it.

[michaelson]

Also, please keep in mind that the thumbnails on our mobile apps are pretty tiny so make sure the image reads well

[Jelw]

It's a big improvement, good job!

[Cielle]

after reading through this thread, I decided i should probably redo my series-thumb, mostly because I've grown as an artist (I think...I hope?) and the old one was sort of non-descript
the old:

the new:

I don't think the old one was bad, but it doesn't pull you in either. When
I go browsing for new comics to read, thumbnails with people/faces are always more intriguing. but maybe that's just me?

[jessiepolfliet]

I think it has improved, it now shows your character and that pulls people in.