Do you do your comic traditional or digital?

[Chocolate]

I want to do my comic traditionally but it’s going to take so much time and effort lmaoooooooo. Switching over to digital sounds more ideal and saved on inks/papers.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I do traditional, and I'm over 130 pages in. While I love it and continue to draw my comic this way for as long as possible (even though I DID just get a new tablet...), your concerns about the cost of ink and paper is 148% valid. This gets expensive.

[darthmongoose]

I think the last comic I made traditionally was in the late 2000s, when I started to realise it was just going to be a liability for me as somebody who wanted to go pro, needing to have a big drawing desk, needing to source pens and paper, not being able to easily fix problems or make changes in response to feedback etc. Learning digital took me a little time, but once I learned it, it was so flexible that I never went back. I'd already been doing my screentones and lettering digitally, which was part of why it just made sense to remove the big drawing board and the scanner from the process.

Making work with traditional media is lovely, but on comics especially, it's just really hard to make pages quickly and consistently enough to get out the sheer amount of highly polished content modern readers want. I use pencil and paper for my thumbnails because it's portable and low-stress, and I like to do trad art sometimes to relax, but for me, finished works are nearly always digital now.

[MTDG]

I used to do comics traditionally but, now that they are digital, I'd never go back.

To be honest, I'm way faster when I sketch traditionally but the other phases of making a comic are slower and the final results aren't the same quality as digital if you lack the tools and the technology (like a decent sized scanner or a nice work table).

Plus, when I draw digitally, I have so many shortcuts when I have issues with a drawing. I can flip, rotate, resize, cut and paste and so on. And Clip Studio Paint has an unlimited quantity of helpful brushes, backgrounds (which I hate to draw), patterns etc.

[Legendofgenii]

I used to think it was cheaper being digital, but now all these monthly subs are being introduced for software

[TheDoublekey]

I think traditional art is fantastic and the feeling you get from drawing on paper is something unique. The issue with making a traditionally drawn comic is how costly it all becomes. If you want to make something professional with traditional art, you're going to have to spend lots of money to get a complete set.

That is why I think digital art is the best way to go, in this case. It might not be the same as making it traditionally, but it'll be a lot less expensive for sure! There's even free software like Krita out there, which has pretty much all the base features needed to make a comic. It might not be as practical as CSP, but it's still pretty good.

So yeah, TL;DR= Traditional art is great but very expensive, while going digital gives you all the tools needed all in one place and, depending on the software you choose, it can be completely free.

[irresponsiblepics]

Trad digital mix here. It will only get more expensive for supplies.
Stan Sakai had to stock up with his favourite ink because production has greatly reduced due to lack of demand so becoming hard to find supplies.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I did actually try to do a comic-ish thing traditionally one; it was black and white and drawn on scrap paper, so I don't think it would've become expensive if I kept it up

now all these monthly subs are being introduced for software

I feel like there'd always be a free software out there, but if push comes to shove I think I'm getting better at drawing with no pen pressure and layerless techniques such that I could probably do it in Paint

[GothickangelStudios]

I used to do it back in the 90s traditionally and my storyboards sketches are still done in it. As well as my chibi versions. But once I got my Wacom tablet as a gift back in 2006 I switched to more digital.
Now its more doable since my TBI in 2012 with a shaky hand and grip issues; I can delete, go back or alter vector lines. Having epilepsy and spinal cord issues its just easier.

[abigaillmartin]

I draw my sketches and thumbnail sketches traditionally with pen and color my pages digitally

[Inspector]

This may be weird since I only do novels now, but I DID used to make comics on tapas! (specificly one comic lol)
What I would do is I would draw the lineart on paper, then I would take a photo and use some filters to make it look like it was drawn digitally, and then I would color it digitaly (On my phone using a free drawing app)
So basically, a mixture of the both.

[ThunderChicken]

Years ago I did al my drawing traditionally, but when I got my first computer I started doing it digitally (we're talking 1990 here). It was a PITA to draw on a computer with a mouse, but I liked the results, especially the colour. I still drew with pencils & paper though.

In the late 90's, for some reason, I stopped drawing altogether. I think it was a combination of several factors: The internet was becoming a thing and therefore a distraction, causing me to devote my time to learning HTML and such. Also, I was just starting to come out of my shell sexuality-wise and had finally gotten my first boyfriend and then my second (we are still together 24 years later). Other hobbies also got in the way, so I just didn't have time for it. The only times I ever drew anything were to make building plans for various houses, garages, and stuff that I've built.

I had always wanted to get back into drawing, though, and found my excuse by way of the pandemic. Suddenly I had lots of free time. I had just discovered the world of webcomics and I was starting to itch. I dived in headfirst and bought myself a Surface Pro 8 with stylus and googled "Good free art program". I settled on Krita and started drawing. This was a whole new world to me (my previous experience was limited to MS Paint and Paint Shop Pro), and through experimentation I have learned a whole lot. I doubt I'd ever go back to paper now.

[Mallory]

Some of my favourite comic artists work in watercolors (Sarah Webb and Jared Cullum). I think it gives it such beautiful natural whimsy, and I'd love to be able to draw comics in watercolors. Unfortunately, being slightly disabled means I have to rely on digital tools to allow me to still make art (being able to quickly fill large areas with color is probably the most useful tool for me), so I only do the occasional watercolor painting for fun.

[Lucky_Foot]

The digital route is the way to go, it saves you time and once you have a good work flow, it allows you to do waaay more than with traditional ink and paper.

Here's mine as a reference. At the height of my career, I could make 20 pages in one week. I almost had the speed of Manga astists, but those guys are truly monsters lol

Bunny Kick

[Shanny8]

Digital.

Yeah one of the pros with traditional is if you ever have original art(and you become popular), you can sell it- but over time that paper pile grows and you have to find some place to put it. Also coming off my storage fiasco from back in December- I had a water leak into my storage unit and lost some original art; that shit still stings. Also had an external HD connector get old and in trying to salvage the data I lost some stuffs- not a lot of art stuffs on that one, so I was lucky.

I never got to the point where I was comfortable working with any other medium outside of pencils and ink(though I do have a bunch of watercolors, acrylic, design markers, and gouache in my storage); gonna try to see if digital watercolors will work for me. I may eventually go back and try out a thing where I render/layout some stuffs digitally, print it on bristol, and ink it traditionally...

But for the time being digital saves me the [physical] space, and makes the other aesthetics such as the coloring and lettering look more unified. I spend less time going from pencils and inks to colors and saves me the ordeal of using my scanner(which also has been in storage once I decided to do digital everything). I def do feel a way about programs/apps going the subscription route- I dont like it, it's fuckin GREEDY as hell: "Let's squeeze more money out of the poor artists who helped make our program really popular"- a damn slap in the face. I get that some technology applications being introduced to update the program are costly, but I would've rather a [small] increase in the price altogether than going the whole "subscription based" route; there's something to be said when you want to beat your competitor, but instead become them...

[Caro]

I pencil and ink traditionally but color digitally and don’t really plan on changing that.

I draw relatively small so I can very easily write, pencil, and ink up to five pages in a day if I’m in a crunch. Contrary to what darthmongoose said, I think the benefits of traditional are the entire reason I have my career in comics. I can produce a 200 page book in a year while also working on pitches for the next project very comfortably. I don’t overwork myself anymore so that I can pursue other hobbies. I’ve gotten to do work with animation studios doing redesigns where I still work exactly the way I work.

I also used to sell originals and selling two originals can cover a year’s worth of materials which I tend to buy in bulk. I no longer sell my own originals but am in talks with an art dealer that specifies in comics who has a wider reach than me when it comes to collectors. Plus, I won’t have to individually ship them out myself.

A lot of people do assume I work digitally which was really fun during my book tour that just wrapped. I had a slide show of pages and at the end I showed some raw scans with the pencil marks showing and the white out caking all over the place and so many people seemed genuinely surprised.

[Headypigeon4180]

at the moment I'm digital I transitioned from physical because my physical draft of last Space Wizard failed to upload...

[Kelheor]

I literally don't have any reason to go traditional way, I only ever drew with a pencil before going digital. Any kind of painting was a pain for me, so I just never learned to do it, so sending my deepest bow to traditional artists such as @Scarlet_Cryptid.
Although I think paper and ink shouldn't be too expensive, tbh? Any kind of colors will definitely skirocket the overall expenses though. Oh, and also a scanner, of course.

[AmazementComics]

See, I do both. Depending on what series I’m working on, i constantly switch from traditional to digital art. My first ever comic series was done in traditional pencil and paper and did much better than I expected. Seriously! And you’re right, that jazz wasn’t cheap and took a lot of time from me.

I do have plans to go pro in the future however. So moving forward, all of my upcoming projects will be digital. I’ll still continue to make new episodes of my series with traditional art, but now I’m getting myself into the mindset of drawing digital now.

[ScaryTerry]

For me, it depends on the genre of the comic. I draw my comedy comics digitally because the characters make more sense in that format. However, I draw my horror comics traditionally because the black and gray (pens and pencils) provide a darker atmosphere and style. I used to draw all in pencil but back then I erased too much. When I switched over to just pen and started proof-reading my comics I became able to draw and write with few to no mistakes. Also it's a good practice to draw traditionally as that is where all art began.