How did you learn to make comics?

[thepenmonster]

Just want to confirm or disprove a recent observation I've made based on some art questions and the solutions provided that I've seen here and on the Discord.

• Traditional (pencil, ink, paper)
• Digital (software, tablet, mouse)

Show results

[Shanny8]

Started out traditional- pencil, ink, quill/nibs, and bristol but over the last 8 years I've been doing digital coz I couldnt keep dragging a ton of bristol & ink with me everywhere I went(or storing it for that matter)...still not the best at full usage of digital to get the output that I really need, but I'll get there.

[Lensing]

I started traditionally in 1983
and tried digital tools the first time in 2015

[RedLenai]

Started making comics the traditional cheap way (pen, markers and basic homeprint paper) back in 2009, since it was more comfortable than doing them digitally, in 2015 made my first fanzines, traditional art with digital halftone and lettering.

Even to this day I have times where I like to sketch traditionally, scan my panels/pages, then work on them digitally.

[darthmongoose]

I learned traditionally but... that's not a very useful thing for me to say, because when I learned to make comics, it was the nineties.

Even then, I started incorporating digital techniques into my comics really early. Like my earliest comic I printed in a book, my entry in the Tokyopop Rising Stars of Manga UK and Ireland 2007, while it was drawn on bristol board and inked with a dip-pen, all the screentones, speech bubbles and text was digital. I'd been doing digital lettering and sometimes panel borders and things from as early as about 2003.

I don't think it's helpful to pigeonhole yourself into one or the other. If somebody wanted to start out working digitally because most popular modern webcomic artists do work almost entirely digitally, I don't see any harm in that.

[TAMAnnoying]

Where's the "both" option?

I started drawing traditionally but I've transitioned to digital almost completely now.

Comics where kind of during my transition phase. My first "comic" wasn't meant to be a comic but rather a story board for animation (wanted to be an animator till I learned how awful it is) my highschool teacher found out about it and talked me into making an art portfolio for collage. I drew in traditional but then we "cleaned it up" digitally and eventually it just became easier to do the entire process start to finish digitally instead of trying to scan everything in.

I def made comics for fun traditionally beforehand while learning to draw in general, but I wasn't "learning techniques" till I started drawing them for the portfolio which was mostly digital.

So it's really kind of both?

[NickRowler]

The comics I made in high school were traditional. Part of it was accessibility, the only digital art programs I had were MS Paint, ClarisWorks, and some cheap alternative to Photoshop. You couldn’t really do much with them. I did try work arounds to flat color with MS Paint.

I didn’t start doing a fully digital webcomic until 2012, when I felt more comfortable using a tablet and having access to Photoshop. I never really like working with rulers with traditional art, so digital helps with that that anxiety.

I currently don’t have a printer or scanner so I don’t really plan to make a traditional comic currently. But I might do one in the future.

[Llyrel]

Started to make my first comics as a kid in the nineties using pen and paper. Most of my comics where made on squared paper notebooks, but I also loved to make little comic book "issues", complete with articles, puzzles and games, just like the printed comics I had at home I wanted to be a Disney comic artist and I'd spend hours studying the pages of my favorite comics and reading interviews to my favorite comic artists. There was this magazine in particular, called "Scuola di Fumetto", which was all about comics and had tons of useful articles. It was where I learned terms such as "roughs", "layout" as well as some basic rules about views and paneling.

I also started to do digital art quite early (got my first tablet at 9 ), but... for some reason it never occurred to me that I could make comics with it? :'D Though it should be pointed out that I only knew about the existence of MS Paint and some other art programs for kids at the time. I only managed to get my hands on Photoshop MUCH later, and at that point I felt way more competent with traditional art than I was with digital. For a long time, I would only use digital techniques to make standalone illustrations. Once I started to feel more comfortable with digital coloring, I started to mix techniques for both illustration and comics and eventually switched entirely to digital.

I don't think one is better than the other, I think it's just a matter of what makes you more comfortable

[SpookyLocker]

Never used pencil, Been drawing with Ink since I was a kid
Taught me to be confident in my line art

[IndigoShirtProd]

Same as @TAMAnnoying, both really. I got into comics in high school, long before I could afford to buy a drawing tablet, through a friend. I made my comics in my sketchbook. But I did have a (school issued) iPad that drew on ans made comics on occasionally. But I didn't start really learning about comic creation until I got a drawing tablet and made them digitally.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Oh shoot, I clicked 'digital' because the first thing that came to mind was Carefree, but another comic I worked on, Small World, was also pretty early and I can't remember which one I did first (yes, Carefree was uploaded earlier, but my scanning and uploading of Small World was quite a while after we finished it so the actual finish date is earlier ...)

My true answer is 'i forgor'.

[Shanny8]

My high school comic stuff was just drawn on ruled paper with your basic Bic mechanical pencil...I didnt start to ink until I graduated and start to learn how to create actual comic pages. A whole nother decade would come & go before I finally got good at inking my own work, but I never could hand letter...so I turned to digital lettering.

[Caro]

Started traditional, tried digital for several years before I just settled into the knowledge that traditional was much much faster for me. I can draw just barely larger than print size or at print size so that helps with speed, also not being able to hit undo if I don’t like a line just made it so that I just get it right the first time more often OR I just stop trying to be a perfectionist and move on. A page that used to take me 7-8 hours digitally only 2-3 now.

I also like being able to sell original pages since selling just one or two will usually cover a year’s worth of supplies.

[river121693]

my first comics were traditional, but the vast majority of my experience has been digital. It's just so convenient.

[LostKelp]

I'll say that learning and actually making are very different, my first test pages were done on paper, but any comic longer than 2 pages has been done digitally. and test pages were done in pencil and nothing else, perpetually unfinished. I learned how to make comics through this one massive book and lavendertowne videos.

[2DLenzy]

I learned to make comics by "absorbing" those how-to-draw books and not actually drawing anything, LOL! That was me for a good part of my life. I did draw characters, and made booklets at a very early age, but I guess I stopped my traditional path when that perfectionism kicked in. That is, until a few years ago, when I first learned about drawing tablets. Started drawing digitally (one heck of a learning curve) and eventually reaped improvements I never thought I could achieve with drawing pencil on paper (Not to say my 'traditional' style hadn't improved any - though I still draw like I did in my teens - just that it's so much easier/efficient to fix mistakes digitally). Been a rough road, but I'll keep on going!

[kalmia]

I guess, technically I did start out traditionally, as i have a few pages I drew on paper a long loooong time ago of small scenes in a story i had, but I don’t necessarily count that because I didn’t take comic creation seriously until i started digital art. My entire process of learning how to create comics has been digitally, so I guess i’m lucky I got to learn with all of hacks and keyboard shortcuts unlike most people here LOL

[VersusVII]

I started doing them traditional. I also attended a comic school where they tought me to ink with brushes and china ink.
Now I'm trying to draw them directly with clip studio paint but sometimes I draw some panels on paper, scan them and add to the page when I'm in the mood.

[Teira]

I learned by reading manga. Then I would try to copy it by drawing it traditionally, then scanning it in a scanner.
Then when I switched to digital, I learned by playing around in Clip Studio Paint( it use to be called Manga Studio years back).

[missros_e]

I'm using both, I start off with traditional methods - pencil on paper, go over in pen then I take a photo on my phone and use ibispaint x to edit and make it brighter/clearer. For me personally, going fully digital would be too time consuming, I just wouldn't have the patience for it and wouldn't enjoy it and I'm not as good at digital art. Maybe in the future I will create a short comic in full digital to see the outcome but for now I'll stick to my method as it works for me!