How do you save time?

[Chocolate]

If you’re an artist you know.
What are some things you limit or cut off in order to spent more time drawing and working on your comic? 🥰

[RedLenai]

1. Less time in the internet
2. Figuring out which aspects of the drawing process I can skip, like sketching or re-defining details
3. When to apply backgrounds and when not
4. Re-utilize old panels
5. Use pomodoros
6. Do my responsabilities earlier in the morning so I can focus on my work through the rest of the day
7. Being satisfied with the process of advancing with the work instead of ending up in a bad mood if I don't finish my to-do list in the day

[morganicfoods]

I'm definitely not the best or most efficient artist. But here's some advice:

Practice fast drawing!

That's it.
Take something you've drawn, and try to recreate it as quickly as possible. Try and draw your characters quickly without using any eraser or undo button. When you mess up, start all over again. Eventually you'll be able to go speedy speedy. Good luck.

[ylldre]

Seconded fast drawing. I’ve become used to drawing without sketching and dove right away with lineart. This mostly succeed faster with traditional pencil, but somehow in digital I used undo button constantly. I limit myself under 15 minutes for each character. Mostly I got in under 10 minutes if I draw without many distraction, but I have adhd and have to constantly stop to hum or sing lmao. Well, whatever works I guess. I’ve yet to find time saving tips on flatting with my lineart style. So yeah, will watch this thread for a guide myself lmao.

[darthmongoose]

• Use 3D models or stock photos to trace over for complex backgrounds instead of faffing around with perspective girds.
• Copy-paste backgrounds, or use the previous background inks as pencils if it needs to be bigger/smaller in a new panel.
• Only shade skin and very light coloured things, use an edge highlight for everything else.
• Create a palette for all the major characters and set it up as a reference window in Clip Studio with the default interaction as sample colour.
• Make a speech bubble shape and a tail shape, save them as custom shapes, reuse them forever instead of carefully remaking that squashed oval shape from an elipse and a curved tail from a triangle over and over.
• Chuck all the speech bubble shapes into a folder with a stroke effect.
• Make the logo into a vector so it always scales perfectly.

[BoomerZ]

Here's a couple. They are with CSP but some apply to other programs.
1. When filling in flats or any type of coloring, set both color selections under the color wheel with two different colors. Cycle back and forth to fill colors as needed (Its the X key on CSP). Saves time color picking back and forth between colors. Fill both those colors in on that panel and move to the next panel and repeat. When done with that color in all panels, repeat with two different colors.
2. make a color panel in the color set of the program for basic colors of any recurring character. Skin color, hair, eye color... etc... This is far easier than making a sample picture that you color pic from. I have color rows for each character in my comics.
3. Know when a background is appropriate and when it's not. Look how it's done in movies and understand depth of field. If the camera (reader) is focused on the character in the foreground, it can't be focused on the background. Having you backgrounds in focus out to infinity is not how your eye works so why waste the time drawing it. You can even make some very basic background shapes like building and use the blur tool to blur them out.
4. Create an assembly line of things to do. Don't layout one panel, then rough it, ink, color and letter. Do all the layouts for the episode, then all the roughs, etc. There is a reason anything built in a timely manner is done this way. Stop and starting is what kills your momentum.
5. In CSP, use the dialogue balloon tool. It will save you time.
6. If you are using CSP, save everything to the cloud on your workspace. Your workspace set-up, you color pallets, you brush tool settings... EVERYTHING. I got a new computer a couple months ago and I was up in running in 20 minutes after installing CSP, with everything exactly how I want it.
7. For cell shaded character designs, use a shadow layer. Make a layer above all your color layers, but below your line layers. Mark your shadows and fill in the shadows above the main colors (fill with dark blue, not black. Shadows are not black. Black shadow should be the ink layer filled blacks) Now lower the opacity of the blue to become see-through. This is the true color of the base color under shadow. A darker color of the base color is not the true color in shadow. It's a quick and easy way to fake color-theory.

[XiuLyn_12]

Social life? I used to chat with school friends on a daily basis even while studying.
But to draw without any distractions, I don't talk with anyone. My siblings told me I look scary when I focus on drawing.

But yeah. I had to schedule my social life to draw more, haha!

[Chocolate]

Yeah it’s hard not being socials but I want to finish my story lmaoooooo

[river121693]

I put away a lot of my social life to make time for drawing. I use to go out pretty regularly with friends during the weekend or afterwork, but nowaways I just stay home. It's a lot easier not being social since my friends and I reach our 30s are busy with family and work life lol. Im also putting a lot of other projects on hold, like music and painting.

Artwise, I front-load a lot of stuff.
-I take my own reference photos, which saves me hours of googling and 3D modeling for the right pose/perspective.
-I have a color palette set up for all my characters.
-I reuse panels, characters, and backgrounds, when I can
-I work on 4 pages at a time, and streamline my process-- line art for all the pages, flat all the pages etc etc.

[Lensing]

My whole life is built on saving time for rock´n´roll & comics
Shout out to my family, ex bosses and ex partners.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Not bother with refinement and use 2 layers (one for lines, one for colours)

[allisoncandraw]

I work full-time and update my comic weekly. There's a few things I do to make sure I get my strips done on time:

1. Don't fuss over small details. If a comic panel looks good upon first glance, you're probably fine.

2. Intricate backgrounds and character designs are nice, but it'll be much faster to make comics if you sacrifice some of these things.

3. HAVE A BUFFER! I didn't upload my first comic until I had a month's worth of updates ready. I've even taken a week off Uploading just to have more comics ready in advance. This really helps if you need a break.

4. Reuse assets, backgrounds, etc. whenever you can. No shame in it. Also find custom brushes that can make your job easier; like pattern or speech bubble brushes.

Hope this helps!

[ThunderChicken]

I definitely agree with the buffer. I had both my novels fully written before I uploaded a single episode, and I have drawings done for a buffer stretching out to 02 September so far (they are all already uploaded and will automatically publish each Saturday). I had only been planning on having a month’s worth of buffer so I could do some renovations to the house, but the weather has been crappy (it rained every single day in June, and July is off to a similar start) so instead I’ve been drawing.

I even started working on my third book, which will be the second book in the Finding Daecon’s Way story. Yesterday, a very rainy Canada Day, I put 30 pages down.

[inkerclark]

Oh, I completely understand the struggle, my artist friend! When it comes to pursuing our creative passions, it's often necessary to make some sacrifices and manage our time wisely.
These things may help

Social media distractions: Setting specific time limits for social media usage or disabling notifications during drawing time.

Non-essential commitments: Temporarily putting social events, extracurricular activities, or hobbies on hold.

TV and gaming time: Reducing the amount of time spent on these activities or setting specific time slots for them.

Prioritizing health and sleep: Getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular exercise.

Managing procrastination and perfectionism: Setting realistic goals, deadlines, and finding a balance between striving for excellence and making progress.

I think it's all about finding a balance that works for you. Making sacrifices and cutting off certain things temporarily can help you dedicate more time to your comic. But don't let your passion consume you, have fun too.

Wishing you endless inspiration and productive drawing sessions.

[Umber]

I found that the mirror tool is actually a pretty cool time saver. I always thought that it was kind of cheating, but I started using it recently, and it's really nice for getting poses to look right and cut back on some time. Whenever I use the mirror tool, lineart starts to look a little unnatural, so I either only use the mirror tool for the scetch, or I just erase some random parts of each side of the mirrored lineart. It looks nicer and is faster!

Multiply and overlay layers! When I first started digital drawing I would manually color-pick each color and make each color whiter manually. Multiply makes more realistic shadows because it actually changes the color of the shadow, and it saves much, much more time.

Don't focus too much on small details. For example, if you are making a forest with a lot of trees, you can just use two or three brush strokes to make foliage in the background. No one will notice, it's quicker, and it makes your eyes want to focus more on whatever is on the foreground!