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Jan 2020

Depends on the subject. When I'm on a roll time ceases to exist. Other times I just write or plot story lines.

I tend to treat it like a full time job. So about 40 hours a week, probably more tbh. It's just something I enjoy doing so much that even when I'm not working on my comic, I'm probably drawing.

JerrodStorm, you a refered a point that catch my attention and that also bothers me.

I also feel the need to make my drawings way more basic than I like. To be honest, most of the times, the end result is way different than what I've visualized before I do it. But I feel that if I start to elaborate and dedicate more time to each stripe I will just be incapable of publish anything and this makes me very frustrated.

I put in about 10 hours a week toward my comic. I can't afford to do more at the moment until my patreon picks up a bit. I would like to get to weekly updates but for now biweekly has to suffice. I upload the pages as I finish them on my patreon. Tends to be between 8 and 12 day turnover right now. Basically, this is what I do with my free time and the occasional game here and there or meeting with people once in a while. But the vast majority of my time that isn't related to daily living, gym, chores and work is spent working on my comic in one way or another. This is how I spend my time.

Also, I'll give yours a look :slight_smile: here's mine. Hope you'll take a peek and tell me what you think
Runner1

I mean that from the start of sketching the page it takes me between 8 and 12 days to finish a page

0 hours in summer. 1 or 2 hours a week in early spring and late fall. A LOT in January. I draw just under 150 hours these last two weeks.
Having a seasonal job is not practical, but I really enjoy this winter drawing marathon.

All together, it's an average of about 1 hour a day.

Hi there dude! I can relate to this. Way too much.

As of now, I am 30, married and with a 10 hour shift full-time job that completely takes my life for 4 days a week. Means I have 3 days off, but life happens and I don't always have as much time as I'd like to create in general.

Lately, I've been trying to commit to producing 2 pages per week so I can create a buffer. But it is hard and I know this won't happen every week. I am trying to produce more and more so that one day I can work from home as a freelancer or comic artist :smiley:

All I can say is, you need to take the time to do what you like, even if it means sacrificing other stuff. Keep it up :slight_smile:

I draw in PaintToolSai, then add text bubbles and special effects in Photoshop CS3.
When I need 3D references, I use Blender and Daz. I either model the stuff I need myself or download freebies from various websites (like sketchfab and archive3d).

Some pages take longer than others, so it can be anything between 2 and 10 hours per page. I keep a buffer of 3-6 unpublished pages, so I stay true to the schedule 99% of the time. I make buffer pages whenever I have extra time to spare (sick leaves, holidays, especially lucky weekends, etc.), same with the Patreon extras.

Right now I'm in a luxurious position when I can afford to draw pages from dawn til dusk basically, so I do that. It allows me to have a small buffer. But the money will eventually run out an I'll need to get to work again, then I will have to spend only a couple hours a day (plus again full-time on weekends). As was already said in the thread, sleep is optional, breakfasts are optional, recreational time is optional, human interactions are definitely optional.
I do not actually know if such schedule will be able to retain the update consistency though.

I'm definitely a few levels of preoccupied lower than you (25, work full time, but no SO at the moment or children haha), but even so it's rough. I try to get an hour or two in after work at least a few times per week (if I go out with friends afterwards or just feel like vegging out, then no drawing gets done), and usually devote several hours dispersed over the weekend for drawing unless I have other plans.

Since I know that my free time isn't getting any bigger (quite the contrary!), I've put a large emphasis on trying to increase my speed as I go along. Looking at my work flow to see where steps can be optimized or removed, becoming more and more familiar with the tools and tricks available in my software, etc. Like, obviously not at the cost of drawing quality- I've been trying to improve on that as I go along as well, of course. But basically I would like to become fast enough to draw a longer series without it taking forever and a half xD I've so far limited myself to a few one-shots (one complete the other in writing) and short stories such that I could complete them in a reasonable time frame, but I have ideas for longer series that I'd like to try in the future as well.

Here's the first one shot I completed late last year (a 2nd continuation season will be coming out later this year :slight_smile: ). Not too shabby for just over a year's worth of work for a comic-newbie~

I feel you. I waited until I was 30 to start mine. But to answer the question, I try to get at least 8 hours in a week. I usually exceed it, because I draw every chance I get. At lunch break, when my wife works late, and I stay up late on the weekend. Usually Saturdays I can get in about 5-8 hours.

I'm about to turn 38, have a day job (part-time), a partner and a four-year old daughter. I work four days a week and take care of the kiddo but during my three days off I'm able to dedicate a good maybe five-hour chunk to the comic on my "Saturday". The little one goes to Gramma's for the day and I'm free to sit in front of my computer for a bit, and maybe have some time the following day to finish up for a couple hours. Unfortunately for me this means I'm only able to do one page a week which I'm sure has affected my sub count negatively since I can't put out content as often as I'd like but I'm just not able to get away with more than I already am. Luckily I don't depend on this whole comic thing for money (at least not yet, but that'd be pretty sweet if it ended up that way) so I can mostly convince myself that this is a "hobby" and nothing more.

So all told now that I've got a little experience under my belt I can get a page done in probably six hours, which is way better than it used to be. And that's about as much time as I can manage unless I can sneak in some drawing before I go to my real job.

Depends on the week, there are weeks where I can squeeze only 3h, and then there are weeks when I can squeeze 15h (very rare).

What has worked for me is and tips:
1. Keeping a planner - it helps me manage my time better

  1. Forest (any other tracking method you have) - so I actually track my time, so I can see how much time I spend on drawing/studying/more and I can plan my life better with this info.

3.the 10 minutes rule. No matter how busy I am, I need to find 10 minutes to draw and make an actual progress.

I am student (yes, I know you didn't ask for my opinion but I answered anyways so :p)
But still it doesn't mean I actually have more time than you or anyone else. I have school and an outside learning activity so my schedule is:
I get home only at 9pm 2 days a week, every other day I get home at 4pm, and at Saturday I don't have school. Now, I need to dedicate about 15 hours a week to studying in my free time each week(I tracked it, and this is the average for me), trying to exercise everyday for an hour, getting 8hours of sleep and babysitting my little cousin (2 y/o) so yep, I don't have that much of a free time lol. (Plus with me meeting with friends/going to the doctor, zero time).

I'm 34, married, full time job, one cat. I usually have no time for cooking/chores so my husband does a lot and I binge chores when I do have time. It really feels like every minute matters.

On work days, I usually have 1-2 hours to draw but two days I use as update days which can take a while due to the cross posting everywhere.

On the weekends, I usually sacrifice my social life and spend Saturday and Sunday on and off drawing throughout the day.

Yeah I'm 33 so I feel you. I draw for money so I draw a lot. But, for the comic? I can only shed maybe 2-4 hours a week because it's just not an income for me. I'll go several weeks at a time where I can't do any work on this comic at all, but I'm still able to get out consistent weekly updates because I've built a backlog and designed the comic in such a way that I can get a lot of it done when I have a chance.

I think the biggest key in finding the balance is to simplify. Comics are huge undertakings, and there's a lot of pressure to make them insanely complicated. Sometimes we forget that the people at the top usually have the help of collaborations and assistants to get it all done, even in webcomics. DC and Marvel comics are made by at least 5 or 6 people every issue. Never forget you're just one person, and...life is a lot and stuff will happen and that it's OK to take breaks sometimes and simplify.

So to get my own comic done, personally, chose to go really illustrative and stylistic and sacrificed color, which is fine because I'm still learning how to make comics. Later, when I have more time and if there's a demand for it, I can add color. But for now--I simplified for what my life can handle so I can focus on telling my story rather than proving my art chops. The most important thing is telling a story start to finish--the art will improve as I improve, but I shouldn't take 8 hours a page to get there. I can't afford it.

13 days later

At least up to 5 hours per day Animation is funny like that. and when i'm not animating i'm working on other fan related stuff i sdo comic voice acting and other things

I used to enjoy drawing and draw for hours every day, at school, at home, anywhere. After some trauma I lost my interest in drawing and now I don't enjoy it at all. Right now I'm trying to draw again. Not sure if it will work.

Right now I'm between full-time jobs, so I draw a lot more often than usual. At least 3-5 hours on most days, depending on my freelance workload. There have been days where I've put in 12+ hours to pump out comic pages, but it quickly became mentally draining and physically painful.

I find that I really struggle to have a proper balance between working, socializing, exercising, and drawing. I feel like I always have to sacrifice one to have the others. :disappointed: But all are equally important to me!