How many hours per week can you draw?

[mcarrowolga]

Hi there
I'm 35, with a full-time job, a husband, a child, and two cats. I usually draw for one hour a day. I sleep one hour less or cut some other unnecessary activities (like breakfast) and use the time for drawing.
I've been making my comic like this for the last 5.5 years (2 pages a week + occasional extras for Patreon). It's not on Tapas, but here's a link in case you get curious: Gifts of wandering ice.

Free time is always there somewhere. Maybe you don't even have to sleep less or skip breakfast. Check out what else you can exchange for drawing: watching TV, playing videogames, etc.
You can also use some tricks (like 3D references) to draw faster. It saves up to 80% of time.
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My short stories on Tapas:

Tales from the Afterworld | Tapas

[sushy00]

I don't measure the hours. It has become way less since I damaged my arm and got some more health issues.

[MK_Wizard]

I treat my drawing like a nine to five job. I just do it all day until the work hours are punched in.

[JerrodStorm]

I'm 25, married, with a full-time job in software engineering and 2 kittens to distract me (one is sitting between me and my screen as I type, actually). Hmm, I mostly spend the time I have on Saturdays drawing. I draw maybe 3 to 5 hours a week? More if people aren't pressing for my time outside of work.

Keep your drawings simple and your episodes short (or break them up into multiple parts). That way your comic will take less time to draw, and you'll feel like you're getting more out there.

Here's my comic. It's super simple, but it's what I have the time to make.

GOLDEN: Chronicles of the Hastening! | Tapas

Keep going. I know how it feels to have wasted time/procrastinated. The best cure is to just start.

[CarltonIsaac]

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

[akemikae]

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.

[AdamBraveOfficial]

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.

[AdamBraveOfficial]

mcarrowolga, your style is very detailed and elaborated. Which tools/apps do you use?
How much time you take to one page?!

[jcmraz]

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 here's mine. Hope you'll take a peek and tell me what you think
Runner

[AdamBraveOfficial]

Tends to be between 8 and 12 day turnover right now.

What do you mean with this?

[jcmraz]

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

[vothnthorvaldson]

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.

[mono9comics]

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

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

[mcarrowolga]

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.

[Darth_Biomech]

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.

[Rhonder]

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 ). Not too shabby for just over a year's worth of work for a comic-newbie~

TreasureHUNT!! | Tapas

[nathanKmcwilliams]

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.

[MrTwennysebben]

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.

[Lummy]

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).

[Cavechan]

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.