How much time do you spend on a single page of your comic?

GrimRose 2019-01-12 05:59:02 UTC #1

Everyone's art process is different and so is the style and format of their comic, but I am curious if there is an average/ general amount of time artists end up spending creating a page of their comic.

In general it takes me anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours working on a single illustration, while a comic page would be a totally different beast to create I imagine.

So if you would like to share you can...

Your comic (I always want to see other peoples comics, and others might too)

Your style/ (comical? realistic? anime/cartoonish? etc)

Colour/ (Full colour? black and white? Limited colour palette? etc)

And how long does it take to create generally a single page for your comic?

revisionstudios 2019-01-12 06:06:01 UTC #2

I work with a team so it's a bit different, but combined our pages take 10-12 hours on average, last I counted! My portion is usually about 6-8 hours of that.

My comic is Midwinter:

It's on the more realistic side, but anime inspired. It's probably too polished for its own good, and it's in black and white!

Have you not made any comics yet? It's DEFINITELY a different beast than illustration, and it's a lot at once, but you get used to it after awhile. You also shouldn't put 100% of your skill into every panel.

Edit: Following the trend after me and posting an actual page from the recent chapter for reference!

I kind of hate myself for making it rain in this scene

GesuGesu 2019-01-12 06:06:42 UTC #3

Generally, if I work ...

3 panels at a time, it's about 5-6 hours.
6 panels = 6-8 hours.

Therefore, working more panels at a time seems more productive for me.

Sample below is 6 panels (6 hours)

dawgofdawgness 2019-01-12 06:07:49 UTC #4

I actually have no clue how long it takes me to finish each page, since I get distracted on the internet and spend way more time than I really need to. But I would estimate about 6 hours, including thumbnailing and rendering.

here's my comic:

I draw in a cartoony style, with semi realistic backgrounds.
I use a monochrome color palette of violet and greyscale, and add some small splashes of other colors for emphasis and highlights
here's an example of one of my pages:
CH2 p22.png940x1410 922 KB

Nachi 2019-01-12 08:37:36 UTC #5

I work in the scroll format, full color. I'd love to do realistic style, but I am not good enough and it somehow happened to be anime, I guess.
In general, an average panel can take me 1-2 hours, more often 1. But depending and the size and complexity, a panel can take me anywhere from 30 mins to something like 6-8 hours (landscape).

Eveeka 2019-01-12 10:51:17 UTC #6

It takes me 10 -12 hours (two or three days) to make a comic page

Rodimus13 2019-01-12 11:00:21 UTC #7

We do the scrolling format, so a page is rather long for us. Hubby takes about 2-3 hours a day and then takes a week so... 14-21 hours depending on the comic?

Assuming I don't mess it up and tell him he really needs to redo stuff... (we took some advice about close ups to heart, he had to redraw several panels)

MK_Wizard 2019-01-12 12:59:21 UTC #8

When I factor in the storyboarding, sketching, inking and colouring, it takes half a day altogether if I need to make the background too. If the background is premade, about three hours. My style is cartoonish so it's simple.

cleo_san 2019-01-12 13:35:50 UTC #9

Ooooh! <3 How interesting to see how different everyone works! <3

Okay, first things first, I'm Cleo and I draw the webmanga Remember:

...And I work without a partner (not counting friends I spam with WIPs)

As you might have guessed, I draw manga style, but I try to vary it more and more, because purely manga can be a little bit limiting.

My pages are in b/w; since I suck at computer colo and I don't have the time for traditional full colo.

A single b/w page takes 4-10 hours, depending on the complexity of the background and the amount of crosshatching to be done, including screentones with Clip Studio Paint. Here's an example which took about 6h (most of the time I spend on working out the sketch):

Of course, there are more complex pages which I really regret drawing, because I hate architecure/details in libraries (only a WIP):

As for illustrations... XD;;; I only make the chapter covers in full colo (and print them in full colo as well, which looks really great on paper!)
The quickest artwork I ever made was 6 hrs für a DIN-A4 copic work and boy, my heart rate was way up after this speedpaint (last minute commission for a birthday):

When I have more time, I easily spend 10-20 hours on an illustration and this usually results in more details and more shading (Have some chapter covers/bonus artworks):

Hope you enjoyed my little tour! <3

LortiaMJB 2019-01-12 14:53:32 UTC #10

I spend about 2/3 hours a page on average. But usually take at least 5 pages at a time through every stage of the process. On a good week I'll get like 15-20 pages done like this. ^^

Currently have 3 projects active, two in color, one in grayscale/BW. I try to tackle at least 4 pages a week for each

My comic:

amortelito 2019-01-12 15:12:57 UTC #11

3-5 hours, I really wanted a style that is as quick as possible to draw in full color, but that doesn't look too lazy (I hope XD). I spend most of the time deciding the panels, then when I know what to do, inking and coloring is faster. My pages usually have 3 panels and I avoid drawing backgrounds (which is embarrassing but I don't regret it). This is because I know for a fact that I get demotivated by perfectionism so much, I have limited time and this project is long and needs to be sustainable over time. Now I can make my comic without worrying too much and I think the comic shows how much I enjoy making it for the sake of making it.

lil-sea-salt 2019-01-12 15:46:21 UTC #12

Style: cartoonish I guess. I'm not really an artist so I focus more on story than the art side

Color: Limited Color Palette --> mostly just the paint that I have

Time: this is kind of embarassing but it usually takes me a week for a full colored page. Not fully colored takes 2-3 hours.

Inspector_Spinda 2019-01-12 17:48:43 UTC #13

I spend anywhere from 4 to 7 hours depending on how much trouble I have with certain poses and such.

I have a cartoon style with semi realistic proportions and full color

Zyephen 2019-01-12 18:13:22 UTC #14

Anime style with some western influences.

Black and White / Grayscale

Typically takes between 5-8 hours depending on the page.

unknown_user 2019-01-12 18:34:58 UTC #15

10-15 hours usually
But at the beginning it was twice more, so I don't really complain...
Also if I copy-paste at a particular page a lot, or draw something simple, then it maybe like 4-6 hours.

Style: simplified realistic with some bias toward anime
Color: Full Color, but actually I use not so much colors so far

I know, it is hard to say by comics itself, what there can be drawn for so long... the answer is - everything

Milhamah 2019-01-12 19:01:40 UTC #16

One page for me usually is about two to four frames, and each frame takes around two to five hours, depending on detail. But on average, it's probably six to eight hours.

Half of my time is spent positioning the characters, and the other half involves adding shadows, filters, color adjustment and effects.

LT1986 2019-01-12 19:01:50 UTC #17

I have an anime/cartoonish style.
The comic is in color.
I spend about two weeks per page, because I work on other hobbies and I'm spending time trying to study art to improve my art work.

rmdooley 2019-01-12 21:28:28 UTC #18

It heavily depends on the page, but I'd say it averages it out to about 20 hours from the first pencils to the last speech bubble

I keep the comic greyscale both for tone and time

A simpler page like this can be done in about 10 hours

A page with more panels, lighting, and detail adds up quickly and can take double the average time

vothnthorvaldson 2019-01-12 21:49:44 UTC #19

For now around 15h per page, and yet the drawings are pretty simple. But I'm a total beginner with comics and digital drawing so I hope it will eventually take less time per page.

It's in color, as for the style I have no idea.

Rhonder 2019-01-12 22:12:13 UTC #20

Hmm, by rough guess-timation...

I have no idea how long my thumbnails took. I did like 60 pages worth in a week so... maybe 10-20 mins per page? For this project they were really super rough tho (this is 2 pages, I just did them in like spread form)

Penciling takes like... an hour usually? Sometimes more (up to 2 or 3) and very rarely less.

Inking takes me quite a while, I'd say anywhere from 2-4 hours per page depending on the level of complexity. Some of this time sink comes from my medium... since I'm using actual ink on paper I have to be careful to not move my hand over areas that are still wet, and effectively only get 1 shot at making each line right, so I'm somewhat cautious during this step xD And still mess up a lot anyways lol

coloring breaks down in to flatting, shading, & effects. I can flat a batch of 3 or 4 pages in a couple of hours, so the time per page is maybe like 40 mins to an hour and a half or something. Shading tends to take a little longer because I have to actually think. The amount of effects (magic, glow, if it's nighttime, etc) on a page affects the overall time as well. Something with few effects (maybe just highlights) takes like 20 mins. Something with tons of effects takes longer. so maybe like 3-7 hours per page coloring depending on amount of stuff going on.
Lettering goes fast, maybe like 30-60 mins per page.

So total time per page is like... uh... 6-12 hours or something?

I guess thinking over the actual amount of hours I spend working a week, it's like 2-3 hours each week day after work and like 5+ hours each weekend day. so... I manage to get 3 pages out most weeks in that time. I dunno the math doesn't quite add up but that's how it works out xD