I started a second comic on side of my daily strip. The daily strip takes me a lot of energy and time (even though I have my husband doing half the work with me). but I was hell bent doing that second idea too. This is how I manage it so far:
I wrote my script (or jokes in this case) organized them by length, importance to the overall story and how difficult they’ll be. That way I will not end up with two ultra long/difficult strips in a row. That already saves some time in production.
Storyboards/thumbnails are still drawn traditional in a sketch book. Try to be detailed/ close to model with the faces/heads of your characters. That where the focus of the reader is. With the rest you can cut corners to some degree and use a shorthand.
I use the vector layer in Clip Studio as my inking layer. The line art is fairly thick with high stabilization. That way I can draw faster and smoother. And due to the vector I can correct the artwork (or line width easier)
Also I settled on a simple color palette for each character and bg (which is set up in clip studio as it’s own set)
Shadings are done in the same tones (which is choosen according to the atmosphere)
I use cell shading since that’s more manageable for me than painting.
Fir BGs I use CGI for generic BG (such as random buildings or places my characters will only visit once or hardly at all). That way you don’t waste time drawing detailed BGs/Settings that you don’t need later on.
If you don’t mind CGI you can do all your BGs with that. It’s not like that’s a taboo.
Personally I prefer drawing recurring (like apartments of the main character) still from scratch. But I keep it simplistic and use CGI props for furniture pieces in the BG. Also, I reuse shots and background.
Try to utilize effect brushes as much as possible. It helps a lot for stuff like fur, trees and what not.
Same thing goes for patterns for clothes or such. It’s very little effort but the result look nice
And I settled on a schedule I can manage on the side. My second comic will run bi-weekly because I feel like drawing one (1) panel a day is very convenient for me. That way, I need a bit less than two weeks to finish an episode. That’s not fast but it prevents me from burn out and I still are able to do my main comic, patreon stuff and rest.
My apologies if I stated any obvious but I felt like sharing how I deal with drawing faster or more convenient without hurting my motivation ^^