I can't be the only webcomic creator who finds drawing to be bothersome

[false_postulate]

I love webcomics, and I love to write stories. One of the few reasons I started drawing was simply to make webcomics.

But I find drawing to be... bothersome. I don't hate it, but I don't like it, either. This doesn't stop me from making webcomics, because I absolutely love the way webcomics tell a story. But drawing takes up so much freaking TIME, and I'm an impatient person, and I just want my story to keep pushing forward, but here I am, struggling for an hour drawing a hand and trying not to make it resemble a children's drawing straight out of a horror movie.

I feel like my dislike of drawing impacts the aesthetics of my webcomic and limits it from being the best it could be visually, since I don't spend much thought or creativity in my drawings. I just set the scene, make some expressions, rarely draw backgrounds unless it's absolutely necessary, and call it a day.

On the bright side, the time-consuming aspect of drawing gives me time to stop and notice plot holes, or gets me to notice sections that need to be re-written. Another bright side is that my drawing skills have improved quite a lot.

Please tell me I'm not alone in wanting to defenestrate (to throw someone or something out the window) myself and my tablet when I'm drawing my webcomic.

[IndigoShirtProd]

In general, no, in specific situations, sure.

There have been times where I've drawn on the wrong layer for more than a few minutes or where I've I get exhausted from working on a panel with lots of details.

But most of the time, I enjoy drawing and I'm not regularly frustrated with the struggles of making artwork. It is time consuming, but that comes with the territory. When you think about there's nothing that isn't time consuming.

But that's just me. I've always seen myself as more of an illustrator than a writer, so Im probably coming from a biased perspective. If it's really frustrating, have you considered saving up money and paying an artist?

[suyaa3838]

i actively dislike drawing, so i can relate on a more extreme scale lol. it's the end product and the way people can experience my stories that makes me stick with it.

the thing with webcomics is that for solo creators especially, they're rarely going to be that person's aesthetic peak. even people making comics entirely for fun often end up getting dragged into ridiculous industry standards and algorithm shenanigans, which makes it so that there's simply no time to make everything look nice. and even someone who doesn't care about stats might just have a story that's too long to focus on making panels look nicer if they ever wanna reach the ending. it's a struggle.

in the end it's largely about finding what works for each individual creator...and the fact you can point out the bright side of things you generally struggle with is fantastic. personally i've kind of made peace with my burning hatred (lol) and i just try to find ways to keep things interesting or make it easier on myself. experimenting with 3d assets and making things like bonus wallpapers (where i can afford to take the time to think about composition and whatnot) have been pretty helpful.

[false_postulate]

You have a point that the time-consuming aspect does come with creating. I guess for now, I think that the time and frustration it takes for me to do the drawing is worth my time. But I'm glad to hear that you enjoy the drawing part of it!

I've always been bad at collaboration, haha. I like doing all of it myself. I don't think I'll consider hiring an artist any time soon, but if I ever get super fed up with drawing in the future, maybe I'll consider it. Thanks for the suggestion and your input!

[false_postulate]

Omg! This is off-topic, but I think I read your webcomic before in Smackjeeves?! Definitely somewhere before. I think it was Smackjeeves, I completely forget where I first read your webcomic. I'm so stunned that a long-term pro has commented on my forum post, haha.

But yea, I also like the end product, and it's what makes the time I take drawing feel worth it. I can imagine that your dislike of drawing is exacerbated by being a popular artist/webcomicer and having constant pressure from fans and more.

It's both my biggest dream and my biggest fear to get into the industry of making comics. It sounds like simultaneously a dream come true and a horrible hell to go through. From how you described it, I get the feeling that you have experience with that... :') Thanks for the further insight on that industry.

I hope your burning hatred of art decreases, and yet, at the same time, I get the feeling it won't :') So perhaps, the best thing I can hope for you is that I hope you find more ways to mitigate that hatred. I've also considered 3D assets, and I stopped looking into them because they seemed too much of a hassle at the moment, but I'm glad to hear that they're helpful for you, and I'll reconsider them again!

Thanks for your input! I'm glad I'm kind of not alone, but now I have to be careful that I don't spiral into an extreme hatred of drawing... thanks for the heads up :')

[nostalgicroxas]

But drawing takes up so much freaking TIME, and I'm an impatient person, and I just want my story to keep pushing forward, but here I am, struggling for an hour drawing a hand and trying not to make it resemble a children's drawing straight out of a horror movie.

You just summed up entirely why my stories are all novels even though I did try to make one a comic from the get-go.

[sushy00]

You could consider hiring an artist if you are really really really bothered by it?

[suyaa3838]

haha, i'm being a little overly facetious, but it's true that dealing with the actual industry part and odd demands from readers have contributed to the dislike. incidentally i just left an entire platform because it wasn't worth dealing with the negativity from it anymore. kind of a wake-up call and a good reminder that taking care of one's health is just as important as knowing how to draw; art is so much more mentally and physically demanding than people give it credit for.

it's fine to dislike drawing sometimes, any job or even hobby can be like that. what's really heartbreaking is people losing their passion even when readers enjoy their work and cheer them on. legitimately one of the worst things i've experienced, and i think you're right on track to avoiding that, but it's something that doesn't hurt to be aware of.

(as to not derail this thread too much, i'm just gonna offer to answer questions in DMs if you feel like my input could be useful to your creative goals! getting similar creative expression vibes here... i'm also very much the type to do everything by myself and to just want to get the stories out there lol)

[Mallory]

I'm actually really happy you brought this up because I've been feeling this way more and more...

I'm enjoying drawing Engram but that's because I've literally given myself permission to only draw things that make me happy in a super cute style. Every time I think about a more expansive/less quirky story that I want to tell, the idea of drawing it (at least, if it means doing it entirely by myself) honestly makes me shudder.

I don't know, maybe if I didn't have a potentially permanent nerve injury and the process of drawing didn't also hurt, maybe it would be less daunting, but right now... when I think about it, the idea feels like a chore.

[rajillustration]

Oh, I totally know what you mean, and I had to do a lot of work to learn to love the process again (because I forget sometimes to love the process, and I get into a vibe of "Freakin hate this")

For me it's kind of like doing the dishes or doing the laundry: it's a chore. And sometimes I really don't feel like doing my chores. Thing is...you gotta do your chores. That and there is a zen to doing the laundry and doing the dishes--there is this awareness you have of the moment, this kind of quiet place where you're doing something that has a lot of repetition but it's organizing the chaos, it's cleaning up the mess, and while it's never going to be "done" (I mean housework is never done, no matter how small your house is) it makes everything better later. It's satisfying to watch it come together. Something I do for future me.

when I need to get a story down at the same rate my brain deposits it, then I go into script mode or novel mode. I've had to learn to accept the hard way that drawing a comic is always a slow game, but at least I have my script to read if I want to work ahead.

[joannekwan]

-raises hand-

Especially after 5+ years of drawing comics and doing freelance commission work, I've come to not like it more and more. I found that my real passion is in storytelling itself, so right now I'm relishing writing novels. I would have started novel writing sooner but I wasn't as confident in my wordcraft and prose back then so I decided to do comics, since I'd say I'm decent at drawing. And holy heck writing is so much faster. I finished a whole novel in 1 year compared to my comic's 5.

I discovered that drawing comics every week also kills my motivation for drawing any of the characters in standalone illustrations outside of the comic too. It's really become like a job where I want to leave work at work. I'm more compelled to draw my novel characters since I don't have to draw them as often.

And while I do pride myself sometimes in how well some of the commissions I get turn out, the carrot on the end of the stick for me will always be money and not the process itself.

[Caro]

My husband and I have both been doing comics (independently of each other) in a full time capacity for the past, like, 6 or 7 years ?? but our feelings about it are completely different. He never really liked drawing in the first place and only learned how to draw so that he could make comics so he's been over it the whole time. He does LIKE drawing some of his comics some of the time though but when its a full time thing you don't really have the luxury of choosing whatever it is you feel like doing for yourself at any given moment.

He recently released a book that he had an inker on and that really didn't do as much to alleviate his stress as much as he thought he would. So now he's working on two or three concurrent projects where he writes and lays out the pages and other artists draw it to cut down on the process stress and because he understands that he may not always be the best artist for all of his projects. He's also really lucky that he has a great eye for really good artists and a lot of people willing to work with him. I don't think that's a set up I'd recommend for folks who don't have a strong sense of direction and don't already have the proof of reliability that comes with having a substantial body of finished work.

As for me, if I had all of the freedom in the world I'd still be drawing my own comics but I think I'd probably choose more of my off-kilter passion projects to focus on and just not work as long hours as I do now and I'd probably devote more time to writing novels and painting. Even still, there are times when I'm JUST trying to meet the deadline and it does feel like work. But its a lot easier for me to find the joy in the work after a few minutes of brute-forcing myself into it as opposed to if I were still a janitor or whatever. And the emotional payoff is a lot higher which makes it 1000% worth it for me in the end.

[dewarcomics]

I feel that too, I'm impatient as well and I want to get to the cool stuff right away.

I'm learning to enjoy the moments the story is currently at and taking more of my time and drawing more details instead of rushing it. There's also the other side where I have to let it go or else there won't ever be an update.

But mainly I'm pulling in the reins of my brain and basically tell myself "calm down, lets make the CURRENT cool stuff cool, the cool stuff in the future will come eventually let's cross that bridge once we get there bud"

[frgmnt]

To be honest I think I get how you feel. The reason why I started drawing as a kid in the first place was to illustrate the stories in my head. But I'm a slow and unmotivated artist and there are times when I ask myself if I even like drawing...Which is the main reason why my comic, planned to be a very long one, has been on hiatus for two years and will probably never return as a comic I just dreaded the thought of how long it will take to draw it all and I knew it will kill my passion for this story somewhere down the line. I calculated it'd take me at least two years of weekly 2-page posting to even get to where the "real" plot starts... A slog for both myself and potential readers.

It sounds like you are determined on telling your stories in comic form, so I don't know if my suggestion will help you at all, but have you considered making a visual novel for example? While it still requires a lot of art, character sprites and backgrounds can be reused, with just minor changes, an infinite number of times, greatly speeding up the time it takes to finish the story. That is what I'm thinking of doing with my project. Granted, I have no idea how to code a VN (yet), or how to get any music for it, but well, I'm still figuring out those parts hopefully... in this decade...

[false_postulate]

I've been collaborating with an artist (my sis) for a while now on several webcomics, but it kind of takes away the sense of... ownership? I don't know if that's the right way to describe it. Also, I've never done well with group projects / partnerships :') But yeah, maybe I'll hire one in the future, who knows. Though I don't think my stories are that exceptional enough to bother someone else with them, haha

[false_postulate]

art is so much more mentally and physically demanding than people give it credit for.

I'm kind of a beginner artist, and I've recently started drawing some things for my friends when it's their birthday, but the non-artist friends don't think/appreciate much of it... hahaha, lesson learned about that. Gotta buy them a stuffed animal next time, lol. They probably thought it only took 5 minutes or something to draw their present, but it's not their fault for not knowing.

I'm gonna take you up on the offer of the DM Thank you!

[false_postulate]

oAo omg... your art is amazing... how is it possible that you have less than 1k subs...?

Maybe you can do a cute style for all kinds of story genres! I think there's been some increasing popularity on art styles that conflict with the genre (like, a cutesy style in a horror genre). Actually... I think that's the only combination that works, haha... the shock value is thrown in.

It seriously sucks about your nerve injury... That's one of the worst things to happen to an artist. Don't push yourself too much...!

[false_postulate]

Whoa, that's a really nice analogy. I like that perspective a lot, and I really want to adopt that kind of thinking and make it natural. Fortunately, there's still some parts of drawing that feel like the "zen" that you mentioned (for me, it's the coloring part of it. lineart is the bane of my existence though, haha).

It's satisfying to watch it come together. Something I do for future me.

A lot of my life has actually been stuck in doing things for "future me", and less of "present me", and I think one is equally as important as the other. I think one of the causes of my past burnouts was focusing too much on the future results (which may or may not actually happen). But I do agree that it's super satisfying to see the completed episodes, and I hope that feeling doesn't become a bad addiction, haha

[Mallory]

Aw, thank you. I think my lack of subs is a combination of slow releases (since I can really only draw 1-2 pages a month, depending on how I feel) and not having any idea of what I'm doing in regards to promoting. Plus I chose a non-chronological story structure which I'm sure doesn't do me any favors. ^^;

Apparently I inherited very sensitive nerves from my father's side, so they get damaged very easily. I AM doing better but... it's not known how much I can actually recover, and afterwards how much load they'll be able to take. It is what it is, I guess. I'm learning to voice type so I can at least write scripts (I can't write prose... can't speak and think creatively. x.x)

And I considered it and even started drawing one of my more "serious" comics in a more cute style but... it just didn't work for me. But every time I think about drawing it more "seriously" my brain is just like

[false_postulate]

I'm kind of a beginner artist, but my sister has been an artist for a long time now. I was always confused whenever she talked about disliking drawing requests or commissions, but I'm starting to notice that there might be something about drawing other people's demands that destroys the fire inside. I'm glad that I'm lucky enough to see it happen to other people to know to avoid it, but I also feel bad that it destroys people's passions.

Also, I'm glad you've found your real passion for writing!