I don't need exposure. I need to get better

[xabelmind]

that old Hipstergirl and Gamergirl comic I used to see floating around. I wonder how that one got popular?

The author, Jagodibuja, has his own site, presence in a lot of social media platforms and posts both in Spanish and English. But I think his biggest trick is doing a lotsa sexy fanart. For each strip of his original work, there's like two or three fanarts. He's been working for years on end, too

[Hodge]

I kinda feel like there's a lot of circumstance at work here, so I'm a bit confused.

What exactly are you frustrated with? And why do you need to get better? What's your intent or goal here? Cause once you know the end game you can plan and make the appropriate changes to get there. Though it might be the case where you have to make some sacrifices to get there (especially if time is the biggest issue).

Honestly, I don't think its "talent" or the like, and that kind of thinking is probably preventing you from believing in yourself and building up confidence. Like you're stuck in some trap and the more you struggle the more you're making it worse for yourself. You need to create a more optimistic mindset for yourself, if for any reason because it will help you work better. A combination of stress, worries, anxieties, pessimism, etc. don't really make for good decision making and can often lead to you digging yourself into a deeper hole.

As for the genre, yeah tapas might not be the best platform, but I don't think its that niche really. Probably there's some changes you can make to the story and the art, but I think there's potential for a growing audience. Especially if you added more fluff and lewd stuff. Not everyone has to like your comic, but obviously you do have an audience.

I'm all for the "git gud" approach don't get me wrong, but that alone is too forceful. Yes, improve the art and writing, but also try to have a strategy and know where you can work smarter not harder.

[JRHoch]

Are you going to share your specific passions and kinks? Or are you just teasing us with the mystery?

[carloswebcomic]

However, my best is not good enough to compete with the extremely talented and skilled creators that are at the top of the food chain. Not even close.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

It means I'm working my arse off and I can't get anywhere,

I feel like 15 hours is a lot of time to spend on one page. I don't know how much time other people spend, but I do about 4 hours / page. I have a looser, sketchier style than your's and less detailed pages.

Looking at your pages, your art is very smooth and clean. It's clear you took a lot of time to get it that way. But maybe if it's burning you out you don't need to do so much? Maybe look for ways to take less time on a page instead of ways to improve your art. I think you could get 90% of the polish with like 60% of the work

Unfortunately I've tried and failed. Whenever I try to make my life easier, I lose tons of readers. I painted myself into a corner that I can't get out of.

I second this. His comic does heavily come off as "sexy lesbians written by a man" and I don't think it appeals to a lot of people on this site. I also have a feeling most readers on webcomic sites are female.

Agree that he might have better luck promoting on Reddit. Or Twitter, maybe? Or DeviantArt? The comic reminds me a bit of that old Hipstergirl and Gamergirl comic I used to see floating around. I wonder how that one got popular?

And I think here comes the problem. The word lesbian hasn't even been uttered in the comic itself and it's not even the focus, but it keeps coming up, so clearly that's what people see.
Unfortunately, people who want to see that, will probably be disappointed.
I've tried Twitter, Deviantart,Tumblr, other platforms like Comicfury and The Duck, but no one cares. Tapas and Webtoons are the only place where I've found an audience (kind of), which is worrying because it could mean that there's no actual platform for my work.

These guys are the real deal, professional comic artists and if you listen they will be more than happy to get you thinking about the medium in ways you probably never considered before. You NEED to be okay with criticism though. These guys are good. They definitely know better than you or I. So if you're serious, that's a great resource. You can take a look at my comic, Runner and how it changes throughout it's run of 28 pages throughout 2019 and you can see the amount that I grew and it was in no small part because of their help

I know what's wrong with my work, the problem is I have no time to get better as I'm already running on fumes.

so basically, I may not have an audience at all.

In the words of John McClane, "Welcome to the party pal!"

I'm one of your subscribers who's been following you for awhile now. I can speak on the fact that it's the craftsmanship of your strip that keeps me coming back. I enjoy the character relationships and some of the gags but it's the QUALITY of your work that's the draw.

Much like my fandom of R. Crumb, I don't necessarily share your passions and kinks. I'm a big fan of your art and storytelling.

That's my biggest worry. I'm afraid that the comic has no non-creator appeal, which would explain why I lose tons of readers when I sacrifice the quality for lighter workloads.

The author, Jagodibuja, has his own site, presence in a lot of social media platforms and posts both in Spanish and English. But I think his biggest trick is doing a lotsa sexy fanart. For each strip of his original work, there's like two or three fanarts. He's been working for years on end, too

I didn't even know he actually did comics as all I saw was a shitload of fan art to begin with.
Unfortunately I detest doing fanart, which is to my detriment as I could probably get a lot more attention that way. But frankly, I'd rather stick a fork in my eyeball than do fanart.

I kinda feel like there's a lot of circumstance at work here, so I'm a bit confused.

What exactly are you frustrated with? And why do you need to get better? What's your intent or goal here? Cause once you know the end game you can plan and make the appropriate changes to get there. Though it might be the case where you have to make some sacrifices to get there (especially if time is the biggest issue).

Honestly, I don't think its "talent" or the like, and that kind of thinking is probably preventing you from believing in yourself and building up confidence. Like you're stuck in some trap and the more you struggle the more you're making it worse for yourself. You need to create a more optimistic mindset for yourself, if for any reason because it will help you work better. A combination of stress, worries, anxieties, pessimism, etc. don't really make for good decision making and can often lead to you digging yourself into a deeper hole.

As for the genre, yeah tapas might not be the best platform, but I don't think its that niche really. Probably there's some changes you can make to the story and the art, but I think there's potential for a growing audience. Especially if you added more fluff and lewd stuff. Not everyone has to like your comic, but obviously you do have an audience.

I'm all for the "git gud" approach don't get me wrong, but that alone is too forceful. Yes, improve the art and writing, but also try to have a strategy and know where you can work smarter not harder.

Unfortunately, a combination of chronic depression and anxiety makes the whole optimism thing pretty hard.
Also, I've painted myself into a corner. I'm already working as efficiently as my skill level would allow me, If I sacrifice quality, I start losing readers. This leaves me with no time for anything and I'm forever rushing to get things finished.
So, I'm constantly overworked and tired just to stay above water, which doesn't help.

I could perhaps put more lewd and fluff into it, I guess. I mean, since the final product does not reflect the amount of work I've put into the character interactions and evolving relationships, I might as well bring them in by putting more of that in it.

[xabelmind]

All that sounds like you're trying hard to find a reason why you consider yourself and your work a failure, despite none are. Because, like many of us, you chained part of your self-confidence to the metrics of the sites you're in.

May this call for help be more "my depression is taking over the work I love, please, grab your nearest weapon and help me fight it back"?

We are not on your head, the only thing I can say is to take care of that depression, whatever way works for you (therapist, medication, a less slaver schedule...), because that exhaustion of yours is clearly a body call for help, to take more care for yourself before keep working on anything else.

First health, Carlos, then everything else will roll at its rythm.

Cheers

[carloswebcomic]

All that sounds like you're trying hard to find a reason why you consider yourself and your work a failure, despite none are.

Well, I consider the constant loss of readers and lack of positive feedback whenever the comic is discussed outside my presence a failure.

[xabelmind]

I'm glad this is the only part you can argue about my reply.

This is my last message, you're feeding your inner demons with our responses, dude.

It's your decision to take or not the advices or what to do with your work. Yours, not of your depression, she's not the boss here, you are.

[carloswebcomic]

I'm glad this is the only part you can argue about my reply.

This is my last message, you're feeding your inner demons with our responses, dude.

It's your decision to take or not the advices or what to do with your work. Yours, not of your depression, she's not the boss here, you are.

Sorry, but right now I’m in panic mode and I’m realising I may be more screwed than I initially suspected.
My apologies.

[darthmongoose]

Sorry, but right now I’m in panic mode and I’m realising I may be more screwed than I initially suspected.My apologies.

Okay okay, deep breaths, buddy, you're not screwed. You've had a little stumble and it's thrown you off-balance. I've seen comic artists come back from way worse than this. Your situation is really not all that bad. Objectively the problem is:

You have made a comic which has excellent art and solid gag writing, which has 13,000 bookmarks (incredible, that's a bigger number of bookmarks than the average per-issue readership on most published comics!), but has hit a point where it can't expand further easily and fails to generate the kind of buzz you need to really push your career to the next level because it has already filled its small niche and isn't a wider appeal kind of comic.

You are a hermit crab who has survived long enough and been successful enough to outgrow its shell. You have made a comic that does what it does very well, it's just that the type of comic you've made would have been a hit in the 00s, but the audience for webcomics is different now.

This is not a horrible situation! What, did you just spend $10,000 on a huge print run of five thousand books? Did you flounce out of your day job and tell every employer in the country you'll never work for them because you're a hot-shot comic artist? Did you stinkbomb the Onipress offices? If no, then there's really no barrier here.

Your options:
- Start a new comic. Yeah, you can. It worked for John Allison, who moved from Bobbins to Scary-Go-Round to Bad Machinery and Giant Days, it worked for David Willis going from It's Walky! to Shortpacked to Dumbing of Age, so there's no reason you can't make a new comic that's more in line with the tastes of the contemporary audience without the baggage of your long page count, and even bring along some of your fave characters from the comic you have and put them in a new context. You'll probably get faster growth from fans moving over from your old comic to help visibility, so you should build up visibility quickly.
- Dig in with the comic you have and merchandise the crap out of your audience. Like, dude, your comic is like an early 00s sexy gag comic, do you know what your core audience is? Men in their 30s and 40s, the biggest spenders in comics merch. I've seen it bandied around that if you have a core base of 2000 really hardcore fans, you can scrape a living off a webcomic. You could sell posters, books....body pillows.... (I'm not necessarily saying I'd approve, but as a business decision it makes complete sense given the genre of the comic).
- Start pitching to publishers and showing your portfolio at events. Your work is more than good enough, why not give Dark Horse, Oni Press or even Marvel a shot?
- Have your comic as a thing you do for fun on the side and do a different job to pay rent. There's zero shame in this and it doesn't make you a failure. Being pro full time for like... nearly everyone I know on the scene means drawing crappy comics about other people's IP. A lot of my friends who wanted to draw the comic they care about started doing a different job and having their dream comic be a side hustle or even a hobby (self included, actually).

You have plenty of options, and whether you drop it or continue, you have a very successful webcomic under your belt that you should treat like an asset, not a failure. You could go to any publisher and say "I have kept regular updates for five years on a webcomic with over 13,000 readers, and now I want to take my career to the next level" and they'd be really impressed.

[carloswebcomic]

Okay okay, deep breaths, buddy, you're not screwed. You've had a little stumble and it's thrown you off-balance. I've seen comic artists come back from way worse than this. Your situation is really not all that bad. Objectively the problem is:

You have made a comic which has excellent art and solid gag writing, which has 13,000 bookmarks (incredible, that's a bigger number of bookmarks than the average per-issue readership on most published comics!), but has hit a point where it can't expand further easily and fails to generate the kind of buzz you need to really push your career to the next level because it has already filled its small niche and isn't a wider appeal kind of comic.

You are a hermit crab who has survived long enough and been successful enough to outgrow its shell. You have made a comic that does what it does very well, it's just that the type of comic you've made would have been a hit in the 00s, but the audience for webcomics is different now.

This is not a horrible situation! What, did you just spend $10,000 on a huge print run of five thousand books? Did you flounce out of your day job and tell every employer in the country you'll never work for them because you're a hot-shot comic artist? Did you stinkbomb the Onipress offices? If no, then there's really no barrier here.

Your options:- Start a new comic. Yeah, you can. It worked for John Allison, who moved from Bobbins to Scary-Go-Round to Bad Machinery and Giant Days, it worked for David Willis going from It's Walky! to Shortpacked to Dumbing of Age, so there's no reason you can't make a new comic that's more in line with the tastes of the contemporary audience without the baggage of your long page count, and even bring along some of your fave characters from the comic you have and put them in a new context. You'll probably get faster growth from fans moving over from your old comic to help visibility, so you should build up visibility quickly.- Dig in with the comic you have and merchandise the crap out of your audience. Like, dude, your comic is like an early 00s sexy gag comic, do you know what your core audience is? Men in their 30s and 40s, the biggest spenders in comics merch. I've seen it bandied around that if you have a core base of 2000 really hardcore fans, you can scrape a living off a webcomic. You could sell posters, books....body pillows.... (I'm not necessarily saying I'd approve, but as a business decision it makes complete sense given the genre of the comic).- Start pitching to publishers and showing your portfolio at events. Your work is more than good enough, why not give Dark Horse, Oni Press or even Marvel a shot?- Have your comic as a thing you do for fun on the side and do a different job to pay rent. There's zero shame in this and it doesn't make you a failure. Being pro full time for like... nearly everyone I know on the scene means drawing crappy comics about other people's IP. A lot of my friends who wanted to draw the comic they care about started doing a different job and having their dream comic be a side hustle or even a hobby (self included, actually).

You have plenty of options, and whether you drop it or continue, you have a very successful webcomic under your belt that you should treat like an asset, not a failure. You could go to any publisher and say "I have kept regular updates for five years on a webcomic with over 13,000 readers, and now I want to take my career to the next level" and they'd be really impressed.

Okay, okay. I’m taking deep breaths.
You’re right. I should be targeting the 30/40 market.
I should also consider some merchandise.
I don’t feel particularly comfortable with making body pillows, but they’d probably sell quite well. It would also increase the comic’s profile.

To be honest Though, I don’t think I’d like to get into publishing. I have a mortgage to pay and need financial stability, so my office job will be my main income in the foreseeable future. It also kind of terrifies me!
But you’re right. I should play more into that Middle aged men market as it’s probably something they’d be looking for.

Okay, this at least gives me a basis for some sort of strategy. Now, I just need to get to work on it.

Thank you so much. You‘ve really helped me with something I’ve been struggling for years and was aggravating my depression.
Now, at least I have some sort of road map I can work with.
Wish me luck!

[darthmongoose]

Wish me luck!

You got this! Good luck!

[LCT_m_a_d]

However, my best is not good enough to compete with the extremely talented and skilled creators that are at the top of the food chain. Not even close.

It means I'm working my arse off and I can't get anywhere

It sounds like the destination you are trying to reach is amongst other highly skilled artists. Let's keep this in mind.

the remainder of the week is spent doing 2 exclusive drawings for my Patreon, and I barely make it. I literally have no spare time to put any more work into this.

So it looks like you have an opportunity with 2 drawings per week in which you are getting paid. Have you considered using these 2 drawings for weekly innovations.

So, Instead of just churning out what you practice all day long (which you implied is limited skillwise), use your 2 patreon drawings to incorporate techniques from an artist or 2 you considered extremely talented and skilled. Ideally, something you are bad at or inexperienced at. (Shading, background, color theory etc). Once you get comfortable, you can start leveraging new skills in your comic and continue the cycle while broadcasting new skills.

It sounds like you have a specific goal and plenty of opportunity, you just need to prioritise your efforts and resources so growth is a central part of productivity.

[carloswebcomic]

Yeah, that’s what I planned to do with my Patreon stuff initially, except I got sidetracked.
But you’re right, I should be using that opportunity to further my skills.

[ben]

There’s a lot of good stuff being said in this thread that I agree with. I just sort of want to throw in my two cents that I think could be valuable and relevant information to a lot of people struggling with webcomics.

Getting better is an important aspect but it not just getting better in regards to art but the medium as a whole. One-hit wonders still had a lot of output and practice before they became big for that one big hit. I think in webcomics people see the one big hit and think they just have to work on crafting their One Big Hit. The reality is that there are VERY few people who haven’t had a few hundred pages of comics and standalone graphic novels under their belt before they got that One Big Hit. It’s important to practice working on something and getting it done in a reasonable time frame. It will force you to get a handle on how to make a comic flow and learn pacing. But it’s also helpful in that you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket to begin with.

If your goal is to just focus on your own IPs you HAVE to practice creating them, establishing them, and finishing them. Doing one thing for X amount of years is massively limiting. I don’t think I would be close to having a TV deal or have any success with publishers right now if I only focused on one of my comics for the past five years. Like, I would not be in the same situation at allllll.

Also stop comparing yourself to the people at the very top. There are people who still do extremely well and make a living who can’t be compared to the people as far as skill level goes. I don’t think it’s good to compare yourself to anyone but if you’re going to do that then at least compare yourself to the people in a comparable skill level to you who ARE managing to make it work.

[Rhonder]

Many more experienced authors than I have already offered a lot of great advice, so I'm not going to retread that ground and instead nitpick something that I noticed in some of the reply chains throughout this thread:

If you want to treat your comic more like work (i.e. grow your audience and become more profitable... that's what I'm understanding the goal is yeah?) then much like work, you might have to start making some sacrifices and doing stuff that's not necessarily super fun or exciting in order to push your boundaries.

For example here, when someone suggested considering compiling a volume to try out kickstarter (which falls in line with some of the later advice about trying out some merchandising / appealing to that core group of people that might be interested in physical products), the reply was:

I don't think I could do a Kickstarter. I have nothing to kickstart.All my pages are different sizes, so I can't print them out, sadly (or fortunately, however one may see it).Maybe I can kickstart a My Pet Succubus cake and everyone gets a slice!

You actually have a big advantage here in the fact that, even though your comic has pages that are different sizes, they are at least in page format already (even though it's a very mobile-friendly style page format) so it may be worth going through and conforming/editing some of your pages into a printable format and taking the idea for a whirl. Like obviously I would just start with a single volume's worth of pages as a test run- if it works, then fantastic! If it doesn't, then don't waste time doing more. But imo the possibility of success may be worth the price of entry in hours spent editing.

The other one that stood out to me was here:

I didn't even know he actually did comics as all I saw was a shitload of fan art to begin with.Unfortunately I detest doing fanart, which is to my detriment as I could probably get a lot more attention that way. But frankly, I'd rather stick a fork in my eyeball than do fanart.

It may well be time to line up some forks and get ready for the gouging lol. Although fan art doesn't work for everyone, it's absolutely an easy way to get eyes on your work by profiting off of established characters that already have people looking for them (doubly so lewd lol). Even if it doesn't end up working out in the end, and it's not a type of drawing that you particularly enjoy, i would at the very least give it a shot to see if you can generate some results by doing so. While the comic is the fun part of the job, doing stuff like this is the "grunt work" that you might have to try out on the promotional/audience growing side. Again, if it doesn't work then no need to keep torturing yourself, but you'll never know if you don't try

An example from my day job: I work as an architectural draftsman. I love my job overall and have a lot of fun doing the 3D modeling parts, design parts, and even a lot of the 2D technical drawings. But on the other side there are parts that I despise too. I'm not at all a fan of rifling through like 20 different code books all the time to make sure that our building's up to the building code, and fire code, and ADA code, and energy code and etc. etc. Sometimes I have to do grunt work too, like delivering big rolls of drawings to faraway clients, run to the office supply store to get more printer paper, etc. But in the end it's all part of the job. You have to take the good with the bad to have a fully operational business.

Granted, feel free to take all of this with a massive grain of salt. You've been at this much much longer than I have, and already have tons more to show for it. But this is just my 2 cents Best of luck whichever course of action you end up taking!

[rajillustration]

Also, I've painted myself into a corner. I'm already working as efficiently as my skill level would allow me, If I sacrifice quality, I start losing readers. This leaves me with no time for anything and I'm forever rushing to get things finished.

Actually, lets talk about that, since that is what this thread was originally about in your title--can you give us your exact workflow for making a comic? Maybe then we can actually help you with that? Since you've been doing these since 2003, it doesn't make sense that you haven't gotten a lot quicker in time, and so I think this isn't so much a lack of talent, but this could be in part because of anxiety robbing your ability to make quick and deliberate art choices (I know when I'm feeling bad, I paint at least 2x slower) but maybe we can help give you ideas that you haven't tried before if we knew exactly how you were creating these pages?

[carloswebcomic]

Oh, I did get a lot quicker.
I’m probably doing pages over twice as fast as I used to (now in colour and with longer length). The problem is that I have a lot less time to do it.
I used to get roughly about 5 hours a day to make comics. Now I’m lucky if I get 2. I can push it to 3, but that’s sacrificing sleep time.

So, I usually leave 2 days to sketch and clean up, 2 days to ink and 1 day to colour, which usually turns into 2 days.

[rajillustration]

OK, that's really good to hear that you've gotten so much faster. Can you go into more detail about your process for inking? 4 hours to just ink one episode of 6-8 panels is too long for a chibi comic. I know this thread in large part is because you have a lot on your chest you want to get out there, so if you don't want to talk about your process, that's fine and I'll let it go. But, especially if you happen to have any recorded footage of you inking, maybe we can pinpoint what is taking all that time.

[carloswebcomic]

if you happen to have any recorded footage of you inking, maybe we can pinpoint what is taking all that time.

Oh boy, you asked for it...

[rajillustration]

Thank you! That's actually super helpful and it's nice to put voice to your username (good ghost story, btw). I'm just so glad you're using Clip Studio and not like some weird program I've never used before.

So first off, your stabilizing tool is lagging in a way that I don't see on my own computer, and it's probably part of why this is taking so long. Usually the response to drawing a line and it being formed is near instantaneous even with stabilization at 100, so it's a concern that it's really slow for you. It might be because of streaming, but if it's still happening without streaming, I would try to speed the program up.

One solution is to hide your rulers. It's a weird trick, but it usually works pretty good, also works good for photoshop slowdown and when using complicated brushes. I don't know why rulers are such an issue for all art programs but...they do. (and I felt you when clip crashed. Clip crashes a whole lot). Another solution is if you have a second drive on your computer that you can use to store that memory. I put my virtual memory on the D instead of C, that prevents as many crashes and it makes things go much faster. You can find it in the Performance tab under file/preferences .

You can also allocate more memory to Clip as a whole because I personally think they don't allow enough in the factory settings but youknow...be careful with doing that, you can only do what your computer will allow you to do. Either way, it shouldn't be lagging like that. Something's happened. Probably the streaming.

Drawing wise, I think you're in better shape than you realize. You do have talent man, you've worked real hard for it. The biggest problem I see is one that you acknowledged also in this video, that you have a tendency to redraw the same parts over and over only moving it a couple pixels to the left and right a lot before actually launching into the inking. It's a perfectionism thing. So consider the forest from the trees for a bit. That this will only ever be 940 px wide on tapas and I think 1080 on webtoon?

We get restricted on how large our comics get displayed and you're drawing at full zoom and like...10x bigger than that in 300 dpi. So don't worry about moving things a millipixel left and right, it will look virtually the same when you save for web. Remember this will only be like a hand's width wide on browser, and everyone reading on a phone sees it at like 3 inches wide unless they pinch and zoom. It's kind of the bane of digital art that we can zoom in soooo far when...no one can see those details once we finish. Your very nice careful work that you're doing, these strands of hair, these tiny notches near the neck, might not even show.

My teachers used to call this type of nitpicking "doodilating" your art, (which sounds kind of like a lewd term now that I think about it), but it's pushing paint around in the same tiny little spot instead of progressing forward towards finishing the figure as a whole, and so to get away from doodilating, it helps to zoom out as often as possible and see the whole piece--so you don't get sucked into details that again, are pretty, but are both not the focal point and are also kind of invisible at 72 dpi.

Since we're at a computer screen and can't literally step back, what I like to do which may help you as well is to have a zoomed out version in another window on a different screen so you can glance over and ask yourself--is this visible? and if it's not, ignore it and move on. You can go to Canvas/window/new window and it will open a second instance of the window you are working on, so that way you can just have one zoomed out and you can put that window wherever you want it on your screen (I like putting it on a second monitor). You can even tile the windows or maybe have it float so you can move it around. What you do in one window will now do to both windows. It's a neat tool that's kind of hidden and it helps a tonnnnnn to prevent not only mistakes but also noodilating. (You can even have the second window flipped so you don't have to worry about the horror of flipping your canvas ever again.)

Another thing is your technique for drawing the outer line thicker is neat, and I like the effect it gives, but you do it the hard way. It's not the wrong way, I just think it's way harder than how most people do it. You can simulate that thick outline when you get to your coloring phase, and I feel like you already do that anyway with your white outlines so...may as well do it with your black outlines, too. Just put an outline on a duplicate of the colorblocking layer and make it as thick as you want. Instant thick outline that is nice and clean and dandy. All you'd have to do is fix the sharp angles of the hair with another layer, if it's even noticeable at that size.

But honestly, your inking is good. It's clearly a strength for you, just slow right now. When you ink you're so much more confident than when you sketch--so maybe sketch less. The biggest thing is to fix that computer lag and to resist redrawing things that are invisible. You just gotta breathe in and relax, you got this, you're a good artist. I mean it.