Quality over Quantity: Should I go quick or should I take my time

it's also helpful when an artist points out things that a non-artist wouldn't think about

This is more of a question to ask readers and not other creators. While i believe quality is important you always have to consider whether its more important than keeping up with expectations the readers are wanting. You can still provide quality along side quantity, you just learn to motivate yourself to balance both with time. The more you work on something the better and smarter you begin to work. As a creator i always want quality, but as a reader id like some form of consistancy as webcomics are easily one of those media things that are easy for people to just give up on

I mean . .. still caught up with the original One punch man by One so don't care that much for visual quality. And I've read other manga with iffy art but there was plenty of story and usually 50+ chapters. Then in the opposite direction there's the comic by WLOP (Ghostblade I think) where the art is really good quality but honestly couldn't care less about the story and doesn't help that it doesn't update as often. Feel like its just an excuse to paint pretty elf girls (granted that's a lot of manga rn haha). For creators finding that quantity vs quality balance takes awhile, and our main push for quantity is often readership satisfaction (as annoying at that might be for some).

However, sometimes you just need to get that quantity, not only for readers to enjoy the story, but also so you can get the drawing mileage. It's a bit worrisome when I see webcomics with lots of rendering to it, because I get it you want it to look pretty, but probably still want to improve your raw drawing ability first if needed. Comics don't need to be over-rendered (and it can be distracting to the reading experience).

I say take your time, if you rush it you'll either produce something your not proud of or you'll end up exhausting yourself and your work will stop being any fun.

I went for quantity when I started my comic, if you check the earlier episodes they all have flat (one colored) backgrounds haha, the characters head are too big, lack of different poses, and the dialogue are too flat

At the long run looking at it now it makes me cringe, wondering everytime if I should add light and shadow on them, fix here and there, to make them neat, but I also think if my subbers will be ok with that, I know Tapas readers have more patience, but LW are the opposite (some even unsubbed and downvoted my comic after I told I had to put it on hiatus lol)

Anyway, if you ever use your comic as an example of what you can do, go for quality, specially if you want to print it in the future

Like some others have said, it's about maintaining a balance.

Though I think I'm going to give a slight edge to quantity here. I think quality matters quite a bit, but there's also the fact that comic panels aren't meant to be individual pieces of art. I think TOO much quality can also be a bad thing for a comic. Since @Hodge brought up Ghostblade I'm going to use that as an example. The art in the comic is gorgeous but at the same time it feels more like a sequence of art pieces rather than a comic. There's also the fact that since the drawings are all highly rendered, they lose a certain movement and expressiveness that you would see in other simpler comics.

Not to mention, having a slight inconsistency in art I think adds more to the comic. I don't mean like, something where readers can noticeably tell dips and rises in skill or that the style constantly shifts. I mean kind of like when you want a panel to be particularly impactful, then having an increase in details will add to whatever emotional impact or reveal that the story has.

bit of both, really

going fast and avoiding perfectionism is really important in comics, but being satisfied with your work is too. a good and common approach is to go fast and loose with most of a chapter / issue / update, and then have one or two extra effort gorgeous panels - often double-page splashes.

that said - whats your update rate at this current drawing speed? if its once a week or more, dont worry about slowing down a little. while once - twice a week is the ideal for webcomics, lots of people are very willing to wait longer for something they love.

Compromise - Make good content quickly

I'd say to consistently practice drawing with the aim of creating your images as quickly as possible while maintaining the quality of your work. It's really a matter of constant practice. Have a look at people like Kim Jung Gi - he makes consistently detailed and great work at an appropriate speed:

For him, this was a skill achieved by drawing literally all the time.

I suspect this depends on the kind of readers you want to attract. I'm more of a "masterpiece-a-week" type I guess, so I do have a clear bias in that direction x) - but that's my personal preference with comics I read too.

If I had to create a "reader profile" for myself, it would be something like this:

I've always enjoyed consuming media that is slow-moving and elaborate. Stories that make me think- where I can go back over the same pages and notice something new and different every time I re-read them, or better yet- where I realize the narrative was so well-planned that I notice hints and foreshadowing on previous pages I might otherwise have missed, or even read a previous scene in a completely different way now that I've acquired new information from later pages. So of course I aspire to make something like that myself.

If I see a webcomic that updates often, with a nicely done art style suited to fast-paced drawing- but the individual pages lack substance (i.e. five pages spent on a character doing something as mundane as getting up, turning off an alarm clock and going to school- or random character banter about lunch) I'm probably not going to read it. Similarly, if I'm choosing between spending my time reading a comic that looks like it has considerable thought put into every single page vs. a comic where the art "works" as a vehicle for the story, but that's about it- even if the latter comic has more pages out and updates more often- unless something about the subject matter really hooks me, I'm always going to choose the first one.

And I know that as a reader, if I like something, I really like it- meaning I won't be put off by long wait times (unless we're talking something ridiculous, like years here). I'm not going to lose interest and unsubscribe, simply because a comic I enjoy hasn't updated in a week- perhaps even a month or two of hiatus. If I did, wouldn't that suggest that my interest was pretty shallow and circumstantial in the first place? (i.e. I just thought it was pretty and hit the subscribe button to check it out later)

So this is me, a type of reader.

There are other types of readers out there. For example, I have a friend who always tells me he has a short attention span, and so prefers fast-paced media that makes him laugh. His interests tend to fluctuate a lot more, and he jumps from one favorite thing to another more often. He's more likely to give up on something, or grow bored if it doesn't go out of its way to maintain his interest. This doesn't make my friend a "worse" reader, but I personally wouldn't work to cater to readers like him because that just doesn't make sense for the type of story I'm trying to tell.

I'm sure there are many other "types" of readers out there you can conceive of. So perhaps the best way to answer your question is to think about what kind of story you want to tell- then what kind of reader would most likely enjoy this kind of story- and finally, cater to that. If you're basically the type of reader you want to attract, because you're writing a story you would want to read- consider your own reading habits. What makes you want to read a story? What turns you off a story or makes you grow bored of it and give it up? And then use that as your starting point for what to do and what to avoid.

A lot of people have said this already, but I think it needs to be a little bit of both. As a reader, I want to see the story to actually continuing, meaning that if I get like... one page a month, it's really slow to me. But if the quality is really bad, I can't even get myself to read the comic in the first place.
As an artist ofc I want everything to be perfect, bu theres's always times when you need to just make some things simpler and faster.
So, I say pick your battles. concentrate to make some of the things as best as you can, and make the rest of it faster. It can be characters, backgrounds or coloring. just make sure that it all fits together and your fine oh, and don't stress too much about these things, I think that mostly artists find their way to do things with time.

webcomic - quantity
printed comic - quality.

because you carefully read a printed book. but a webcomic you read on your phone while waiting for the bus.

Agreeing with what a lot of people said here with having a balance, although I personally lean sliiiightly more towards quantity. Draw faster, make mistakes faster and learn from those mistakes. It's a good way to improve.

Figure out where you want to cut corners, figure out the parts you want to put more effort into. I don't like perfectionism in webcomics because when you think about it from a reader's pov they spend like 2 seconds on a panels that you spent 2 hours on. As long as your overall art is good then you don't have to worry about perfecting everything. For example, I know I want my comic to be coloured and I really like interesting and cool lighting so I know I'll be putting most of my time and effort into colouring, therefore the lineart is sketchy and the backgrounds aren't detailed, and I'm fine with that because the colours and lighting gives my comic an atmosphere which aids the story.

This is just my personal opinion, but I didn't see improvement in my drawings until I started drawing as fast as I could but still keeping the quality to the best of my effort. It was pretty difficult at first because I'm too much of a perfectionist, but back then even the most "perfect" work I produced still looked bad because I needed more practice, so I had to find a point where I was happy with the result and call it done. Also, learning art theory besides practicing has helped a lot.

I operate by this maxim: Only draw as fast as you can get it right.

Look , you can't control the readers. Who comes and who goes is entirely out of our control.

What is in your control and indeed your only job as a comic creator is to tell your story well.

If you feel your art is lacking then slow down to improve it and do this deliberately. That's to say so it with the presence of mind that knows why you're slowing down.

The only expectations you should meet are your own. The only pace you should have is your own. Really ask yourself what feels the best in terms of your process, your energy, and your vision.

If you have a vision for more refined art, draw more refined art. Not for anyone else, but for you.

Don't worry about losing readers. If you're telling a good story the fans WILL stay.

I'd tend to err towards the side of trying to improve your speed, but as others have said, while not sacrificing quality. Like try to draw a page and a level of quality that's acceptable to you, and then as you continue keep hitting that quality (or better) but work on getting there quicker. It's not something that will happen overnight, and a lot of it is just getting more comfortable with your tools/process/etc. At the start of the year I found myself struggling to get 1 full page completed per week as someone who had both not drawn in a long time, as well as being new to using Photoshop for coloring/type setting/etc. That was December/January. Fast forward to now in October, I've been able to pump out ~3 pages a week while also completing every day of inktober, and I'd argue the pages look a little nicer now as well. YMMV, of course.

You need to find the middle. you draw fast, use it to do a sketch layout of the comic then take the time with the finish piece.
the moment you're worried about loosing readers, you lost, it's no "your" comic it's theme.
do the comic you want to do the way you want to do, and if the readers will love it they will wait, not long but they will.

I believe it depends. Ask yourself, am I performing or developing.

In the actual industry the ability to deliver a quick turnaround to meet a deadline is important. Usually if you are working at this level you already have some mastery of quality in that your craftsmanship is at an acceptable level so efficiency is the determining factor. Its safe to practice quality in your spare time for fun.

With that said, if you have the option to work faster or better quality... ALWAYS choose quality. Your speed will naturally improve with quality experience because you learn to execute out of patterns and insticts instead of referencing. Practicing drawing faster doesnt really improve your speed. It simply allows you to overlook details. This is why artists who focus on buffer and deadlines frequently find themselves in burnout and needing to take hiatus.

Even the top pros make time for both. That may mean turning down a job or focusing on launching their personal project.

If you have to ask, choose quality. As long as you are truly improving, your audience don't abandon you just because you have a slower turnaround.

TL;DR efficient > quality

unpopular opinion...
quality is nice and all but to be really frank life is literally TOO SHORT to waste producing so little content on a single story for the sake of "quality" (which is very subjective in and of itself)

Even if i live long enough to see my story to the end, nothing will guarantee if i'll still enjoy working on it 5 years from now. one could easily outgrow their current story or have other ideas by that time. just keeping it real 8(

now i'm not saying to produce chicken scribbles, but everything in moderation should be for the best. especially for longterm projects. maybe just focus on establishing shots/important shots and cut corners for the rest.

but that's just me.

P.S. I've been checking back on this topic, because I find it very interesting- and I notice a lot of people focusing on the importance of improving speed. On that point, and as an addendum to my previous post- of course speed is important. Any working artist would agree. You need to be fast.

I remember instances in my progress as an artist where I would struggle to draw a single hand, or spend forever drafting a background because the angle was so difficult for me to grasp (and this kind of thing still happens sometimes). That's not an efficient use of my time. And I would of course encourage anyone who feels they are spending too much time on something because they lack the skill to take some time apart form their project in order to polish that skill. But I think there's a marked difference between that, and rushing a page.

For example- currently it takes me 8-12 hours to complete one page like this6 from beginning to end. And that's after years of practice. Some people might call that fast. It really depends on who you ask. But could I do it even faster? Probably. Not too long ago, I inked ten complete high-detail pages for a separate project over the course of 72 hours- roughly the equivalent of 3 days- in order to meet a deadline. It was intense. I literally couldn't feel my drawing hand by the final few hours, and spent several days recovering, because I had made myself incapable of holding a pen without my hand shaking. I'd barely eaten and was living on coffee. I fell ill. It was an all round bad scene, and I knew I couldn't afford to do it again.

I know artists who brag about this kind of thing all the time, and honestly I used to be one of them. "Check it out, I gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome- oh, wait- suddenly not so cool now."

Speed is important. But it's not all-important. You don't have to keep getting faster and faster and faster. There's a healthy balance you can reach. Some artists exceed that, because they have literally devoted their lives to improving their speed, and may even do live performances about it. They are the absolute minority.

You are a human- not a machine. Maybe our lives are short, but if you ask me, that just means it's even more important to make them meaningful, rather than making a mad dash for the finish line. So what if you produce fewer projects over the course of your whole life for the sake of a healthy balance? Who is remembered, at the end of the day- the artist who drew hundreds of paintings- or the one who, among however many they did make, created a handful of absolute masterpieces? That's my two cents on the subject.