Quarantine and Comic Production

[spadedigsbutts]

I now have to do 17 units of school work at home in a chair that is starting to make my back pain and wrist pain come back so I’m having a hard time physically getting pages done when mentally I want to more than ever

[IdiotWithPencil]

Lot's and Loooooot's of free time to work, and my pages are Ink HEAVY like so much that one panel took me an hour to finish XD and that was just the background so I call this a blessing =P

[phoenixrenaissance]

Working on my comics is my usual distraction from my day job.
Without a day job working on my comic has become my daily "work". Thus I'm now accidentally finding other things to do to distract me from working on my comic.

So, comic production is now suffering a little bit while I play video games and work on some other art related stuff.

[Iamapersonmanguy]

Hey I'm actually making my first comic right now.
anyone wanna help with the title?

[Rhonder]

It's been a weird road for me. My previous comic wrapped up Mid-December, and I was like "yeah! I'll take a short break from drawing and just like veg for a bit, then take some time to practice up and study weak areas then hit my next comic hard in early 2020!"

But then like riiiight when my comic was wrapping up a cool commission opportunity sprung up for me so I ended up taking that on right away and that lasted until mid-February. Overlapping that was my friend and I house hunting for a rental to move into in either Feb/March, as her lease was just about out and she was looking for a roommate and new place to live, and I was looking for a roommate and new place to live as well! So we found a place mid-February and started gearing up for a March move in. I wrapped up the commission and packed up my art stuff and was like "yeah I'll take this opportunity to have my break, and I'll get all moved, and then I'll pick it back up once I'm settled!"

... And then the virus arrived lmao. Moving ended up taking several weeks longer than anticipated and I didn't get fully moved in until like a week ago @u@;; I'm also working full time from home (super duper thankful for this, I have a lot of friends who are suffering layoffs/unemployment and definitely don't envy their positions ) so my amount of free time isn't actually any more than it used to be, aside from gaining like an hour and a half by not having to commute lol.

Soooo... just this last week I kinda got my tablet set back and and have been trying to wean myself back into drawing. I've been playing around with testing the vertical scroll format by reformatting my prior comic as a test subject, as well as working on some bonus content for that comic that was supposed to be done like... 6 months ago but never got finished I'm hoping to ride the momentum off of finishing that in the next day or two and hopefully get started on finalizing my plot for the next comic (which is still living at outline level haha)

[Zemoore]

The first week and a half I couldnt focus on comics but then i sketched, line, colored, and shaded the next chapter in under a week (normal takes me 2/3 weeks) now im an unstoppable force, working on two comics while stuck home.

[ryoko]

I'm an essential worker, so schedule is largely unchanged except I've had to do more double shifts. Commute is faster, though. About 20 mins less round trip with so few cars on the road. I have managed to get one day ahead for patreon, and almost two weeks worth of buffer for tapas /webtoons

[vothnthorvaldson]

There's not much change in my life because I'm a farmer, but I can start to see that I have more time than usual, due to going less often to town for groceries etc. I'm not that close to the city, so it's saving me.. maybe half a day every week.
As I'm doing my usual work, and have this extra half day of free time, I feel I'm very lucky. I've worked so much more than expected on my comic that I'm able to post twice as often.
Although, the financial impact of my business, that I will only start to see next month, may change all that...

[prunier]

Yeah I'm working on my comic, In my country where I do live things are getting better but still we are in the phase 3 of the virus, my mother it's a nurse she's 47 and I fear a lot for her, she's very brave and takes precaution from everything, luckily where she works it's a small office and it's not in a hospital, anyways I'm trying to take good care of my mom and my health too, I started to eat a more vegetarian stuff and I take good care of my teeth.

I hope you're all safe!! don't touch your face and wash your hands :3

[Cavechan]

I was let go from my job and there's no point in searching for a new one right now so I've been focusing more on drawing. Mostly, I've been trying to get ahead on my sequel comic which I'm determined to finish as soon as I can. But there's still a lot of work to do. I'm basically trying to get everything sketched out, but it would take about 2.5 weeks of sketching ten pages every day in order to finish. Not so bad if I didn't have to also 1. work on my main comic and 2. also post new pages. And ten pages a day is not so bad once in a while, but it's a lot to do for so long. @.@

So so far I've gotten about 56 pages sketched out, 8 pages completely done, 2 color title pages done.

It just doesn't feel like enough. It never does.

[nauko]

I started working home remotely full time a few weeks ago and it's affected my motivation a bit...
How can I phrase this...there's no longer a barrier/separation between 'work work' and 'comic work'; the same two monitor screens and desk I stare at all day to make a living are now the same ones I use to draw to take the edge off and it's honestly depressing the hell out of me. On work days I find it hard to go back to my desk chair after 5pm when I was there 8hrs straight previously working on some bs project my manager has handed over to me.

Because of this my production levels are dropping a bit c,:

[pilot-obvious]

It's been super hard to find the motivation to work on comics. There are times where I feel super pumped to draw but then other things come up that I have to tend to and I lose that drive. It's really hard to separate work work from comic work since I use the same space for it all the time. Maybe this means I need to find a new space in my home to work from home?

Of course, it's okay to not have the motivation to work on something. Quarantine is really hard on you mentally and you shouldn't feel bad if you're not as productive as you think you should be. There are a lot of people saying that by the time quarantine is over, there's a huge list of things you should've accomplished (like new hobbies, side hustles, routines, etc.), but it's just not true. You should do what you are able to do!

[meganebii]

I'll be honest, my comic is like the best distraction for me right now. I have been super productive, and kind of just knocking it out. The world is a crazy place right now, both in general and also just in my personal life, and my comic feels like a nice, cozy place to get away from it all.

[Kiweevil]

I'm getting a sh​t ton more work done on my comic! I went from being stuck on the last update for almost a month to now already having half the lineart done for the next update in a matter of days. That includes storyboards and everything!

The most ironic part of this is that I'm actually working more hours during this quarantine, since I work in an "essential" store. So I have no idea how I'm accomplishing so much. But I'm noticing lots of comic creators are having very fortunate experiences as far as that goes during this quarantine. Pretty cool if you ask me, definitely a way to keep your mind off things!

[sushy00]

My motivation went all downhill. I do try to keep going on, but it sure had a negative effect on my productivity.

[brusskel]

Hey, I know I'm responding late but man, I've gotta lot faith in you.
I'm sorry you're going through such a rough patch and things like this more than likely do not help your drive to create or do anything, really. But please understand there are people who care about you and value your time and work. I read your comic, "No Future" and I really enjoyed it! It was honestly a good distraction from everything going on in the world.

I thank you for everything you've done and the fact that you're still here. Keep pushing, my friend. We're with you!

[brusskel]

Heck yeah dude! I'm glad this benefits you! Good to see there's some positivity goin' around.

[ghostmaya]

My life is always been quarantined~

[Iamapersonmanguy]

Thats deep..........

[brusskel]

You got this! Sooner or later things will improve!