Reflect On Your Journey So Far

[underscoremk]

I have been working on my comic for almost an entire year now, and I wanted to reflect on how my process has been since the start.
If you want to reflect at all as well then please do so

I started "creating" my comic sometime in July of 2021, It honestly feels longer but that's where the first recording of it dates back to. As most of my stories start, I had a dream about it. The dream was about 2 high school students living at school when a "princess" type figure enters their lives and they become friends. Some time in the future, they sneak away to have a fun day out. They go to the board walk, go-karting, the whole shebang. And then- well that's a spoiler so you'll see. The weird thing about this one though, is that I got most of the concepts done the day of me conceptualizing it? how?? The series is about a virus that infected the world 200 years ago called the Color Calamity (CoCa for short) that changed the color of your hair and eyes to tie to your emotions and to make a long story short, there was a world government formed called the Primary Foundation that govern what colors mean and how they work - headed by the Radiance family line. The plot mainly stayed the same as well - two high schoolers, Acrosia Mikado and Cyn Click, (with the addition of Vyolette Variance) meet the daughter of the founder of the Primary Foundation, Eleena Radiance and shenanigans ensue pretty much lmao. The only thing changed, well added, was the addition of Hexless in the story. (well also 2 more main characters) Hexless are beings who's CoCa got extracted out of them, those who "cannot emote correctly." That and your casual government takeover.
I want to be able to make cartoons based off of my OC's and I thought "hey what if I use whatever this is as a gateway into doing that?" so that's what I've been doing since. Originally It was going to be a l o t smaller scale, really just an intro and maybe 2 or three chapters at most, but, oh god, did it grow. I am now writing the second volume (4 chapters of 4 parts each) of the comic. Chapter One and Two are in production and are almost done. I have a whole website along with merch and a Patreon with ads on the way. all with the name, Analogous Traits, plastered over it. How did we get here?????? I am just very grateful to be able to be in the position to even attempt to create a comic, and I'm very proud of myself for coming this far, which is most definitely not something I would have said to myself at the start of this. (self deprecation and all lol)
Anyway, if you're here, check out Analogous if you want, I want to be able to share the rest of my journey with you
-MK

Analogous Traits | Tapas

[xstarx07]

I‘ve pretty much been on my comic since November 2020 and am currently on releasing the 4th chapter of it. The scale has always been a huge one, given that I‘ve been thinking about it ever since elementary school - planning since 8th grade - and finally got to do it in 2020, after deciding that the planning was enough.
A lot of the plot has changed from its original novel version (which was the most cringy thing you can imagine, not gonna lie with that), but I‘m pretty satisfied with how it stands now and which direction it will go, even though I‘m still figuring some minor scenes out in which chapter they‘d fit best - to throw in little hints for later ^^

One thing, while working on it for a little more than year now, what started bugging me, is how I immediately spot things that could‘ve been done better in a chapter. Right now, I‘m planning to redo the first 2 1/2 chapters to be more serious and polished than they are at this current point, which comes from general artstyle evolution, I think. I am where I want to be now, but I want to keep up with the plot before I make any changes, at least until I reach a certain point - which may take a while longer to get there, but as much as I want to remake certain scenes, I don‘t want to go into some sort of redraw-hell xD

Also, good luck on your journey! It has only begun, now that you‘ve started sharing it. :3

[BreakingChalk]

If I could summarize mine in an image, well it's been...

I have been drawing and making my own characters ever since I was 2, and eventually decided I wanted to make a story with them when I was 10, I already had some ideas and ever since started to make stories, sketches, fights with them, all unprofessional, but just kept polishing the story and making it more concise and rich and interesting.
Then around my 18s, I "broke myself" and it affected a lot of aspects of my life, including my story.
I still tried to draw, now digitally but felt so overwhelmed by life that I wouldn't really start sharing the comic until I was 22.

I hadn't resolved most of my personal issues and lacked direction, rushed things to get them done as quickly as possible, but deviated from my original vision.
I redrew my comic after 7 months, and then decided to reboot after a year, but first I made myself the question:

What do I want with this?

The comic, my drawings, my life, all that philosophical stuff.

Although I'm still working on my main comic's reboot, I'm slowing down A LOT, and taking time to draw other stuff: fanart, other OCs, anything that comes to mind, while looking for ways to improve, still hesitant to use other programs beside Sai2, but doing more on shading, lights, valors, shapes, poses, character design, etc.

I also want to make other shorter webcomics, to keep on experimenting and improving for my main comic which will take me around 40 or so years to fully complete as I am now.

My goal now is to improve my skills and find a way to monetize my works so I can work only on it and get the main comic done in less time, but that'll take some years.

Nonetheless I'm glad I'm sorting my stuff out and started to draw again.
It's been quite the journey of finding myself again and see the positives of life again without them feeling fake.

[Lev404]

one day I went to art class, we were told to make a comic, so I made a comic page and when I got home I decided to make it into a series wooooow

[UrMom]

I started working on my comic in late 2015, and posted it around February 2016. The story came about during a period when I was kind of burnt out with drawing, life was being a bit overwhelming, and it popped into my head while having a mental breakdown on my way to work one morning. I jotted down the gist of things, fleshed it out a bit during work, then went home and started planning pages. The whole thing basically came to me all at once, at least as far as the beginning, main story beats and ending, along with some in-between details. My brain wanted something something where the process was enjoyable enough to be distracting, if I was having a hard time with life, my head had too much noise going on, I start working on the comic and I'm too focused to think about anything else.

Going in I knew this would be something the majority of people didn't like, but I had a story to get out of my system, and stuff to vent. Sure, I cared about quality, but more about presentation than how reader friendly it would be. The most important thing is I'm enjoying the process. That being said the story revolved around characters recycled from a previous comic I attempted to work on, this one was a jump into the future with a few changes here and there from the old comic. It's essentially a character driven work revolving around things I've grappled with most of my life, like mental health struggles, abuse, gender/sex stuff, body issues, social struggles, etc. The story basically being about an alcoholic meeting back up with someone from his childhood, wanting to be friends again and learning to be a better person, while trying to help them get out of their bad situation. All the characters have some kind of flaws that make them kinda shitty in some aspect, with the MC himself being extremely childish and stupid, so while he does get better it's a long road and no one is meant to be seen as particularly likable. It's sort of a reflection of how I see people, there's a love/hate relationship I have with others knowing they can be super awesome, we've done amazing things for eachother, but humans can be just as shitty under certain circumstances or given the right opportunity.

That being said, I'm abooout halfway done with my comic chapter-wise. I intend it to be either 11-12 chapters long, currently working on 6, so that's nice. The ultimate goal is to have it as a book series, or a single massive book, not so much for others but just so I can see it fully formed... although readers can own their own copies too, my printer has a 25 book minimum. I'm hoping by the time I'm done with it my head will be in a better place, hopefully partially thanks to venting out everything via fiction. Living has been very hard to do lately, but who knows where things will be by then. I'm also hoping people can pick up what I'm putting down by the time it's finished, right now it's all hard stuff, not everyone understands things are going to get better someday. Just like dealing with depression and difficult circumstances, it gets better with work and time. For the most part. Lol

[BlueDragon]

Reflecting on Dark Horse, I wish I were further along than I am, however, I don't regret going back and redrawing old pages.

The idea began in High School, but I didn't start working on the actual pages (only characters and doodling and stuff) until 2003/2005). I only was hobby horsing it, until my college boyfriend and I broke up and I threw myself into it more seriously as a way to help me deal with the break up.

I ended up using the first act at an art show we had to put on, and boy is it ROUGH. Kinda shocked my college let me display that work o_O (Like seriously, look at that first cover. THAT WAS ON DISPLAY FOR THE PUBLIC PEOPLE!)

Hidden for size

So reflecting on where I am, and how I got here, I am happy to say that for me at least redrawing has been mandatory in order to print copies and make the visual storytelling make more sense.

And I'm happy with the improvements in my drawing. This has been in part from my own practice and work, but it was spurred on by constructive critiques I have-and haven't-asked for. My readers over the years have helped to guide me into improving in various places.

One thing I am happy to report is by reading the cues of commenters, I've been trying to push the story along a little quicker. My pacing is/was very slow because there's a lot of talking, so upon reflecting/revisiting old pages, I've tried work on that.

Thanks for starting this thread by the way! And thanks to everyone sharing their stories. It's really cool to see what other artists/writers think of their progress. It's a lot to put out there, but I think its good to relate to the struggles (and triumphs/persistence) of others :3

[Chaz]

https://tapas.io/series/Apple-and-Grape

Well, I started my comic about 16 months ago. Since then, I gotten over 2.9k views, 40 subs, and was featured in the Tapas Black Voices lineup. I'd say I'm doing pretty well so far.

[RedLenai]

Well, I've been drawing since 2009 on traditional and then on 2010 I started drawing on digital.
I originally was drawing for fun, making fanart, original drawings and such, then on 2014 I went for the first time to an Anime Convention and I was amazed by the fact you could print your own comics and sell them alongside posters and stickers.

In 2015 I started using my penname Red Lenai and made my first fanzine called Pizza Delivery, an urban fantasy about a supernatural girl that worked part-time for her brother on his pizzería, with terrible pay and dealing with other supernatural clients hah. It sell well on the first cons but eventually I was too caught up with school that I never made a second volume. I've also tried to sell merch but well, that didn't work well and even to this day I have stuff I didn't sell and now it's too outdated to even gift away. Back then I began to do commissions, both on points and dollars, obviously with very low prices. I mostly spent it on artbooks, online stuff and such, still studying and trying to figure out what I wanted to do once I finished college on that last year.

In 2016 I was now a graduate, still doing commissions and studying to become an Art Teacher, due to some mistakes with my High-School papers I was told that I couldn't continue the Career and had to solve those, I had good grades and sadly spent a lot of money on materials that then I couldn't claim back since they belonged to the Institution. Worst was that I was waking up at 5 am to be at the Institute at 7 am and came back home at 8pm. I solved the issue with the papers at least.

In 2017 I took it as a sabbatical year and just did commissions, took care of my younger brother and the house, sending my curriculum to any kind of job, part-time job related and unrelated to art. I was getting frustrated that I didn't even manage to get a job as a cashier or employee on the shopping district. Thankfully, on November I met Addie French and began to draw for Scarlet Society (Webtoon - Tapas)

In 2018 I was getting desperate so with the few commissions that I managed to get + working on Addie's webcomic, I took a Hairdressing & Manicurist Course (It wasn't very expensive), mostly to avoid looking "lazy" or that "I was wasting my time doing nothing". Still sent Curriculums to any job offer on my city and the ones nearby but nothing happened. I got my Hairdressing & Manicurist Title and in Argentina you could finally take out money from Paypal, so I didn't had to risk myself anymore with fishy websites or several transactions. So now, Commissions and Webcomics were finally making a real profit and providing to my family.

In 2019 I was confidently working on the previously mentioned things, but I felt like studying else in between so I took a Makeup Artist Course, I also managed to pay for the services on our house, like internet and electricity so with all that I finally began to realize I was doing what I wanted to do on the first place. Obviously, I had a few jobs as a freelance makeup artist / manicurist / hairdresser but drawing was my greater income, still, I felt safe for having backup plans as well. I managed to make my own short story "El Tiempo de Solomón" to participate on the Webtoon Short Story Contest, I didn't won but it was nice to have started and finished something.

In 2020 the Quarantine started so I dedicated myself to be at home and to work fulltime as a Freelance Artist, during that year I manage to buy everything I needed to move onto a new apartment and start living with my partner and later on December we finally moved together.

In 2021 I continued working on Scarlet, I did commissions and Novel Covers full-time. My partner and I survived our first year of coexistence, we adopted a cat that we named Daguva, we got stuff to make our apartment to look more like a home and stuff was mostly fine. I had a downgrade tho, since the previous year I worked so much, during 2021 I was extremely tired most of the time and didn't work as I usually did.

Now in 2022 I'm not only working for Scarlet Society, I'm working for Love Quotes by Official Genesis (Webtoon - Tapas) and I'm also drawing for an upcoming webcomic Yandere City by SizzleGames. I've also worked as an inking assistant for Euphisa on their webtoon Kabedon. As well, my short comic El Tiempo de Solomón became an Original Series on Norami.Net and with the Excluse Contract now it's not available on other platforms but will be a buyable PDF soon.

So... yeah, that's quite a simple way to put out my journey

[Kuma]

My tale is long and full of falling flat on my face moments, so I'll try to summarize.

When I left High-School I went to cooking school. I flunked (Mostly because of the management classes and my own immaturity) I took a course on comic-book writing, went to college to study literature, stopped studying literature, began studying Film Screenwriting, got a job working on video games (Which I have been doing before since comic book writing classes)

I've worked on multiple games, published a comic book miniseries in USA and currently I'm publishing a novel here in tapas.

[underscoremk]

Humble beginnings

[Lev404]

@underscoremk i like to keep it simple lol

[MeltingCORE]

I started "Red Shift" in 2017. I originally started with a single website and no idea where I was going to go. I remember staring at the first few paragraphs wondering if my ideas were too strange. Would anyone want to read them? Then I went to work. I knew my writing was up to par but my art wasn't. I worked my butt off for years learning how to paint backgrounds, how to construct cities, how to depict fire/lava, lighting, how to design ocs who weren't too simple or complex, etc. When I really started to promote my work on social media and Tapas, I started to make friends and gain readers. Today I'm a happy creator whose grateful for what she has and the people who read every update. Passion and dedication has equated to self contentment. My weirdness did work out! 🛸

(My latest art for "Red Shift". Finished today!)

Red Shift | Tapas

[steffiemusings]

I've started the original Nebula Beings in 2019 (when I first started drawing digitally). It's actually an AU of the originally story.

The idea of redrawing all my old pages basically killed my motivation to continue.

I rebooted the story in 2021 with better art and a different story direction (it's also an AU)

I've realized that since these two webcomics are actually AU's of the original story, it's unfair to my readers. It'll make them confused.

So, I've decided to put the two webcomics on hold and starting on the official webcomic with much better art.

I also considering juggling between the three webcomics. I won't redraw older pages since it's good to show how far I've come.

I've realized I really improved a lot from 2019 to now.

[powerplantanimations]

It be a crazy ride. My webcomic pushed me to do stuff that I never thought I'd get to do. Like manage a YouTube Channel and start writing analysis videos or start an Instagram. I'm thankful for the people I've managed to entertain. I usually didn't think I'd get a shot at making a webcomic but then I got REAL lucky with the stick figure project. @doodleandie really goes out with the stick figure.

I'm glad that I met the people on this Discord I made and the people on Tapas too. I've said this on another post like this, but I've suffered from a disease and all that that gives me extra energy, so I'm just glad that I'm able to be busy lol. I see people seeing all the crazy stuff I do to retain an audience and they're worried about mental health, but I'm like "OH NO NO. I need this" lmao. That Stick Figure Isekai originally started as a joke, but now it's become something more than that and I hope I can share lessons I've learned.

Read That Stick Figure Isekai | Tapas Web Comics

[doodleandie]

'BURDS!' is so far my biggest art project that I ever did, and it started with Angry Birds, around 2014 I think. I had stories about the characters from that in my mind, about them adventuring and stuff. It all started to change after I made my first AB OC, and from there it evolved into the thing that it is now. And in late 2017, I decided to take it out of my head and posted the very first page.

Honestly, even though I've been doing this for almost 5 years now, it didn't have any HUGE changes on my life that I can brag about, it helped me survive high school, it keeps me occupied while I can find a proper job etc. And yet, I have no idea where I would be without it, without the knowledge that I gathered from working on it, without the people I shared it with (especially with the one who I'm best friends with because of it), without my OCs, my 'burd babies'.

Read BURDS! | Tapas Web Comics

[system]

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