Regarding future disappointments

[masi]

I dabbled in traditional media first before jumping into the digital arts, so I can firsthand compare how it is in both worlds. When I paint or draw they’re short term projects that I don’t really care that much about getting traffic. But comic is totally different. For me comic is like, the hardest thing I’ve ever done(not done yet, still in the process of doing lol) but also the most comprehensive in terms of skills, planning and everything else that aren’t visible by readers. Comic will demonstrate all of your weaknesses in arts. I know that going in with expectations will only burden me, eventhough it’s what mosts artist deep down want, my self included; attention. Comic is hard, and it’ll be harder when I want to set goals and not meeting them somehow. I remember the first sketchy silly comics I made in school when I was bored and I had no expectations, it was fun. But harder works makes artists demand bigger attention. So I want to create this thread where comic artists/writers can share their tips when not meeting their goals and how to keep going on, after taking care of ourselves, ofcourse. All tips are deeply appreciated.

[feuersichel]

What I figured out so far, a lot attention doesn't come from "good" or "bad" art but marketing and how the creator stands to his work. And believe me, I myself struggle alot with that, especially marketing :,D I have seen comics with "beginner"-art get alot of attention because the creator is confident and has no fear of facing the void. Posting alot on Twitter, commenting other peoples comics etc. On the other hand I know artists with amazing art but the just don't get noticed.

The trick for me was, not setting my goal too much on attention but on art progress. That way I only could win because when you do art, you automatically get better. Although I also like it when people comment or leave a like. Those are the highlights on posting But I see it as an added bonus. Can't say, I didn't struggle with the void though, especially in the beginning :,)

[darthmongoose]

Learning to make good comics is overwhelming, honestly. It's taken me years to get where I am, and I still feel like I have so much still to learn

The thing is, you can get up to a really high level in things like figure drawing, perspective, line quality, colour and rendering and still not attract attention because you weren't made aware that a good comic artist also needs to be good at storyboarding, so they need to also be good at placing the "camera" and blocking the characters in the scene to create pleasing angles of view with nice overlaps and dramatic depth or comedic flatness and thinking ahead about things like the 180 degree rule and how this will interact with other comic rules like "the person on the left should speak first" and "never cross the speech bubble tails!" and "if the character is progressing, they should always move to the right", while keeping everyone's positions in the scene consistent and then if you've got your head around those, hello! It's time to learn Design!

For a solo comic creator, it's wild because while yes, the amazing thing about comics is total creative control over your project, in practice, if you want to make something professional on your own, this means you ideally should be professional level at:

• Illustration (Like just.... all of it. Composition, colour theory + value, anatomy, perspective etc.)
• Character Design and Art Direction
• Storyboarding and Direction
• Design and Typography
• Story writing and dialogue

It's basically like you're making a movie and you're doing literally everything. You're building and lighting the sets, you're making the costumes, you're both directing AND playing all the roles. It's absolutely ridiculous!

Being aware that these are all the things you need to know, including the "invisible" ones though is a good sign!

I give a lot of advice to and generally try to support developing comic artists as much as I can, and a frequent problem I run into are people who haven't really developed awareness of or respect for the "invisible skills". So they come along and they look at my work, and they compare their figure drawing and faces and their inking to mine and they refuse my help, because they think we're on the same level and that my larger following than theirs must be down to either all the contacts I've gathered in comics in my many years on the scene, or me being some kind of marketing genius (I'm not, I am really not). The problem is, yes, they're not wrong that I'm probably not significantly better at drawing than them. They may well even be better than I am, but they're unaware that through years of experience, I've developed my skills in those "invisible" aspects.
So these artists are there, drawing very beautiful drawings but every panel is like people at mid-distance sitting or standing straight on to the camera in the middle of the panel, and there's no storytelling, everyone is always just plonked there, static and talking about what's going on, which isn't especially interesting because they didn't establish a clear or strong enough conflict or scenario, thinking that their "great OCs" and worldbuilding would be enough. Still, they're convinced the reason I have a bigger following must just be luck or marketing savvy or LGBTQ+ themes because they're just as good if not better at drawing than I am, so they don't appoach me for advice I am desperate to give them and would probably easily allow them to surpass me as comic creators.

So here's my advice: If a comic has a bigger following than yours, but the character drawings appear less polished or less well proportioned or attractive, try to look for what it's doing well before just assuming "Oh, it's a BL so of course it has readers" or "psh, somebody spent money on marketing". Yes, a BL comic will, on average, have more bookmarks than a non-BL, and yes, spending money on marketing might get attention, but neither of these things will make people click a bad looking advert or stick around and read an uninteresting comic. That person must be doing something right. It's usually making a comic that's attention-grabbing, visually appealing to the audience on the platform, and very easy to get into because it has nice big clear text in nice big bubbles to read on a phone, art that makes it really easy to follow what's happening and doesn't waste time before getting to the point of the story.

[rajillustration]

Something that helps is to remember that no one's really an "expert." Like we definately have experience, but we're all just kinda trying stuff, sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn't. Even the most experienced professionals make duds. It happens. When you realize that it is always a progress of learning, then you're not waiting for this magical moment where you suddenly know everything--it's more about the joy of creating, reaching the people you can reach, and taking it one step at a time.

Like as other's have mentioned here, there's a lot of things involved with comic making, and when you start you have to learn a bunch at once, and your brain is always active, and it's just exhausting. But once you've learned a bunch of that, you can start turning off your brain and going on autopilot. Things like laying type become second nature. Things like deciding compositions become less of a drain on your energy. I promise you it does get less draining, and you will be able to do more sustained art sessions and get pages out quicker--but you can't expect that all at once.

Thing is, once you are comfortable with more basic stuff, that's when you may realize it's time to start working on something else that may be a step harder, so you do. Just a constant growth of "oh wait, now I have this problem to solve now" let it be the physically drawing, the marketing, the coloring, formatting for a specific aggregate site, or making your own site. There's always a new thing to learn, so you never have to worry about becoming truly expert. Just take it one step at a time, and focus on a few of the most important tasks first, leave the little stuff for later when you get there.

And as for making a comic where the earlier pages aren't as good? Yeah. It's fine. Like we tend to hold our comic ideas a little too sacred--you'll have more ideas down the line, just make the thing you want to make now, and you can either remake it later if you're still attached, or you can make a different thing. But don't decide to make nothing at all. Even if it's just for yourself, you have this idea you want to make for a reason in your life right now, and the idea you have right now may not appeal to you 5-10 years down the road when you're more able to do it. So just play in that space, even if it's just a little short 3 page story from a larger universe. You're never working on your Magnum Opus, so take the pressure off of it and form the story you want.

[Zhengo]

I took a class drawing comics in college once. The professor said at one point, "Comics are always a little bad". He meant that not every panel needed to be a masterpiece, and that it may be better for it, because the reader shouldn't be putting all their attention on every panel the read, just like how the average viewer isn't putting all their attention on every second of a film. I want to point out that ONE, the creator of One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, despite not being the best in the art department has very clean panelling and composition which makes his works easy to read. In the end, each panel is part of a whole, so I think composition is a lot more important to comics than art (though art definitely helps in getting the attention, since people can be picky).

Composition is also a lot harder to get a grasp on than drawing skills in my opinion. It's not as technically challenging as drawing, but it's not as straightforward a learning process. With drawing, you can always find yourself a picture reference and draw off of that. With stuff like paneling and composition, there's really nothing you can get a direct reference off of. You need to read a lot of comics and pick up on the sense yourself, but not every comic will have good composition, so you'd also need to be able to tell what to do and not to do.

Another thing is that most professional comics you see like published manga and Webtoons usually can get as detailed as it gets due to it being made by a team, and/or the fact that the creator is basically working full time on comics. Which is how they're able to make detailed and clean comics with a fast update schedule. Most people working on webcomics don't have that luxury, so I don't really put a negative for webcomics if the character designs are not as detailed or there's a lack of backgrounds in most panels. In my opinion, having a relatively fast update with less detailed art is better than having a slow update with more detailed art.

In the end, though, I think working on comics is a great way to learn and get better at your art skills as long as you always try to set aside a few panels every few updates for you to challenge yourself. When I first started drawing comics, I noticed that my anatomy and poses started to improve a lot quicker because of how many humans I was drawing. And I still have a lot to learn right now as is

[river121693]

All of my goals and expectations went out the window after a month of posting comic lol. I didn't even meet my lowest goals for subs (20).
I eventually just accepted that the chance of me "making it" as a webtoon artist is slim to non; it could take years of work and multiple attempts. So goals like subcounts and money should only be a tiny portion of my driving force. The real and sustainable forces that keep me should be because I enjoy/ want to get better at my craft, and I because love my story/world.

[RocketAxxonu]

All these comments make me feel so seen, lol. Comics are just so difficult to make in ways a casual reader isn't going to see, yet for any creative work gaining any sort of an audience can feel like anything but a guarantee, and honestly all creative work can often feels like an exercise in rejection.

The things I've found most helpful in staying motivated are focusing on the fact that I personally feel so much more fulfilled as an artist working on a comic over just one-off art pieces here and there, and seeing how just working on a long comic has improved my art in ways that doing other art didn't.

I do find having readers excited about an ongoing project and/or even just imagining an audience for something creative I'm working on energizing and fun, but I think of it more me using it to help push and motivate me to do something I'm already wanting and planning to do, rather than something I'm relying on to feel fulfilled at the end. When I finally get around to finishing and posting something (which, even if I had a windfall and something had more readers for a while, by the time I get to the later work which could be years later, many of those people could be long gone, and of course any new project often struggles getting any new readers at all), I just think of it as going into my overall portfolio of work, which I want to build up to be big, so that's a win regardless of the readership. So, I use the thought of readers as motivation, but by the time I post I'm usually already moved on to something else anyway, which helps me get the benefits of having readers or just imagining readers and less the disappointment.

Also find engaging with the works of others and being a fan motivating, just because being a fan and getting excited about others' works can make me more excited to produce my own.

[Lensing]

This is an interesting topic.
I deleted around 10 comments I wanted to write because I wrote too much to read.
One thing that maybe will help some of you is trying to bring the fun back into it.
It helps me. I said goodbye to adult/mature themed comics and I´m drawing
a 4 head proportion, cute and funny comic instead and it´s the first time since
6,5 years that I feel like I´m having fun creating comics.

Drawing panels is not practice. Practice is practice. Draw what you are able
to draw and simplify it when you can´t draw it. It will look alright. At least that´s
what I´m telling myself

[feuersichel]

You have a good point regarding marketing...
I think I can conclude our findings as following:

Good marketing gets people noticing you
Good art and composition makes them stay

[darthmongoose]

Good marketing gets people noticing youGood art and composition makes them stay

Yeah, though personally I'd put it like:

Good marketing makes people notice you and look at your work.
Good art and presentation makes people want to stay a while to look.
Good storytelling (both written and visual) and characters make them subscribe and become fans.

A really great banner ad or cover will make somebody click on it. If the pages look nice at a glance and it's easy to read, they'll give it a try, and the easier and more pleasant the reading experience, the longer they're likely to give it a shot before deciding to stay or go, but the thing that makes people fans tends to be the characters and story (or jokes). Characters and story are what get comments and fanart and they're what most casual readers will talk about when telling their friends to read.

[masi]

I checked out your comic and I think it’s bizzare that your comic doesn’t get much more deserved traffic because it’s good, like originals quality good imho. If this what happens to your comic I assume the same or less would happen to mine(not published yet, in the same fantasy genre). I don’t know if I’m a doomer but I always expect disappointments and rejections in my future and prepare for it so I can be in denial and think it’s okay, because most of the time I’m probably not. That’s why this thread has been helping me tremenduously, thanks to more experienced comic authors putting in their valuable thoughts. Have you tried mirror your comic in webtoon? They have more traffic there. Eitherway I wish your comic would get more attention /o/

[river121693]

Thanks thanks.
Tapas is actually my mirror. I got a decent boost on webtoon recently thanks to my comic getting on their hidden gem section. A staff probably saw my promotion on webtoon reddit or discord server.

My guess for my comic not doing well is because I didn’t properly format it for webtoon when I first posted it. I also refused to compromise my story to fit with Webtoon; mine had a slow prologue but webtoon readers usually want immediate hook. I did a lil better after fixing those things. So a tip there is probably really try to cater to how webtoon functions to grab early readers.

I think going into it with very low expectation is a good idea. There’re so many things that can go wrong and it’s demotivating if all you depend on to keep going is the audience gain. I just focused on improving when my comic didn’t do well to get out of the slump. I kind of just use the disappointment as a reason to improve my work basically.

[system]

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