The Most Difficult Things About Making A Comic

[jessicasurline]

Most days it isn't even the art that is hard but trying to balance time between art and life stuff. Good art takes time and I am naturally a sloth of a person so I pretty much cause my own stress there lol! As far as art that I can get hung up on, non organic things like vehicles and backgrounds are always a challenge. Sometimes I have a hard time with faces too. Especially when I'm trying to show really intense emotions. Without reference I would feel lost lol!

[indagold]

Backgrounds are the easiest part for me. If I could do a comic with nothing but backgrounds I would. I suck at drawing people. I'd say not getting tired of what you're making is the hardest part. Sometimes I get tired if it's a long piece of work and might get lazy on a page or two. Also linework, I have such an unsteady hand when it comes to stuff like that.

[mintycanoodles]

@indagold bruh same.

backgrounds are my art happy place. the actual people in the comic tho...less so. and linework is the bane of my existence. which is why i gave up doing it

[KSlinger]

I'm with @indagold and @mintycanoodles, backgrounds are fun. At least in the drawing stage. You can go wild!

I find speech bubble placement a real pain, though. When I picture a page clearly in my mind the text just doesn't come into it-- probably a side effect of being heavily influenced by TV and film. I'm getting a bit better with that though, and thankfully my dialogue is clipped.

Also colouring, but you already knew that. I don't think I'll ever enjoy it. It's far too frustrating.

[shaneoid77]

I'll not lie, backgrounds bite me so hard, I use so much reference I may as well trace them. Ok sometimes I trace them. I don't feel bad about doing this, but it may be a faux pas to some people. The rest just kind of falls in to place. I find the hardest part has been establishing myself, finding an audience, making new friends, fighting through illness.

[Izzy]

As for backgrounds, I specifically don't like drawing cityscapes or buildings. I don't think that I'm very creative when it comes to building shapes - I'm pretty sure that they don't only come in box shape. And where there's one, there's probably 200 more. ( . --- .)

[edmourabarbosa]

Who thought that something that is skill intensive, time consuming and not profitable (for most of us) would be so soul crushing? Seriously, what's wrong with us? Art is really hard and we still insist and diving deep into it. Energy management should be a mandatory course for comic artist. Depression is a serious problem among all of us.

Besides energy management, I think that the most difficult thing for me is writing. It seems easy enough, but is the most important thing in the comic. Your art can be the most amazing ever on the whole planet, but if the characters/story suck, you're out. People won't care and drop it after a few pages. Art is only good for the marketing, it makes people take it more seriously and enjoy it more. That realization just fires my anxiety when I'm writing. It makes me so judgemental of my own work that it HURTS to keep on.
Yeah, there's definetly something wrong with us.

[seacho]

...backgrounds. (and many non-living things)
And if you check my comics, you'll see that there is a complex bond beetwen backgrounds and me.

EDIT : didn't mean to reply to you Izzy but I don't know how to change ^^'

[tayo_rafferty]

I just started a backgrounds challenge! For those who hate backgrounds as much as I! (Or if you're one of those weirdos who loves backgrounds............you can go there too).

[dojo]

For me the thing I probably struggle with the most is not cutting back where I need to. I tend to go crazy with my ideas and have this desire to be super innovative but then get frustrated when I don't have the resources to do what I want to do and then drop the project. (for example at one point I wanted to do a monthly updated adventure game that would be on the web and people could just play in their browser. I got pretty far with the first episode, but lost motivation to keep working on it)

Which leads to another thing I have a hard time with is starting too many projects at once. I have three or four other comic ideas I really want to work on, but I'm holding myself back since I don't want to be that guy who starts a thousand comics and never finishes any of them. I'd rather have a better reason than "I got distracted and overwhemed by things that were well within my control" for not finishing a project. I might already be cutting it close with a daily comic and a weekly one, but I already have plans of cutting back on the number of updates per week with the daily one if it starts feeling like it's a problem.

So basically, I really like biting off more than I can chew and it takes a lot of self discipline to not.

[gateofselidor]

The time it takes, really. I love my comic, but working on it while I have a full time job means I have almost no time for other creative endeavours. I've been drawing it for three and a half years, in a consistent style, with the same cast of characters, and I miss having the time to experiment or work on short stories. I will never regret starting it, but I will be very happy when I finish it.

[joannekwan]

The initial sketch/thumbnailing for me.
Sometimes I have to rework a composition a lot to make it work, or I'll get stuck trying to figure out a logical transition between actions and how to translate that into panels.

So that and actually committing the time and effort to produce the thing.

[hades]

For those with trouble with vehicles AND enviros try this book:

As for what's the hardest...

to keep going.
I have manic depression and anxiety. I fear my readers and often am paranoid that they are going to turn against me on a dime or become disappointed in me at any moment. Due to this I struggle sometimes to keep working and making updates. It's an uphill battle.

[Michelle]

WRITING ;u;

Really, I'm terrible at writing. Planning a story and making all those plot threads intertwine in a satisfactory way is a fun (but very challenging) process. But when it comes to actually writing down how those elements play out in the final script, that's where I drag my feet the most. Especially dialogue-- I'll find myself tweaking the dialogue up to the last minute.

Also designing new characters. I find many people enjoy exploration drawings when doing character designs, but I'm happiest when the character is locked in and finalized, and don't have to worry about them going wildly off-model every other panel.

[vongcw]

Hahaha - I do listen to motivational podcasts and other Youtubers while drawing and they do effectively keep my spirits up (it's just that finding interesting ones to last me my hours is challenging lol). I'll give this Bob Ross a check! Thank you.

[scythe]

The most difficult thing for me is the time. Not only does it take ages to draw everything, but that also means that the story progresses slowly for the readers.

[NickRowler]

Honestly I rank vehicles harder than backgrounds. You can sometimes make a decent background without making it extremely complex however that is not that true with cars.

I used to loath drawing hands but over time I got better at it. So maybe I should practice drawing landscapes and interiors more.

I think something that really bugs me is how long it takes to make a page. Like, I really wish I could be working on two comics at once but instead I have to dedicate all my time to one.

[Kura]

The amount of time it takes out of my life.

[celliz8608]

The most difficult things are action scenes thats why Armor-I doesnt have that many and marketing comics

[Kyulein]

Personally I love making backgrounds, they're my favourite part of a page, mostly because it means I'm on the final stretch (aside from adjusting word balloons after that).

Vehicles, though... Yeah I agree they're hard, and as I don't have much practise with them they're also very time consuming.

What I find most difficult, though, is finding the time to make illustrations for my comic - next to day job and comic pages I'm alaways glad when I have some time left to properly relax. (Plus I feel like most illustrations ideas I have aren't that exciting or include spoilers....)