Then vs Now? Tell me about your comic journey so far!

[ewi]

I've been binge watching a bunch of youtube videos where webcomic creators just talk about their comics, the process and how far they've come and they were quite nice to listen! It's actually quite intriguing seeing everyone's experience and how different yet insightful they all were.

So I'm curious about all of your webcomic journey so far! Especially the things you've learnt and know now compared to when you first started out! But it can be about anything related to your comic really, lets say I'm curious about other creators and want to know a bit more about them

Also feel free to link your series below too! I'd love to check em out!

[BLTX]

My comic, Donnie The Fighting Psychopath, is actually my very first attempt at a comic actually made for the public, so I learned things from the bottom, all the way up.

In a very early concept comic I'd made for it, I didn't know how to arrange text boxes properly, so if you had two people talking in one panel, you kind of had to guess who it was talking first.

(EARLY DONNIE CONCEPT PANELS)

Now adays, of course, I have no problem with this.

And here's the full comic!

Donnie The Fighting Psychopath | Tapas

[gabriellabalagna]

Oh, I'm so much the same way. I love listening to people's experiences making comics.

If you're into process videos, here's mine:

And if you're into a bit of reading, here's some articles sharing about my comic journey:
Planning a Comic – 10 Tips from Researching for “Kindred Not”
Comic Tips – Harsh Realities & How to Overcome Them

[igneriss]

LOVE that thread idea, I don't even know where to start!

For my series, everything has changed when comparing the first concept to what is it now haha character designs, number of characters, side-stories, even the main storyline is different!
There are still things I would've changed in the current version if I started it now, but it's kinda too late for that so I just have to go with it.

... but I think the question is more about what changed in the creating process and in the mindset, right?
So some things I've learnt while drawing those 14 chapters so far:

• how to have a detailed background without having a detailed background: as in, what shapes are easy to draw but look busy enough in the picture so a reader doesn't feel like there's an empty space all the time. With this on smaller panels, I can use my time to draw a proper background in panels that really need it;

• drawing should be fun- if I don't feel like drawing, I just don't draw, and just draw more on days that I feel like drawing. Otherwise it's just calling for a burnout, at least in my case, and I've learnt it a hard way. Same with overthinking- 'is the story good enough? what if it's too boring?'. Well, for a creator the story will always be less surprising than for a reader

• don't stress over stats- I mean, at least if drawing webcomics is just your hobby and you don't plan on making it your job. It sounds obvious but it wasn't so obvious for me I kinda learnt it on instagram, where I couldn't care less about the stats and it made me realize how nice it is to just post your stuff and be happy with whatever amount of attention you get. I know my friends are reading and enjoying my series, and that's already great. Seeing more people reading it on tapas is an amazing bonus, no matter how many of them are there;

• my artstyle changed a bit while I was on a hiatus (for about 3 years ) , but it was super easy to go back to that old style for comics. Seems like this is my comfort zone style, and I guess it's a nice thing to know about yourself.

What I still need to learn is how to NOT procrastinate on drawing scenes that are hard to draw : D

My series:

6,75 | Tapas

[Missapogee]

great topic! I don't know if I've been at it for long enough to gave a super detailed story, but I'm a year and a half (and 99 episodes) into my first comic so there is some stuff I can talk about!

• It's exhilarating to have a comic at all! It's something I always wanted to do, and I'm so glad that I started. I didn't know if I'd be capable of it (and honestly I'm still not sure) but I'm glad I did it!

• Making a comic has been super helpful to me as far as consistently creating art and challenging myself, and through that improving my art as a whole! I've gotten a lot better since I started- actually I've gotten a lot better since just a couple months ago!

(panel from an episode that posted September 3rd, 2020)

(Panel from the episode that posted Monday of this week)

• I have not been very successful numbers wise and I've had to learn how to be okay with that and to keep creating anyway. I thought for the first six months or so that I just needed some time to get momentum and that more and more people would see my comic as long as I continued to be consistent and diligent. But unfortunately the opposite has been true, and I've only seen decreases in every stat over the last year. Maybe this comic will never take off, maybe my next one wont either, and maybe that's just bad luck or maybe I'm just not good enough yet, either way, the only thing I can do is keep going and keep improving. Maybe one day, but I've learned to be less... hopeful and instead just take what I got and do the best I can with it.

• As I've gotten more comfortable with creating comics, I've began to get more experimental! especially over the last few months, I've been animating parts of my episodes, experimenting with art styles and mediums, doing fully animated bonus episodes, and I'm in the middle of working on an animated episode with audio! (which will be a video, ofc) It's fun and it's a great opportunity to accrue new art skills I never thought I would have tried otherwise!

My comic:

Apogee | Tapas

[TrashlordDom]

I could make a small book with my comic journey....
so I got into this when I was 15, posted my first story on tapas when I was 17. called it amber's pilot cause it was supposed the testing grounds for my series at the time.
https://tapas.io/series/Ambers-Pilot
I had no earthly clue what I was doing, wasn't confident in my art so there were a bunch of redraws. didn't script it and I didn't know how to organize my space. drew a lot of this on paper then brought it into Krita. finally ended it when I was 19 cause I was stressing myself out over it.

Then you got Godbreaker. I was working on this with another guy, was Intended to be a full series but it didn't workout. I did the art and a bit of writing. and my partner at the time did writing and the lettering. Fixed quite a few of my issues on this comic, learned how to organize, and script. also got to push my coloring this time around. I wanted to get rid of line weights for the art this time (liked it at first but got bored). still had a thing about redrawing tons of pages... btw there are way more pages than I actually posted. I don't think they'll every show up anywhere
https://tapas.io/episode/1579436

Finally, you have Underlord(my current comic)! I've been having a blast working on this one. definitely, the most...'stable' I've been working on something. Like I'm really comfortable with myself working on it. as well as just finally figuring out a way to better plan a comic that suits me. I'm really proud of how this has turned out

Underlord - Dead on arrival Part 7

anyways. sorry for the long post. This was a really interesting post!

[N1ghtm4r3]

oh has it been a journey, my series Knights Chronicles was started as a episodic story i worked on almost 10 years ago, though the idea was started long before as just character designs ,it was later that i started to draw out the comic and stuff ,one of the things i have learned is pacing and adapting cause not every idea at first was good, and my art over time has vastly improved ,and its still evolving ever more, currently i am redoing whole chapter(chapter 1 has been redone and soon chapter 2) as i have my story telling has improved also

Knights chronicles | Tapas

[ewi]

YESS!! The background portion I relate to a lot!! I used to think backgrounds needed to be on par with the amount of effort you put on the characters in the panel but turned out its not always the case! Sometimes using basic shapes to draw bookshelves, tables, lanterns, etc when it comes to interior or street lamp and house silhouettes for when the characters are outside are good enough! It didn't require as much effort as I thought I'd have to put (especially if you blur out the background a lil. Very convenient cheat ) and it just made the process more fun!

[mountainwolves]

I don't remember exactly how the comic idea came to mind. It had to do something with a gritty female Link or Finn from Adventure Time. I was also deeply into Hellboy at the time. However, I knew I wasn't gonna have enough time to sit down and just draw a comic due to work and other responsibilities. So I thought about a visual novel format in which I would reuse assets and change the artwork from time to time to make it more interesting.

Here's what my first attempt looked like:

However, I wanted to try a grittier more realistic style, with a little background for mood setting. I did so on my second attempt:

Nevertheless, this made me face another problem: I wasn't gonna be able to just find and use backgrounds on the internet that perfectly matched the mood of my every chapter. At least not without infringing intellectual property.

For my third attempt, I tried to go for an earthbound battle screen abstraction. While this was my most chaotic work, I think it was the biggest breakthrough moment so far:

I had my friends review my work, and the fact that it was barely legible was one of the things I took to heart. The other advice I received (second breakthrough moment) was making the characters' expressions match what they were saying. I already knew it was something I had to do, but my character designs were not helping. So I redesign the main character to a set look, inspired by 90s anime:

After several iterations, this is what my comic looks like as of now (CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES!)

My next step will be improving the Lineart quality by acquiring a tablet, as I have done everything on my phone so far

[feuersichel]

I always liked drawing but never took it really serious until about 5 years ago when I started my current comic. Which is also in the process of being redrawn. As you can imagine, quite alot had change durring this time. Escpecially the art! The story was just for me to practice art and I didn't plan on finishing it. That changed rather quickly though as I got more interested in the characters and started to experiment with their personalities.

I learned sooo much durring this time! So the plan on making it a "learn to draw"-comic was a sucess, although it will take me quite some time to redraw everything :,D But thats ok. It kind of drives me to do something as I'm struggling to get motivation in life. So this also is some sort of therapy for me xD

This is one of the very first drawings of my main character Osram. Proportions totally of but I still like the design of her sword to this day ^^

And here an ultra old page :,D placing text and making it look interesting to read is also a thing I learned ^^'

Here I learned to push perspective and experimented alot with dynamic poses. This page was so much fun to draw! The coloring is ok but could be better though.

And this is my current favourite page (from the redraw) There is no text in jet as it's a WIP but I took alot of effort to get the details and perspectives right. And it pais off so well! Here I combined markers and watercolor. Also, as you see, Text gets now a seperate layer and isn't just right in the art like on the first one xD

I think what helped me alot on improving, was the fact that I always gave my current best. At the moment I'm concentrating on shading and more intense movement.
Also what is super important! Don't stress yourself over your stats/popularity! Life is so much better, without making something fun to something stressfull

[system]

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