Webcomic artists, what is the step by step process for your drawings, and what is your art schedule?

[JoshRaed]

For my webcomic it’s:

1. Squares and triangles as the panels, no borders between them.

2. Stick figures to capture the poses. A square is drawn for a car, and other shapes are similar.

3. A character drawn over the stick figure. The head is probably copy-paste from some other panel with the character in if.

4. The skin colors are filled in.

5. Backgrounds are made.

I might add some steps later, like gesture drawing sketches and drawing the clothes over the bodies instead of with the bodies, but right now my process is this.

And my schedule is:

Every single day from 11am to noon, 2pm to 3pm, 4:30pm to 5:30pm, and 7pm to 8pm. I don’t always follow that, but I try to.

[XiuLyn_12]

Oooh! So my coming making process is:
1. Making panels, bubble speech, and placing 3D poses,
2. Characters line art (I use to make rough sketches first, but I need to work faster!),
3. Background line art effects,
4. Base color,
5. Shading,
6. Overall lighting and shadow effects.

And my schedule is:
Monday to Friday 9.30-11.30 AM, and 1- 3.30 PM (total 4 hours 30 mins). Hmm, I didn't work as much as I thought.

[BlairFujin]

Let me use a page that is already up as an example... 'xD
1. Panel frames with rectangle tool

2. sketching (this one is weirdly clean because I set up 3d models as refs, otherwise, there'd be more construction lines :P)

my regular sketches are more like this

3. Bubbles, I use handwritten fonts I made and free hand the bubbles with automated outlines in layer settings

4. Linearting - I use vector layer in csp

5. Now I'm being weird, because I shade before putting base colours - I tend to just use a single mutliply layer for that and it's easier to fill without colours underneath

6. Base colours finally, layer order being background, hair, clothes and other stuff, skin

7. And finally I run lineart layer through an autocolorize script (here also added steam)

As for schedule, I work on my comics Monday - Friday, after day job and some daily gacha gaming to reset my brain until... I get too tired/it's time to go to bed - I don't force myself to have a hard schedule so it tends to be something between 3-6 hours of drawing daily

[JoshRaed]

this one is weirdly clean because I set up 3d models as refs, otherwise, there'd be more construction lines :P)

Which 3d model app do you use?

[BlairFujin]

I use design doll - I find it more intuitive to pose than csp 3d models + it's easy to customize the models, to have the right height of characters

[faisalhussein394]

Nice, here's mine:

1. Making panels, majority of them are squares, and rectangles. Other shapes are rare.

2. In the panel, I use grey colors to outline character, and background sketches.

3. Use a layer over the sketches to draw the characters.

4. Add a layer between the characters, and the sketches for the color.

5. Add in another layer over the color and clip mask it to add black or white color and reduce its Opacity or fill for a dark or bright the color depends whether it is day or night, bright or dark.

6. Add a new layer under the whole process of the characters to draw the background under the guidance of the sketch and form the whole same process as the characters.

Sunday to Thursday:
I spend about 4-6 hours a day.

Friday to Saturday:
8-12 hours a day.

[FafasMcMelt]

sketch>lines>flat colors>shading

I work on it every weekday between work and gym ~3 hours

[konori]

When I'm drawing a webcomic, I do my steps over several pages/panels, depending on which stage in the process I'm at.

Stage 1:
Panelling, Drafts, and Speech Bubbles/Dialog. When I'm in this stage, I panel, draft and add speech bubbles for a bunch of episodes that make up an arc. (Which can go up to 90 or more panels.) This is so I can review the whole arc and fix any pacing issues I may find, change dialog, and add or remove any panels, which is easier to do when I'm in the drafting stage. In this stage, I can also plan and divide the arc into several episodes.

Stage 2:
Lineart. From this stage onward I work in episodes instead of the whole arc. (With each episode around 20+ panels). I'll draw lineart for both characters and backgrounds for the episode, and I'll also add in any effects like cross-hatching or speed lines when required.

Stage 3:
Base Colouring. I add flat colours for each panel in the episode.

Stage 4:
Shading. I shade using multiply layers, and I also add any additional effects when lighting is affected by time of day, etc... I do it for each panel in the episode.

Stage 5:
Polishing. I do a quick check on the overall episode and fix any minor issues I may find. I may even edit dialog when I'm reading over the episode with a fresh look.

After everything looks good, I schedule/post the episode and repeat Stages 2-5 for the next episodes until I complete the arc, then I start from Stage 1 again.

I don't have a fixed art schedule since when I'm living with family, things come up that may need my attention. But a majority of my art may be done at night after everyone else has gone to bed. (I can put it about 4-8 hours of drawing time throughout the day.) Weekends are my rest days and I focus on miscellaneous things related to art/my webcomics that do not involve drawing. (I need to rest my hands as well.)

[igneriss]

For me, it's like this:
1. Sketches for the whole next chapter; I don't do them in one go, more likely trying to get them done in one or two weeks while I'm still working on drawing previous chapter's pages; my sketches are usually very rough and not always contain backgrounds- especially for forests scenes, I just draw that directly later;
2. Panels and speech bubbles for the whole next chapter; this I usually do in one day;
3. Drawing pages; as I'm drawing traditionally and in black and white, I just do the lineart and fill bigger areas with black, nothing much. But I like to switch up how I work on a page? So for example, for some pages I'd pick character and draw them first on every panel, then pick another one etc. For some pages I first draw everything with 0.1 pen, then 0.3 pen, then black marker. And the most efficient method is when I draw panel by panel, setting an alarm for how long max it should take for me to finish the page in an hour (so 5 panel = 12 minutes each).
4. Scanning + editing in a small update-size groups

As for the schedule, I don't have one. I try to draw at least one page a day, but it doesn't matter if I do it during breaks at work, right after work or maybe in the evening. Sometimes I do part of it before work, then panel by panel between other tasks. There are days where I do more (max I've done was about 10 pages in one day), sometimes I don't draw at all if I really don't feel like it.

[NickRowler]

1) Character design. I do some sketches in a sketch book and will do concept art digitally

2) Panels and scripting, which is done in a notebook. I will sometimes rewrite the script on the computer for spelling and grammar checks. Tho for gag strips, I will skip this step.

3) Panel set up. I usually work from a template I made but sometimes I need to adjust the panels. I will also add the text.

4) Sketching. With using my notebook as a guide.

5) Lineart

6) Coloring & Shading

7) Backgrounds

8) Cleanup. Usually to fix wonky art.

[RedLenai]

Mine is:

1. Thumbnailing (Mostly in traditional, in an A4 paper I make 4 pages or if fully digital on a template like this at 7900 x 8400 aprox at 200dpi)
   

   

2. I crop each page and stretch it to the original canvas size (4000 x 5500 at 200dpi). I personally work like this since I'm on desktop as well, it consumes less memory than having an extremely big canvas already designed for webtoon.
   

   

3. Before doing the clean sketches, I usually get my backgrounds (cofcof, playing Sims 2) and arrange them to the panels, then I use 3d models from CSP to accomodate them and make them match the perspective and more, also I avoid having to sketch until "getting it right"

4. I proceed to sketch everything, I try to make it as clean as possible while still being messy, sometimes I don't even sketch and just do the lineart.

5. I do the lineart in a vector layer, usually on a bigger brush that I later resize. For some reason, this tricks prevents me from doing so much ctrl+z while also being able to follow the main lines.

6. I do the base color on a single raster layer, using color bucket and brush. I color pick most of the time to save time instead to guess a character's colors
   

7. After the base color is done, I have 2 multiply layers (One for solid shadows and another for airbrush) then 2 luminosity layers (Again, a solid one and a airbrush one)

8. All is left are effects and other visual aspects.

9. I crop each layer and arrange them in a new canvas meant for webcomics, there I add speech bubbles, SFX, Credits template and done!

10. Export in the respective formats for Webtoon, Tapas, Webcomics App and Faneo (Akaya Media's is the same as Webtoon's)

My schedule is mostly Monday to Friday
Since 9:30am to 13pm (I stream during this time, sometimes I end stream earlier but keep working)
Then at afternoons and evenings I have a somewhat "free schedule" according to how I feel or what I want to focus on. But mostly Mondays and Tuesdays I kind of try to work from 15pm to 17pm and then from 19pm to 11pm

Weekends are mostly for commissions and any time I like

[abigaillmartin]

Alright here is mine

0: I write out the outline of the story in my notes and have an idea where my story is going to go and plan out the series of episodes; write dialogue for preparation to put in word balloons (most of my time is spent on preparation and preproduction to be honest)

1: I sketch out the thumbnail sketches in a sketchbook
2: I take a picture with my phone and then put the thumbnail sketch in Ibis Paint
3: I then put a panel layer on the top most layer with the lines being at 12.7 (typically)
4. I “ink” the drawing with an 8.3 size (I have really really really rigid specifics)
5: I then color in the comic under the inked layer using the eye dropper and pen and bucket
6: add highlights and shading/perhaps adjust the brightness or darkness depending on the time of day in the story
7: add speech bubbles over the panel layer
8: add dialogue
9: download to photos then save it to my google drive
10: post it on tapas

It’s a long and tedious process but I enjoy it inking is my least favorite part lol it’s always been

[BoomerZ]

My weekly comics is set up to take about 5 days to do an episode of about 30ish panels.

Day1 :write script, dialogue and everything. Work out the pacing
2: Punch-up script. always reread fresh the dialogue you wrote the day before, cutting words that don't sound right. Layout and page set-up of comics as a folder in computer. After layout of thumbs on page, add all dialogue to page so I know what I don't need to draw. I don't actually make the balloons at this time, just the words so I know the size needed and spacing.
3: Pencils. Rough pencils (using the real pencil tool) in light blue color (old animation habit.) of all scenes. Anything of real detail will be just a placeholder for when I ink. example is hair. I don't draw the hair, just where it's going to be. Why waste the time if I have to trace over it anyway.
4: Inks. Basic trace over with black to clean up the artwork. Balloons are put around dialogue at this time.
5: basic flats and detail of color such as hair. shadows added and margin blacks. Finally highlights are added.

Finally I make sure my layer stack looks like this:

1. dialogue- this way it's on top of everything
2. Highlights- this allows you to make bright lights "burn" out the ink layer.
3. Sound effects- so to be on top of black margin color and panels
4. Black margin color- the space in-between the panels
5. The individual panel folder, each with a ink layer for that panel
6. Color folder- all the colors are blow the ink lines. allows fewer white dots due to not filling properly.

one note, everything is saved at each step on my computer and on a separate portable drive.

[simonitropunk]

Basically, I work everyday and for me, it felt faster and better working one panel at a time.

1- 3D poses
2- Blue sketches
3- Refined blue lines
4- Black pen contours
5- Color, shading, fxs
6- Once all done... head to the next panel (rinse and repeat)
7- Once the whole page is done, add dialogue
8- Review everything and see if there are any last changes (art, dialogue)
9- Move on to the next page

Used to draw the whole page and all but finishing one panel at a time really helped me focus on one thing before moving on.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I work traditional, so here's my routine:

Preparation 1: Before I start a chapter, I make sure I have at least a loose script/plot figured out. I tried having a detailed, fully-written script for chapter one, and ended up abandoning the verbatim version less than halfway through and ended up drawing each scene page-by-page however it needed in order to flow, following the basic structure of the plot and hitting the important points, but not really worrying about the exact dialogue or shots that I had initially worked out.

Preparation 2: Before I start a new scene, I make sure I have designs for any significant characters, places, objects, or effects so that I don't have to make it up on the fly. I keep these designs in a separate sketchbook, including color swatches, and detail shots of any costume items (like rings, tattoos, etc) in case I need to draw them close up.

Preparation 3: A day or two before I start drawing a page, I thumbnail it in my sketchbook, working out the basic layout of the panels, where the characters go, where the speech/word bubbles go, etc. This is very, VERY rough, usually. I write the dialogue for each word bubble in the margins, keeping in mind how long a snip of dialogue can be in the panel space I gave it.

Drawing 1: Actual page work. I do this on an 11x17 inch sheet of Bristol board (ask me exactly which kind! I'm very specific about my paper!!), taped to a wooden drawing board. This step involves drawing margins, laying out the panel borders, roughing in where the characters go, drawing in the word bubbles, and inking the border margins and word bubbles, including hand-written text. I do NOT do any actual detailed drawing at this step. This step takes me, on average, an hour and a half, and I usually start this step on days when I don't have a lot of free time to knuckle down and just DRAW for hours at a time. A good step to do on errand/chore days, or work days.

Drawing 2: Finished pencil work. I sit down and draw in all of the detailed, finished pencil work. I may leave out small incidental details like precise brick placement, or foliage textures or the like, which can be done on a different step, but I don't half-ass things like faces, poses, hands, or perspective, because I CANNOT fix/adjust/fake these things later. I do this step on a day when I don't have a lot of responsibilities, because sitting down and just drawing a whole page to a high level of detail can take 2-3 hours in a go.

Inking 1: After letting the pencil work sit for a day (so I can more easily see any errors that need fixed), I ink my pencil work with a series of Micron ink pens. I then let the ink lines sit for a while, usually overnight, so I can be DEAD CERTAIN they're dry. This process usually takes me about an hour to an hour and a half, so this is another good step for days when I don't have a lot of free time, or a lot of mental energy. Once I'm ready to color, I'll erase my ink lines.

Coloring 1: I color with markers, and given that I fully render my images, coloring takes me a LONG time. It is far and away my most time-consuming step. As such, it's usually spread over several days, taking on average 2-4 hours a day. I often start with the lighter colors in the image, such as pale skin tones, light-colored clothing, blonde hair, etc. Doing skin tones alone usually takes a day, because my process for most skin tones involves an AVERAGE of 5 layers of color. Sometimes more if I'm doing wild lighting.

Coloring 2: Once I've gotten my delicate color areas handled, I turn my attention to the background elements, clothing, and dark areas, like dark hair, deep shadows, etc. Sometimes this results in whole areas being fully rendered while other areas haven't even been begun, which can be fun to look at.

Inking 2: What? Haven't you already inked, Scarlet_Cryptid? Yeah. Yeah I did. But as much as I hate this step, I've noticed it makes a big difference in my finished product. Once I'm done coloring, I RE-INK my linework. This helps me conceal any minor errors I made with the markers, re-emphasize lines that were partially lost during the coloring process, and darken my linework. It just... makes everything look cleaner and more finished. This is another step that takes, on average, about an hour and a half. This is also when I fill in my panel gutters with black ink, because even though I'm scanning these and cleaning them up in Photoshop, I still want the actual, physical finished pages to look nice, too.

Digital Finishing: At this point, I need to scan my page. While I'd LOVE to have a scanner big enough to fit a whole page at once, I have never found one (at least not available for home use), so I have to scan my page in 3 sections and piece it together in Photoshop. I make sure to clean my scanner AND my page before I scan, so I spend a minimum of my time cleaning up errant spots on the finished scan. I piece the separate scans together, adjust the levels and color saturation/balance, clean up any spots or fuzz on the scans, or any errors I made in drawing/coloring, digitally blacken the panel gutters, put the text in, and save the whole thing in various formats so it fits the demands of each platform I post on. I also have a master copy at high resolution if I need/want to print it later or something. This whole process takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour per page, depending on how much trouble it gives me.

After all that? Every Friday I schedule my pages to drop at noon (Pacific time) on Saturdays, and then I start planning out the next page. This process takes me about a week, which for the moment is comfortable and sustainable for me.

[Kelheor]

1. Script written down
2. Rough thumbnails (done in a bunch)
3. Rough sketch + trying to place bubbles at this stage
4. Less rough sketch/additional work on sketch when needed (sometimes takes a few more sketches)
5. Lineart
6. Flats
7. Shading, lighting, all the touches (around 5 layers)
8. Additional rendering, sfx
   (The picture is rough sketch to finished page)
   
   

[river121693]

1) Rough thumbnails done in batch (including text and bubbles)
2) take/ find reference photos
3) multiple sketches before lineart
4) flats and background line art
5) pure chaos (7-15 layers)
7) Im done

Summary

[tarraxahum]

1. An unecessary detailed sketch right away
2. Lineart
3. Flat colors
4. Light/shadows/effects rendering, random bullsh*it go
5. Speech bubbles and other text

Rinse and repeat with 25-50 pages at a time.

[VersusVII]

Before creating the page, I make a little rough stodyboard on paper with stickmans and the baloons position.
When I do the final page, these are the steps:
1 Find poses references;
2 Dividing the pages into panels;
3 Sketching with colors the characters in the panels.
4 Lineart
5 sketching and then inking the background

[JoshRaed]

What do you do if a pose has no direct parallel, like a physics defying action pose or something?