I've recently started my own webcomic138 and I was wondering what canvas size would work best. Is it better to draw on a bigger canvas size then resize it once it's done or draw on a canvas with similar dimensions to the final product? I'm not very knowledgeable about quality and resizing and stuff so I'd appreciate it if someone could explain the pros and cons about it?
Nov '15
Dec '15
I've drawn on a few different page sizes, and I think the size and shape of pages does make a difference in how the comic is communicated to the audience. For instance, the ones I most commonly use are 869px by 1263px and 940px by 2000px. I think what you're doing works for your comic. Now, as for page re sizing I think it's best to draw on the scale of the final product, that is, figure out the page size first and then just draw on that. Drawing it on a smaller scale and making it larger, for instance, which I can't see anyone doing, will lower the quality of the picture -- make it blurry. If you make it larger and then decrease the size you could lose visual information, hiding details that you may have spent a good time on.
This is all just my personal experience and knowledge, it could be very useful or not at all.
At clip studio pro I recently draw at a A4 proportions (210x297mm) but at resolution of 72dpi to to draw with great precision, with Vector lines at 2.5 px, when done the lineart, I convert it to 300 dpi and resize the linearts to 8.0 or 7.0px (the conversion change the size to 10.4). After some little corretion I have the lineart similar as if i draw at the paper.
While I recently do this, my series will only display this in some months ^^
It's good to draw at a canvas that's a minimum of 2x the size of the final product. This allows you to work better on some details. And this is how manga is produced in Japan, if I'm not mistaken. They draw at a A4 or B4 page and it's then scanned and resized to be printed at A5 or B5 (respectively).
For Badger Badger65 I draw on a B4-sized canvas at 300dpi, as if I would print it. When I finalize the page, it's then resized to fit Tapastic's resolution standarts and to have 72dpi, saved as high quality JPEG.
I use Photoshop, and I always work bigger and then downsize. One of the reasons is that I like the idea that I can print my pages in a larger poster format if I want to later, but that's a very personal preference. One of the other reasons is that working bigger makes it easier for me to add in more details. If your original size is MEGA HUGE, then some of those details might get lost if you downsize a lot, but that's not been a problem for me. You don't have to work bigger if you don't want to, but a lot of artists do.
I always recommend that you create things in a printable quality. Even if right now you're not planning to ever print anything...you never know, maybe one day you'd like a physical copy of your work. So, work in at least 300 dpi, and then when you're ready to publish online, you downsize it to 72 dpi (but make sure you keep the original file in 300 dpi!!!!). You can create your comic in any format you want, but if you'd like an example here's a page template from Kablam: http://ka-blam.com/printing/front/?p=119143
If you use their templates, then you also know you can get your work printed there 
An illustrator I know once suggested something for this: to zoom in at a maximum of 50%, which means working at 150% zoom. This will avoid the illustrator of loosing control of this tool and ending up getting carried away, drawing details at 300% zoom, for example, that will barely appear when the page is seen at 100%.
I always draw and save the original at 300 dpi and downsize to 72 dpi for web publishing. As long as you keep the same proportions so the image doesn't stretch or compress, you're okay.
That's really handy advice! I always find myself zooming in at +200% only to find out the details get lost upon shrinking the image to a web-safe size. Zoom in at 50%, working at 150%. Awesome.
I usually draw on A4 size at 300dpi (2480x3507px) for printing purposes. Photoshop has a preset for that. Then I resize it to 72dpi (595x842px) for posting online.
I draw Grassblades90 at 3307x4677px at 300 dpi (I've occasionally drawn at 400 dpi, though), and then downsize for posting online. My pages are usually downsized to 800px across, rather than Tapastic's standard 940, since 800px fits my main website.
The reason I draw that big is that I want to print these pages at some point, and it'd be hell to have to go back and re-draw the stuff that's too small.
I JUST pushed up my dpi to 600 at the suggestion of a friend (which/who I always thought was completely ridiculous) but for re-sizing objects within the panels, it is amazing! It keeps the integrity of your linework without severe blurring/distortion and is immensely handy for background work where skewing and perspective from panel-to-panel with consistency is important. I've saved a half hour of work, mondo awful work, heh.
My canvas size ranges from 4000 x 6000 to 3500 x 4900. Everything I scan in is from letter 8.5" x 11" (nasty habit, gotta get some proper bristol board!).
i do scans @ 300dpi (i could do even 1200, but thats a format for elite huge books, so it doesnt make sense to me)
then i move to the format asked by the site... here in topastic should be nomore than 940px. on deviantart, usually, i dont go to the original full size (i upload a resized image, maybe 75% from original, anyway not big enough to go in the printing process @ full quality)
btw, what i learned about this kind of resize it's about tones (something that could be write as a "the details" chapter). this mean, when u downscale, you loose details... so, tones (that kind of dot tones used in the 70 and so on) become just a flat scale of gay : \
but also, if u do some small detail and u do resize, say goodbye to them.
and in your case could be the texture... so take it in mind when u work.
Thank you very much for replying! I think I'll be following the general advice of everyone to draw in a bigger canvas. The information on dpi was very useful as well! I usually just ignore that but whoops, I probably shouldn't. Haha.
To me bigger is always better because you can resize it smaller and it will come better and sharper. All my pages start out as 3000x4000 300pdi (you may not need it that big)then I resize it to 940x1020. But be mindful the bigger your page the more memory and space it takes up. My computer nearly crashed twice cause my finished pages comes out to about a gig and a half (depending on how much detail I put into it)
I draw kurohi on actual paper, I print out the border such that it's standard manga size (5x7.5) ratio--well it's much bigger but it's the same ratio. There's a mini-border to note bleed and live area.
The same goes for digital art, in that I make sure to have margins for bleed and live area, but generally if you have an intention for high-quality print minimum of your actuall size at the desired ratio with 600 DPI (as that's very high quality, and twice the size of the standard 300 dpi) this way even if you want toprint it at varying sizes the way manga prints at smaller size in a volume, and larger in tankoubon.
