What do you think a beginner should do before making a mainline comic?

[BeeSocket]

I've been stuck in the rut about what I should to practice making comics. I tried the "just jump into it and don't think about it too hard" method but that didn't work at all for me. Getting past the first panel takes me ages while regular drawings take a hour or so.
What other methods, exercises, techniques, etc did y'all use or suggest to do?

Edit: Alright guys. Thanks for all the help, I think this should be enough. Feel free to add onto this if there's anything that didn't get mentioned.

[Jenny-Toons]

For myself, I like to do gesture and concept sketches for the premise. If I'm going for a horror romance, for example, I like to draw out the characters, do a few quick interactions, and then build ideas from there.

Afterwards, I create a script. Now how you do that can differ. For myself, I write really detailed scripts, but some people just need a few outlined bullet points to get started.

It can also help to story board from your outline before you do the actual panels to see how you'd like your work to flow. I do also recommend building a buffer while you do this. Buffer is the number of pages you have before you post them.

[SeraphicMayin]

I would suggest going back to the foundation.

Comics are stories. So just start out googling What is Story Structure, and see where the rabbit hole goes. Once you have a good sense of basic storycraft (Plot, Characters, Setting, Act-structure), it'll help you dive in better for a 'just do it' approach to say a short comic.

At the very least, it will help you organize your ideas. There aren't any formulas you need to follow, but there are forms of storycraft that are a very helpful foundation.

After that, there are technical skills that help the process along exactly as @Jenny-Toons has mentioned. Creating a concept, expanding that to an outline + concept art of characters. Then creating a script and storyboard pages/thumbnails so you can see the story as a whole before diving into the panels.

Even for a small comic, it takes some planning. At least if you mean to do a continuous comic, and not a gag-a-day.

[IndigoShirtProd]

It really depends on what your the most comfortable with. If you like design characters start there then branch into the story. Of you have a story idea in mind, first outline it before you get to things like characters and world building.
Watch tutorials about panel layouts, character design, world building, theming, color choice, story progression and so forth and so on. It's a matter of building your ideas on top of one another and cutting out the things that don't work. Practice your art an get critiques on your writing from others outside your inner circle.
Oh yeah and build a buffer. I know I should have done that when I started.

[qwerty]

Maybe start really small. Like four-panel comics. Preferably something not related to any larger idea or project to take the pressure off. You're going to make mistakes at first so might as well do it while the commitment is low.

And/or if you're not already, try working in batches. Tbh idk what you mean by "getting past the first panel" - I hope you're not like... trying to complete the whole first panel before moving on to anything else (that would definitely be hard ^^; ) Most people work more like:

• script the first several pages
• sketch/thumbnail the first several pages
• line the first several pages
• color the first several pages...

and so on. If not several pages or a chapter, at least one whole page/episode at a time. It's waaay faster that way.

Good luck

[BeeSocket]

That could be it. When I did my very first pages, I spent almost a day on 3 panels. I could go black n white now that you mention it (or whatever color I feel like for lineart + white).

[BeeSocket]

I'm more into character designing so that could definitely work.

[BeeSocket]

Ah, I do draw some of my characters interacting with each other even if they're not from the same world. That shouldn't be too difficult practicing some more on.
As far as script, the bullet pointing should feel a to-do in a way, right?

[BeeSocket]

Are there any people's tutorials that you know of that'd help?

[lorphis]

When I started, I made sure I've general idea of the plot and the characters. I don't like to plan everything since I know that I'll change my mind about it later anyway. I'm not sure about how to handle starting a webcomic since I didn't have much trouble with starting mine. I just drew the pages. So I guess just draw and move on. The first page will never be perfect, there's always going to be something that you don't like but you've to learn to be okay with it and keep going.

[ZombieOwl]

Make a buffer!
Get at least a chapter done (or 5-10 pages/updates) before posting. The amount is up to you, but if you have a buffer of pages waiting to upload, you will feel less stressed about getting out an episode on time. I used to churn out pages like crazy to feed my fans/readers on dA, and burnt out, eventually losing interest in the story Update regularly while making new pages

Make thumbnails!
Make thumbnails to map out what you want the page too look like. These are small, very rough drawings to get a concept writing down for your future use. Thumbnails make drawing the real roughs sooooo much faster D:

Don't try to be perfect (art advice)!
Plan things out for your story as best as you can, but don't get too wrapped up in making it look nice. You're going to be able to learn and refine your style through this process of making a comic. If one panel isn't working out, just move on to the next one; you can revisit the first panel later

Hope this helps!

[snailienz]

SMALLER PROJECTS.

this is not my first vpp project ever produced. Back in school i made serveral short form comics of the characters doing cute things or whatever.

Make small projects. You could even make a series that is made for the purpose of writing short stories and doing 3-10 page comics for practice. It's easier to start small.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Yup!
So I recommend checking out the YouTube channels of: McKay and Gray, WhytManga, Jenna Moreci, Terrible Writing Advice, Mark Crilley, Lavendertowne, Ando, BaM Animation, Dina Norland, Character Design Forge, and so many more!
Let me find some links:

These are good videos to watch to get you started on character design. I've learned a lot from these creators and you're bound to find more on this comic creation journey.

[ZatchZ]

Gag comics. Gag comics are a great way to start.

[kurosakisasorikun]

Finish it/Make it done not perfect
almost all Japanese mangaka start from "weird" art and dull story

[Rhonder]

SMALLER PROJECTS.

this is not my first vpp project ever produced. Back in school i made serveral short form comics of the characters doing cute things or whatever.

Make small projects. You could even make a series that is made for the purpose of writing short stories and doing 3-10 page comics for practice. It's easier to start small.

Finish it/Make it done not perfect almost all Japanese mangaka start from "weird" art and dull story

^ Pretty much these things are my two go-to pieces of advice when starting out!

Starting small is valuable because it's more feasible to finish a short project than a long project (typically. I'm sure there are exceptions) and having a finished project is super important! At the very least, it's important to be able to get practice on how to end a comic- if you start several long projects that you never get around to finishing, you still get a lot of good practice for making comics in general, but that practice is mostly concentrated at the beginning and middle of the story. Writing and executing endings is its whole own separate skill that needs to be developed too~

The other thing is having a finished project is a really nice feeling and morale boost for a lot of people! There's something really nice about being able to look at a complete thing you made and be like "Way to go me, I did it! The whole thing!" and those kinds of feelings can be used as momentum when moving into the next project!

My personal experience with starting out on Tapas: I've been making comics my whole life pretty much, but I was super guilty of starting a lot of stories but never finishing anything xD throughout elementary and middle school I probably made at least 20 fan comics for different series that I liked (Pokemon, Digimon, Naruto, etc.) and would always get like 5 pages in then drop it for something else. In highscool I started working on an original project, but it was way too long. Basically inspired by shonen anime, so it had a huge cast and many arcs and probably would have been like 100+ chapters long xD I continued to kinda-sorta work on that for yearsssss. But again, never got further than chapter 2 in drawing form (got up through like chapter 8 in novel form! The comic version suffered numerous re-starts).

Soooo when I finally came to Tapas and wanted to try something else out, I decided to write a short-ish story that would only be ~+/- 50 pages long. Which is still a lot, as I'm learning now a year later and just finally almost done, but it was still a reasonable starting project imo with my past experiences xD I've also worked on a short collab comic with a few other creators, and drawn a separate 10-page short story in that time too! Those finished projects were super refreshing and breaks from my main comic and had that morale boosting effect!

[punkarsenic]

i recommend trying cartooning by ivan brunetti! its a course in a book to take you from 1 cartoon to a 4 page story, and may help you with getting past the first panel

generally, i recommend jumping into some really short comics. and if you work through it with a script > sketch > final drawing, youre less likely to get stuck on the first panel. if its layout thats getting you stuck, try making some stuff with a fixed grid, so you dont have to think about it.

[JRHoch]

The formula for success (which I myself ignore) is to do three things:

1. Work in a style that you love
2. Work in a style that you can do quickly

3. Work in a style that has a large audience

4. And keep food out of your work area.