What hacks you had invented or learned to speed up your work?

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

This is a really great tip that I’m only using just now 25 episodes into my comic. This is the best way to make backgrounds in my experience.

[honeyandcreambutter]

Yes definitely! It’s basically looking at the bigger picture and then going smaller. It’s helped me out a ton ^^

[Puck]

character sheets, using simple forms, drawing with a time limit, learn to use 3d models, quick poses
i learned the most when i did 24 hours 24 pages comic books because it shows all the weaknesses
you have when you work under a strict time limit

[WOSTR]

Mine are
•having the script laid out first
•having a colour palette
•sketching it on paper and going over it
•doing new scenes in layers (sometimes I can just add to a scene instead of making a new one)

[edward_saddle]

First thing i had to do was to divide my chapters in parts... Before starting to draw i wrote the entire plot, with dialogues, plot twist etc...
Soon i learnt that if i didn't divide the chapters in parts i had to draw too much and couldn't keep up with my schedule.

Now:
- I create a super long ps file where i roughly sketch out the entire chapter (i even write inside the frame sometimes, like "that building here", instead of drawing)

• divide this long ps file into smaller files to edit in clip studio (usually from 5 to 13 panels)..

• Frames and Lineart layers are vector layers.. Then i set them as "reference" layer (this is very important and it's something that only Clip Studio lets you do)

• once i set the reference layer, guess what? the fill tool knows the "boundaries" of lineart and frames so i just click whenever i want the color and it just gonna fill itself!!

Export:
I use a script for photoshop i found online which cut my file into many layers of 800 x 4000 px (tapas size) or 800 x 1280 (webtoon) this a life saver as well... maybe i'll share the script in a post here eventually, d'you think it'd help?

EDIT: @Darth_Biomech HOLY SH*T the 3d room method is dope!!

[NickRowler]

If you want to resize lineart smaller in Photoshop, put a minimum pass on it. This is super useful for dealing with stuff like photos in a picture frame that appears several times in a scene.

In my version of Photoshop, it is found in the Other option of the Filters menu.

Offset is also a useful function if you want to do looping patterns.

[CursedBeasts]

I reuse backgrounds from panel to panel if the setting is the same location.

Which is easy if I work in batches like you mentioned.

I also reuse lineart occasionally, but that kinda rarely happens.

I also kinda gave up on doing shading via a multiply layer, replacing it with inking, most of the time.

[Tanako]

Transitioning from traditional to digital. the way I use I use to work was

Draw artwork on paper---> scan it into the computer ---> open it in photoshop ---> rearrange the panel ---> then sketch it over again---> then lineart.

But after I got comfortable with drawing straight into the computer, I was able to get done a whole chapter in three weeks (sketches ready for lineart) the speed was tremendous. I'm so happy. lol

also, I make my own seamless patterns in photoshop.

[Darth_Biomech]

Not all the time, but if you can crop out the excess and edit your pages to less panels, less dialogue, less...STUFF, that's probably the right choice.

I'd be VERY careful with that, since your readers are going to be viewing your work just a page per week or maybe even less, so you need to keep the pacing in mind. It's excruciating to wait for a week and then all you get is two panels with no dialogue in them. My readers have already complained about that in their usual sarcastically-venomous way.

Yes definitely! It’s basically looking at the bigger picture and then going smaller. It’s helped me out a ton

Maybe it's better to initially draw bkg's with zooming in in mind, bigger? Then you won't need to blur them. I tried to use blurred BKGs, but it instantly went into "this doesn't look right, and it's ugly" territory for my style, so nowadays whenever I can I just use either gradients or abstract extremely blurry blobs of color that roughly match the bkg.

[But_a_Jape]

You don't need a background in every panel--in fact you only need it like once a page. In long-form comics, you need it even less. Occasionally add that spread shot for the wow factor, and then go back to doing plain panels for the rest with the occasional background element. Details kind of slow down your reader, it makes things feel dense--you most likely won't need them.

This is the advice I learned for myself but wasn't sure if it was good advice to give others. A lot of advice on backgrounds is how to more easily make detailed ones and I was thinking "I just save time by either making them incredibly simple or not making them at all, am I doing it wrong?" So it's good to see someone with more experience provide affirmation.

Though I do primarily gag comics and I figure most audiences don't pay heed to details like that for comedy. But I have an upcoming comic that's supposed be more aesthetically similar to mainstream manga, so I was getting worried that this time-saver might not fly as well for that type of work.

[rajillustration]

Yeah, it's totally fine (especially in manga where pages are so small, there just isn't the page estate. Even in really detailed works, they save backgrounds for spreads and large panels to make the reader feel like they live there, and then they go back to simplified stuff) you just want to avoid the feeling of being in the void, and it's really up to the artist to know if they're making a void or not, which just takes experience to get the hang of.

[rajillustration]

I'd be VERY careful with that, since your readers are going to be viewing your work just a page per week or maybe even less, so you need to keep the pacing in mind.

Yes, pacing needs to have something occur every update, I totally agree with you on that. But what I meant isn't so much about pacing as it is about composition. Sometimes we over-complicate (I totally do this) and cram 14 panels on a page with one line of dialogue per panel, when 4-6 with multiple lines of dialogue in some panels would have been better and easier to read. So like...you're right, and don't go too far and say "one panel a page it is!" because it's still sequential, and panels are still necessary to tell comic book stories, but...likewise if there's too much content on a page it is a really bad time, and it needs to get edited down.

[BreakingChalk]

Paint tool SAI:
Use linework layers: Though lines don't come as "natural" as with normal layers, there's more chance to make adjustments

Work in batches of 2 pages: because my computer can't properly work with more than 6 pages in the same .sai2 file, and it kinda helps to make me feel I'm progressing, more than if I used 3 to 5.

Make the line art for multiple batches of pages at the same time: It comes out less tedious than just focusing in one batch.

Bigger panels work better: And focus on what is important, sometimes you don't have to show a character's reaction or every part of what is going on, and better focus on things that don't just add to the flow but make the flow.

[Caro]

I’m the exact opposite of so many people here!! Dropping digital for everything but color has made me infinitely faster than I could possibly ever be if I was full digital still.

One of the things I do for one of my comics is I draw it JUST a little bit bigger than what the print size will be so the originals are pretty small and I can fit two pages per one sheet of paper. At this size for the past couple months I have been writing/drawing/inking four pages a day traditionally which I do Monday-Wednesday with the end total being 12 pages and then I spend the rest of the work week on other projects that I have to draw a little larger and are a bit more tedious!

There’s also batching, which I tend to do in four page patches. Pencil all the pages first, then ink the panel borders, text, and speech balloons, then all of the characters, and end on the backgrounds.

I think the major thing that’s helped with my speed is honestly just having done it A LOT for the past almost decade now professionally. Inking traditionally I learn to roll with the mistakes and eventually I stop making those mistakes and I can just relax and let my hands move. It’s a very no-fuss process for me. And I don’t think I’m even remotely good at a lot of things but I can honestly say; I’m definitely faster than the average cartoonist and anybody who’s had to share a studio space with me can attest to that. I do know some folks who are as fast or faster and they also mostly work traditionally so its definitely not just me and I’m definitely not crazy!!!

[allenT]

Yes! I also use this for tweaking some line thickness, mostly set 1 or 2.

[honeyandcreambutter]

I’d say it’s a matter of style and preferences. My webtoon has a romance-fantasy genre and I draw in anime style so it works well for me. I like how blurring the BG can create depth and focus on the characters and sharp BGs places focus on where the characters are at (example from “Am I The Daughter?” manwha:

I use the blur-clear-blur (blurred BGs-clear character-blur front deco) or blur-clear-clear technique in my illustrations a lot because it helps provide depth to your drawings (not my art since I had to delete some of my illustrations to make space in my iPad so I took some examples from Pixiv):

[Gleamiarts]

yes! I love the lasso tool. I use the lasso fill tool in clip studio and it just makes flatting so much faster