What have you learned from making comics?

[Puck]

For the artists: learn how to write simple stories and produce pages.
I often use the "I can´t write" or "I can´t find a writer" excuse myself and then just doodle
around, practice and not draw pages, I know that this is a mistake and keepe me from
getting better at creating pages

[cookieroach]

Oh your blog looks really nice. I'm gonna check out that post!

[cookieroach]

Really interesting to hear your experience, and the business side of things! I can 100% relate about being worried that your idea is too similar to something else, without even knowing it.

Keep up the good work, I'm sure it will pay off in the long run!

[scribesunlimited]

I'd like to get back to trying to draw again, but there's no WAY I can compare to the quality we already have, and I really don't want the comics to suffer that badly. So I'm kinda stuck, unless we decide to try a new comic. But look at comics like Sarah Scribbles. the art is pedestrian and boring, yet it gets millions of readers. So there's hope.

[cookieroach]

I agree, it's better to just start instead of coming up with excuses. I've had so much trouble with deciding on what ideas to purse, but in the end it's just better to pick something and get started! You can always change your mind later.

[LCT_m_a_d]

People say you should practice every day, but that misses the bigger picture for me.
You should want to practice everyday, incorporating new ideas. Even the boring parts. Especially the boring parts.

When I was a portrait artist I spent hours every day looking at great artist's works that pushed boundaries.
I never experienced burnout because I never wanted to go a day without practicing or doing something a more creative way.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

@LCT_m_a_d exactly. Practice should be something to look forward to, not a chore. And I've recently embraced this mindset.

Even though drawing my comic can be tiring, and not always a barrel of laughs, it still does fire up a passion in me. Passion to become better. Always strive for that next level.

[cookieroach]

That's an interesting point! In my experience, it works a little bit different. I don't always want or feel like drawing/writing when I'm tired after a long day. But when I sit down to do it, I start to get energized and it feels good. I think that's the important part, to enjoy the process of doing it. But to actually get started, it comes down to good habits and discipline for me.

[LCT_m_a_d]

@nathanKmcwilliams
I would go as far to say if you really don't want to practice, just don't.
However, let that be an indicator of what you would like to make a career out of. The quality of my art improvement (and ultimately compensation) was never determined by the quantity of time spent drawing. It was mostly determined by how many ideas I tried to incorporate in each practice.

I noticed this from doing my hand gestures. There were so many techniques I wanted to try and add. I only practiced a couple hours per week and improved so much faster because I was fully present and devoted to experimenting the process. This made me want to practice more regularly.

@cookyroach Now that you mention it, I think the line is definitely a little different per external factor. Ultimately the choice to try/do things is what determines us. Sometimes I'm fatigued after work to the point that I don't want to practice. Really that's not the truth. The truth is I just don't want to be too tired. So I go out of my way to grab some coffee and do some yoga so I'm in the mood to work on stuff, and plan on a new sleep schedule. But If I'm not willing to solve the fatigue issue, that shows a deeper issue.

[surenlicious]

Okay, I JUST started making comics and probably my best lesson...if NOT to try a single page in one go. xD My hand was not happy with that.

I was also happily surprised how helpful thumbnailing was. That helped me so much in planning my panels.

[cookieroach]

Yeah I agree, how you practise is really important in my experience as well. If I do mindless doodles everyday, I don't really improve much at all. But if I put in effort to study something consciously, I'll improve much faster in the same amount of time. It's a good thing to remember when feeling frustrated with a lack of progress.

[cookieroach]

Good advice! I didn't thumbnail for the first comics I made, and it really showed It's a simple thing to do and so helpful!

[jgreene2433]

I learned I kinda hate drawing comics

[Phantomlight]

still a valuable thing you learned! It's always good to try new things and if you learn you don't like them, that's fine. There are people that never try new things, so they won't know if they like them or not. They can spend years not knowing and then find out later that they either missed an opportunity of a hobby or even career or realize that they dodged a bullet. So, you learned something about yourself from trying out making a comic. I think that's awesome.

[ble]

That most people preffer story over art, wich is bad for me, because i want to be more artist than writer.

[JoshRaid]

Patience. Drawing a comic takes a long time. My early comics, which will never be published, thank god, had awful pacing because I was impatient. The scene where Tobias goes home to his abusive father was a big example of this. The scene was meant to be tense and suspenseful, but it only takes up one page and goes way too fast as a result. It was because I was desperate to get it all out since it was taking so long to get on the page since I had to draw it all.

[Kura]

Readers seem to think that whole ass updates take as long for artists to draw as it does for them to read.

[cookieroach]

This is interesting, and I agree to an extent! I think it can depend on the reader, some are more into one or the other. But if you're more into art, maybe collaborating with a writer would be perfect?

[cookieroach]

I can relate to this a lot! The opposite is pretty common too I think, that there are just too many panels with unnecessary stuff. I'd chose the fast pasing over those two, but a middle ground would be the best of course.

[cookieroach]

Yeah comics takes so long to create compared to reading them. Sometimes I feel guilty when reading comics with a lot of detailed artwork, especially when there's no dialogue you go by the pages so quickly...