What Part Takes the Longest to Finish?

[onyisart]

What part of making your comic takes the longest?
1. Thumbnailing
2. Drawing
3. Inking
4. Shadows/Highlights (or Lighting)
5. Coloring
6. Text (Speech Bubbles /SFX)
7. Layout (if you convert from print format to scroll format)

Productivity Timer - https://neilblr.com/post/58757345346 by Neil Cicierega brother of Emmy Cicierega (Disney Storyboard Artist)

DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINK of the timer above but please read the info in the above link first: http://www.neilcic.com/work.zip (incase it doesn't work the first time)

[joannekwan]

Coloring for sure.

Which is often why I wonder if it's worth it for me in the end or not to do a comic in color. But I'm usually swayed toward color if 1. The characters have simple designs and I can flat in their shapes quickly and 2. If the color does well to add to the comic's mood.

[skicoak]

My step 2&3 are basically combined... So that's what takes me the longest

[yoyoyoshiko]

Inking is my fave so i probably take the longest time on that, really plussing it up, but sometimes penciling might take longer if I need to adjust poses, but I usually keep em pretty rough.
Coloring certainly feels the longest for me though, since it's my least favorite. I think I usually rush through though since i don't enjoy coloring as much.

[killerlotus]

Coloring and shadowing. Not only because of it being a tedious thing to deal with, but you have to figure out the consistency and make damn sure you're not screwing up a perspective after the amounts of work put into that mishandled expression, resulting in you going hell-crazy inside of your brain from the efforts you aren't getting back.

[allenT]

Consistantly, thumbnailing. I do at least 3 drafts, then pondering which panels are preferable and then make a larger, detailed draft which usually dictates the final look of a page-- then let it sit through a few days to see if it still need fixing-- before penciling onto actual comic papers.

Inking comes a close second because i'm too wary about inking mistakes & slack off quite often.

[Rhonder]

Thumbnails/rough sketch for me those take so soooo long for me.

[Azifri]

Thumbnailing/drawing -> that's where I have to think of the composition, perspective, proportions, etc. If I manage to get that right, then the rest comes easily.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Sketching the actual pages for me. Things can get pretty tedious, and I have a tendency to change panel layouts in that stage. I have very clean sketches for convenience, so if I realize something's wrong when I go to line, it can be very stressful and frustrating. Changing anything that clean and looks finished is generally stressful though.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Colouring

I knew it, but realised how bad it was this winter when I started working by bigger batches. I have to add here that I do colouring last (after speech bubbles/text).

'Ohhh, great, I have 20 pages ready to colour and that took really less time than expected!'

2 weeks later and 3 pages coloured...

It's not only that it takes time on itself, it is also that it can become boring so I don't feel like working on it. But effective time spent on it is huge too.

I won't do large batches anymore.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Drawing...partly because it's a lot of work, and partly because it's SO much work that I end up procrastinating. Supposedly, I like drawing, but when it comes to comics I just don't wanna...! >_<

[gabriellabalagna]

Number 2, drawing, takes the longest for me!

One way I sometimes make it go faster is by investing a lot of time into thumbnails. If my thumbnails are more detailed, there isn't as much to effort needed for the drawing phase.

[jcmraz]

Coloring definitely. Other sections are probably the "hardest" to do but color just takes more time to complete if you're doing it completely. Even just flats can take a while. I don't color mine anymore so the drawing takes the longest now. But if a comic is colored then the coloring takes the longest, full stop.

[R.n.P]

for me its inking, especially when I have my protagonist wearing a suit, it takes awhile to ink it

[RosesnWater]

Inking the lines always takes twice the amount of time for me to do than anything else T-T on the other hand though, that’s mostly because the art tools on the programs I use drastically reduce the amount of time needed To colour or sort out the text!

[RosesnWater]

With your colouring is it just dropping the colour in the right into the section and filling it out like paint bucket or are you colouring in like with a pen??

[joannekwan]

Working in Photoshop CS6 I make selections with the lasso tool, fill, and then paint in any secondary colors (shading, details, whatnot) within that selection.

[Aleksei]

Colouring, that's why I decided to don't do it and stick with b&w, haha! It would be impossible for me to have twice a month updates the other way. Also I reduced shadows to only a couple of places on the body of characters, and in the background when I actually have one, due to time contraints.

[RosesnWater]

Makes sense! I do a similar thing but on Krita. Though I USED to colour it all by hand/electronic pencil Because I found paint bucket was never accurate enough and the ridges would never get filled in. Anytime I see someone having an issue with colouring I always recommend Krita and using the tool they have to drop and add colour ^^

[TedGravesArt]

Definitely coloring, but I think that's also one of the most important steps! The focus of the panels can change dramatically during that stage. You can clarify your composition and values, and paint in elements that don't fit into the inking stage, like fog, to bring elements into different planes. Coloring might take the longest, but it's where you really find your pages.