What silly mistakes did you make at the beginning of your journey on Tapas?

[JoblessInUSA]

I'm new to writing in general, so formatting and editing were all new to me.

When I posted my first few chapters, I mistakenly deleted half of my first chapter!!

There were many views on my first chapter, but not many on my second chapter for a while.

I was so embarrassed when I finally caught it 100 views later now, I proofread my chapters at least five times before posting.

[spadedigsbutts]

My first webcomic was very slow and in hindsight I really should have built up a buffer with more pages so more would happen per update

[Stargazer31]

Not having a schedule for updates. Now that I have one, it motivates me

[JoblessInUSA]

My chapters were too long and I had to cut into into 4! I'm not sure what the appropriate length is for comical. Standards change constantly too

[JoblessInUSA]

Accountability is one hell of a drug, readers will do that to you.

Once I got a single consistent reader I started to use the schedule function and it's a life saver

[TheLemmaLlama]

Ahhahaha for me personally at least, I feel like I'd regret having a schedule more than not having a schedule, since if you don't have a schedule, you can always put one into place later but it's harder to undo having a schedule without feeling like you disappointed your readers :'D Accountability is a hell of a drug, but you know what happens when you overdose on drugs! (Now that we put it like that, maybe I should have a schedule, but like a super lenient one like once every 3 months or something, because a once-a-week schedule is the equivalent of downing 20 cups of coffee a day for me; it might keep me motivated in the short term but I will crash; but a little pinch of caffeine never hurt anyone XD)

[JoblessInUSA]

I'm lucky that I word vomited the last 2 weeks of November for National Novel Writer's Month. It is a mess since it was my first word salad ever.

I cringe so hard whenever I edit a new chapter from the salad.

But a 60,000 word first draft really helped

I can't imagine doing a comic or writing fresh more than once a week. That's nuts to me. I'd forget where I was heading with my nonsense.

[BLTX]

This is techniccly my Pre-Tapas journey, but not considering a scrolling format, phone screen, and lower quality pages when making my first episode.

When I first made my comic, I didn't really know how I was going to put it up online. Frankly, I wasn't even sure if "Upload your comic websites" we're even a thing. I eventually found Tapas just generally searching for websites where I could do that and being scared off by the way Webtoons looked. But of course, I had no idea how this "Tapas" website even worked, so I had to quickly find a way to shrink my page size, and eventually when I did get it on the site the flaw of the lower quality pages was immediately obvious, though it took me a while to actually fix it. This is the reason my first episode used to have very hard to read text boxes. Now-a-days of course I do take this stuff into account, but recently I've actually been considering a second, smaller text box update to make things even clearer on my first episode.

[Kittyfox]

Creating my whole comic when I did was a mistake. I had little to no experience in digital art when I started, and I just had a bunch of half written characters I wanted to cobble a story out of. I think now I have a better story written, and much more experience with art under my belt, but if I did it again, I would have drawn stuff for the comic, but never posted it to the internet until I had stuff figured out.

like what the hell is this, why did I think I could draw lmao

[angie_draws_things]

Awww, don't say that! It clearly taught you a lot about the story and art, and that is the kind of thing you pick up on when you start posting comics. Since it forces you to make updates, you gain experience far faster than if you were just keeping everything to yourself.

[angie_draws_things]

My biggest mistake with my current comic was thinking that I could save myself time and effort by making it a black and white, using only ballpoint pen. My original thought was that I could create comics anywhere with limited supplies, and time would not be as much of a factor.

I figured out that errors in the ballpoint took substantially longer to fix in Photoshop. It also didn't pop as much as it does with color and cleaner lines. Needless to say, I had to commit to putting in more time and effort because a comic from me is not meant to be a slapdash affair.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Yeah I think it's a good thing to have an old comic under your belt, even though I understand feeling embarrassed about your old art being out there for people to see. But lots of people love seeing their favourite creators' old work, and also understand it's old and not indicative of your current skill level :]

@angie_draws_things My comic is very slapdash, because my main issue is getting content out and if I focused too much on polish, I'd never get anything done! I might come to regret it, but I gues right now I see no reason why I can't just treat my comic like a draft that I can polish up later if that ever happens

[JoblessInUSA]

@BLTX

Oh gosh, I'm kind of on the same boat. I've never done anything like this before, and I feel like I've done a bunch of no-nos.

Your comic is very nice now though, so you did an excellent job remedying the situation

@Kittyfox

That girl is too adorable! Better than anything that I could ever muster

I feel like I'm going through what you went through right now. This is my first story ever. I already published it, so I might as well keep going.

Luckily I barely have any readers, so it is much easier to retcon any continuity situations.

@angie_draws_things

That's a good lesson; art is so difficult and it takes a lot of time and effort to get used to a new medium.

I just checked out your adorable comic. Were the first few the ballpoint ones? I couldn't tell it they were, they looked very polished to me

@TheLemmaLlama

Not polishing it to perfection allows you to see how much you've improves over time

I love seeing not just the progression of the story, but also the growth in artist's skills.

This applies to both comics and novels!

[ButterflyEmpress]

When I started I thought I was being smart by having a 3 chapter (60 pg) buffer and the 1st 10 chapters written.

My mistake was not finishing the story before starting the project. Hell, I didn't even have character bios; those were in my head. When I went to write chapters 11 and so on, I kept getting stuck on where to take the story, then realizing there were writing mistakes in the previous chapters. Which meant the chapters that I had ready to go had to be rewritten and rushed out to meet deadlines. My comic was half planned half improvised. It was a mess.

I'm definitely not the type of person who can work without a set plan. Next time I do a comic I'll be sure to finish the story and background details 1st.

[JoblessInUSA]

@ButterflyEmpress Woah that's a lot of pages!

I had to google how to write a character. They were each a single trope since I am writing a parody. Now they're a medley of tropes and cliche! Like some sort of Frankentrope monster.

After my extensive research, they all have fake goals, real goals, sad back stories, a sad present, and sad futures.

[ButterflyEmpress]

It took me a long time to make since I had work and school. I started in 2015 and didn't post until 2019.

Character research is super helpful! Sometimes it helps just to watch and read shows and books too for inspiration

[TheLemmaLlama]

I was the same with my very first comic attempt, except I didn't even have a buffer! I just gave up on it when I realised I have no idea where the story is going instead of pushing through like you I personally found that to be a good thing; it means I can use my motivation levels as a filter for half-baked ideas XD

Not polishing it to perfection allows you to see how much you've improves over time

I love seeing not just the progression of the story, but also the growth in artist's skills.

This applies to both comics and novels!

Actually I think with comics, polishing it as you go makes it easier to see progress in your skills because you also get better at polishing over time! Whereas doing a rough pass first and then polishing it all at once later makes it look more homogenised. I personally like to keep my series consistent, and if people want to see growth in your art skills, they can have a peek at that old comic you got under your belt winks at certain other commenters in this thread :]

[nayrnixon]

Ive learned a lot since posting two series on Tapas, but my biggest and earliest mistake was waiting until I thought I was ready. I spent 13 years on a project, and I definitely was "ready" earlier than I thought I was.

[NickRowler]

I have been doing webcomics for almost 10 years. My first stuff was not on Tapas tho.

I feel like my beginner mistake and something I see a lot of newbies struggle with is not being 100% dedicated to what they are creating. Like they get invested in a brainstormed idea but they don't really take the time to flesh everything out before posting the first page. So my very first comics (which I doubt you will find anywhere) were mostly false starts. I would post about 4 pages and then just stop.

[Legendofgenii]

When I yeeted over from Smackjeeves, I got excited and posted 30+ pages in one episode.

I realised my mistake and separated them into single episodes. Seemed silly to just get 1 like/1 view for that much hard work. It also allowed me to update each week for a while (so a buffer).