What would you say is the hardest part about making a comic?

Lensing 2024-07-12 17:36:27 UTC #6

When I´m in the flow everything is easy for me and there is no hard part.
Flatcoloring can be "hard" because I sometimes do that for money for books,
it takes forever and is boring but it´s not difficult to do or anything.

The difficulty is to get into the flow and stop the overthinking that I developed
as an adult

ArtGremlin 2024-07-12 17:43:44 UTC #7

Probably just working on it and not finding something else to do instead

Ayumi 2024-07-12 17:57:16 UTC #8

Making my comics without a feedback, comments, likes, anything. Don't get me wrong, I like doing it for fun too, but sometimes it's disappointing to do it for the void

sophialyn 2024-07-12 18:17:25 UTC #9

Publishing🫣
FOR TWO REASONS
1) I’m nervous to see what people will think about the passion project I have fully put my heart into. I kept my book a secret for 4 years because I was worried about what people would think. I honestly still struggle with promoting because I fear being annoying…
2) how the frick does publishing work

Lensing 2024-07-12 18:34:52 UTC #10

It´s the complete opposite for me, I write most of my stories based on dialogue

UrMom 2024-07-12 23:44:29 UTC #11

Promoting! Damn, I hate doing it. Trying to find the right mix of words to interest people, while also deterring children and people who wouldn't fall in your story's niche. Keeping up with all the social media events where you can promote during participation. Trying to draw other things while keeping up with the comic to bring more people to your profile/comic, socializing, constantly being on social media so you don't miss any promo opportunities. Attempting a mix of professionalism and sharing personal info because people like to know the person behind the work... but not too much. Worst thing ever!

ArtGremlin 2024-07-13 00:05:52 UTC #12

literally me. I literally can’t wake people up even if I really need them to wake up because I’m scared of annoying them. Even though I know they wouldn’t be annoyed. Maybe this is why I’ve never been involved in social drama.

sophialyn 2024-07-13 05:15:40 UTC #13

THIS IS SO REAL
I’m sorry, but yes. I relate so much

KSlinger 2024-07-14 15:59:29 UTC #14

For me it's probably the er...screaming into the void feeling? I don't find working on the comic difficult because I'm interested in it but every now and then I look up like what am I doing? Nobody cares about this.

And obviously that's not true bc I do have readers and loyal commenters but I just feel like it's pointless sometimes and question my choices ¯_(ツ)_/¯ oh well

simplykit 2024-07-14 22:43:46 UTC #15

sure getting people to like your stuff is difficult, even big comic, movie, TV companies have this problem. I did have this anxious feeling before but taking a step back and just looking how far i've come at making a comic, i can appreciate how my journey was people liking it or not just comes second now, i really wanna grow more as an artist.

also BACKGROUNDS!!!! BACKGROUNDS! BACKGROUNDS! they beee soooo time consuming coz i make everything myself graaawwwrrr!!! 🤮

incoMan 2024-07-14 22:49:23 UTC #16

the line art... ,the line art has been the most challenging part of ,it took me years to understand how to work with long clean lines...

JokesterComics 2024-07-15 01:15:05 UTC #17

Yeah that sounds like something I'd do tbh

Wolsal 2024-07-18 05:58:13 UTC #18

Honestly, for me the art aspect is the easiest (as, simply put, it’s the part I’ve spent the most of my life dedicated to). However, something I sometimes can struggle with is scripting/dialogue. I find myself re-writing scenes over and over again, for every page of my comic, there’s at least one variation of each page before I landed on the current one. It’s something I’m working on including!

miyaskya 2024-07-18 09:02:12 UTC #19

Coloring. My webcomics are mostly in B&W since making them full color is very time consuming. I have a work-in-progress comic that I am trying to make in full color, and it is taking a long time to finish the first episode.

Second hardest is doing clean line art. My line art tends to look like rough sketches and I have to do a lot of erasing.

The promoting part is okay since I like making videos of the drawing process and posting them to social media, but I am not sure how many new readers are gained from these efforts.

Mirroring the comic to multiple sites is also a bit of a hassle, especially since the comic has very few readers on the other sites.

thepenmonster 2024-07-18 14:06:43 UTC #20

The funny thing (funny sad, not funny ha ha) about posting online is that you're not just competing for limited eyeball time with millions of others just like you, but you're competing with far more established and well-known artists who arrived online with an established fanbase. You're also competing with far more gratifying mediums like video and video games made by whole teams of people with a heap of cash.

Screaming into the void is a fundamental part of being a creative in the 21st century IMO. Like raccoons always trying to run across a highway filled with 18 wheelers it seems like a stupid thing on the surface. But it's a drive that can't be denied for long.

KevinReijnders 2024-07-18 14:51:51 UTC #21

I see a lot of people answer "promotion" as the hardest part of making their comic. But honestly, I don't see that as part of the comic making process, it's a whole different beast entirely. That's the marketing department.

KevinReijnders 2024-07-18 15:01:13 UTC #22

@JokesterComics if you're having trouble with keeping the dame color palette, I suggest reducing the amount of different colors you use combined with only minor variations.

What I did, for example, was make a very limited set of 6 base colors (blue, red, green, purple, orange and yellow) with each of those 6 having 1 extra bright/highly saturared version and 3 desaturated versions, of varying brightness. This formed the basis of all my costume designs.

On top of that I also have a fixed set of skintones I reuse.

Same goes for my backgrounds, I always limit myself to a set of maybe 5-ish colors, within the same saturation and brightness range as the base colors.

Again, same goes for shadow and light. Pick 1 color for the shadow and 1 for the light (extra points if they're complentary. My go to is desaturated light purple for shadows and a dark, golden yellow for light.) You can add some slight brightness variations to each of the 2 colors for extra depth.

Tl;dr: use less colors and reuse the same ones more.

KSlinger 2024-07-18 16:37:01 UTC #23

Yeah that's basically it! I've never been in it for the views/likes/acknowledgment, but all that really means is that as soon as you lose motivation it all comes falling down. And yeah-- how can we possibly compete? I have a job, and it's not this!

dayworks 2024-07-18 17:09:58 UTC #24

Besides the whole pain-in-the-assness of finding and spending time on a labor intensive process that will only pay off years after the effort (if ever) my biggest challenge is one of my own making.

The graphic novel is adapted from a book I wrote quite awhile ago (available on Amazon if anyone is interested) It was early in the Pandemic and I needed something to do to keep me away from the mid-day despair drinking. The adaption seemed like just the project but (because I'm old) I had my eye on old - school publishing and formatted accordingly.

I was well along before I decided to post the thing on Tapas and due to formatting issues inherent in both formats it's not a simple a copy/paste operation. Depending on the page the conversion can get pretty involved and sometimes need me diving into the original photoshop file and teasing certain elements out of it. It works, mostly. But I'm not crazy about how much time it takes sometimes. Also for consistency's sake I think I'm married to this process for the duration of the project. a sample of the two formats.

strawberries 2024-12-29 13:05:48 UTC #25

This is gonna sound super silly, but plot and dialogue. Idk how!! I'm in love with stories, and when I work with others I can write them okay- in general, I can write plots /okay/-
But once it gets to breaking it into illustration or putting the plot into something writeable(believable) in terms of people's interactions, it cracks apart.

Which is super frustrating! It'd be easier if I could understand irl dialogue, but I learned it as a kid from books (which is not how it is irl), and practicing in the physical world is extremely complicated. (Probably not if you can listen to what people say, open your mouth, say words you intend to, and have a well paced back and forth naturally!)

But I love stories enough not to give up on them. After all, stopping writing when you aren't writing directly with a friend isn't very productive and doesn't help the story get more eyes on it/be more viewable ;w;

And tbh the excitement from seeing a finished step in making a story, even if it's just one step or once in a blue moon when the toadstools are in a circle and all the cows milk went bad at once, is enough to make up for any amount of difficulty!
Gotta just work harder and learn more and interact with more people/do more things, and observe, observe, observe! (And do!)

Everything else is pretty exciting. Making plot points, locations, coming up with ideas, forming them into a narrative/trying to. Making people!! Or creatures!! Exercising empathy to see from perspectives don't agree with. Creating connections between characters and plot as a whole.

So it's worth it, even if the connections- the thing the entire story hinges on in many narratives- are difficult to imagine in a despicable way! Probably shouldn't be a writer, bUT...

Current goal is to write even a basic detective story!

Also read everyone's answers and they're so so much food for thought! You're all so cool.

Consistency and presence is rlly all you can do for social stuff, as well as being dependable/reliable or at least communicating.
Do stuff you're genuinely engaged with or think might be fun to try on w/e social media, whether it's drawn characters this way or share sketches of environments. Keep it natural, though I don't know if that helps as advice!
People seem to react well to stuff that's succinct(socially). And, people react to strong emotions! Even in text, and not in the cause and affect straight line that our brains might tell us/from our pov!
Ppl's reactions will say enough tho, and it depends what drew people to you as an artist!