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Jul 2018

I've been working on my comic "A Villain's Tale" for little over a month now.
I started it because I couldn't forget this idea for a scene. So I drew it and posted it not thinking much about it.
When it suddenly got attention I decided to continue with the story. This is what I learned.

PLAN.

I didn't plan much, and it would have been easier if I had.

  • Story and Character

Know your story and characters. To do a comic you, of course, need a story and a cast.
(Unless you want to do a Comic like 'Mondo Mango', 'Sarah's Scribbles', then some of the following things do not apply)

Personally, I don't think having endless descriptions and charts is necessary.
Drawing and writing down some visual guides is helpful, but trying to get into the mindset of your characters is (for me) way more useful.
Maybe have Pinterest Boards for your main characters, pinning clothes/jokes/aesthetics/fandoms/art which they would like.

Here's an example, this is just a mockup. Go a bit deeper.

For the story, maybe draw a line. Then write down the start of the story, the key scenes and the end. You can script it or just go with the flow. But PLAN the important things beforehand, foreshadowing doesn't just randomly occur.

  • Genre
    Now that you have your story you probably have an idea what genre it is. Because you want your potential readers to find your story.
    Here on Tapas, the Genres are:

Action, BL, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Gaming, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Slice of Life.

You can choose 2 for your comic. Let's do it for this example story.
Since the Mafia is involved I would include Action for sure. And since It's pretty ridiculous I would go for Comedy Second.

If you're not sure just look at other comics which are similar to your idea and see in which Genre they are sorted.

  • Format

You know what your story is about so let's think about drawing it without drawing it.
If you want to do purely Comedy and Slice of Life, frequent short updates are usually the way to go. Like the 4 Panel ones, these Comics live from your Humor and Personality so go wild.

For everyone else, it's a bit more complicated.

Some people do a 'classic' Comic/Manga layout and upload single pages. It can work, but especially if you have big gaps between uploads readers can forget what happened, or lose Interest.
Some people draw pages and then upload a bunch each time, this is a great way to combat the things above.

Then there are the "Flow Comics", these use the scrolling format of reading to their advantage. I'm one of these people. I found out it works the best if I have huge files, like 800px 6000px, while I'm drawing I make them bigger or smaller.
You don't have to fit the whole episode into one file, I have 2-5 files for each update. While drawing zoom in and read it to see if it's the pace you want.
This is also a huge factor with the scroll format. You can force your reader to scroll a lot to create suspense or have the panels right after each other to create speed.

BUT, keep in mind. The longer you make your episodes the more work you have.

  • Drawing
    You know your Story, Characters, and even your Format! What else could you need.

That's right you should know how you want to draw your comic. The more detailed you go the longer you'll be sitting there drawing. Will you go for a Stickfigure Comic, Chibi, Manga, Cartoon, or semi-realism? I highly advise you not to go for realism unless you really want to and have nothing to do.

I drew some quick Visual guide with the time I needed to draw. (You may be slower or faster depending on your skill level/how complicated the character/ pose is...)

This is just an example, these aren't the only styles you can use!

Whether or not you want to colour your comic is also a huge factor, I advise you to not go for fully shaded detailed colouring if your style is detailed unless you can manage the time this needs and the appropriate stretched out upload schedule.

Or you're just insane like me, and go for that anyways.

(You can use an Image Split tool for chopping your files into pieces you can upload.)

  • Schedule

This isn't something I can help you with that much, but I can tell you that you shouldn't go for a tight schedule.
If you want to upload short episodes go for once a week or once every 2 weeks.
If you want to go for the 4-panel ones, see how many you feel like doing and upload them.
If you want to go for long episodes 2 weeks are possible (what I'm doing right now) but it's really exhausting I do full colour so I can't just not draw for 3 days straight because I don't feel like it.

So if it's a casual hobby don't overwork yourself, it can potentially burn you out or make you sick of your story. Especially if you haven't got a bigger audience yet.

Random Tips

Tell your audience if you can't make it or need more time, they'll understand.

Take photos to reference backgrounds or draw over them, you can also use free Stock photos but make sure they're copyright free for commercial use too!

You can use Sims to get an idea of how your character would dress. Or how they live.

Don't get too serious, this was a lot, but the most important thing is having fun. If you don't have fun at all doing your comic, it's not worth consuming so much of your time.

That's mostly what I wanted to say. It's not something you have to follow just think about these things beforehand. It'll save you a lot of time.

Feel free to add something, and I hope this helped someone :blush:

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    Jul '18
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    Nov '21
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Such a detailed guide thanks a lot! Specially because I'm changing my traditional comic page to vertical. Can I ask more about page size? Like the resolution of the page while working and if you export the file with less resolution to make the file lighter. Also, I'm planning of changing my font, can you recommend a website? I can definitely pay if the fonts are for sale.

Okay so I work with my canvas on 800Ă—6000 px and a resolution of 350dpi.
I do that because I upload on both tapas and webtoon.
If you only want to upload here you can make that 940Ă—6000px.

But if you want to publish this comic in the future look into standard comic print formats. And in which size people draw comics for print. (I don't know much about that sorry)

Once I'm done with my pages/files whatever you want to call it I export them as .png. I never change the resolution, the files will get lighter once you chop them up.

Now you have this big file, but you can't upload that. A lot of programms have a Slice Tool. Photoshop, Krita... It's the easiest if you just use that.
I just use Krita to split my images, so if you want to use Photoshop I'm sure there's a tutorial on youtube or something.
On Krita you open your finished file, then go to Image (not sure right now but you'll find it, one of the things in the upper line). Options will drop down and around the bottom is "Image Split". You click that and a window pops up. You only want to chop it up horizontal not vertical so change the 1 of vertical to a 0. Now let's say zour file is 6000px long. And you want it to be 6 1000px long images. Then you just tipe a 6 in the field next to horizontal. There's a P in the field on the bottom that's the name the new images will get. Like P_1 P_2.. Change it and click on ok or whatever is there. You have to choose the folder you want it to be in and whoos you habe your smaller images.

I just upload the chopped up png images. Make sure to not chop them up too small, since on Tapas you can only upload 40 images per episode. Technically you could also export your files as .jpg, this will automatically bring down the resolution and make the files lighter, but why ruin the images you draw with streaks and pixels. Unless you also want to upload on webtoon then you have to upload .jpg.

I hope this made sense, just ask again if I missed the point.

As for fonts I use this site ( https://www.1001freefonts.com5 ) There's a lot of beautiful fonts, look for the ones free for commercial use. I think some get free for commercial use if you donated but I'm not 100% sure. If you can't find anything. Just type in fonts and google will do it's magic. You'll definitely find something.

Good luck with your comic! :grin:

Making comics always been 100% useless for me, so I gave up, guess that's the whole story in one short line. :stuck_out_tongue:

What do you mean useless? Like visual storytelling ia useless. Or it's useless because you lack the motivation.
If you'rr saying you can't come up with a story you don't need one.
Hell, you don't even have to post it anywhere or make it long.

I like doing "situation" Comics. It's almost therapeutic for me. Like a conversation I thought was weird. Or a pun I can't forget. Or an idea that ghostes around in my head :smile:

Theoretically you could also make a comic about not being able to make a comic ^^

Anyways if it's not for you that's fine, whatever floats your boat :wink:

i really hate vertical scroling pages....i may like the story, but...the storytelling looks awful...i don't know....maybe i'm just oldschool

I guess I have some few tips:

  • Don't try to make an epic story of grand proportions. Less is more and its less stress on you to work on it as well as the audience who has to slog through it. Trim the fat on your stories and try to figure out how to make it nice and concise and not a 100,000 page bloated graphic novel you might never touch again after finishing.

  • Is this something you really want to continue with? A lot of time is going to be taken out of your life to work on it. Try to think about the future if you're gonna abandon this from stress or boredom or fatigue or other stuff. Try to think how to schedule it so you can get free time and even vacations so you're not gonna hit a wall and never touch the comic again.

  • work on multiple pages at once than one at a time. It will in fact lighten your workload than make it heavier.

Woh, thank you so much for the very detailed response!! It has helped me a lot!! I didn't know tapas allowed png! How convenient! I thought I had to drop the resolution to fit the monitor 72. I think I would use Photoshop to slpit the pages, ages ago I learnt to use the slices I just need to use it again and watch a few tutorials. Thanks again! :smile:

4 months later
2 years later

closed Nov 19, '21