What's something you know now that you wish you knew when you started working on comics

[Llyrel]

Seconding what other have said about shortcuts and how the best way to improve being just doing the damn thing :'D I kept procrastinating the work on my comic for well over 5 years because I felt my art wasn't good enough... only to find out that, one page after another, my skills were improving more than ever.
Also:

• Posting more than one episode a day is not frowned upon when you're just starting out and it's actually probably the best thing to do, especially on sites like Webtoon, where the comics that tend to get recommended the most are ones that have only 5-6 long-ish episodes posted daily. Schedules can be slowed down after that, nobody is going to kill you for it.
• A bad page is not the end of the world: you can always get back to it when you have more time and redraw it if you really hate it that much.
• Recycling is good, recycling can save your life.
• Clip Studio Assets exist and are a never-ending source of hidden treasures.

[Puck]

"I kept procrastinating the work on my comic for well over 5 years because I felt my art wasn't good enough... "
that is 100% me, I don´t know how to get out of this

[Llyrel]

Just do eeet! :'D

No, okay, seriously now: the thing that did the trick for me was finding a technique I was 100% comfortable working with. For years, I kept struggling with digital art because I wanted to achieve that nice, cel-shaded, colorful and super polished look most popular comics seemed to have. Except that every time I tried that style myself, it always ended up being extremely over-elaborate and WAY too... digital. I was always more comfortable with traditional art, but I had no idea how to scan it to make it look decent... until I stumbled upon a video that pretty much explained how to get traditional art to look good in digital (basically: don't scan it, take a photo and then adjust it digitally). So I started to experiment with digitally enhanced traditional art. That eventually gave me the confidence to make another attempt with my comic... this time traditionally. Did the first few pages traditionally, then had to switch to digital due to costs and lack of supplies, but at that point, I'd already figured out what kind of effect I wanted on my drawings (rough textures, softer shadows, watercolor feeling... basically, none of that digital stuff I was trying to imitate before XD) so the transition was a lot easier for me.

In short: experiment with different techniques, find one you enjoy doing and that comes easy to you (even if it may not be what you originally envisioned for your comic) and just... got with it! ^_^

[Kaydreamer]

I wish I'd recognised earlier on that I should be working vertically if I wanted to see faster growth on WEBTOON. I was drawing and posting my comic as pages, because I wanted to print it. (I still do, only now, I'll be reformatting from vertical to page.)

Due to that mistake, I missed the window for promotion in 'Up and Coming' on WEBTOON, despite my comic being similar in visual and narrative quality to those which are typically promoted there. That can easily push a new comic into the 1k subscribers bracket, which opens it up to more CANVAS promotion down the line.

Now, I have to try to reach 1k organically, through my own promotion efforts. I know there was no guarantee it would have been promoted anyway, but had I done things properly from the beginning, it was reasonably likely. It stings a little, but I can't be too harsh on myself. I was a novice, I clearly needed to learn that lesson through experience, and hopefully I'll get the right eyes on my comic in time if I persist.

[Puck]

thank you for the advice

[mon_quu]

Preparing a 'buffer' for your webcomics. Ngl it felt good to just prepare everything in advance and carry on doing pages after because you know how the story will continue without panicking last minute. As well as how quickly you improve with doing at least one page a week, keeping colour references/references in general and knowing how to use them. It helps boost your own confidence as an artist

[Gebo]

what are your ratios now?

[sorible]

I always make sure to work in at least 2x the canvas size in case I need to resize some stuff or whatever. Right now I think I just have 1600 x max with 300-350 dpi

[Gebo]

woah that's so smart. I just used the tapas ratios 940x4000 but then they updated to crop the comic for you. I considered going bigger to better plan the layout but didn't know what to use.

[carloswebcomic]

I started webcomics in 2003, so I had to learn HTML to make my own page.
I think the only thing I wish I had known was the value of writing scripts ahead of time.
I used to make up scripts on the fly as I was putting pen to paper.

It ended up being extremely stressful.

[sorible]

Yeah, it took me a long time to be able to figure out which ratios I'm comfortable with, I couldn't really find any helpful info online, so everything I know is all self taught.

[Kelheor]

I started drawing comics when the stars aligned that we just watched Bakuman series about two Japanese boys who wanted to become famous in manga world and there was a contest on Medibang with the prize to be published in Jump+ (Shounen Jump web-magazine).
I wasn't that good, I barely picked up drawing that year after a decade of not-drawing, I never ever drew comics, but what I had was a lot of motivation. I still don't think my art is good enough, nor do I have a perfect style that I can say "this is exactly how I want my art to look like" and I am drawing for 5 years now. But finding that motivation to actually create something from start to finish and gain something from it (doesn't have to be money, could just be a bunch of self-esteem) is something I frequently rely on

[iHateFridays]

I wish I'd known how to actually make comics lmfao

Or at least spent some more time figuring out what I wanted to do

[lillianl100204]

The stabilizer. Before I knew that was a function, my artwork was wobly and uneven. Having known this now, i have to go back and fix my earlier panels.

Also check out my comic i'm almost to 10 subscribers!
See? uneven and blah lol

I AM MEME!! | Tapas

[Yulek]

I wish I had started smaller.

You learn how to make comics by making comics.

That also means that with your first project, the learning curve is immense.
So you improve a lot with each episode and nothing is stable.

So even after ten episodes you will want to go back and start over.

Doing short projects as first projects really helps to get more consistent

.... Also to figure out what kinda style will actually work for you and your drawing speed :')

I pretty much do that now with a reboot of my first series.
Ill actually think things through and try for a sustainable style.

[sorible]

Yesss I turn up the stabilizer to max on every single lineart pen I use (not even joking). I have a really weak wrist so my hand would shake a lot and make my lines all messy.

[Lady_T_Musings]

Banners and promotional materials should be done before your comics release date. Idk how I fudged that one up, but I did. I had one picture I planned to use for everything promo, but depending on the size requirements it would be cropped mega funky, so I had to go change some stuff up when the comic was being qued for release. I also didn't realize how many banners I would need at different ratios and sizes as all these social media and comic sites have their own preferred format and many are strict on it so if the size is off, it won't even be accepted at all. I assumed most would just stretch and I could fix it later, but nahhhhhh.

[lillianl100204]

Omg yes. That's my main problem but the stabilizer is soooo nice to me XD

[OffBased]

Oooh that messed me up too. I would figure out the dimensions for one place and make the promo stuff in that dimension only even if I planned to post it on multiple platforms

[Rhonder]

Reflecting on my first webcomic compared to my current one, the ones that most stand out are:

• It's okay to go on hiatus to rebuild buffer if you run out. Thankfully my story was only 70 pages long, so when I ran out of buffer around the halfway point I didn't have a terribly long ways to go, but the 2nd half of the comic was more stressful than it needed to be because I just... didn't want to take a break. Even when i started consistently missing deadlines lol. For this project I already have picked out the episode that I'm going to take a hiatus after to rebuild buffer. It just makes way more sense.

• Work within your limits. This is mostly in regards to balancing comics with the rest of your life and responsibilities. I ended up going really hard on my first comic for the first like 4 months. It was basically all I did when I wasn't at work or sleeping. At first it was fun to get so much work done and fly through the story, but it didn't last very long and I hit a period of mild burn-out afterwards. I missed my other hobbies and hadn't been spending as much time with my friends and family as I would have liked to. This is another reason I should have taken a hiatus around this period For my current comic, even though the pace of drawing is slower than I would like, it's because I'm taking better care of my comic/life balance. I'm not moving as fast, but I'm also not burning out, which is important I think!

• Spend more time outside of your comic practicing fundamentals. I was so focused on speed and just getting my first comic done that I didn't really spend as much time improving my art as I should have during its run, especially some basic fundamental things. Proportions, how to draw characters from certain angles, careful color selection, etc. I definitely still improved a lot in many aspects, but I can see now with my current project that just... spending some time every week or two doing studies and tackling weak areas more directly really does help you improve much faster in general. This also cuts into my comic speed, of course, but since this is still a learning project I'm more concerned with getting as much progress out of it as possible rather than just going fast or whatever