What's that one thing you do in your comic that is not time efficient in the slightest (but you do it anyways)?

[MartaTod]

I pencil my comic pages twice. It would take me less time if I just did inks over the sketch and tightened up the lines with that, but sometimes I mess up anatomy or the drawing and only notice it if I do tighter pencils over the rougher ones.

[NickRowler]

5 to 6 panels per page. I noticed most people usually have 3 or 4.

[allenT]

Making thumbnail booklets for a whole chapter.

I don't create more in advance, just the same amount for the chapter. I don't think that 'll take more time than the drafting and inking (it only takes an hour or 2 to make 3 + 1 booklets.) Whenever I cut the papers it feels like I'm starting something new again, It becomes a thing I'm looking forward to do.

[smokesalty]

Same here! I do my thumbnails, pose sketch and then the actual sketch before moving onto lineart I mean I guess it's better to catch any anatomy issues early- I do so many sketches because if I don't sketch the pose I'll put way too much detail into the face

[smokesalty]

I mean I'd say that's pretty normal- it depends on your comic's pacing I suppose.

[smokesalty]

They look so cool! You have a collection of sketches for your comic as it's own thing

[smokesalty]

I commend you, that's really cool! I've never really tried writing a story on the go (I am not a pantser in the slightest) but yeah! It's quite interesting to discover your own story as you go

[smokesalty]

Your art is so detailed, it's really pretty! I wish you the best for your wrist

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I still have a general outline for the story, and I will do thumbnails sometimes, but most of the time the thumbnails end up being discarded in some form or another.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Coloring the lineart for the interior lines on my characters. And the amount of lines I add to the hair and background at times. I would draw so many lines in the hair, I would have to go back and erase most of them. But it's better than leaving the hair looking like a formless helmet on the characters' heads.

[TroyVSTheWorld]

I like to go back after inking the lines and doing outlines, its an excellent practice in maintaining negative space, since it actually really emphasizes said negatives. The process takes about as much time as inking does, but its a cornerstone to my Charles M. Schulz influence. You know how he had arthritis later in his life? I want to develop a style that doesn't require straight lines--Something I can attune to way later in my life.

[UrMom]

I just color my comic, it takes for-freaken-ever because I use color pencils. I can easily go to digital, which would save a ton of time, but I don't wanna. Other than that I take a month hiatus after every chapter so I can get my shit together, hopefully get a small buffer going, stuff like that.

[AlydaB]

My entire art style is the opposite of time efficiency ;-;

My line art takes a bajillion years each update (about 70% of the time I spend on the episode overall) and the way I chose to draw hair and fabric is especially time-consuming because I feel compelled to draw (and then have to shade) each individual fold and clump of hair. Take this panel:

I'm also a sucker for multiple light sources and several layers of shading. I think it adds a lot of depth and looks great, but this part of the process also takes a bajillion years.

I also used to kill myself trying to get the anatomy perfect in every panel by having an entire new layer of body construction lines over my thumbnail and before final line art, but I ditched that after episode 3, and fortunately, I don't think it hurt the quality of my art.

Last inefficient thing I can think of is having to modify my color palette in every new episode because the setting (and therefore lighting) changes, making some episodes' palette more warm or cool, lighter or darker, than others.

For all this, I think it shows that I'm still a new comic creator in the process of learning.

I can't bring myself to sacrifice some of these things just yet, but I'm hopeful that I'll become faster with time. One comforting example of that growth taking place is that I'm now able to jump straight from thumbnails to line art and still have good anatomy, and as I memorize my characters' appearances I don't have to check my references so much.

Still... panels like these make me want to rip my hair out sometimes. :'D

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I'm a traditional media artist (markers), and my most time-inefficient step is definitely re-inking. What do I mean by that?

I mean that my order of operations is as follows:

Rough pencils (to place major elements in the panel and roughly figure out proportions, gesture, and the like)
Final pencils (to actually draw all the details)
Inking (going over my pencil lines with ink)
Erasing (to remove the pencil lines)
Coloring (Duh, to add color)
RE-inking (to darken my ink lines that got faded during the erasing/coloring process, and to clean up any messy edges)

I COULD consider my work done after the coloring stage, but re-inking makes it look so much cleaner and more finished. It's the time when I fix small errors, or tweak line weights, or sometimes add other little textural details. And it takes about as long as inking the first time around did, so it's definitely time inefficient. But I do it because unfortunately, it does make a difference. (See below, the 'before' on the left, and the 'after' on the right.)

[Lensing]

I do all kind of things which are not time efficient.
I hand draw panel borders instead of using clip studio panels or tools in photoshop.
It takes time because I don´t use a ruler and I draw them all individually, I started that
at some point and it looks good to me

[darthmongoose]

I never just paste in a 3D model or use Clip Studio's automated inking on models. I always trace any 3D assets by hand in an inking style to match the rest of the comic, often adding in extra details or wear and tear, and then I paint in the colour on them from scratch.

ie.

It is so much more time consuming than just dropping in the assets, but it gives the comic a more cohesive look, and also allows me to use photos, freehand drawing and 3D models interchangeably without it being too obvious which was used on any given page.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Reflective surfaces!

[UrMom]

Lmao! Oh wow, my process is the exact same, except my first ink is in blue to hide possible inking errors after coloring and reinking.

[powerplantanimations]

Worldbuilding. I like making little tiny facts that the reader will appreciate and maybe motivate them to make a wiki, but still mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I mentioned dodgeballs being decapitated heads, but also how red only exists in blood.

Read That Stick Figure Isekai | Tapas Web Comics

Description: Naota Nakaoka was just your typical harem hearthrob until his life was cut short. Now he's been reincarnated .... as a stick figure. How will he be able to rebuild his harem in a world where where anime tropes (and faces) don't exist??? Find out in That Stick Figure Isekai!!! Episodes every Friday!

[system]

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.