How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist
Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.
Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!
This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)
So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.
I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.
I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.
Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.
Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!
This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.
But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)
I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.
My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!
Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!
panels that look like this in scroll format...
can look like this in print!
because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.
Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!
Enjoy!
Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!
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final part - huafenglian turns xi4nle and everyone is gay in a kinda lame way / parts 1 & 2
ID courtesy by @imber-florum
[Image description: A grayscale comic featuring Feng Xin, Hua Cheng, Xie Lian, and Mu Qing. As a note, all caps text in the comic has been adjusted to regular capitalization in this description to aid readability for screen readers.
Feng Xin is fiddling with a torn dummy from fighting practice. San Lang scoffs and says, "You're pretty miserable, huh?"
"Yeah, this dummy tore apart too soon..." Feng Xin says, focused and not looking at him.
"...Not what I meant." At Feng Xin's confused glance, San Lang says, "You have no choice but to share with someone you hate."
"I don't hate you though."
"Oh, and you expect me to believe that?"
Feng Xin turns back to the dummy. "I thought you were going to hurt Dianxia so I wanted you away from him, but he's safe and happy with you, so it's fine now."
San Lang's eye twitches. "...You really are simple-minded."
"Fuck you!" Feng Xin shouts. "Tch, and you think too much. Just like Mu Qing." Hua Cheng abruptly shifts to his Crimson Rain Sought Flower form, his hair raised and shadows looming ominously around him. He barely restrains himself from punching an oblivious Feng Xin by thinking of Xie Lian's happiness at him and Feng Xin getting along better.
"Speaking of that one," Hua Cheng says, "What is he up to?" The comic shows Xie Lian approaching Mu Qing, who blushes.
"Uh, I think Dianx— ...A-Lian wanted to plant cherry trees," says Feng Xin. His words are paired with an image of Mu Qing looking downward, still blushing and perhaps saying something. Feng Xin continues, "And he offered to help, because 'he didn't trust him to do it right' and all that." These words are paired with an image of Mu Qing's eye glancing to the side.
The next frame shows Mu Qing in simpler clothes diligently sowing, planting, and watering seeds. One of Hua Cheng's butterflies flits around him, spying on him.
One day, Hua Cheng comes to spy on Mu Qing in person from behind a bush. 'Does he really have to come every single day?!?' he thinks.
It is on this day that the cherry tree seedling sprouts. Mu Qing smiles happily. At the sight, Hua Cheng leaps from the bush, shouting, "What the—?! Who is that?!?!"
"It hasn't changed!!!!" shout Xie Lian and Feng Xin, who leap up at the same time from the bush next to him. The three of them turn to each other, flustered, and Mu Qing jumps and hisses at them, a furious blush on his cheeks. Hua Cheng and Xie Lian look back to him with bemused frowns while Feng Xin sweats in fear of Mu Qing's rage. End image description.]
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