#and i'm totally fine about it

[the-eyes-of-andyserkis]

[deoidesign]

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!

[skulandcrossbones]

[tellerficraz]

THEM:

ME:

[yyenky]

ALAIN PROST | 2014

Alain Prost reflects on Ayrton Senna, 20 years after his passing.

[catonthemountain]

~Special Agent Dana Scully~

Hi X files fandom ?

I've been lurking around for a while since I started watching (I just got to season 8) and it's so cool to see such an old fandom be so active and so nice to newcomers

I don't feel like I fully did Scully justice, but I'll keep trying

[vfdcatlady]

Percy was conscious (but suffocating to death) while Annabeth was trying to save him

So, from the first watch, I thought Percy's reaction to being released from the chair was odd. If he had been frozen in time in there, wouldn't he wake up asking, "is the quest over? Did we succeed? Where's my mom?" I mean, he had time to before Hephaestus started talking.

But look how devastatingly calm he is as he's engulfed. He is controlling his breathing and forcing himself to say and appear that he's ok

NOW, take a look at how he acts when he's freed

he's taking quick gulps of air. Note: that's not what hyperventilating looks like. And when he goes to stand, he's in pain and grasps Annabeth for support

You know what these symptoms look like? Someone who held their breath too long and can finally breathe again.

Percy was in that chair for almost exactly four minutes, which is generally the threshold for how long the human body can go without oxygen before suffering permanent damage. Note: there will still be damage (like initially feeling weak or sore after regaining air.)

Percy, being the son of Poseidon and a demigod could probably survive longer than the normal human without oxygen. But eventually (probably within the hour) he would have died. And also, he would be awake for a chunk of that time, unable to breathe, unable to move, with the certainty that he was going to die.

So anyway, he lived four minutes of that hell and was genuinely in shock that he was alive

[raptorrobot]

i feel like i'm fighting for my fucking life here

[rainybookshop]

my absolute favourite genre of Hangster fic might be "are they really enemies with benefits or is Bradley just stupid"

[fadelsburger]

[kunikiiida-kuuun]

You know what really ruined me in Chapter 117?

It was how Kunikida was actually terrified when Amenogozen appeared in front of them. He couldn't stop trembling, and sweating, standing in front of a being that was nothing like they've ever faced before.

And despite his fear, even in those moments, even after being stabbed, he chose to fight. With bleeding and trembling hands, using all his strength, he grabbed the blade, stalling time at the cost of his own life so he could give Tanizaki a window of opportunity to escape.

Even before he was stabbed, he realized that there was no way they could defeat Amenogozen as he transcended both space and time. He was already prepared to sacrifice himself to let Tanizaki escape, and put on a brave face even though he was scared...

He can only feel relief in the knowledge that Atsushi showed deference to his intentions, choosing to save Tanizaki instead and in the process helping to realise his ideals...and as he fades, he makes the most peaceful expression...

[jpsolace]

I finally finished another drawing! And it's angst! So have some angst order 66 Cody art. And remember, if you live in denial, the clones never, ever, got hurt 🥲

[honeylionbaby]

Honda Racing THANKS DAY 2023

[intermundia]

so unlike yoda and obi-wan who both faded into the force and left no body behind, anakin left behind vader when he passed away, like luke struggled to move a very real, heavy, damaged body, and vader's corpse was a husk of a material form that carried all the scars of his life and his crimes. i honestly think that if luke hadn't forgiven anakin, and set him free by burning vader's body in a proper jedi funeral (whether he knew it or not), anakin might not have been released into the force to materialize as a ghost. i think he only got to be one because of the care of both luke and obi-wan, aka the son he never knew and the closest thing he had to a father, forming an inter-generational web of support and connection. the two of them both loved anakin so much that they helped him cross that final boundary into the force, whether he deserved it or not, that's not how love works. like fire purifies as it destroys, and luke's forgiveness and devotion with the pyre offered anakin the privilege of being made clean. as vader's armored body was transformed and consumed by the flames, the light of anakin's heart was liberated to shine out again into the force, and that light was the face that obi-wan greeted on the other side of death. so basically anakin couldn't have done it alone, not without the assistance both of the living and the dead, freely given, and sorely needed, and it makes seeing his relaxed, youthful face even more poignant. it's not only his own heart and effort that brought him there, but luke and obi-wan's too.

[sweetmilkbread]

'Walter White Is An Abuser' (Wired, 2013)

[neo-hiki]

Ok, I am NOT against premium users getting more freebies or more perks, not at all!! They are paying so they deserve some adventages here and there, you know? But when you collect your prizes for the advent calendar, half of the popup is a message with a big red border saying, LOOK!! This is what premium users are getting!!! Get premium now!!! wink wink. And it feels so... idk.