#when my brain works against me

[sensitivegoblin]

Vent

[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!

[saturnaous]

fucked up. I want to play pool but instead I’m drawing them playing pool. what the fuck.

[fictionadventurer]

This AV Club comment is making me so desperate to write a romcom, you have no idea.

[stark-lord]

My frame (that I clean forgot to post) for the @gomensframes project. Sometimes group projects have 500 people, entertain you, and offer a low pressure avenue to kick your ass out of a multiple year art rut. [commentator voice] join one Today!

close ups under the cut

My first time drawing msheen and my god his face is so incredibly satisfying. This baby’s got some solid planes

[paw-padss]

the sun has long since set, and the sky is now only illuminated by the gentle glow of the moon and the twinkle of her surrounding stars. The wind blows steadily in the quiet streets as everyone seeks refuge for the night.

everyone except you.

sitting anxiously by the door, careful not to do so much as a wink, for you might fall asleep and miss it.

miss him.

you don't want to miss him as he walks through the door, with his red hair tied back in a messy ponytail and a tired smile plastered on his face. his musk invading your senses as he practically falls into your embrace, quietly mumbling about his day as he gently kisses along your neck and collarbone.

you don't want to miss the opportunity to lead him to the kitchen table, hanging up his coat along the way, and seating him next to you as you both share a quiet, late dinner.

falling asleep now would mean you wouldn't get to follow him into the bathroom, using the toilet as your seat while he's in the shower, sharing remarks about your day. Eventually, brush your teeth side-by-side in front of the cramped sink.

and then you would follow him to the bedroom, curling up next to him as you both let the stress of the day melt into the sheets, exchanging I love you's before allowing your eyes to close and falling asleep wrapped up in each other's embrace.

that, is why you cannot risk closing your eyes at this moment, you cannot risk the chance to finally enjoy a calming nighttime routine with Diluc.

you must not.

your eyes dart to the clock and back to the door, the minutes tick by ever so slowly, and your brain starts to feel a bit foggy.

you blink.

or at least you thought you did, but when you open your eyes, you can smell the aroma of breakfast wafting in from the kitchen and sunlight creeping through the window shade.

slowly crawling out of bed, you see the sight that you had been wishing to see all night.

red hair draped around his shoulders, a tan apron pressed around his figure, and a pair of pajamas. Diluc stood in front of the stove, turning around to greet you.

even though you didn't get to say good night, at least you got to say good morning.

[sysig]

Coding woes (Patreon)

[thewhizzyhead]

if I said eisa davis' influence in making lmm actually write something rather radically progressive has subsequently inspired me to return to my roots of actually fucking thinking of making radically progressive musicals after a 3-year long hiatus in doing so, then what-

[rileys-battlecats]

i really gotta get better about listening to my own brain and needs when i'm making things. i've been working on a video and i'm almost finished (yippee!!), but drawing this One Specific Frame was giving me trouble. i could have just brute-forced my way through it and finalized the initial sketch, since it was relatively good enough. but instead i left it and took a day off from working on the project, let myself recharge, and came back to the sketch with fresh eyes today. and what do you know, my redrawn sketch today is WAY better! now, i can finalize that frame and be genuinely proud of it, instead of just powering through on something i was less than happy with.

i hadn't done any other art stuff that day when i couldn't get my sketches to look right, so letting myself stop and have a break from the project felt sort of "unearned" i guess. but it's just. what i needed! and the break did what i needed it to do; i was able to come back later and make something i could be proud of.

anyway i guess this is me saying that, if you're like me and have this weird morality-complex about letting yourself rest, it's ok to take breaks, even if you feel like you haven't "earned" one yet :)

[hawkstincan]

my rewatch got to season 8

[todayisafridaynight]

no ones ever gonna understand how much i love daigo doin this stupid shit after dissolving the tojo

[zoey-angel]

My toxic trait as a stay is that immediately upon learning minsung moved in together I assumed it was by choice (not a randomized partner arrangement) and then concluded everyone picked their own roommate.

[avonsnumberonefan]

finished the show!! 10/10, better than I expected, yum! definitely wanna draw something about that, but it seems polite to tag spoilers - so blacklist b7spoiler if you're in the shoes of me an hour ago xD

[themarsbar]

.

[supergameboytwo]

How do you get over the bad feelings of winning against someone else because you did better if you want to play fighting games it always makes me feel so bad when I do end up winning

[lavenoon]

shakes this menace. why do you take so long to get drawn