How long does it take to finish one strip??

Charlesbrubaker · Post by **Charlesbrubaker** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:18 am

Another thread about your cartooning process.

While some has already said it in "How far in advance" and "Best part of process", how long does it take to finish one strip?

Daily takes about 10 minutes to 1 hour, depending on my mood. That's just for sketching and inking, though. Thinking up gags takes several days (Good thing I'm 3 months ahead)

Sunday is actually two sheets of paper that makes up one strip (well, for post-July 10), so it doubles the time. And then there's the coloring process, which takes about 1 to 3 hours (I use MS Paint to color it, so no wonder). But I am more proud of Sunday strips, though.

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:23 am

Including thinking, planning layout, penciling, and inking, it takes me like 10 hours. Sometimes more.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:26 am

Question has been done before, but..

Actual work, 30-60 minutes. Usually closer to 30. But if you amortize the research and writing work in, then 1-3 hours.

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:40 am

Two hours will get me just about any regular School Spirit cartoon completed from ruling up the panels to uploading it to Keenspace. About an hour to draw and ink the pictures, then about the same to do the rest on the machine.

The coloured specials used to take much longer, but I've refined my colouring style, so it only takes a few hours longer now as they're usually twice as long as normal.

I'd take less time if I wasn't what I'd consider a detailed 'simple' comic...

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:43 am

I just drew tomorrow's in just under two hours. Inking will take another ten or fifteen minutes and the colouring a further hour. Call it three.

But that's only when I'm motivated. Usually I have a few hours of procrastination added to the time.

- Joel Fagin

Subhuman · Post by **Subhuman** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:01 am

Each page takes about an hour, from drawing and script to scanning, lettering and resizing. Most of my comics are 6-8 pages, so you do the math.

I find the computer stuff to be the most time-consuming, ironically. I try to do as much as possible on paper so that I'm not burning holes in my sockets staring at my monitor for two hours trying to get some wayward piece of hair just the right color.

Col · Post by **Col** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:18 am

Too long.

Spriteville, USA · Post by **Spriteville, USA** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:45 am

It depends on what my comic calls for.

If the comic has no new material it takes about 30 minutes to an hour.

However that rarely happens to me. When I need to add lots of blood, a customized sprite action or new person, a new object in the strip, and a new background it can take up to 5 hours.

K-Dawg · Post by **K-Dawg** » Thu May 12, 2005 7:41 am

Meh look in whatever thread it was that asked this before; my answer is there.

Lintjinks · Post by **Lintjinks** » Thu May 12, 2005 7:51 am

You people take entirely too little time to make your comics for my dignity. It takes me at least six hours a page.

Sam_Charette · Post by **Sam_Charette** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:26 am

It takes me so long that of the 30 strips we have in our archive, maybe 5 or 6 were actually done by me (drawing only, I do much of the writing).

I'm so slow that I couldn't hold a web comic on my own yet.

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:40 am

lintjinks wrote:You people take entirely too little time to make your comics for my dignity. It takes me at least six hours a page.

The ammount of time it takes to make a comic depends entirely on what type of comic it is and how the creator decides to present it, so there's no problem if it takes some people as little as 30 minutes.

I spend at the least 5 hours on inking alone. And this is just one page. Most of the time it takes longer.

Alschroeder · Post by **Alschroeder** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:52 am

About two hours a panel, so eight hours, all told. (Scanning, coloring, lettering, etc.)---Al

Mr.Bob · Post by **Mr.Bob** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:53 am

About 2 months, I guess

Komiyan · Post by **Komiyan** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:01 am

Hours and hours. I never sit down and do a strip in a day, it goes in little bits over several days, til it comes to the colouring, which takes about 5 or 6 hours. Blergh.

Ida · Post by **Ida** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:16 am

Far too long.

Hmm... I know color + lettering takes me 3 hours, inking one or two and drawing, uh, shall we say six? So, 10-ish in all.

...yes, I take too long to draw.

[geoduck] · Post by **[geoduck]** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:21 am

It varies wildly, depending on how many panels there are, and how detailed I get with backgrounds.

Nothingspecial · Post by **Nothingspecial** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:36 am

It's tough to measure the time to think of comics because sometimes I'll be dry for a while and sometimes two week's worth of ideas will come in a rush.

Instead, I'll focus on execution:

For a single strip or background image:
1-2 hours to pencil (depending on complexity)
30-45 min. to ink and scan
1 hour to clean up, add text, and color on the computer. This increased recently to 1.5 hours when I started doing shading.

Anywherebuthere · Post by **Anywherebuthere** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:44 am

Bout an hour and a half to two hours from when the first pencil lead hits the page to the time I'm done editing in photoshop.

Catlegend · Post by **Catlegend** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:46 am

1 hour drawing
8 lining and coloring
1 rewording and bubbling.

::sigh:: ::starts the next day's...::