How much time do you spend making your comic?

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Sun May 16, 2004 2:10 am

Scripts take no time at all since I currently have twice as many scripts written as I actually have comics done (that's approximately 80 and 40 respectively). The actual creation time of each strip is probably about three to four hours (though it becomes more like five or six with my constant breaks). But then there's the amazing amount of preperation I do before each strip . . . which consists of about three or four days of goofing off before I realize that I have a strip due the next day. Which is why I switched to a much more lax schedule for my comic than I used to have . . . I highly value this preperatory goof off time.

Komiyan · Post by **Komiyan** » Sun May 16, 2004 12:07 pm

mine's written til the end of time, which is one of the perks of basing a comic on a d&d game. it's all nicely structured into chapters, as a result

as for the actual drawing, it can take a couple of hours to fully pencil, ink and shade a full page. i'd say about 3 or so.. it'd take twice that time to do them in photoshop, though, so it's not that bad.

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Mon May 17, 2004 6:15 am

I did two weeks (six strips) of Mass Production over about 2 hours last night. But I was also watching TV.

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Mon May 17, 2004 9:36 am

I don't know actually my actual time per comic, since I usually draw them throughout the week, then scan and upload them all at once during the weekend.

However, yesterday, I drew two comics and then scanned, fixed and uploaded them, and it all took about one hour.
That's because my comic is fairly simple, though. I don't do storyboards or pencil sketches first, unless I have to draw a character in a difficult pose or have two characters interacting (ex// I was wanted to draw two characters shaking hands, but I didn't feel like doing it in pencil first. So I started at their heads and drew from there. About five minutes later, I realized their arms would have to be unnaturally long just to reach each other, so i had to start again). But, other than that, I just draw everything in a thick black marker first time around. I find that way, when it's all scanned, levels are adjusted and it has been shrunk to it's rightful size, it looks simple and clean. (however, since i tend to use permanent markers and I then white out the mistakes, the folder I keep my comics in really stinks)

In an old comic of mine, I used to pencil it, ink it and then scan it. That comic lasted two weeks, because I hated it. Now, I look forward to drawing comics, and often draw 2 or 3 in one sitting. Because of that, I'm almost two months ahead of schedule!

I'm not saying that doing storyboards, roughdrafts and *cough* backgrounds is stupid or anything, I commend anyone who can put that much time and effort into each comic. I just figure, since my comic isn't epic or anything, it's just gag-a-days and short storylines, then I can get away with the "less is more" attitude.

To conclude... I'll say 1/2 hour to 1 hour per comic strip.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon May 17, 2004 9:55 am

Thread Necromancy AND it gets a sticky?

*sigh*

Well, when I first posted I said it took about 40 hours of research per storyline, and about 45 minutes per comic.

It's better described as a ratio... about 3 hours of research per week the storyline runs. So if it's going to be an 8 week storyline, it's about 24 hours of research.

It's still about 45 minutes per comic, but I can do it in 30 or so if I already have the wording decided on. It can take longer when I do illustrations of what I am talking about, since I'm much better at drawing balls of light than say, rapid exothermic reactions.

JexKerome · Post by **JexKerome** » Mon May 17, 2004 5:47 pm

BOMC wrote:(ex// I wanted to draw two characters shaking hands, but I didn't feel like doing it in pencil first. So I started at their heads and drew from there. About five minutes later, I realized their arms would have to be unnaturally long just to reach each other, so i had to start again).

Ah yes, a problem faced by me and countless others who've not yet adapted to the PC media. Instead of redoing it, as you did, or giving them long arms, you should have finished the drawing with both characters well-drawn, then move them together with your image editor, once you had the image scanned. Really simple but often overlooked.

I used to do the same "mistake", until I finally realized that after scanning it I can manipulate the art however I want. Nowadays, if I'm inking and realize that a character's not in the correct scale/place as other characters/objects on the panel, or facing the wrong way, I leave it like that and re-arrange it in the PC. I've taken this farther, actually drawing some panels out of order or taking more space than usual. Once the image is scanned, I put everything in the place I want. It's incredibly liberating.

Phalanx · Post by **Phalanx** » Tue May 18, 2004 1:39 am

rkolter wrote:Thread Necromancy AND it gets a sticky?

That's cause every month we get new people who haven't answered this question.

But me not likey sticky... it kills the interest in the thread somehow.

Grayswandir · Post by **Grayswandir** » Tue May 18, 2004 8:14 am

It takes me 15 - 45 minutes to come up with an idea. Then it ranges from 15 minutes - 2 days to refine the idea and get a good layout, dialogue, and character poses that I like. it takes me from 30 minutes - 1 hour to ink the page, depending on whats in it and how much detail is needed. Finally about 15 minutes to scan and modify the image with Photoshop to get it ready for the web. Although it can take about a day or more of downtime waiting for my parents to either be gone (so I can use the computer when they aren't looking) or trying to get their permission (when they're in a good mood) to get it online. So, I try and get at least a week ahead of schedule to keep things updated as frequently as possible.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Tue May 18, 2004 2:30 pm

Just to update my entry, I no longer draw panels separately. I have a sheet of cardstock marked to the same aspect ratio as a comic page that I do the layout, outlines, shading and inking on. That gets scanned and touched up in GIMP. The last 6 pages I've done don't require much touching up, though. Mostly I'm just arranging the word balloons on the page.

I haven't timed it lately because I'll be working on a page here and there over the course of several days. For example, I roughed out six pages so I had an idea of how much story was happening.

It usually takes about three days to finish a page if I already have the script done but that includes the nearly constant distractions I get from IRC, the forums or whatever. Page 118 is sitting on my lap as I type.

DEVO-Bot · Post by **DEVO-Bot** » Tue May 18, 2004 10:11 pm

Well, this is certainly an old thread...
I'm taking about 90 minutes to draw a normal, 4-panel strip these days, which is a heck of a lot longer than it used to take me. And I really like what it's done to my art. Writing takes anywhere from 5 minutes per strip (yesterday's) to a really long time and several phone conversations with Ben. Sometimes he just e-mails me scripts, and I have no clue how long they took to write, but on the strips I write it takes about 5-10 minutes of actually writing the script down, but a whole day or two of on-and-off brainstorming while, say, biking, or being bored in class.

Vourney · Post by **Vourney** » Wed May 19, 2004 12:30 pm

At first I just threw up comics i did years ago up on the site. Then after finding out that they were almost completely illegible I've started practicing stuff like inking and lettering. Alot more work to do now though but at least they look some bit better

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:07 am

JexKerome wrote:
BOMC wrote:(ex// I wanted to draw two characters shaking hands, but I didn't feel like doing it in pencil first. So I started at their heads and drew from there. About five minutes later, I realized their arms would have to be unnaturally long just to reach each other, so i had to start again).
Ah yes, a problem faced by me and countless others who've not yet adapted to the PC media. Instead of redoing it, as you did, or giving them long arms, you should have finished the drawing with both characters well-drawn, then move them together with your image editor, once you had the image scanned. Really simple but often overlooked.

Yes, I probably should do that... would kill less trees than starting over again. I guess I sorta had a complex over getting the comics to look exactly right on paper, since when I first started drawing them it was just to circulate around the classroom, not for online.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:36 am

Six to eight hours here. Usually 4 hours one day doing pencils and inks and 4 hours the next day colouring and assembling. This week I actually did the whole thing on Monday which is very unusual because I usually don't start until Thursday.

It was much, must faster when I was just doing a tinted greyscale comic instead of full colour, but much more dull to work on.

My pencil work is starting to get faster, but my inking slowed down when I switched from tech-pens to dip pens, but once again the dip pens are much less dull to work with and produce better art.

Comic Genesis Forums

How much time do you spend making your comic?

How many hours a week do you spend on your comic?