Essential Guide to Creating Webcomics

okay webcomics 101 creating your story welcome everyone it is time let's get into it so quick introduction before we get started uh what is this this is webcomics 101 everything you need to know about starting and creating your own comic series online um i used to do this as a panel at anime conventions but right now there's not really any anime conventions um and i i keep getting questions on tick tock and other social media like how do i do stuff how do i do webcomic things and i'm like you know what i'm just gonna go and do my whole comics panel just record it on twitch and then it will be archived forever until the internet explodes anyway so now i'm doing it on twitch yay all right and lastly uh what is a web comic i feel like everyone here knows this but just in case a webcomic is a comic that you can read online shock and dawg okay and um who the heck are you that's me uh hello my name is star i am at the starfish face on pretty much all platforms um i am the writer artist creator person behind a comic called cast off um i have been making comics and posting online since about 2007 uh and i have learned a lot since then uh so now my goal is to pass that knowledge along to the gratuitous amount of people who are currently watching this and anyone who might be watching this on youtube in the future anyway and now it is time for my shameless self plug if you are here and you don't already read my comic might i suggest maybe doing that uh so on the left there is uh my comic that is cast off cast off hyphen comic.com um it is also available on webtoons um and tapas i'm going to drop a link in the chat real fast yay so there's the whole synopsis and stuff um and then on the right is uh spider forest the webcomic collective that i am a member of i will be mentioning them and some of the members uh throughout this panel um so yeah check them out i've been with them almost as long as i've been making casts off and they're great and there's a lot of really good comics involved so you should read mine and then you should go and look through all the spider forest comics because they're good anyway moving on so this panel should take probably about two ish hours and i'll be taking a break in the middle uh just so i can like get up and stretch a little bit um so like i said please save questions until the designated q a time because i will not be checking chat very much during the presentation uh but thank you for being here thank you for allowing me to be your teacher for the day i'm gonna teach you guys about comics let's get into it so part one the decision or why should you make a web comic the question that everyone has well i'll tell you why here's a bunch of different reasons why you should make a web comic practice web comics are a great way to practice writing drawing visual storytelling self-promotion and all the other stuff that comes along with it uh discipline nothing builds discipline like having readers who depend on you to update your comic regularly you might be like laying in bed and thinking i don't want to draw comics today but you know that you have a handful of people who really want to know what happens next in your story that can be the kick in the pants you need to get off your butt and go draw comic pages i know that's what works for me um portfolio um if you are an artist or a writer or any sort of creative having a large volume of work is awesome uh especially if it lets you see a progression of your skills over time i'll give you guys an example i started cast off my current comic in 2005 2015. um that was six years ago and if you look at the pages from the start of the comic they look extremely different than the pages that are currently being posted on the comic um and that is only because i can attribute 99 of my stylistic and artistic growth to posting and drawing two pages a week of comics for like my the entire past six years give or take a few months for like hiatuses and stuff um so the best way to get good at something is to do it and do it a lot so webcomics are fantastic for that um personal satisfaction uh you get to make a thing and then share it with the whole world and make strangers cry over your oc's that's awesome we love that we love making people on the internet cry did i say we i mean me and also it's fun genuinely really it is it is very fun if it wasn't fun wouldn't be doing it moving along uh this is the part where i crush your dreams for a few minutes before building you back up these these are some reasons why you should not make a webcomic i.e if you are looking into starting a webcomic for these reasons um i would urge you to reconsider because i don't think it's going to work out for you so do not make a web comic in order to get famous because that is kind of backwards usually you start a web comic because you want to start a webcomic you've started a webcomic specifically to get famous it's probably not gonna work out for you unfortunately um it'll take a few years at least to build up any sort of fan base uh you will not get famous right away or maybe ever i will stick in a thing here um that says if a comic gets really really popular really really quickly the creator probably already had an audience elsewhere people's like audiences do not grow out of thin air and expecting your comic to be the thing that rockets you to stardom is kind of a fool's errand so don't fall into that trap also to make money because i'm sorry but most comics don't i've been at this for years and i'm very very lucky um that i have an audience who is able to support me enough that i can pay rent with my comic and it has taken me 15 years of marketing myself and drawing and being an artist on the internet in order to like garner an audience that size so there you go um most people make webcomics as a hobby not as a way to pay the bills when starting out your goal should be fun not profit also if you start it with the goal of profit in mind and then you don't make any money you're probably just not gonna do it anymore and then that's that's one more dead comic in the ocean and we don't that's sad that makes me sad okay should i make a web should you make a web comic yes i put it in big font because it's important uh it can be hard and stressful but the satisfaction you'll get from creating something awesome overcomes all the bad parts it's a great way to make friends improve your art and writing and learn lots of cool stuff comics are great webcomics specifically are great anyway so we're moving right along here's a list of excuses that i hear all the time y'all i posted a kind of like a gentle encouraging call out video on tiktok yesterday being like hey why haven't you started your webcomic yet and i got literally every single one of these excuses every single one so now i'm gonna tell y'all why they're silly uh but my art isn't good enough yet uh you will get better while you work on the comic because you get better at comics by making comics spoiler alert um you don't get better at comics about hoarding pinterest tutorials and thinking about it really hard if you want to get better at comics you have to make comics okay improvement over time is normal and expected and you should learn by doing the thing uh is too much effort everything takes effort comics are no exception that's all i got for that but i don't have any motivation this is when i hear so much screw motivation motivation is a fickle muse and if you sit around staring at the ceiling waiting for a magical motivation fairy to descend from the heavens and be like hello i have motivation for you if you wait for that it's never gonna happen like i'm sorry but it's not you need discipline you need to learn how to get yourself up off your butt to go work on comics like that's true of anything you just you can't just wait for the magical motivation angel to descend from the heavens you gotta learn how to be disciplined and learn how to do things for yourself that's true of everything in life but it's especially true for comics but this story isn't perfect yet and honestly it won't be ever perfection is a myth and chasing it is a fool's errand you should strive to make something that you think is fun not something that the world will think is perfect okay okay cool uh but i don't have time which is a fair excuse but you should make a comic anyway i i made cast off on top of doing a full-time job for like the first four years of the comic now now it is part of my full-time job so there you go uh so you should make a comic anyway wink here's motivational shia labeouf telling you to just do it [Laughter] can you guys tell approximately what time um in in the human timeline that i made this powerpoint original originally uh motivational shia labeouf gets to stay in this power point until i stop doing it look into his eyes he wants you to make your webcomic anyway so now that i have thoroughly motivated you uh it is time to get started or i want to make a web comic but i don't know where to start yep uh but first i'm gonna take a drink real fast because talking so long is bad for my throat let's keep going so first you want to think about what your comic to be um i am your magical motivation fairy it's me but i'm the magical motivation fairy kicking you out of bed and telling you to learn self-discipline for your comics okay so first you gotta write your story um so there's a lot of different styles of comics um first you gotta think what you want your webcomic to be like what's the vibe what's the structure here um are you doing a gag a day comic strip um are you doing a page by page long format comic uh which is what cast off is a gaga day comic strip is like garfield or calvin and hobbes um page by page long format comic is like comic comic comic is like graphic novels manga stuff of that nature um an infinite scroll comic aka webtoon style where you just like they're mostly for reading on your phone and you just scroll for days or something else entirely because webcomics are cool because you can get really creative with them so how you present your comic will impact how you write it how often you can upload new pages etc so it's a very good idea to know this early on before you draw your comic i always recommend writing your comic always start with a script or at least an outline this is less important if you are doing just like a gag a day comic strip where there's no like overarching plot but if there is any plot at all i would recommend at least starting with some kind of outline um also i got a lot of comments on like tick tock videos saying i don't know how to script but the cool thing is unless you're collaborating with someone else your scripts only need to make sense to you so you don't have to force yourself to use a format you don't like okay because here's the cool thing if you're doing a webcomic you're working for yourself no editor is probably ever gonna see um is ever gonna see your scripts so as long as they make sense to you then it's fine and it works so don't force yourself to use a format you don't like um i will actually show you guys a snip i think it's the next slide yeah so this is what my outlines look like i do these first just to kind of like get the ideas on the page and so these are from chapter seven chapter eight of my webcomic just the very very basic bare bones of what's gonna happen in each chapter and then from there i go to scripting it these are what my scripts look like and this is the page that goes with it um so you will notice that like some of the stuff changes a little bit um from the script to the actual comic page just depending on how much room i have because things are different when you're scripting it and just looking at text on the page or um my train of thought just completely derailed uh but yeah so i i like break it down i do it by character so depending on who's talking um and i also do like stage directions in parentheses this is how i do my scripts you can do your script any way you want just pick something you're comfortable with um and if you are feeling stuck try an outline instead so this format down here at the bottom is lifted from pixar's rules of storytelling which if you just google that you can find like the full article but this one is one of my favorites it's basically how you can structure a plot for anything so you draw out you figure out where the cast starts or even just like where your main character starts like what is their life like um but then something happens and because of that another thing happens and because of that another thing happens and because of that another thing happens and then eventually you get to your climax and then your conclusion where you wrap it all up at the end um so that is what my outlines in general look like there you go we already looked at these um so writing your webcomic some more tips uh don't start at the beginning if you are stuck on your comics opener and you have like some fun ideas for later scenes write those first and work your way around them that's what i do like i was taking a walk the other day and i got an idea for like a cool scene between two of my characters who haven't been introduced yet and i'm like oh [ __ ] that's awesome i gotta write that down i typed it in my phone um but seriously like just especially like before you even start the comic just kind of like write what you're feeling you know if you feel like scripting this scene that's like near the end do that like you'll eventually have to go and figure out your beginning but honestly it's easier to figure out your beginning if you know where you're going if you figure out the ending then you can figure out your start and so on and so forth um if you are having trouble with plot holes this is something that i do write down the problem and actively take notes as you work your way through it problems are easier to fix if you see them this is something that i definitely do like i open up just like a blank word document and i type in big letters at the top what the problem is and then i like brainstorm just on the page as i kind of like work my way through it and i fixed a lot of stuff about cast off just by doing that uh also don't stare at an empty word document and expect inspiration if you are stuck go outside take a walk and brainstorm uh get the blood flowing and the ideas will follow staring at a blank word document is like the worst way to write i always write by like taking notes on my phone as i like walk around my apartment complex and then i go back and stick those notes in a document and write around them this is calling back to what i just said know how your story ends uh it is always easier to go somewhere if you know where you're going to end up and also foreshadowing is very fun uh write down everything if you have an idea for a scene or even a single line of dialogue write it down before you forget it'll come in handy later and if you don't write it down you will forget it and then you will wake up the next morning and think oh man i had an idea for like a really cool line of dialogue and i don't remember what it was and then you just scream forever i have done that before it sucks write stuff down also programs like evernote and google docs are incredible for scripts because you can access them anywhere they are good if you get struck um with inspiration and you want to write stuff down it's a very good idea highly recommend also read your scripts out loud to check if your dialogue sounds natural this is especially helpful if you are like kind of stuck on what a character should say uh break into that inner theater kid that i know is your heart is in your heart pace around your apartment when you're home by yourself and try and figure out the dialogue like by actually dialoguing you know that's that's what i do anyway all right moving on also this is just for me please please please please please please please i'm on my knees begging do not start with a lore info dump i beg you please do not do this to me if i open up your comic and it is 10 pages of historical trivia talking about and the gods had a war and it created the universe i will close out of that tab and i'm not coming back because i'm bored don't make me start with a pop quiz give me a character to root for there's a concept in writing called a hook which is how you get your readers interested at the start of a story look that up i don't really go into it in this uh powerpoint um but basically don't do this you can do it later if it's important that's fine um but don't make it the very first thing in your comic because it's going to alienate like a majority of your readers including me okay um some more tips i have a lot of tips about writing sorry um don't start with your big idea um first comics usually end up abandoned for one reason or the other i am guilty of this multiple times over so if it is your first time making a comic at all if you've never made comics before and you want to jump right in feet first i would highly recommend starting with something small that you can finish easily a shorter story is more manageable and you'll learn a lot that can be applied to bigger future projects i'll give you guys some examples my very first attempt at a comic i got tired after six pages and i never went back to it my second attempt at a comic i knew a little bit more i knew kind of what i was going into it with um i ran that comic for three years and then i stopped and i haven't touched it since then but because i had those two kind of like starter prog projects i knew a lot on how to i had like three and a half years of comic experience before i went into cast off and that helped immeasurably when i was starting the comics so do some like figure out just small do something short get your feet wet before you dive into the deep end um keep it tight sprawling epics are all well and good but comics take a long time when you're 500 pages deep into your epic fantasy and you're only an eighth of the way through your outline you might start seeing the writing on the wall shorter is better keep it tight keep it as short as you possibly can this is what i highly recommend um also planning versus pantsing find out which works for you and roll with it re-writing so you guys may have also heard of this as the architect versus the gardener this is just kind of like so planning is like you plot out all your plot events you know exactly what's gonna happen the like when you start writing it uh and then pantsing is like i'm gonna do this to the characters and i'm just gonna see what happens and roll with it they're both perfectly valid ways of writing so you should just experiment and figure out which one works best in your brain uh these are some tips um a few years ago when i first made this powerpoint for the first time i i asked on the spider forest forums uh what advice would you give to somebody who is starting a web comic for the very first time and i'm also in here because i'm in there um i get to be here it's my own powerpoint uh so write it out first always work from a script start with something shorter first don't just jump into an epic fantasy for your first project um that's from kez from what it takes uh your first comic is a learning experience don't try and force it to be something it isn't and if something isn't work for you change it because it's your comic you make the rules uh that is from the creator of ley lines um this one's important a title that no one remembers how to spell or pronounce is a bad title and let me tell you why if you're sitting here reading a comic and you you try to google it and you're like wow i loved that comic i read over the weekend i forgot the title but i wonder if i could just try and google it and they can't remember the title of your comic it's a bad title keep it short keep weird spellings out of there as much as you can because here's the thing if somebody can't google your comic they can't find it and therefore cannot read it look up search engine optimization maximize your seo um and then also for me uh figure out your elevator pitch uh describe your sentence your story in two to three sentences um simplicity is key basically the simpler it is for you to describe your story the better idea you have of what your story's major theme is okay cool so now it is time to make your comic um so now it's time to make some pictures uh is your comic going to be traditional which is hand drawn on paper and scanned in digital which would be drawn in art program like photoshop clip studio psi etc is it 3d which would be modeled and rendered in a 3d program like maya blender etc um and also is it going to be full color are you going to do it in black and white is it going to be in grayscale like most manga is how are you going to make it experiment with your art and find a style or method that works for you and your story highly recommend it we got into a long conversation during a stream the other day about genres versus art style and comics and how if you want to make um a comic about kirby um making it in a gritty like noir style high contrast black and white uh is maybe a bit of a tonal clash so you want to think about like the content of your comic and apply your art style to that all right so these are my comic making software recommendations uh cliff studio paint i have to scream about they didn't sponsor this panel but they did sponsor a giveaway that i'm running on my instagram right now and they they keep retweeting my posts on on twitter so so shout out to cliff studio paige senpai so this one's my personal favorite i've been using it for years i started using this um that cast off has been made in clip studio paint since the start of chapter five um i love it it's great it is a program specifically designed for illustrations and comics it is a little bit expensive but it does go on sale every couple months so if you're bulking at the price just wait for it to go on sale uh also i am um running a giveaway on instagram and i'm gonna drop that link in the chat right now um so another option is photoshop uh the problem with photoshop is that it's expensive and it requires the subscription unless you have an older version of the software but it basically has everything you need um if my thing is like if you already have like uh creative cloud for other reasons you might as well use photoshop for your comic uh but it is not my personal favorite it's just the one that i have used the most aside from cliff studio there are plenty of other options including free options there's a paint tool side there's [ __ ] which i believe is free procreate for the ipad is fairly cheap and i know a lot of folks stand by it i use it for sketching but i could totally see it being used for comics uh creda i believe is free another one i meant to put in here and didn't is medibang which i believe is free there's a lot of free programs out there that you guys can use my personal recommendation is clip studio paint though because they have a lot of cool tools that help expedite the process so before you start your comic experiment try drawing pages both traditionally and digitally try shading in color in grayscale with screen tones or in flat black and white uh figure out what works for your story and for you um because that's the thing right a full colored comic is going to take a lot longer than a comic that is only in grayscale so you kind of have to think about your schedule you know you got to think about how much time you want to put into this comic like full color is great but if it takes you 20 hours to finish a whole full color comic page i would highly recommend you figure out something that isn't going to take you as long you know you want to save time you want to make comics the balance of output to work hours is a one that's important to strike when you're working on comics like this because you don't want to uh hurt yourself you don't want to burn out you know it's really easy to do if your production takes longer than expected um also next point pick an art method that you enjoy doing and doesn't burn you out if you hate working in color why in the heck would you make your webcomic in full color you know pick something that you are going to enjoy doing it because you are going to be doing a lot of it you know also uh one of my recommendations is to time yourself when you draw try to make yourself as efficient as possible because comics are a big time sink and if you can find a way to knock work hours off of your amount of time if you can find a way to work faster and smarter you will thank yourself later okay it's weird because i'm used to doing this panel in person so when i say okay people will like nod at me i can't do that right now i'm just looking at the twitch chat okay um also i just suck this in here don't be afraid to use resources to help you work more efficiently thank you for the knobs on the twitch chat i appreciate it so things like custom brushes 3d models reference photos etc can be a huge help to speed up the comic making process that is so much nodding in the chat we're good you guys uh yeah so this is just a screen cap i took off of a clip studio paint tutorial that's on their website about how you can use like 3d models to speed up your comic drawing process usually when i make 3d models i just use them as a reference to trace over um you can also get like character models that you can use to just kind of like do stuff figure out like where characters like feet would be in a certain pose um i also like to take a lot of my own reference photos so i have like a little phone tripod and i'll just set it up and uh i'll just like take pictures of myself doing like weird faces and that's how i do that's how i get reference for like a lot of my panels if i need like a more dynamic pose or something that i can't do while standing in my bedroom uh then i will move over to a 3d model and just like pose it the way i want it take a screen cap and then use that as a reference while i draw there is no shame in using resources that will help you comic faster anybody who gives you crap about using shortcuts and tools and the technology and assets to make your comics and help make them faster and better they are not worth your time just ignore them keep making comics prosper i'm going to take a zip real quick [Music] oh man i just looked up at my viewer account it says 169. nice moving along all right this is the most important slide in the powerpoint back up your files please for the love of god back up your files back up your files i beg you save yourself the tears and frustration of losing your work this is so important i gave it its own slide i have a quick story for you guys a horror story if you will that was told to me in my senior year of art school i a story about a man a student in his final year of college who was working on his senior film he had his entire senior film backed up in three places it was on the school network it was on a flash drive um and it it's like an external hard drive and he had it on his home computer in one day the network at school crashed and all of his data was lost his laptop fell out of his backpack on the way home and shattered his his computer hard drive and when he got home someone had broken into his house and stolen his external hard drive and he lost over a year of work into under 24 hours back up your files i have i drilled this into your brain good back up your files um some more tips from these spider force forums um what's important is that you do the work not that you do it the quote unquote right way if it works for you then it works i do a lot of nonsense in the behind the scenes of cast off pages if you want to see some of my nonsense i stream art every wednesday and sometimes on other days come watch me and i will teach you my nonsense okay um if you have worked on a page for ages and you still think it looks a bit rubbish just post it don't beat yourself up just because you can't get a character's expression quite right um i will break out the two cakes expression here where like you might look might like make a cake and then look at other people's cakes and be like oh those cakes look so much better than mine um my cake isn't worth anything but you know you know what you know what the audience sees they see two cakes and that's awesome give your audience give them let them eat cake unintentional historical reference but yeah okay webcomics are a marathon not a sprint so finding a schedule that works with your life is much more important than overworking yourself okay don't burn yourself out on comics i'm giving you permission to use shortcuts and and make things that work for you okay you don't have to spend a hundred hours on every single page and if you do spend a hundred dollars on a hundred dollars 100 hours on every page i will personally come to your house and whack you with a rolled up newspaper okay i've gotten to the point where my workload is so streamlined that i can make a whole page of cast off in like six hours that came from a lot of years of work to get it to that point but the faster and easier your comic process is the easier it is and the less likely it is you'll burn yourself out okay cool read other people's works to figure out how to best go about making your own learn from others teaching yourself in the void is a slow way to talent okay it's okay to use other people as examples you know artists should be good thieves that does not mean take other people's art and post it on your twitter without credit that means see what other people have done and if you like it figure out how you can apply that to your own work uh don't be ashamed or afraid to jump around and work on what you're really passionate about if you don't enjoy what you're doing the likelihood of burnout is much higher this is very true if you are working on a comic that you are not a hundred percent um passionate about you will burn out eventually my advice for that is to make your web comic just the most self-indulgent thing you could possibly make my comic is full of tropes that i love and because i love those tropes so much it makes it easy to work on the comic because i get excited about something that happens on every single page you know bad boy can fit so many sad magic boys in it slaps the roof of the webcomic okay also these are important re-character design uh design your main character so that they're fun to draw because you'll be drawing them a lot y'all i have like a fantasy military installation in my webcomic i gave them shirts and pants because i didn't want to have to draw detailed uniforms every time i had to draw those characters make them easy to draw you will thank yourself later also make sure that your cast has different silhouettes and color schemes otherwise your readers will keep confusing them i i try to like give each of my characters just kind of a color that's theirs but also if you draw them in a lineup and any of the characters look too similar to each other someone that reads it is going to get confused okay so try and make your cast as visually distinct from each other as possible uh try not to fall into the remake loop uh too many stories just stop because the artist feels the need to go back and redo older pages you improve over time that's normal and good don't go back and remake old pages it's not worth it just keep going let your old art be as it was because that was a time in your life that was an art style that you chose and you were proud of it when you first made it you know so don't disrespect your older self your past self keep moving forward and just keep improving what you're currently outputting uh the one exception to this is if you're gonna go back and like print it uh you can go back and like brush some of the dust off of it um but do not like completely redraw your old comic it's not worth it don't do it um also for me again if you're working digitally memorize your keyboard shortcuts because they will literally save you hours of time hours of time spent digging through menus will be a thing of the past if you can figure out your keyboard shortcuts for things that you do frequently uh some more tips i'm gonna take a sip real quick talking too much is making me thirsty um so some more tips just in general uh find friends to be your beta testers tell them about the story show them your scripts and let them see pages in advance they may catch plot holes or inconsistencies that you didn't notice because you as the creator are too close to it and so sometimes like a question like you know the answer to you don't even think about potential plot holes but your audience members will see them immediately and then you'll be stuck floundering around so it's a good idea to show people your scripts ahead of time like get some a trusted group of friends i call mine my spoiler squad just a group of friends who like know everything about my comic and i will like show them scripts and be like hey does this make sense does this work does this character's motivation work for you um highly recommend that um also step away take some time between steps of comic making to stare at something else then come back to your work with a fresh pair of eyes fix anything that doesn't look right before continuing i never ink and color my comic pages on the same day that i sketch them never that is the point that i make because you know what happens when you sketch something and then you immediately jump into inking it without taking a break to like refresh your brain you draw characters with two left feet i have done that so many times it's embarrassing so just like take take breaks take a chance to like look away at something else come back to your work on a regular basis with a fresh set of eyes and you'll see stuff that you didn't notice before because you were too close to it also yeah take a break making comics is fun but remember to stretch frequently and take care of your precious hands because carpal tunnel sucks but okay i remember day one i walked into my very first comics class at school and they were like hi welcome to comics 101 i'm going to show you guys extremely graphic pictures of um extremely graphic pictures of carpal tunnel syndrome so to scare us into taking care of ourselves it worked it worked really well okay um so a quick note on collaboration this is not something i can answer too many questions on because i've never done it personally but if you love drawing but aren't so good at writing or if you're great at writing but suck at drawing you should consider collaborating with another artist or a writer make sure that you choose your collaboration partners carefully collaborate with someone you can trust to get the work done not just because you're friends if you just like try and do a comic with your best friend they might be less passionate about it than you are and they say yeah sure i'll draw your comic but then you get the whole thing scripted and you pass it off to them and they just never make it make sure that you find somebody who you can trust to work on this comic not just somebody who you want to work with because they're your best friend or whatever also you should write a contract before starting the comic it doesn't have to be any you don't have to get lawyers involved just hash out the basics of what is going to happen when you guys get money involved with this like who's responsible for what how are you guys going to share profits if you ever make any this is very important because if you don't do this you might find yourself in some legal trouble later down the line when your artist is trying to sue you for more money also one last note writers do not expect artists to draw your comic for free artists do not work for free okay i feel like this is simple and i'm not going to elaborate on it too much your time and effort is worth money do not insult me by asking me to draw your fantasy comic for free i have pets to feed and i will just ignore your email moving along here are some additional comic resources that i highly recommend um first are two books i own both of these they are fantastic if you guys want to learn more about the actual craft of making comics and like paneling and all this other stuff making comics by scott macleod is the comic maker's bible basically this was a textbook at the school i went to it is how to draw comics written as a comic so it's very easy to read and has like visual examples that you can follow along with if you want to learn more about the craft of making comics read this freaking book okay also save the cat one of my favorite freaking books it is a book specifically about writing for screenplays but the information that they give you in that book on storytelling and how to write a story and how to work a narrative are valuable for any kind of storytelling so like it's mostly for film but the advice in there has helped me exponentially with writing stuff for comics as well it applies to everything because storytelling is storytelling no matter what medium you're making it with also some additional websites i haven't checked on webcomic chat in a while but i know that it was fairly active a few years ago um there's a twitter chat room they stopped doing the twitter chat room um but the webcomicchat.com has old archives um webcomic alliance has a lot of articles about writing and drawing comics and then i i know i i sassed you guys a little bit for hoarding pinterest tutorials but there's no shame as long as you hoard tutorials so that you can actually use them for making comics you know um if you find a tutorial use it and if you're stuck on how to do something google a tutorial you will find something someone has made them you know also forums uh the spider forest forums this is again i'm mentioning them again this is the comic collective i am a member of uh the forums you can ask questions in there and there are a lot of archived threads about like different processes you can also get constructive criticism and things like that uh tapas and comic fury also have their own forums related to web comics and the work that goes into them um i don't post there really but i i skulk through stuff occasionally uh goodreads all of it where is my okay go down okay so now it's time to talk about posting your comic uh so once you've made your comic in order for it to be a web comic you gotta stick it on the web somewhere but where are you gonna stick it uh you can build your own website or you can host it on a free comic hosting website um building and hosting your own website is going to be more time consuming and it is going to cost money for things like hosting or if you're like me it's going to cost somebody it's going to cost you money to convince a friend to build your comic website for you but you get full control over how it looks and the setup and all like the extra features you want to add and you aren't constrained to platform limitations free web comic hosts are free they don't cost anything to post your comic on and they do come with built-in audiences of people who like to read comics but they aren't as customizable as a webcomic site you built yourself so you should decide what is best for you so these are some comic hosting websites this is not an exhaustive list these are just the ones that i've that i know about um webtoon i feel like is kind of the big shot right now to the point where i get people asking me what my webtoon is called and i'm like just because i posted on webtoons doesn't make it a webtoon it's not a webtoon comic it's a star comic i post it on webtoon because people like to read it there but if i hated web if i one day decided that i hate webtoon i could just yank it off there but the comic would consider to continue to exist off of webtoon sorry i'm letting my aggravations get to me uh webtoon and tapas i think are like kind of the big two uh comic fury is also valuable um comic fury i believe lets you kind of like customize your site a lot more um there's also tumblr which is okay um tumblr is very good for um like one-off comics that people can relate to and are memeable and that people can re-blog if they think it's funny uh deviantart is where i hosted my first ever web comic i don't necessarily recommend it now but if you have literally no other option you could put it there you could put it there i'm gonna take a drink real fast how are we doing so far everybody you keeping up we good okay so dpnr exists it does it's true okay so if you're going to be making your own website these are some features of comic websites that you should put in your website um an about page this is a brief synopsis uh when the comic update so your update schedule uh creator blurb etc um give people information also if you're going to making a comic that would require anything like content warnings um or like a rating uh you can put it on your about page and people will go there to look for it also you need an archive page because if somebody if let's say for example you have a 500 plus page fantasy adventure webcomic cough cast off comic.com um people might not be able to read the whole thing in one sitting and so when they come back to it you want to make sure that they can find where they left off quickly and easily and that is why i have thumbnails of all my comic pages in my archive so people can be like i don't remember which page number i left off on but i remember what it looked like and they can just scroll through the archive find where they left off and keep going the easier it is to navigate your archive the less likely it is that people are gonna stop reading because they're annoyed with it um a characters page with pictures and character descriptions this is useful for your readers to keep track of who's who um navigation both above and below every comic page i recommend sticking it above as well as below so that say um joe hasn't checked the cast off website in a couple weeks and he doesn't want spoilers but he only needs to go back like two or three pages um he can just like hit the little arrows at the top and doesn't have to scroll past spoilers to get to where he last left off get it so navigation both above and below also a comment section this is optional but i highly recommend it so that you can communicate with your readers and your readers can communicate with you i know a lot of folks who have like really really huge audiences um sometimes don't like to have comic comment sections because it becomes too much to moderate if there's too many people talking but when you're first starting out definitely have definitely definitely have a comment section so you can talk to your readers and make jokes with them and in my case just let them post memes you know it's fun um also a links page uh with links to other web comics that you like uh you should spread the love and help other people find other comics uh i've had several people who found my comic because cast off was in their links page so you can like tell people what your favorite comics are and help kind of spread the love i'll just go ahead and get this out of the way um people finding other comics to read is not going to make them like you less okay people can enjoy more than one web comic so spreading the love and helping comics find new readers is only beneficial okay don't be a snooty stick em stick up your butt and not support other comic artists okay yeah two cakes two cakes okay i have a links page on castoff's website that i i need to update it frankly but just like if you help other readers find your favorite comment your comics then they might even help advertise you as well it's a mutually beneficial partnership that's just kind of casual and throwing little hearts all over the stage yay spread the love be cool don't be an exclusive butt okay also if you have social media make your social media page or links really easy to find because my thing is if i find an artist who makes a web comic that i really like i want to know what they're talking about i want to see if they post like non-comic art sometimes and if i can't find your like your twitter feed if i don't know what your twitter username is i'm going to get sad the easier it is to find the more likely it will be that people can find you yay also an rss feed for your comic because people still use rss feeds they are very valuable and most web comic like cmss that's content management system uh most comic websites will come with one of these automatically but if it doesn't you gotta make sure you want one because a lot of people keep track of comics with these things they're extremely handy i personally don't use them but i know a lot of people who do tips if you can launch your comic with the entire first chapter or at least a large chunk of pages give people something to sink your teeth into and they'll be more likely to stick around okay also if you make some pages before you commit to publishing them it'll take some of the pressure off and it can give you an idea of how fast you work and how often you can update okay so i'll give you guys an example um imagine that you go to a web comic the brand new web comic it's called kittens in space you go to the website for kittens in space and you you read they've just started they just posted their web comic they're hyping it up on social media and you go to their website and they have one page they have a single page of this comic that's not a lot that's not nearly enough to get invested in the character in a story anything like that however you go to another comic that has just started it just began like today today is the day that dogs go under the ocean dogs go into the mariana trench a new hit web comic and you go there and they already have like the entire first chapter you're going to spend some time like reading that entire first chapter that's going to like set up the story and you know what it's about and you like get a chance yeah you get a chance to like figure out your workflow and people it gives people a chance to get more invested in your comment because if you think about it realistically you've got one chance to grab a stranger's attention make it count okay also don't expect your comic to be super popular right away it'll take a few years to build an audience and people generally won't get invested until you're around 100 pages in uh this is referred to sometimes as the 100 page rule also i mentioned this before but comics that start with a large audience probably have an artist who is already popular and just directed their audience to their comic so don't knock on people whose comics get popular immediately okay because they've they worked for that audience you gotta work for your audience too moving on i'm gonna take a sip of my water real fast okay next is establishing your update schedule and stick to it because because let me run you guys through a very real scenario how many of you guys have been reading a comic that suddenly just without warning drops off the face of the earth or a comic that updates at least a few times a month but you never know when it updates and you never know when to check the website for new panels for new updates for new pages it's a pain so you as a webcomic artist and a creator should make it as easy as possible for people to know when your comic updates okay so the people know when when and where to go to your website pick a regular schedule that works for you and stick to it you should let people know when you update typically webcomics will post their update schedule at the top of the page near the logo so it's very easy to see the first thing people see when you come into your comic website should be hey new pages are posted every wednesday okay make it easy most comics update once a week or more uh if you update less than that you risk losing your readers so you should try to give them something to look forward to every week be consistent now obviously this can change if you you could do just like a big big batch of pages every month or you could update with a handful of pages every two weeks but generally you want to have at least one page per week that's usually a good pace that's normal for webcomics also i highly recommend always being a few pages or updates ahead so this is called a buffer or a cue having pages done beforehand is less stressful than scrambling to finish a page a few hours before it goes online for example i always try to be about a month ahead of what the comic pages i am posting because if i happen to like finish a page but then i notice a problem with it i've got a month to fix it whereas my first web comic i just posted the page immediately and if i made any mistakes it's people have already seen it and then it's embarrassing okay so i've said this before and i'll say it again webcomics are a marathon not a sprint don't burn yourself out okay don't overdo it my advice is before you actually commit to posting your comic online okay before you actually start you should take a week and just don't push it but just like make as much of your comic as you can in one week with your normal amount of free time then at the end of that week look at how much you have accomplished like so say you made three pages in that week subtract one and that's how many updates you should post a week you should never be working at maximum output okay because that's a fast and easy way to burn out you should always give yourself a little bit of wiggle room with your pages okay so for example if i sit down and i if i buckle myself in and i go i could easily i could make four pages of cast off a week i do two pages a week because that way i still have time to enjoy myself and exist as a human outside of my webcomic you know also if you have to miss an update let your readers know and provide a comeback date if you can because if you just drop off the face of nowhere your audience is gonna get upset with you your readers will appreciate honesty be open with them don't leave them in the dark wondering when the next update will be a lot of you folks said yes when i said has it ever happened that a comic just disappeared you know how it feels don't do it to other people um this applies to sync missing single updates or going on a longer hiatus for any reason whenever i have to go on hiatus i like to give people like as big of a warning as i possibly can so that people know it's coming and they can brace themselves for it and then it's not a surprise when it happens okay more tips most of this powerpoint is just tips and we just talking like hey bullet points okay uh so be your own biggest fan this kind of ties into the motivation topic but comics are a slog comics are hard um relying on others to encourage you and get you to like motivate you to work on your comic can be a fast track to losing motivation so you should learn to rely on your own self gratification and make your comic something that makes you happy enough that you enjoy working on it so much that you can relate that you can reliably do it every single week also save nice comments whenever you get a positive comment about your work take a screen cap of it and put it in a folder that's easy to get to on your computer i put mine on my desktop i've got a folder on my desktop that says that's called this folder gives me life and it's just full of every single nice comment about my comic that i have literally ever gotten um and on the sad days when i feel like crap and i feel like no one likes my comic and i feel like an imposter i have like a whole folder filled with cappy vibes that i can look through and it makes me feel good and yeah this applies to any creative work not just comics um also don't compare yourself to others because i know that this is a thing that a lot of artists struggle with artists and creative types in general your webcomic journey is yours and yours alone don't get the six don't let the successes of others tarnish your drive to succeed okay you are a valuable creative the stuff you make nobody else can make your journey is yours alone so you should share it as much as you can okay cool congratulations you are now armed with the knowledge you need to start your own web comic go forth friends and make comics uh so this is kind of the first half of questions i'm gonna stop and take a drink real quick i won't be able to get to everybody's because there's so many um so many people 182 is what my viewer count says right now that's terrifying um okay but um if you guys have any questions i will answer questions for the next five minutes um and we will have more time at the end but i do have my second half after this which is more on promotion and i will take more questions after that okay um so first one i see is any advice on blocking out comic strips um i highly recommend just like um looking at screen design um because screen design can kind of like tell you it's the value of where things are on the page and how much space they take up for okay oh lord there's a lot of questions i can't focus on all of them uh but yeah i would say look at um other comics and see how they lay their stuff out and just kind of like try and recreate it a little bit just like really sketchy try and recreate comic pages that you like um and see what works and what doesn't and kind of like see if you can figure out um how to make it work it's hard to talk about this kind of thing without having an example in front of me um how do i make money on my comics that's going to be the next half of this presentation so i will get back to that um when did you start making web comics a long ass time ago i started in like 2005 but i didn't start posting them online until 2007 because that's when i got my first deviantart account um are you a full-time comic artist i'm a full-time artist my comic pays my rent uh how do i manage backgrounds um keep them simple do like one big establishing shot every time you change to a new page um or like every time your characters enter a new scene and uh try to just keep just keep it simple you don't have to put a super detailed background in every single panel you know so i would say spend a lot of time on like one really detailed background to get your audience grounded within the scene and then after that you can go pretty simple on the rest um as long as your viewers have a good idea of where your characters are you don't need to draw a background for every single panel um okay how long should a beginner comic be before you start making your dream comics so what i recommend is if it is your first time making comics at all there's a couple different avenues you can go down i got my start making comics by making like silly little fan art comic strips for video games that i liked um i also made like jokey strips about things that my friends said in the style of like calvin and hobbes and four coma manga comics um but as far as like if you've got like a fantasy story or like a longer graphic novel story you want to tell i would say like pick pick a character that you like and just like write what a day in their life is like or write like a short comic about like their experience doing something just make something simple i would say keep it like under like 10 pages or fewer for your very first time um and then you can work to like kind of larger things after that um i'm going to answer questions about social media in the second half so we will get to that um if i suck at writing and drawing then practice stop sucking okay but like serious answer though um this is something i was talking about in a tick tock live the other day one of my old professors at school said that inside of you are a hundred shitty bicycles and i will explain what that means so imagine that you've never drawn a bicycle before but you wanna be able to draw bicycles better um inside of you are a hundred shitty bicycle drawings and underneath those shitty bicycle drawings are good bicycle drawings my phone just went off and i don't know where it is um so if you want to get better at drawing bicycles you gotta get those shitty bicycle drawings out of your system you draw a hundred of anything and you're gonna get better at drawing it combined with references and studying you look at a bicycle you work on the bicycle and slowly you will work those shitty bicycles out of your system if you want to get better at anything you have to practice you have to do the thing okay if you want to get better at drawing you have to draw no excuses you just have to do it okay if you want to get better at writing you have to write things you will not get better at doing anything by avoiding it okay if you want to get good at something you just have to kick your own ass and sit down and do it i'm sorry i'm getting a little bit crass in the q a section but it's true you will not get better at anything by avoiding it okay i'll take like one or two more questions and then i gotta go take a break and rest my throat for a hot minute um would you recommend getting a drawing tablet with a screen rather than a screenless one if you want to start making comics yes absolutely um i would i my first like 10 years of being a digital artist i had a non-screen tablet that just like sat on my desk like a fancy mouse pad i loved it i used it but the screen tablet is such an improvement it makes things so much easier um so if you can afford a screen tablet i would highly recommend springing for one of those if you're taking this seriously um okay so i will have time for more questions um after the second half of the panel but i'm gonna take like five minutes and uh just like rest my throat for a little bit um for reference here's my comic i will go ahead and put those links in the chat um the stream is not over yet i am going to do the second half after this i'm gonna take five minutes and then uh to just like rest my brace rest my voice refill my water and when we get back i'm going to start the second half which is webcomics 102 from self-promotion to self-publishing all right so if you want to stick around find out how to promote yourself and do all that jazz stick around for that i'ma take five minutes and go stretch and get some water uh don't go anywhere i'm going to activate my starting soon screen would you i'm going to disappear going to deactivate the mic and i will see you guys in five minutes

okay webcomics 101 creating your story welcome everyone it is time let's get into it so quick introduction before we get started uh what is this this is webcomics 101 everything you need to know about starting and creating your own comic series online um i used to do this as a panel at anime conventions but right now there's not really any anime conventions um and i i keep getting questions on tick tock and other social media like how do i do stuff how do i do webcomic things and i'm like you know what i'm just gonna go and do my whole comics panel just record it on twitch and then it will be archived forever until the internet explodes anyway so now i'm doing it on twitch yay all right and lastly uh what is a web comic i feel like everyone here knows this but just in case a webcomic is a comic that you can read online shock and dawg okay and um who the heck are you that's me uh hello my name is star i am at the starfish face on pretty much all platforms um i am the writer artist creator person behind a comic called cast off um i have been making comics and posting online since about 2007 uh and i have learned a lot since then uh so now my goal is to pass that knowledge along to the gratuitous amount of people who are currently watching this and anyone who might be watching this on youtube in the future anyway and now it is time for my shameless self plug if you are here and you don't already read my comic might i suggest maybe doing that uh so on the left there is uh my comic that is cast off cast off hyphen comic.com um it is also available on webtoons um and tapas i'm going to drop a link in the chat real fast yay so there's the whole synopsis and stuff um and then on the right is uh spider forest the webcomic collective that i am a member of i will be mentioning them and some of the members uh throughout this panel um so yeah check them out i've been with them almost as long as i've been making casts off and they're great and there's a lot of really good comics involved so you should read mine and then you should go and look through all the spider forest comics because they're good anyway moving on so this panel should take probably about two ish hours and i'll be taking a break in the middle uh just so i can like get up and stretch a little bit um so like i said please save questions until the designated q a time because i will not be checking chat very much during the presentation uh but thank you for being here thank you for allowing me to be your teacher for the day i'm gonna teach you guys about comics let's get into it so part one the decision or why should you make a web comic the question that everyone has well i'll tell you why here's a bunch of different reasons why you should make a web comic practice web comics are a great way to practice writing drawing visual storytelling self-promotion and all the other stuff that comes along with it uh discipline nothing builds discipline like having readers who depend on you to update your comic regularly you might be like laying in bed and thinking i don't want to draw comics today but you know that you have a handful of people who really want to know what happens next in your story that can be the kick in the pants you need to get off your butt and go draw comic pages i know that's what works for me um portfolio um if you are an artist or a writer or any sort of creative having a large volume of work is awesome uh especially if it lets you see a progression of your skills over time i'll give you guys an example i started cast off my current comic in 2005 2015. um that was six years ago and if you look at the pages from the start of the comic they look extremely different than the pages that are currently being posted on the comic um and that is only because i can attribute 99 of my stylistic and artistic growth to posting and drawing two pages a week of comics for like my the entire past six years give or take a few months for like hiatuses and stuff um so the best way to get good at something is to do it and do it a lot so webcomics are fantastic for that um personal satisfaction uh you get to make a thing and then share it with the whole world and make strangers cry over your oc's that's awesome we love that we love making people on the internet cry did i say we i mean me and also it's fun genuinely really it is it is very fun if it wasn't fun wouldn't be doing it moving along uh this is the part where i crush your dreams for a few minutes before building you back up these these are some reasons why you should not make a webcomic i.e if you are looking into starting a webcomic for these reasons um i would urge you to reconsider because i don't think it's going to work out for you so do not make a web comic in order to get famous because that is kind of backwards usually you start a web comic because you want to start a webcomic you've started a webcomic specifically to get famous it's probably not gonna work out for you unfortunately um it'll take a few years at least to build up any sort of fan base uh you will not get famous right away or maybe ever i will stick in a thing here um that says if a comic gets really really popular really really quickly the creator probably already had an audience elsewhere people's like audiences do not grow out of thin air and expecting your comic to be the thing that rockets you to stardom is kind of a fool's errand so don't fall into that trap also to make money because i'm sorry but most comics don't i've been at this for years and i'm very very lucky um that i have an audience who is able to support me enough that i can pay rent with my comic and it has taken me 15 years of marketing myself and drawing and being an artist on the internet in order to like garner an audience that size so there you go um most people make webcomics as a hobby not as a way to pay the bills when starting out your goal should be fun not profit also if you start it with the goal of profit in mind and then you don't make any money you're probably just not gonna do it anymore and then that's that's one more dead comic in the ocean and we don't that's sad that makes me sad okay should i make a web should you make a web comic yes i put it in big font because it's important uh it can be hard and stressful but the satisfaction you'll get from creating something awesome overcomes all the bad parts it's a great way to make friends improve your art and writing and learn lots of cool stuff comics are great webcomics specifically are great anyway so we're moving right along here's a list of excuses that i hear all the time y'all i posted a kind of like a gentle encouraging call out video on tiktok yesterday being like hey why haven't you started your webcomic yet and i got literally every single one of these excuses every single one so now i'm gonna tell y'all why they're silly uh but my art isn't good enough yet uh you will get better while you work on the comic because you get better at comics by making comics spoiler alert um you don't get better at comics about hoarding pinterest tutorials and thinking about it really hard if you want to get better at comics you have to make comics okay improvement over time is normal and expected and you should learn by doing the thing uh is too much effort everything takes effort comics are no exception that's all i got for that but i don't have any motivation this is when i hear so much screw motivation motivation is a fickle muse and if you sit around staring at the ceiling waiting for a magical motivation fairy to descend from the heavens and be like hello i have motivation for you if you wait for that it's never gonna happen like i'm sorry but it's not you need discipline you need to learn how to get yourself up off your butt to go work on comics like that's true of anything you just you can't just wait for the magical motivation angel to descend from the heavens you gotta learn how to be disciplined and learn how to do things for yourself that's true of everything in life but it's especially true for comics but this story isn't perfect yet and honestly it won't be ever perfection is a myth and chasing it is a fool's errand you should strive to make something that you think is fun not something that the world will think is perfect okay okay cool uh but i don't have time which is a fair excuse but you should make a comic anyway i i made cast off on top of doing a full-time job for like the first four years of the comic now now it is part of my full-time job so there you go uh so you should make a comic anyway wink here's motivational shia labeouf telling you to just do it [Laughter] can you guys tell approximately what time um in in the human timeline that i made this powerpoint original originally uh motivational shia labeouf gets to stay in this power point until i stop doing it look into his eyes he wants you to make your webcomic anyway so now that i have thoroughly motivated you uh it is time to get started or i want to make a web comic but i don't know where to start yep uh but first i'm gonna take a drink real fast because talking so long is bad for my throat let's keep going so first you want to think about what your comic to be um i am your magical motivation fairy it's me but i'm the magical motivation fairy kicking you out of bed and telling you to learn self-discipline for your comics okay so first you gotta write your story um so there's a lot of different styles of comics um first you gotta think what you want your webcomic to be like what's the vibe what's the structure here um are you doing a gag a day comic strip um are you doing a page by page long format comic uh which is what cast off is a gaga day comic strip is like garfield or calvin and hobbes um page by page long format comic is like comic comic comic is like graphic novels manga stuff of that nature um an infinite scroll comic aka webtoon style where you just like they're mostly for reading on your phone and you just scroll for days or something else entirely because webcomics are cool because you can get really creative with them so how you present your comic will impact how you write it how often you can upload new pages etc so it's a very good idea to know this early on before you draw your comic i always recommend writing your comic always start with a script or at least an outline this is less important if you are doing just like a gag a day comic strip where there's no like overarching plot but if there is any plot at all i would recommend at least starting with some kind of outline um also i got a lot of comments on like tick tock videos saying i don't know how to script but the cool thing is unless you're collaborating with someone else your scripts only need to make sense to you so you don't have to force yourself to use a format you don't like okay because here's the cool thing if you're doing a webcomic you're working for yourself no editor is probably ever gonna see um is ever gonna see your scripts so as long as they make sense to you then it's fine and it works so don't force yourself to use a format you don't like um i will actually show you guys a snip i think it's the next slide yeah so this is what my outlines look like i do these first just to kind of like get the ideas on the page and so these are from chapter seven chapter eight of my webcomic just the very very basic bare bones of what's gonna happen in each chapter and then from there i go to scripting it these are what my scripts look like and this is the page that goes with it um so you will notice that like some of the stuff changes a little bit um from the script to the actual comic page just depending on how much room i have because things are different when you're scripting it and just looking at text on the page or um my train of thought just completely derailed uh but yeah so i i like break it down i do it by character so depending on who's talking um and i also do like stage directions in parentheses this is how i do my scripts you can do your script any way you want just pick something you're comfortable with um and if you are feeling stuck try an outline instead so this format down here at the bottom is lifted from pixar's rules of storytelling which if you just google that you can find like the full article but this one is one of my favorites it's basically how you can structure a plot for anything so you draw out you figure out where the cast starts or even just like where your main character starts like what is their life like um but then something happens and because of that another thing happens and because of that another thing happens and because of that another thing happens and then eventually you get to your climax and then your conclusion where you wrap it all up at the end um so that is what my outlines in general look like there you go we already looked at these um so writing your webcomic some more tips uh don't start at the beginning if you are stuck on your comics opener and you have like some fun ideas for later scenes write those first and work your way around them that's what i do like i was taking a walk the other day and i got an idea for like a cool scene between two of my characters who haven't been introduced yet and i'm like oh [ __ ] that's awesome i gotta write that down i typed it in my phone um but seriously like just especially like before you even start the comic just kind of like write what you're feeling you know if you feel like scripting this scene that's like near the end do that like you'll eventually have to go and figure out your beginning but honestly it's easier to figure out your beginning if you know where you're going if you figure out the ending then you can figure out your start and so on and so forth um if you are having trouble with plot holes this is something that i do write down the problem and actively take notes as you work your way through it problems are easier to fix if you see them this is something that i definitely do like i open up just like a blank word document and i type in big letters at the top what the problem is and then i like brainstorm just on the page as i kind of like work my way through it and i fixed a lot of stuff about cast off just by doing that uh also don't stare at an empty word document and expect inspiration if you are stuck go outside take a walk and brainstorm uh get the blood flowing and the ideas will follow staring at a blank word document is like the worst way to write i always write by like taking notes on my phone as i like walk around my apartment complex and then i go back and stick those notes in a document and write around them this is calling back to what i just said know how your story ends uh it is always easier to go somewhere if you know where you're going to end up and also foreshadowing is very fun uh write down everything if you have an idea for a scene or even a single line of dialogue write it down before you forget it'll come in handy later and if you don't write it down you will forget it and then you will wake up the next morning and think oh man i had an idea for like a really cool line of dialogue and i don't remember what it was and then you just scream forever i have done that before it sucks write stuff down also programs like evernote and google docs are incredible for scripts because you can access them anywhere they are good if you get struck um with inspiration and you want to write stuff down it's a very good idea highly recommend also read your scripts out loud to check if your dialogue sounds natural this is especially helpful if you are like kind of stuck on what a character should say uh break into that inner theater kid that i know is your heart is in your heart pace around your apartment when you're home by yourself and try and figure out the dialogue like by actually dialoguing you know that's that's what i do anyway all right moving on also this is just for me please please please please please please please i'm on my knees begging do not start with a lore info dump i beg you please do not do this to me if i open up your comic and it is 10 pages of historical trivia talking about and the gods had a war and it created the universe i will close out of that tab and i'm not coming back because i'm bored don't make me start with a pop quiz give me a character to root for there's a concept in writing called a hook which is how you get your readers interested at the start of a story look that up i don't really go into it in this uh powerpoint um but basically don't do this you can do it later if it's important that's fine um but don't make it the very first thing in your comic because it's going to alienate like a majority of your readers including me okay um some more tips i have a lot of tips about writing sorry um don't start with your big idea um first comics usually end up abandoned for one reason or the other i am guilty of this multiple times over so if it is your first time making a comic at all if you've never made comics before and you want to jump right in feet first i would highly recommend starting with something small that you can finish easily a shorter story is more manageable and you'll learn a lot that can be applied to bigger future projects i'll give you guys some examples my very first attempt at a comic i got tired after six pages and i never went back to it my second attempt at a comic i knew a little bit more i knew kind of what i was going into it with um i ran that comic for three years and then i stopped and i haven't touched it since then but because i had those two kind of like starter prog projects i knew a lot on how to i had like three and a half years of comic experience before i went into cast off and that helped immeasurably when i was starting the comics so do some like figure out just small do something short get your feet wet before you dive into the deep end um keep it tight sprawling epics are all well and good but comics take a long time when you're 500 pages deep into your epic fantasy and you're only an eighth of the way through your outline you might start seeing the writing on the wall shorter is better keep it tight keep it as short as you possibly can this is what i highly recommend um also planning versus pantsing find out which works for you and roll with it re-writing so you guys may have also heard of this as the architect versus the gardener this is just kind of like so planning is like you plot out all your plot events you know exactly what's gonna happen the like when you start writing it uh and then pantsing is like i'm gonna do this to the characters and i'm just gonna see what happens and roll with it they're both perfectly valid ways of writing so you should just experiment and figure out which one works best in your brain uh these are some tips um a few years ago when i first made this powerpoint for the first time i i asked on the spider forest forums uh what advice would you give to somebody who is starting a web comic for the very first time and i'm also in here because i'm in there um i get to be here it's my own powerpoint uh so write it out first always work from a script start with something shorter first don't just jump into an epic fantasy for your first project um that's from kez from what it takes uh your first comic is a learning experience don't try and force it to be something it isn't and if something isn't work for you change it because it's your comic you make the rules uh that is from the creator of ley lines um this one's important a title that no one remembers how to spell or pronounce is a bad title and let me tell you why if you're sitting here reading a comic and you you try to google it and you're like wow i loved that comic i read over the weekend i forgot the title but i wonder if i could just try and google it and they can't remember the title of your comic it's a bad title keep it short keep weird spellings out of there as much as you can because here's the thing if somebody can't google your comic they can't find it and therefore cannot read it look up search engine optimization maximize your seo um and then also for me uh figure out your elevator pitch uh describe your sentence your story in two to three sentences um simplicity is key basically the simpler it is for you to describe your story the better idea you have of what your story's major theme is okay cool so now it is time to make your comic um so now it's time to make some pictures uh is your comic going to be traditional which is hand drawn on paper and scanned in digital which would be drawn in art program like photoshop clip studio psi etc is it 3d which would be modeled and rendered in a 3d program like maya blender etc um and also is it going to be full color are you going to do it in black and white is it going to be in grayscale like most manga is how are you going to make it experiment with your art and find a style or method that works for you and your story highly recommend it we got into a long conversation during a stream the other day about genres versus art style and comics and how if you want to make um a comic about kirby um making it in a gritty like noir style high contrast black and white uh is maybe a bit of a tonal clash so you want to think about like the content of your comic and apply your art style to that all right so these are my comic making software recommendations uh cliff studio paint i have to scream about they didn't sponsor this panel but they did sponsor a giveaway that i'm running on my instagram right now and they they keep retweeting my posts on on twitter so so shout out to cliff studio paige senpai so this one's my personal favorite i've been using it for years i started using this um that cast off has been made in clip studio paint since the start of chapter five um i love it it's great it is a program specifically designed for illustrations and comics it is a little bit expensive but it does go on sale every couple months so if you're bulking at the price just wait for it to go on sale uh also i am um running a giveaway on instagram and i'm gonna drop that link in the chat right now um so another option is photoshop uh the problem with photoshop is that it's expensive and it requires the subscription unless you have an older version of the software but it basically has everything you need um if my thing is like if you already have like uh creative cloud for other reasons you might as well use photoshop for your comic uh but it is not my personal favorite it's just the one that i have used the most aside from cliff studio there are plenty of other options including free options there's a paint tool side there's [ __ ] which i believe is free procreate for the ipad is fairly cheap and i know a lot of folks stand by it i use it for sketching but i could totally see it being used for comics uh creda i believe is free another one i meant to put in here and didn't is medibang which i believe is free there's a lot of free programs out there that you guys can use my personal recommendation is clip studio paint though because they have a lot of cool tools that help expedite the process so before you start your comic experiment try drawing pages both traditionally and digitally try shading in color in grayscale with screen tones or in flat black and white uh figure out what works for your story and for you um because that's the thing right a full colored comic is going to take a lot longer than a comic that is only in grayscale so you kind of have to think about your schedule you know you got to think about how much time you want to put into this comic like full color is great but if it takes you 20 hours to finish a whole full color comic page i would highly recommend you figure out something that isn't going to take you as long you know you want to save time you want to make comics the balance of output to work hours is a one that's important to strike when you're working on comics like this because you don't want to uh hurt yourself you don't want to burn out you know it's really easy to do if your production takes longer than expected um also next point pick an art method that you enjoy doing and doesn't burn you out if you hate working in color why in the heck would you make your webcomic in full color you know pick something that you are going to enjoy doing it because you are going to be doing a lot of it you know also uh one of my recommendations is to time yourself when you draw try to make yourself as efficient as possible because comics are a big time sink and if you can find a way to knock work hours off of your amount of time if you can find a way to work faster and smarter you will thank yourself later okay it's weird because i'm used to doing this panel in person so when i say okay people will like nod at me i can't do that right now i'm just looking at the twitch chat okay um also i just suck this in here don't be afraid to use resources to help you work more efficiently thank you for the knobs on the twitch chat i appreciate it so things like custom brushes 3d models reference photos etc can be a huge help to speed up the comic making process that is so much nodding in the chat we're good you guys uh yeah so this is just a screen cap i took off of a clip studio paint tutorial that's on their website about how you can use like 3d models to speed up your comic drawing process usually when i make 3d models i just use them as a reference to trace over um you can also get like character models that you can use to just kind of like do stuff figure out like where characters like feet would be in a certain pose um i also like to take a lot of my own reference photos so i have like a little phone tripod and i'll just set it up and uh i'll just like take pictures of myself doing like weird faces and that's how i do that's how i get reference for like a lot of my panels if i need like a more dynamic pose or something that i can't do while standing in my bedroom uh then i will move over to a 3d model and just like pose it the way i want it take a screen cap and then use that as a reference while i draw there is no shame in using resources that will help you comic faster anybody who gives you crap about using shortcuts and tools and the technology and assets to make your comics and help make them faster and better they are not worth your time just ignore them keep making comics prosper i'm going to take a zip real quick [Music] oh man i just looked up at my viewer account it says 169. nice moving along all right this is the most important slide in the powerpoint back up your files please for the love of god back up your files back up your files i beg you save yourself the tears and frustration of losing your work this is so important i gave it its own slide i have a quick story for you guys a horror story if you will that was told to me in my senior year of art school i a story about a man a student in his final year of college who was working on his senior film he had his entire senior film backed up in three places it was on the school network it was on a flash drive um and it it's like an external hard drive and he had it on his home computer in one day the network at school crashed and all of his data was lost his laptop fell out of his backpack on the way home and shattered his his computer hard drive and when he got home someone had broken into his house and stolen his external hard drive and he lost over a year of work into under 24 hours back up your files i have i drilled this into your brain good back up your files um some more tips from these spider force forums um what's important is that you do the work not that you do it the quote unquote right way if it works for you then it works i do a lot of nonsense in the behind the scenes of cast off pages if you want to see some of my nonsense i stream art every wednesday and sometimes on other days come watch me and i will teach you my nonsense okay um if you have worked on a page for ages and you still think it looks a bit rubbish just post it don't beat yourself up just because you can't get a character's expression quite right um i will break out the two cakes expression here where like you might look might like make a cake and then look at other people's cakes and be like oh those cakes look so much better than mine um my cake isn't worth anything but you know you know what you know what the audience sees they see two cakes and that's awesome give your audience give them let them eat cake unintentional historical reference but yeah okay webcomics are a marathon not a sprint so finding a schedule that works with your life is much more important than overworking yourself okay don't burn yourself out on comics i'm giving you permission to use shortcuts and and make things that work for you okay you don't have to spend a hundred hours on every single page and if you do spend a hundred dollars on a hundred dollars 100 hours on every page i will personally come to your house and whack you with a rolled up newspaper okay i've gotten to the point where my workload is so streamlined that i can make a whole page of cast off in like six hours that came from a lot of years of work to get it to that point but the faster and easier your comic process is the easier it is and the less likely it is you'll burn yourself out okay cool read other people's works to figure out how to best go about making your own learn from others teaching yourself in the void is a slow way to talent okay it's okay to use other people as examples you know artists should be good thieves that does not mean take other people's art and post it on your twitter without credit that means see what other people have done and if you like it figure out how you can apply that to your own work uh don't be ashamed or afraid to jump around and work on what you're really passionate about if you don't enjoy what you're doing the likelihood of burnout is much higher this is very true if you are working on a comic that you are not a hundred percent um passionate about you will burn out eventually my advice for that is to make your web comic just the most self-indulgent thing you could possibly make my comic is full of tropes that i love and because i love those tropes so much it makes it easy to work on the comic because i get excited about something that happens on every single page you know bad boy can fit so many sad magic boys in it slaps the roof of the webcomic okay also these are important re-character design uh design your main character so that they're fun to draw because you'll be drawing them a lot y'all i have like a fantasy military installation in my webcomic i gave them shirts and pants because i didn't want to have to draw detailed uniforms every time i had to draw those characters make them easy to draw you will thank yourself later also make sure that your cast has different silhouettes and color schemes otherwise your readers will keep confusing them i i try to like give each of my characters just kind of a color that's theirs but also if you draw them in a lineup and any of the characters look too similar to each other someone that reads it is going to get confused okay so try and make your cast as visually distinct from each other as possible uh try not to fall into the remake loop uh too many stories just stop because the artist feels the need to go back and redo older pages you improve over time that's normal and good don't go back and remake old pages it's not worth it just keep going let your old art be as it was because that was a time in your life that was an art style that you chose and you were proud of it when you first made it you know so don't disrespect your older self your past self keep moving forward and just keep improving what you're currently outputting uh the one exception to this is if you're gonna go back and like print it uh you can go back and like brush some of the dust off of it um but do not like completely redraw your old comic it's not worth it don't do it um also for me again if you're working digitally memorize your keyboard shortcuts because they will literally save you hours of time hours of time spent digging through menus will be a thing of the past if you can figure out your keyboard shortcuts for things that you do frequently uh some more tips i'm gonna take a sip real quick talking too much is making me thirsty um so some more tips just in general uh find friends to be your beta testers tell them about the story show them your scripts and let them see pages in advance they may catch plot holes or inconsistencies that you didn't notice because you as the creator are too close to it and so sometimes like a question like you know the answer to you don't even think about potential plot holes but your audience members will see them immediately and then you'll be stuck floundering around so it's a good idea to show people your scripts ahead of time like get some a trusted group of friends i call mine my spoiler squad just a group of friends who like know everything about my comic and i will like show them scripts and be like hey does this make sense does this work does this character's motivation work for you um highly recommend that um also step away take some time between steps of comic making to stare at something else then come back to your work with a fresh pair of eyes fix anything that doesn't look right before continuing i never ink and color my comic pages on the same day that i sketch them never that is the point that i make because you know what happens when you sketch something and then you immediately jump into inking it without taking a break to like refresh your brain you draw characters with two left feet i have done that so many times it's embarrassing so just like take take breaks take a chance to like look away at something else come back to your work on a regular basis with a fresh set of eyes and you'll see stuff that you didn't notice before because you were too close to it also yeah take a break making comics is fun but remember to stretch frequently and take care of your precious hands because carpal tunnel sucks but okay i remember day one i walked into my very first comics class at school and they were like hi welcome to comics 101 i'm going to show you guys extremely graphic pictures of um extremely graphic pictures of carpal tunnel syndrome so to scare us into taking care of ourselves it worked it worked really well okay um so a quick note on collaboration this is not something i can answer too many questions on because i've never done it personally but if you love drawing but aren't so good at writing or if you're great at writing but suck at drawing you should consider collaborating with another artist or a writer make sure that you choose your collaboration partners carefully collaborate with someone you can trust to get the work done not just because you're friends if you just like try and do a comic with your best friend they might be less passionate about it than you are and they say yeah sure i'll draw your comic but then you get the whole thing scripted and you pass it off to them and they just never make it make sure that you find somebody who you can trust to work on this comic not just somebody who you want to work with because they're your best friend or whatever also you should write a contract before starting the comic it doesn't have to be any you don't have to get lawyers involved just hash out the basics of what is going to happen when you guys get money involved with this like who's responsible for what how are you guys going to share profits if you ever make any this is very important because if you don't do this you might find yourself in some legal trouble later down the line when your artist is trying to sue you for more money also one last note writers do not expect artists to draw your comic for free artists do not work for free okay i feel like this is simple and i'm not going to elaborate on it too much your time and effort is worth money do not insult me by asking me to draw your fantasy comic for free i have pets to feed and i will just ignore your email moving along here are some additional comic resources that i highly recommend um first are two books i own both of these they are fantastic if you guys want to learn more about the actual craft of making comics and like paneling and all this other stuff making comics by scott macleod is the comic maker's bible basically this was a textbook at the school i went to it is how to draw comics written as a comic so it's very easy to read and has like visual examples that you can follow along with if you want to learn more about the craft of making comics read this freaking book okay also save the cat one of my favorite freaking books it is a book specifically about writing for screenplays but the information that they give you in that book on storytelling and how to write a story and how to work a narrative are valuable for any kind of storytelling so like it's mostly for film but the advice in there has helped me exponentially with writing stuff for comics as well it applies to everything because storytelling is storytelling no matter what medium you're making it with also some additional websites i haven't checked on webcomic chat in a while but i know that it was fairly active a few years ago um there's a twitter chat room they stopped doing the twitter chat room um but the webcomicchat.com has old archives um webcomic alliance has a lot of articles about writing and drawing comics and then i i know i i sassed you guys a little bit for hoarding pinterest tutorials but there's no shame as long as you hoard tutorials so that you can actually use them for making comics you know um if you find a tutorial use it and if you're stuck on how to do something google a tutorial you will find something someone has made them you know also forums uh the spider forest forums this is again i'm mentioning them again this is the comic collective i am a member of uh the forums you can ask questions in there and there are a lot of archived threads about like different processes you can also get constructive criticism and things like that uh tapas and comic fury also have their own forums related to web comics and the work that goes into them um i don't post there really but i i skulk through stuff occasionally uh goodreads all of it where is my okay go down okay so now it's time to talk about posting your comic uh so once you've made your comic in order for it to be a web comic you gotta stick it on the web somewhere but where are you gonna stick it uh you can build your own website or you can host it on a free comic hosting website um building and hosting your own website is going to be more time consuming and it is going to cost money for things like hosting or if you're like me it's going to cost somebody it's going to cost you money to convince a friend to build your comic website for you but you get full control over how it looks and the setup and all like the extra features you want to add and you aren't constrained to platform limitations free web comic hosts are free they don't cost anything to post your comic on and they do come with built-in audiences of people who like to read comics but they aren't as customizable as a webcomic site you built yourself so you should decide what is best for you so these are some comic hosting websites this is not an exhaustive list these are just the ones that i've that i know about um webtoon i feel like is kind of the big shot right now to the point where i get people asking me what my webtoon is called and i'm like just because i posted on webtoons doesn't make it a webtoon it's not a webtoon comic it's a star comic i post it on webtoon because people like to read it there but if i hated web if i one day decided that i hate webtoon i could just yank it off there but the comic would consider to continue to exist off of webtoon sorry i'm letting my aggravations get to me uh webtoon and tapas i think are like kind of the big two uh comic fury is also valuable um comic fury i believe lets you kind of like customize your site a lot more um there's also tumblr which is okay um tumblr is very good for um like one-off comics that people can relate to and are memeable and that people can re-blog if they think it's funny uh deviantart is where i hosted my first ever web comic i don't necessarily recommend it now but if you have literally no other option you could put it there you could put it there i'm gonna take a drink real fast how are we doing so far everybody you keeping up we good okay so dpnr exists it does it's true okay so if you're going to be making your own website these are some features of comic websites that you should put in your website um an about page this is a brief synopsis uh when the comic update so your update schedule uh creator blurb etc um give people information also if you're going to making a comic that would require anything like content warnings um or like a rating uh you can put it on your about page and people will go there to look for it also you need an archive page because if somebody if let's say for example you have a 500 plus page fantasy adventure webcomic cough cast off comic.com um people might not be able to read the whole thing in one sitting and so when they come back to it you want to make sure that they can find where they left off quickly and easily and that is why i have thumbnails of all my comic pages in my archive so people can be like i don't remember which page number i left off on but i remember what it looked like and they can just scroll through the archive find where they left off and keep going the easier it is to navigate your archive the less likely it is that people are gonna stop reading because they're annoyed with it um a characters page with pictures and character descriptions this is useful for your readers to keep track of who's who um navigation both above and below every comic page i recommend sticking it above as well as below so that say um joe hasn't checked the cast off website in a couple weeks and he doesn't want spoilers but he only needs to go back like two or three pages um he can just like hit the little arrows at the top and doesn't have to scroll past spoilers to get to where he last left off get it so navigation both above and below also a comment section this is optional but i highly recommend it so that you can communicate with your readers and your readers can communicate with you i know a lot of folks who have like really really huge audiences um sometimes don't like to have comic comment sections because it becomes too much to moderate if there's too many people talking but when you're first starting out definitely have definitely definitely have a comment section so you can talk to your readers and make jokes with them and in my case just let them post memes you know it's fun um also a links page uh with links to other web comics that you like uh you should spread the love and help other people find other comics uh i've had several people who found my comic because cast off was in their links page so you can like tell people what your favorite comics are and help kind of spread the love i'll just go ahead and get this out of the way um people finding other comics to read is not going to make them like you less okay people can enjoy more than one web comic so spreading the love and helping comics find new readers is only beneficial okay don't be a snooty stick em stick up your butt and not support other comic artists okay yeah two cakes two cakes okay i have a links page on castoff's website that i i need to update it frankly but just like if you help other readers find your favorite comment your comics then they might even help advertise you as well it's a mutually beneficial partnership that's just kind of casual and throwing little hearts all over the stage yay spread the love be cool don't be an exclusive butt okay also if you have social media make your social media page or links really easy to find because my thing is if i find an artist who makes a web comic that i really like i want to know what they're talking about i want to see if they post like non-comic art sometimes and if i can't find your like your twitter feed if i don't know what your twitter username is i'm going to get sad the easier it is to find the more likely it will be that people can find you yay also an rss feed for your comic because people still use rss feeds they are very valuable and most web comic like cmss that's content management system uh most comic websites will come with one of these automatically but if it doesn't you gotta make sure you want one because a lot of people keep track of comics with these things they're extremely handy i personally don't use them but i know a lot of people who do tips if you can launch your comic with the entire first chapter or at least a large chunk of pages give people something to sink your teeth into and they'll be more likely to stick around okay also if you make some pages before you commit to publishing them it'll take some of the pressure off and it can give you an idea of how fast you work and how often you can update okay so i'll give you guys an example um imagine that you go to a web comic the brand new web comic it's called kittens in space you go to the website for kittens in space and you you read they've just started they just posted their web comic they're hyping it up on social media and you go to their website and they have one page they have a single page of this comic that's not a lot that's not nearly enough to get invested in the character in a story anything like that however you go to another comic that has just started it just began like today today is the day that dogs go under the ocean dogs go into the mariana trench a new hit web comic and you go there and they already have like the entire first chapter you're going to spend some time like reading that entire first chapter that's going to like set up the story and you know what it's about and you like get a chance yeah you get a chance to like figure out your workflow and people it gives people a chance to get more invested in your comment because if you think about it realistically you've got one chance to grab a stranger's attention make it count okay also don't expect your comic to be super popular right away it'll take a few years to build an audience and people generally won't get invested until you're around 100 pages in uh this is referred to sometimes as the 100 page rule also i mentioned this before but comics that start with a large audience probably have an artist who is already popular and just directed their audience to their comic so don't knock on people whose comics get popular immediately okay because they've they worked for that audience you gotta work for your audience too moving on i'm gonna take a sip of my water real fast okay next is establishing your update schedule and stick to it because because let me run you guys through a very real scenario how many of you guys have been reading a comic that suddenly just without warning drops off the face of the earth or a comic that updates at least a few times a month but you never know when it updates and you never know when to check the website for new panels for new updates for new pages it's a pain so you as a webcomic artist and a creator should make it as easy as possible for people to know when your comic updates okay so the people know when when and where to go to your website pick a regular schedule that works for you and stick to it you should let people know when you update typically webcomics will post their update schedule at the top of the page near the logo so it's very easy to see the first thing people see when you come into your comic website should be hey new pages are posted every wednesday okay make it easy most comics update once a week or more uh if you update less than that you risk losing your readers so you should try to give them something to look forward to every week be consistent now obviously this can change if you you could do just like a big big batch of pages every month or you could update with a handful of pages every two weeks but generally you want to have at least one page per week that's usually a good pace that's normal for webcomics also i highly recommend always being a few pages or updates ahead so this is called a buffer or a cue having pages done beforehand is less stressful than scrambling to finish a page a few hours before it goes online for example i always try to be about a month ahead of what the comic pages i am posting because if i happen to like finish a page but then i notice a problem with it i've got a month to fix it whereas my first web comic i just posted the page immediately and if i made any mistakes it's people have already seen it and then it's embarrassing okay so i've said this before and i'll say it again webcomics are a marathon not a sprint don't burn yourself out okay don't overdo it my advice is before you actually commit to posting your comic online okay before you actually start you should take a week and just don't push it but just like make as much of your comic as you can in one week with your normal amount of free time then at the end of that week look at how much you have accomplished like so say you made three pages in that week subtract one and that's how many updates you should post a week you should never be working at maximum output okay because that's a fast and easy way to burn out you should always give yourself a little bit of wiggle room with your pages okay so for example if i sit down and i if i buckle myself in and i go i could easily i could make four pages of cast off a week i do two pages a week because that way i still have time to enjoy myself and exist as a human outside of my webcomic you know also if you have to miss an update let your readers know and provide a comeback date if you can because if you just drop off the face of nowhere your audience is gonna get upset with you your readers will appreciate honesty be open with them don't leave them in the dark wondering when the next update will be a lot of you folks said yes when i said has it ever happened that a comic just disappeared you know how it feels don't do it to other people um this applies to sync missing single updates or going on a longer hiatus for any reason whenever i have to go on hiatus i like to give people like as big of a warning as i possibly can so that people know it's coming and they can brace themselves for it and then it's not a surprise when it happens okay more tips most of this powerpoint is just tips and we just talking like hey bullet points okay uh so be your own biggest fan this kind of ties into the motivation topic but comics are a slog comics are hard um relying on others to encourage you and get you to like motivate you to work on your comic can be a fast track to losing motivation so you should learn to rely on your own self gratification and make your comic something that makes you happy enough that you enjoy working on it so much that you can relate that you can reliably do it every single week also save nice comments whenever you get a positive comment about your work take a screen cap of it and put it in a folder that's easy to get to on your computer i put mine on my desktop i've got a folder on my desktop that says that's called this folder gives me life and it's just full of every single nice comment about my comic that i have literally ever gotten um and on the sad days when i feel like crap and i feel like no one likes my comic and i feel like an imposter i have like a whole folder filled with cappy vibes that i can look through and it makes me feel good and yeah this applies to any creative work not just comics um also don't compare yourself to others because i know that this is a thing that a lot of artists struggle with artists and creative types in general your webcomic journey is yours and yours alone don't get the six don't let the successes of others tarnish your drive to succeed okay you are a valuable creative the stuff you make nobody else can make your journey is yours alone so you should share it as much as you can okay cool congratulations you are now armed with the knowledge you need to start your own web comic go forth friends and make comics uh so this is kind of the first half of questions i'm gonna stop and take a drink real quick i won't be able to get to everybody's because there's so many um so many people 182 is what my viewer count says right now that's terrifying um okay but um if you guys have any questions i will answer questions for the next five minutes um and we will have more time at the end but i do have my second half after this which is more on promotion and i will take more questions after that okay um so first one i see is any advice on blocking out comic strips um i highly recommend just like um looking at screen design um because screen design can kind of like tell you it's the value of where things are on the page and how much space they take up for okay oh lord there's a lot of questions i can't focus on all of them uh but yeah i would say look at um other comics and see how they lay their stuff out and just kind of like try and recreate it a little bit just like really sketchy try and recreate comic pages that you like um and see what works and what doesn't and kind of like see if you can figure out um how to make it work it's hard to talk about this kind of thing without having an example in front of me um how do i make money on my comics that's going to be the next half of this presentation so i will get back to that um when did you start making web comics a long ass time ago i started in like 2005 but i didn't start posting them online until 2007 because that's when i got my first deviantart account um are you a full-time comic artist i'm a full-time artist my comic pays my rent uh how do i manage backgrounds um keep them simple do like one big establishing shot every time you change to a new page um or like every time your characters enter a new scene and uh try to just keep just keep it simple you don't have to put a super detailed background in every single panel you know so i would say spend a lot of time on like one really detailed background to get your audience grounded within the scene and then after that you can go pretty simple on the rest um as long as your viewers have a good idea of where your characters are you don't need to draw a background for every single panel um okay how long should a beginner comic be before you start making your dream comics so what i recommend is if it is your first time making comics at all there's a couple different avenues you can go down i got my start making comics by making like silly little fan art comic strips for video games that i liked um i also made like jokey strips about things that my friends said in the style of like calvin and hobbes and four coma manga comics um but as far as like if you've got like a fantasy story or like a longer graphic novel story you want to tell i would say like pick pick a character that you like and just like write what a day in their life is like or write like a short comic about like their experience doing something just make something simple i would say keep it like under like 10 pages or fewer for your very first time um and then you can work to like kind of larger things after that um i'm going to answer questions about social media in the second half so we will get to that um if i suck at writing and drawing then practice stop sucking okay but like serious answer though um this is something i was talking about in a tick tock live the other day one of my old professors at school said that inside of you are a hundred shitty bicycles and i will explain what that means so imagine that you've never drawn a bicycle before but you wanna be able to draw bicycles better um inside of you are a hundred shitty bicycle drawings and underneath those shitty bicycle drawings are good bicycle drawings my phone just went off and i don't know where it is um so if you want to get better at drawing bicycles you gotta get those shitty bicycle drawings out of your system you draw a hundred of anything and you're gonna get better at drawing it combined with references and studying you look at a bicycle you work on the bicycle and slowly you will work those shitty bicycles out of your system if you want to get better at anything you have to practice you have to do the thing okay if you want to get better at drawing you have to draw no excuses you just have to do it okay if you want to get better at writing you have to write things you will not get better at doing anything by avoiding it okay if you want to get good at something you just have to kick your own ass and sit down and do it i'm sorry i'm getting a little bit crass in the q a section but it's true you will not get better at anything by avoiding it okay i'll take like one or two more questions and then i gotta go take a break and rest my throat for a hot minute um would you recommend getting a drawing tablet with a screen rather than a screenless one if you want to start making comics yes absolutely um i would i my first like 10 years of being a digital artist i had a non-screen tablet that just like sat on my desk like a fancy mouse pad i loved it i used it but the screen tablet is such an improvement it makes things so much easier um so if you can afford a screen tablet i would highly recommend springing for one of those if you're taking this seriously um okay so i will have time for more questions um after the second half of the panel but i'm gonna take like five minutes and uh just like rest my throat for a little bit um for reference here's my comic i will go ahead and put those links in the chat um the stream is not over yet i am going to do the second half after this i'm gonna take five minutes and then uh to just like rest my brace rest my voice refill my water and when we get back i'm going to start the second half which is webcomics 102 from self-promotion to self-publishing all right so if you want to stick around find out how to promote yourself and do all that jazz stick around for that i'ma take five minutes and go stretch and get some water uh don't go anywhere i'm going to activate my starting soon screen would you i'm going to disappear going to deactivate the mic and i will see you guys in five minutes

Transcript for:Essential Guide to Creating Webcomics

Transcript for:
Essential Guide to Creating Webcomics