Thread by @zules

SPEED TIPS FOR COMICS ARTISTS: A thread

For comics artists, especially webcomic creators, speedy drawing leads to freq. updates which lead to more story and excited readers! Here's how to draw fast, which I say is > drawing well (Let me explain)

#comics #webcomics #arttips

As long as your art isn't distractingly bad, it doesn't need to be distractingly good, either. Comics are storytelling+shorthand. If your writing is good & your depictions are recognizable, you're in good shape. You're telling a story through stylized art...what readers expect!

Well-drawn art is awesome & you CAN TOTALLY take advantage of your hard-earned skills and draw stunning panels! That wows the reader! But you don't have to make every panel this way. I find it VERY helpful to ask myself what the purpose of each of my panels is... (example next)

(1st) If it's to be shockingly visually detailed or pleasing--then sure--spend plenty of time on the art!

(2nd) If it's purpose is something else (framing dialogue, conveying emotion, establishing a scene, showing an action, etc.) then cut some corners!!

(3rd possibility next)

(3rd) If it's purpose is hard to figure out, maybe cut out the panel entirely!

Very few of your panels will fall under the first category, so keep that in mind & save yourself some time!

Now let's get to my SPEED TIPS...

In my experience, we artists waste TONS TONS TONS of time "fiddling" with our art to try and get it to look "right." Well, what if you could get it "right" very quickly?

Let me introduce you to a blazing fast technique for weeding out errors...

👀 FRESH EYES. 👀

Most artists have experienced the phenomenon of drawing something, thinking it's perfect, then coming back to it the next day or later and suddenly you can see some glaring problems that you couldn't see before! That's because...

taking a break from looking at it gave you FRESH EYES and fresh eyes lead to a 700% increase in problem-spotting ability.

What if, while working on a panel, instead of fiddling with the line art for 3+ hours, you could instead blink and suddenly gain fresh eyes?

You'd be able to tackle the biggest errors immediately and decisively and save so much time!!

TRY THIS:
Flip the canvas horizontally. If you don't already know this trick, IT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE. Mirroring your art tricks your brain into seeing things from a fresh perspective!!

Something else that can cost us comics artists a lot of time is a worthwhile staple of many an art style... SHADING. But is it really that important? Maybe not as important as you think!

See for yourself and be the judge:

Here's a panel from my comic... The top image shows the original, minimal shading I used, and the bottom image is an alternative version w/ additional, time-consuming shading. The shading is highlighted in blue so that you can see what I'm talking about easier.

But when both versions are placed in the context of a series of panels, you can see that--while the bottom version does look slightly better--the original, minimal shading works just as well! AND IT TOOK SO MUCH LESS TIME. I still was able to convey exactly what I wanted!

If you're exclusively a web publisher, keep in mind that the size you're drawing at is probably not the size you're exporting at. When you're zoomed in and trying to get small details right, you might be wasting time on something that's not going to be visible in the final ver.

For this reason, I recommend having a second monitor where you can view the web-size zoom level of your page at all times. A quick glance can tell you whether or not it's worth it to try and get certain details right.

Details are often unimportant... observe:

Details are unimportant when your artistic shorthand is obvious (rectangular green paper is money) or when the surrounding panels clear up the context. Below, I didn't bother giving my character an expression in the first panel because the second panel makes his expression clear!

The dancer below is a drawing I spent a lot of time on while looking at a photo reference to make sure I got both the interior details and the exterior silhouette correct. Now what happens when I spend less time on it?

If I spend less time on the outer shape/silhouette, we have the red dancer. If I spend less time on the interior details and totally BS them, we get the blue dancer. While neither is as well-drawn as the original, the blue dancer is passable because the OUTLINE was right.

This knowledge can take you far! Think about it:
If you put all your focus into the silhouette (which doesn't take long to draw, actually) and get sloppy with the interior details to save time, you're still probably making decent, passable art! The one exception to this is...

the human face; those should be drawn with special care because most of us are very sensitive to even the slightest alteration in an expression's appearance.

And now for some final tips that are centered around a digital workspace and how you can take advantage of it:

Remember, saving even 1 minute on a panel could add up to multiple hours over the span of a chapter!

-Get yourself 10+ keyboard shortcuts!! Hitting a key is SO much quicker than glancing at & clicking an on-screen button, even if you can do that pretty fast anyway! (continued)

-Instead of opening up 4 different reference files to color-pick the skin color of 4 different characters, put ALL of your commonly used colors on an always-open master color palette, and then try to choose new colors from those existing ones. Opening files takes time.

-The 3 seconds it takes to name a new layer is faster than the combined 30 seconds you'll spend hunting for it or getting it confused for something else 🤷 (continued)

-Set up and name all of your commonly-created layers in advance and then save that as a file template that you can open up and use every time! Here's an example of mine.

I will leave you with this last piece of advice: invest time LEARNING & PREPARING

LEARN your 3-point perspective rules. LEARN color theory. LEARN how to draw a hand. And so on. Once you take the time to learn, you'll struggle a lot less and be faster.

PREPARE:

PREPARE with plot research. PREPARE with detailed character references. PREPARE by planning out your environments. And so on. If you're prepared, you'll struggle a lot less and be faster.

Now go, draw fast. 🏃‍♀️✨✨

Shoutout to @hamm_tips for his amazing Patreon & Twitter resources. If you liked my thread, you'll definitely want to read his stuff. Not that I'm claiming he agrees with any of this, but I've definitely been influenced by his wonderful essays!!