Best style for a webcomic

I’ve been planning a comic for a while now and I’ve always wondered what is the best way to handle the art style for it. I’m pretty stuck on deciding.

On one hand: Nobody wants to run into a situation where it’s difficult to update in a timely manner, making the comic painful to keep up with for readers. That’s why a lot of artists chose to go with a simplified, geometric style, it’s just faster to produce. And that shouldn’t be a problem if the writing itself can hold its own weight, right?

On the other hand: The webcomic/cartoon scene is over-saturated with simplified and/or low-effort art. What chance do I stand if my comic is boring to look at? A visually pleasing comic is a great way to draw in an audience, plus I much prefer to work with detailed, appealing styles and character designs.

How do you strike a balance? I don’t want to bite off more than I can crew, but I don’t want to be a minimalist.

Bonus question, could it be beneficial to hire a colorist or a background artist? I currently cannot afford something like that, but if I were to take this seriously, it sounds like a good investment later on.

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blandoangelus.tumblr.com/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

post some of your art and I can tell you.

On the first question, think about how fast you can produce a work within a timeframe. Skill also plays a role and knowing your tools play a large role, but without no reference to your artwork its hard to judge.

On that second part, simplicity can still express a lot. If you've read manhwa, you see that the importance of characters and expression in negative space. Its not wrong to go that route, but if you dire to have a background, read up on forms within the art and take inspiration. Practice trippy art or read some Mœbius.

For the bonus question, yes and no. You work with others and depend on them deliver proper work in time if you aim for a weekly/biweekly schedule. They'll take the load off, though.

Tried finding some digital art that wasn't porn.

...

An older and unfinished piece but you get the idea.

it will all depend on the kind of story that you want to tell at the end, if the story calls for detailed painting or simple art you just will know.

Just thin ''what would make me want to read a webcomic, to me personally, to the point that I would even spend my money on it? What do I like and how can I make my stories more like what I like?''

Your art is really nice. I think ultimately the best thing to do would be to use a style you're comfortable with. A style you wouldnt mind using for an entire comic. While you can easily create generic art, would you be proud & believe your time was worth it? No one on Sup Forums can tell you what the best choice is here, either find a balance or do what you believe is best for you.

you should go with the style where everything looks like shit and you never update on time

I myself would go for a John K./Joe Murray kind of art style, but that might not be your cup of tea.

Sci-fi/fantasy with lesbians. That's the comic your art is meant for.

Thinking about it, I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to the time it takes to complete a drawing. So the best course of action is to create some sort of backlog?

I don't know if you have a specific manhwa in mind, the ones I've read mostly have the type of detailed art you'd see in manga. Wait, never mind, I see what you mean. I was mostly referring to character art than the imagery as a whole, sorry for not clarifying that. The background is very important for the story I'm writing, so I'd have to try and balance the workload out with that and the character art.

>Practice trippy art or read some Mœbius.

I just checked that out and I see what you mean. I've been looking to Syd Mead and John Harris for environmental inspiration, I think that art style works well with those two.

>Just think ''what would make me want to read a webcomic, to me personally, to the point that I would even spend my money on it?"

I agree with that sentiment, the issue is the stuff I'd spend my money on is most likely beyond what I can endure producing. But yeah, its a sound goal to set for myself if I lowered my own standards a just a bit.

hook a brother up with that porn
Also you might want to visit the how to make a webcomic thread or whatever it is called

>Background artist
Don't do this unless you want the backgrounds and characters to more than likely conflict.
>Colorist
Can you not paint? Also, cuts heavily into any revenue and you more than likely won't be able to pay a Colorist with money made from the comic for at least MONTHS after the comic comes out, meaning you'll be paying out of your own pocket for a colorist, which is a job you more than likely can do yourself unless you are shit.

A visually pleasing comic is great, but a comic that updates on time and when it should is necessary. If you are slow, then be sure that you take on something that you can handle. As for a backlog, only if you know that it won't run out because once the comic starts, and if you chew through that backlog, then you're fucked.

Another thing, Webcomics make garbage money. You would have to balance the Webcomic WITH whatever else you are doing for money. If it's commissions or some garbage shit on tumblr, that's not going to pay the bills more than likely anyway unless you live in a rat infested shit-hole with multiple roommates.

Read up on the symbolism of character design. There's a Super Eyepatch Wolf video that's a good start regarding that kind of thing. If you haven't already pirated Adobe, do that and download GIMP too. Anything that can help reduce time polishing each page of your webcomic, you should do. For example, Michelle uses overlays and blurring, and then imports free textures to make her background coloring look stylized but still realistic, and uses a bunch of her favorite references for constructing the lineart she does prior to painting and coloring the background.

I'm a huge fan of DMT, so I'm looking into asking guys who create fractal programs to help me out with drawing machinescapes.

Thank you. And thanks for the poetic advice:
>While you can easily create generic art, would you be proud & believe your time was worth it?

Normally I'm just satisfied if I can get other people invested in my writing and characters. But nothing beats how awesome it feels to put effort into my artwork, even if I'm the only one to ever sees it. I guess it would be a case of "treating yourself".

I think you're onto something...

I dunno, I'm not into how exaggerated John K's art is, but I like how grossly organic it looks. I get the same feeling from Rebecca Sugar's older art as well.

You're not far off.

I don't think you'd like it.

>Also you might want to visit the how to make a webcomic thread or whatever it is called

Haha, no. I'm not going back there.

>I don't think you'd like it.
What's the worse that could happen

It's mostly /sug/ and okko shit.

that's fine

Again, I can't understate how important it is to streamline your workflow. To use another example, Hussie purposely kept his art looking like it was made by someone less experienced so he could keep doing his crazy update schedule. If I recall correctly, he was also on Adderall or Vyvanse or something when the comic was at its fastest [S] update rate, and it took both Flash and his dad dying to dent that schedule.

Lurk on /ic/ in some threads for more. Bookthreads, LAS threads, reference threads etc. I think that will help you out.
If you wanna get your foot into doing comics, get works by Scott McCloud and Will Eisner.

>Read up on the symbolism of character design
No, please don't do this. As someone who works in Visual Development, just looking through that is absolute shit and a dead end that causes most people to create designs that look like garbage. You need to mix that in with other information.

For easy to find online character design tutorials:
Basics of Character Design:
>Dynamic Bible - Peter Han
>The Skillful Huntsman
Simplistic Character Design:
>Daniel Arriaga's Schoolism Videos
Painted Character Design:
>Robotpencil Tutorials
>Feng Zhu Tutorials

Depending on what you plan on going into.

It shouldn't be a problem with back and forth communication to keep things meshing well with each other.

I can, I was just thinking of a way to work faster while producing desirable results. Remember, I don't plan on jumping into gathering an entire production team before I even start publishing.

Agreed on that second point.

I know, it's more of a passion project and it's one of the only few things keeping me from offing myself at this point

I still live with my family, but I plan on getting a part-time job soon, so yeah I'd still have to find a good balance.

blandoangelus.tumblr.com/
I have't updated in a while because life, but here you go.

Make sure to draw out entire parts of the comic before putting it online, and then releasing said part on a weekly basis so you're guaranteed to not just fucking drop it midway.

So, like, let's say part 1 is 30 entries long: You'd do all 30 entries, and then upload each entry on a weekly basis. When part 1 is done, you'd start making part 2, and so on and so forth.

Alright, I'll check that out.
>pirated Adobe
Yep.
>GIMP
Ew, no. But I got Clip Studio Paint and a bunch of other stuff, so no loss there. Anyways, thank you.

I don't think that user was saying to ONLY do that. I think anybody would know to use what info is useful from that and mix in other concepts.

And thanks for the resources.

Yeah, like with the /hyw/ thread, I usually avoid it other than to download tutorials and books. I hardly get any useful advice or critique posting there.

I'll check out those recommendations, thank you.

>I can't understate how important it is to streamline your workflow.
Can do. I should probably plan that out soon.

>Hussie
I wouldn't be able to keep up a schedule like his, though.

Whatever you do with the art, make sure to start your story strong. The beginning is the most important part of a long-form story like a webcomic, as it's what determines whether or not people will give the rest of it a chance.

I say with a bit less certainty that, for a webcomic, this means you should start your story kinda FAST. Start with some scenario that gives us quick, broad-but-accurate impressions of the major characters and stakes and whatnot. That is, specific details can wait, so long as their omission doesn't leave us the audience feeling lied-to.

Don't leave us standing around with ordinary (well, not-unexpected) things happening to strangers; give us something that really sets an element of your story apart from its archetype; give us something that surprises us and thus makes your story memorable; something to latch onto so we don't just think "yep, that sure was a [sci-fi/fantasy with lesbians or whatever] webcomic" when we've read it and then never think about it again.

What's the specific thing about THIS story that makes you most want to tell it? Keep that in mind and make sure we get to see how important it is, and ideally we'll agree that that's a thing that makes us want to follow it.

Make it an old simplistic comic strip. Simple can be more than "fake Adventure Time"

That's literally like 85% of webcomics though

you could make something cyberpunkish or tron like.

Whatever allows you to work as quickly as possible without hating your artwork. Even if this means the comic isn't representative of your skills at their best.

People are willing to forgive artwork if the story is good and updates reliably. Homestuck is probably the best example but he isn't the only one.

Oh and simpler artwork means more people draw and share fanart (and advertise the comic for you). When the comic's artwork is too nice, fans feel hesitant to try producing fanart if they feel like they can't match the comic. It lets them be more creative with their fanwork too. There is obviously a balance to be found, nice artwork attracts people in the first place but note how the most beautiful webcomics (like Avas Demon and Lackadaisy Cats) have comparatively little fanart.

>Nobody wants to run into a situation where it’s difficult to update in a timely manner, making the comic painful to keep up with for readers
That's what buffers are for, user, and no one will complain if you take a chapter break to rebuild your buffer
Just do whatever you want to do and are comfortable doing... which is pretty hard to figure out, so do a practice comic first, something short to test yourself with