How to start a webcomic: Prerequisites to start a webcomic #2: Drawing well

October 18, 2009 by r2moo2
Filed under: how to make a manga, how to start a webcomic

ff7_02

This is a continuation from my previous post, which is “Prerequisites to start a webcomic #1“. We were discussing about some prerequisites that should be met so that we do not start a webcomic prematurely to our failure.

There are many ways to create a webcomic, but there are also many people who gave up their dream because it is a tough journey to embark on. In this post we are going to talk about the next prerequisite that is essential for a webcomic artist to have before starting a webcomic.

How to start a webcomic: Prerequisites to start a webcomic #2

Prerequisite #2: Webcomic artist must be able to produce good quality artwork that appeals to most readers.

We might think this is common knowledge amongst aspiring manga comic artists, but if we do a search on Google, you might be surprised of the amount of low quality webcomic artwork that is on the Internet.

I have met many manga comic enthusiasts, and many of them don’t like to read comics or manga that has low quality artwork.

No wonder readers don’t have a tendency to search for a webcomic online for a good read, because there are few reputable webcomic artists that produces decent artwork.

There are people who argue that a good storyline is what it takes to create a good webcomic, and that artwork is secondary. They may use the example of One Piece, which does not seem to have fantastic artwork, but is one of the best selling manga comic of all times.

Granted, we may say that One Piece is an exception, but how many other popular manga comics resembles One Piece? Not many.

As the manga comic industry matures by time, more emphasis and demand has already been placed manga comic artist to produce better and more detailed artwork for production. Readers are entertained by how a manga comic looks, and not just how good a storyline is. Otherwise they would have chosen to read a novel instead.

If webcomics do not improve in their artwork, we can be sure that webcomics will never catch up with the quality of traditional paperback manga comics.

Artwork quality dilemma.

Great artwork is easier said than done. This is because the higher the quality of artwork will mean the more time and effort is needed to produce a single page of a manga comic.

Webcomic artists do not have the luxury of time; hence many of them do not spend much time on background design and fancy artwork. Therefore most webcomics nearly always seem to have inferior quality artwork than most traditional paperback manga comics.

Tip #1: Background design can be simple, but let the character design be as high quality as possible.

Reason: Characters are the most important assets in any story, as they are most instrumental when the manga comic or webcomic artist builds their story around their characters.

Hence if there is any part of artwork you want to compromise so that you want to spend less time on, that will be background design.

Tip #2: Characters’ clothes do not have to be too sophisticated or too fancy; simple but appealing design is recommended for saving time and efficiency

Reason: Especially for fighting genres, clothes can be difficult to draw when we take into account different camera views of the character and when the character is in the midst of action.

Having very complicated clothing will certainly slow down our drawing ability, Search online and look for trendy outfits that are cool yet simple to draw from magazines and pictures.

Use them as a reference to build your wardrobe of clothes design for your characters. Plan ahead, so that when you need to draw a certain outfit consistently, you won’t spend too much time trying to make your character look proportionate.

Tip #3: Don’t compel yourself to produce colored pages for your webcomic. Focus on producing good artwork instead.

Reason: I do not know the reason why but many webcomics I have seen are colored throughout. I wonder whether if it is the webcomic artist’s effort in trying to make up for its relatively simple artwork, but the truth is it doesn’t work.

Many webcomic artists do not understand color science; their use of colors on their artwork actually spoils their webcomic instead of improving it, as some webcomic tends to use colors that are too bright, and others have colors that doesn’t suit the webcomic.

Too bright colors just makes the whole artwork look very childish. Needless to say, colors that doesn’t suit the webcomic makes the webcomic lose its appeal and realism.

My advice is, if the webcomic artist isn’t good with the use of colors, please scrape the idea of colors. Using colors can be very demanding by itself, and the ability to use colors is by itself an art.

It is therefore better to focus on improving our artwork, then to venture of something that we are not so familiar with. Only after with a decent amount of practices should one try to incorporate color into their webcomic.