I really want to practice my sequential art storytelling skills (especially through comics, animatics, and storyboards) but I've wasted so much time worrying over the smallest little things and I always end up not starting/finishing the project at all. This video getting published is a sign from the universe😂💕 Thank you for all the advice!

An addition to your point about not spending too much time rendering: if you, as say someone working on their comic entirely alone, see comics that are fully rendered and clean and polished, check to see how many people worked on it. My money is that there were at least three people working on those highly rendered comics. Don't find yourself trying to hold yourself to the standard of a full team; that's a great way to burn out.

My ONE comic rule is “no walls of text”. If I see a wall of text in a comic, even if I’m the one who wrote it, my brain won’t let me read it, so I made it a rule not to do that. That’s for me though. Everybody needs to see what works for them or not.

After I finished my contract with Webtoons, I wanted to see if I could break into graphic novels. But finding an agent seems so daunghting. Webcomics and printed publishers are two different worlds.

OMG yea!! Thank you for making this video. I feel like getting a slap for the first point. I'm from an official webtoon that signed an exclusive agreement. You know, I'm proud and so happy, but it didn't last long. I couldn't do anything with my own IP for 5 years, couldn't even post new webtoons because they kept rejecting my new titles, and the platform didn't do anything to market my IP, I can’t do webtoon anymore it is too expensive to keep offering new title every months just to get rejected, I have to do other works to get money to stay alive. Well, I don't blame them, I blame myself, cuz I’m so dumb, now I just recently got out of the contracts, but five years have passed, nobody knows about my OC anymore. And I just need to comment here so anybody who care can being very careful about this point.

This was just the video I needed. I love making Comics, but I've stopped pumping out comic strips on a regular out of a stress of worrying that my stuff isn't detailed enough. I try not to "cheat" by drawing flat colors instead of a backgrounds or not coloring enough but these tips rekindled me to wanna start working and writing more comics again asap :) thank you for making this!

#1. Don't make your main characters design complex unless you hate yourself and wish to torture yourself.

watching your sketching process made me feel so much better, i always worried because my sketches were rough and messy and seeing you turn those sketches into beautiful artwork makes me more confident

1:50 webtoon originals are also not allowed to self-publish their stuff too unfortunately 😢

If anyone is worried about their style not being good enough for a comic go read the comic book Piero by Edmond Baudoin i think that is the greatest example of a comic with seemingly lower skill level from an artistic fundamental standpoint still being amazing due to how expressive the artist makes the work, showing that experimentation in art can be more important than perfectly rendered work.

I'm a new comic artist starting out and the problem with new artists is they need to understand and learn from mistakes. When I published my first book, I learned so many things I didn't notice before, by just drawing in the confort of my room. Having to publish a decent book forced me to be more disciplined, to learn about many aspects. Make comics, publish them, put a deadline. If you don't do it you never learn, if you don't make it happen, you never see what it could be. That's why I disagree an artist must be already great to publish a comic. No one was born being great, all artists started somewhere.

Your videos are amazing. I love how you share your thoughts about art and art careers. The advice of not waiting for the right moment is the most important advice for me, no matter if you plan to be a professional comics creator or as a hobby. I wish I hear it ten years ago.

This was a much needed push in the right direction!! (and what the wrong directions are!) thank you so much 🤩

Hi! Thank you for talking about this, it really helped when you addressed the fact that it's ok if you can't keep a consistent artstyle because its one of the main things I worry about. Also, do you have any tips on drawing backgrounds or establishing a setting?

Thank you for another portion of the great tips dear! 🤗💖

This is all fantastic and wise advice. Thanks!!

This is a great reminder video. I've been wanting to do my own comics for years but I got stuck in planning forever. Now that I'm almost through design school, I wanna write all of them and just go for it lol. If one isn't great, that's just exp for the next one.

14/05/2024: just watched this! Thanks for the words of encouragement, you're such a sweetheart 🥰

These are such useful and inspiring tips.

Thank you for the advice & the effort you put into your videos Michelle! Love the hairdo, hope you & your loved ones are safe!!!

Thank you for this video❤

concise and pro ! nice work ! keep it up !

Thanks !!! For the advice it was all helpful as I work through my comic

as an aspiring artist and soon comic artist. these tips are really helpful for me Mewtrippled. been a fan of your works lately. thank you Mewtrippled😄😄

This was such a perfectly timed video! I'm off for the summer between school semesters and decided to work on a webcomic. Thank you so much!❤😊

I'm making my very first serious comic, and my first comic since MIDDLE SCHOOL. I've always been an artist, but I just finally realized one day after graduating top of my class in art school and actually BEING a graphic designer for my job...hey, I can DO this! I fi ally realized I HAVE the skills I need already. Before, I kept waffling about it, judt saying "I am not ready yet." I don't know how or why, but it just clicked one day. Now, that being said, I am having a horrible time getting pages done quickly. Just to give an idea: In almost a year, I have gotten...6 pages done. And those are like traditional comic pages, not webisodes! That's not even enough for me to justify my first webisode yet.

As always your advices are truly useful and it help a lot. Thanks for sharing your experiences, one of the best content on the web.

Thank you for all the good advice

Your skin is amazing! 🤩

Tysm for this info! As someone who wants to make graphic novels as a career, all of this is really useful! I love the drawing of joshua tree national park (?) it’s gorgeous and really captures the vibes of the desert ^^

If you publish on somebody else's platform, be sure to insert promotionals for your own platform into that work. Always be using social media to drive traffic to your personally owned website, never the other way around.

Where have you encountered agents who’s commission is 15%? I’ve never heard of a commission that low unless they are a literary agent. The typical range I’ve seen is 20% to 30%

I absolutely love writing and have been a writer since I was in middle school. I just think people are less likely to read books nowadays so I was looking into comics but I worry that my art is not as good as my writing and thus would hinder my story in this medium.

lol look at teenage mutant ninja turtles, Kevin Eastman started with a comic and he's still making comics after how many reiterations of the IP. His original illustrations aren't the greatest but it has a lot of heart and fun in it when you open it up

Doing everything in order is a very good one for me. The very beginning en end of the comic takes place in real life so the pages have a realism style when the middle, the main part is in a dream so it's not realism and the main character is a 3D model so I don't even have to draw her. But the first chapter ish will take a long time so I'll probably not draw them in order like you suggested 😅

I'm admit I'm only watching this because I'm doing a fan comic of Stardew Valley, but it's so helpful to know this. Thanks

Thank you very helpful

Great video . yasss i love making comics .i just jumped in been 5 years and I'm still having so much fun with my girls alix n skip😊😊😊

Hey you are awesome artist ✨ I learned a lot from you. Love from India❤

she: *just talking about the video theme* me: *looking at the drawing process*😮now i wanna buy her book

i love how supportive the manga community is to up incoming artists

I have an important question. I am doing a graphic novel but I can draw digitally, but not color, so I would like to pay someone to color. Where do I find painters and, since I haven't "patented" my work yet because I haven't finished it yet, can they just steal my work for themselves since they will have access to all the pages? Pls someone help me😢

Thanks for the video. Helped put some things into perspective. I would love to know if you have a video based on expectations. I have ADHD and am often discouraged when things do not progress at a rate that does not meet up with my fabricated time lines.but if I have something as a base expectation of a full time professional, I know to double that time because I'm green and double again because it's not my full time career. The 3 pages a day average was a good base, but all steps are different. Anyway thanks again

Also kinda from a storyboarding background and I've decided to make a comic for my school project. Now... I haven't seriously drawn for years if we don't count sketches. So this is going to be a challenge cause I am also going to code the website for it. T-T.

Also!!! I’m no expert on this but I’ve heard that some contracts basically give complete ownership of your comic to the posting website. If your comic isn’t making enough money or getting enough attention anymore, they can cancel it. But they still own it!!!! Which means you can never use those characters or continue your story around anything!!! You have lost your creation!!! Your child!!! All that love and effort and attention and you can’t touch it ever again!!! but idk I don’t remember where I heard this I think it was another artist on KZfaq I might be remembering wrong

Jeez. When i hear info i don't want.. i know i probably really needed it. It's like you were talking at me😂. Question, i can sketch decently (been drawing for 2 years) how did you handle color/ color theory? Is my biggest weakness

Awesome 😎

Thank you

Thanks for these great videos. I need to ask a question pleaese. If I want to launch a comics magazine in a country not having any comics magazines before, would it be better to make it comics magazine only or add some litereray genres inside of the magazine like short stories?

thank you for this!!!!! 💚💚 i so want to draw and write graphic novels one day and am currently working on my art and story telling skills!!!

Hi Michelle! I find this vid super helpful. I'll consider each of the points that you mention. Thanks for sharing! Greetings from Mexico! BTW I saw you at your table on the first LBX in 2019 (you were wearing horns, haha XD), but I didn't know your art well enough at that time, and I was a little shy to approach :P. Hope there's another event in the future where I can meet you and say hi. Cheers!

Are you a comic book artist full time? And do you think dedicating a few years (with a plan) to make a graphic novel is financially worth it in 2023?

Should add a little flash warning

Hey I’m making a 5 page comic so I send to submissions at Image comic but I’m only one person making this, if they accept me do you think bring me help of making the comics faster

Is this from a POV of just an artist and no writer? I think a lot of these barriers can be alleviated if you wrote a book and then illustrated it. At that point you know the flow and thumbnails.

yes its ok to start out mediocre, how else will you gain that experience :)

I just would draw a picture on paper using pencil then scan it in to the computer then use gimp to color it.

Did you need to copyright your work on social media or did you just post your comics out there til you got noticed?

Sooo.... "How to make your own comic: be rich"

Im trying animations

hmm, the advice of not doing everything in order... How can I approach this? like, if you have 5 super hard pages to do and, let's say 20 easy ones, and you want to do 3 pages per day, so you make one of these hard pages on a day and two of the easy ones on the same day and so on, until the comic is finished... is irrelevant. Because the time consumed by the hard pages is going nowhere (you still got to invest that time), you can say that you can do 1.5 hard pages a day and have all the hard pages done, and then apply yourself to do the easy pages, and then you realize you are doing 4 or 5 of the easy ones on a per day basis, so you are doing "less" on some days and then doing more on the other days, summing up to the same amount of time by the end of the month or deadline timeframe you may have. Or maybe I didn't get it.

pipeline 9:21 fictional. make sense later. show, don’t tell.

thanks for all the tips. But a 22$ debut comic? it seems like you are losing a big market to me.

"not hiring a colorist" Ok noted, but first, i need to find a way to make money

Ask much as I appreciate these tips and I swear I'm not trying to be a butthole... the shameless plug for your own comic along with the three minute sponsor kills the enjoyment of the video for me. I understand you have to get paid, but having all that mess at the end of the video is way better then at the beginning. Forget the what I said about the plug, I'd rather read, re-read and then physically purchase your comic before I ever deal with skillshare, are there tons of useful classes on there teaching you real art skills or is it a bunch of creatives just trying to get paid? No judgement, I'd like to know because I out of SVS Learn and yeah...$29 per month and I get a two-hour perspective class? Piss off.

YOU TALK TOO FAST.

I'm saying this as a professional artist - This is some real terrible advice. First off, if you want to know one way to produce self-inflicted burn out with creating webcomics, its to treat it like a job. It's not a job. Neither is your social media....not yet at least. Too many online artists get caught up in fantasy of what their work COULD be that they don't look at what it truly is. Also, hiring a colorist is a complete waste of money. If you're starting out in your journey of comics and art, you want to compile the most exhaustive portfolio and timeline of work you possibly can. Don't outsource until you have a concrete style that is solely recognizable as YOURS. Yes, that even means colors. And no, you don't have to worry about consistency, but if you're going to advocate for spending literal thousands of dollars on a book agent, then you actually DO need to have a completely consistent look and feel to your book. I promise you, no one will work with you if your art is not consistent. I'm not vouching for worrying about consistency, this statement is just one more tell to the fact that this person has no idea what they're talking about. Just make what you want, however you want, and on your own timeline. Don't worry about it being successful because much of that is out of your control. If you keep creating, something will eventually stick with an audience.

Awesome 😎