Thread 7777382

For 3-4 months, I was obsessively drawing everyday, and alot of my family were telling me how unhealthy it is. For over a month now Ive massively turned it down, just drawing 1-3 hours a day, and I can see my progress barely improve like it was. You really just gotta draw as much as you can if you wanna get good dont you? I mean I wanna draw comics for a living, but if I wanna make that a reality, the only time Ive got to do that is my early 20s

>>7777382 (OP)
I literally don’t know of any skill that requires more than 3 hours a day to achieve competence.
>b-b-b-but I’m competing with godlike chinks on social media!!!
Success at that level is mostly luck and connections, assuming you’ve achieved basic competence.
Once you’ve achieved competence, trying to grind further to KJG level gives you severely diminishing returns.

>>7777382 (OP)
>Bait thread
Fyi, most people never achieve their dreams and goals and are relegated and capped by the system that encases them in. Most successful people are nepo-babies and extreme (lucky) outliers). Because following your passions is antithetical to the system of masters and profits. Even then, you are now competing in globo-homo wide market and you've gotta "compete" against 3rd worlders who can EASILY undercut you, and AI now that can spit out shit with a prompt and source imaging.
>>7777397
>Success at that level is mostly luck and connections
This, this so much. It is extremely business like how you need to approach your "brand" and getting discovered and becoming popular by happen-chance is no longer a reality. EVERYONE ON THE PLANET wants to be internet famous. There is SO much excess content and content creators.

>>7777382 (OP)
>I wanna draw comics for a living, but if I wanna make that a reality, the only time Ive got to do that is my early 20s
Your goal is unrealistic and your family is right to be concerned about seeing you waste your youth on something on so stupid.

>>7777382 (OP)
>You really just gotta draw as much as you can if you wanna get good dont you?
Yeah, pretty much.
>I mean I wanna draw comics for a living, but if I wanna make that a reality, the only time Ive got to do that is my early 20s
You're completely right. Keep it up man, they're probably not going to get it, so show them you can make it happen.

>>7777397
>I literally don’t know of any skill that requires more than 3 hours a day to achieve competence.
I do. Comics.

>>7777445
Just because it's unrealistic doesn't mean he shouldn't try anyway. It's unrealistic to become a successful actor too, but people still get why you would try anyway.

>>7777447
>It's unrealistic to become a successful actor too, but people still get why you would try anyway.
You have a fucking better chance of becoming a doctor than becoming an actor.

>>7777448
Did I not just say it was unrealistic? You quoted me saying it's unrealistic but replied like I said the opposite.

>>7777453
>Just because it's unrealistic doesn't mean he shouldn't try anyway.
Yeah, he really shouldn't and same with actors who didn't start off young or have their parents adjacent in the industry already. A lot of success is pre-setup before you're even a sperm in your father's balls, and depends more on nepo-money than it does hard work and dedication. The biggest lie is hard-work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps gets you success.

>>7777455
Listen, speaking as someone who has committed the past decade+ of my life to comics, and for whom it's only just now coming together, I still think if he feels the call then he should answer it. "It's unrealistic" is not a good enough reason to not give it a serious shot. People have succeeded, and they would not have had they just thought "ugh, bad idea, it'll never work" and then just worked some office job or something.
Besides, it's mostly just unrealistic because of just how much time and effort it takes to reach the point where you CAN succeed, and if he has the time and the will then he's never going to have a better chance to work toward reaching that point. Comics aren't hollywood, you can succeed as long as you can make something interesting and find a way to get it in front of people.

>>7777460
The market is extremely overly saturated, and they'd be better off doing something else than trying to chase after "making it" as a comic artist. Look at the sheer amount of webcomics that never even get a second glance. The market is made for slop, and the people want nothing BUT slop. Maybe as a hobby, but dedicating to it in the hopes for a pipe-dream is just setting people up for wasting their time and fucking disappointment at the end of the line.

>>7777467
>The market is extremely overly saturated,
There is no "the market". There's many markets.
>hat never even get a second glance.
From who? You? There's plenty of webcomics that are modest successes, bring in enough for a comfortable living for the author and their family, just not enough to launch an empire or anything like that.
>The market is made for slop, and the people want nothing BUT slop
You can just say you don't wanna read comics dude.

>>7777467
>market is extremely over saturated
Always rich because it's without fail coming from some beg that doesn't know anything about the market
Just shut the fuck up lmfao

>>7777471
Lol, go look on Webtoons, and Taps, or Top 100 Webcomics and tell me if there is much quality to begin with:
>https://www.topwebcomics.com/?home=3
Btw, TwoKinds, the top Webcomic is fucking Markipliers brother and he's a dental hygienist turned artist and got in when webcomics weren't saturated to high hell. The rest of the list is coomer shit. Number 8 is "By the Book" for fuck sake, which is shittly drawn wanna-be DnD smut. It's like the Webcomic Goblins, but just gooner/coomer take on it. Go on /hyw/ and see how many of those fuckers "made it" in any real capacity. Only one or two, and that's usually chasing after the coomer audience by being adjacent to it. It's that Punch Girl comic or something, mother and daughter superhero comic, I can't remember the name off the top of my head.
>>7777473
Read above.

>>7777475
>but ackshually
lmfao

>>7777478
Prove me wrong, every idiot who thinks they can draw and write can make a decent webcomic, or comic and most don't. The market is saturated. The big names that actually are good are ones like Rice Boy (Vattu) and a few cherry picked others. The only fucking market is for endless coomer shit if you wanna make a single dime, or faux-manga romantasy slop, which I doubt OP wants to do.

>>7777382 (OP)
>I wanna draw comics for a living
listen to your family

>>7777475
I can't help but notice your whole argument here is about WEBCOMICS. You know there's other comics, right? I was making webcomics before. Now I'm making comics for print.
And even on webcomics, your argument is that YOU haven't heard of successful webcomics therefore they don't exist or don't count because you don't approve of them or something? Dave Kellet seems to be doing fine. Brad Guigar seems to be doing fine. They're not household names or anything, but they're moderately successful.
This is the part where you jump to say "ah, but they've been at it for a long time so they don't count!" as if I didn't already say it takes a long time to get anywhere.

Ive resigned to the fact that the market is oversaturated. Its like resigning to absurdism, cause im doing it anyways.

I do it because while the market is oversaturated, it still hasnt made what I want. Its not art for art sake, its because there is a need for something i want, not being made.

>>7777482
>every idiot
Make a less retarded argument then I will respond seriously. No shit not every artist will make it.
You don't know anything and your arguments are bad.

>>7777382 (OP)
where's the comics?

>>7777488
>*shrug*
I don't what to tell you, I've followed webcomics and comics for a long time, lurked in /hyw/ on /co/ and /ic/ for a LONG ass time and followed a lotta the shit in general. Doom scrolled through an absolute fuck-ton of webcomics and used to go to cons where I saw desperate artists trying to peddle their prints tableside. It looks bleak asf if you're trying to chase after a modicum of success (which it seems coom adjacent is one of the few ways to do so). Most of the successful ones I've seen were exceptionally talented artists and story tellers, were already adjacent in the industry or got in around the webcomic craze which was a good long time ago (around the early 2000s to 2010's period) (even then, that was a different time on the internet before every normie tried to be internet famous and you had some actual authentic story telling from webcomics that just didn't lean heavily on coom shit).

>>7777506
You're tunnel visioned on webcomics, man. Do you have any idea how many new, successful authors have shown up in manga in that same time frame? What on earth makes you think the only option for making comics is webcomics?

>>7777512
*shrug*
Manga is a different but adjacent market, if we're talking about SEA manga/comics and I'm decently aware of how competitive that is especially for print (and the insane work culture and industry). From what I've see from weebs and others is that they prefer their manga (pure) which is made in the SEA area and tend to side-step faux-western-manga, unless it's romantasy slop. I've also read my fair share of mangas. I don't know what to tell you. I left mangas out since that seems to be an industry that resides mainly in the SEA area and is mainly blossoming because of how badly western comics dropped the ball repeatedly, and then play politics over the actual story telling craft (since most people want to be entertained and not preached to).

>>7777506
>>7777514
>>7777447
How retarded is this idea, make (hopefully) well written comic with passable art, post it online for free and eventually try to get it sold in volumes. The comic itself is more of a graphic novel in its tone , and could definitely be adapted into a movie. Get it adapted into a movie and then profit. It happened with Sin City and the Killer, and my comic has a similar tone to them. I mean ive sorts paced and structured my comic to look and flow like a movie, so its basically just a storyboard

>>7778125
>How retarded is this idea
Exceptionally. Unfathomably.

>>7777514
>an industry that resides mainly in the SEA area
There's no reason someone who's looking for work in comics can't apply to japanese publishers. To go back to the acting simile, it's the hollywood of comics (only with a whole lot less nepotism thanks to how the structure of the business works over there). Actors from around the globe head to hollywood if they want to become a movie star. Comic authors from around the globe head to tokyo if they want to become a famous comic author.
That said you don't need to physically move there. I'm published in a japanese magazine and I'm still living over here in australia.

>and is mainly blossoming because of how badly western comics dropped the ball repeatedly
Lol what? Western comics have next to nothing to do with the popularity of manga. Manga is popular because japanese fellas just made their comics for their audience who enjoyed it and bought it and eventually people from overseas thought "huh I wonder what that is", checked it out, liked it, and shared it with other people overseas. I mean sure you could make an argument that there's an appetite for comics not fulfilled by western comics that people are seeking out manga to satiate, but that's working backwards from the result and only looking at it from the perspective of a person who isn't the target audience of manga. I assure you there are very, very few manga authors intentionally making their comics for a foreign audience.

>>7778125
The "post it online for free" part is a bit iffy. Marketers will tell you that value is a perception thing, if an audience sees you giving it away for free they'll just think it's a piece of crap that's not even worth paying for. Asking for money for it shows confidence in the work and an audience will be more likely to perceive it as valuable. You'll likely actually get more eyes on it than if you give it away for free. Of course, this is kind of depending on eyes there to view it to start with, which is not trivial. It might be wise to have a separate freebie comic to show people what you can do, then let them know the real good shit is in the books you gotta buy.
Something you need to understand is that Sin City and The Killer were both published works (Dark Horse and Casterman) and already had the audience trust built up by virtue of being published in established publications or being made by established authors.
Now that said, that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. It's very unlikely, but if you do genuinely make a fantastic comic then it could reasonably see success, you just have to be aware that 1. that's a huge "if" -- comics are a very very difficult medium to make something really undeniably good in, and 2. if it does happen for you, it'll take a long time. At the minimum it won't work out until well AFTER the comic is finished and you've busted you ass doing all the marketing for it trying to get it in front of the right audience (and it WILL bounce right off a lot of the people you try to show it to, that's just how things are). The hard part of marketing is getting it in front of the people out there for whom it becomes their favorite thing. So identify a core audience and think about how you can reach them.

>>7778139
Well im gonna do it anyway, what else am I gonna do other than play games and lift, should be getting a day of WFH soon anyway so thatll save my life.

>>7778161
Theres gotta be a gap in the market for weatern comics that actually appeal to how Gen Zs feel right? All the current stuff sucks and is made by boomers or millennials who are extraordinarily fake and literally gay. Would people gravitate to something that actually speaks to the young white man, cause right now people either like old media before we were retarded, or Eastern stuff cause they actually understand the human condition unlike californians

>>7778168
>Theres gotta be a gap in the market for weatern comics that actually appeal to how Gen Zs feel right?
Well yeah, of course there is. But you should understand that by the time your thing is finished and good, there will be other stuff that fills that gap. Not to say there's no room for your success too, just be conscious that if you're having that thought then you can be sure that there are lots and lots of other people having the same thought and also starting their projects to target that audience (or their projects are already well on their way).

I ended up realizing the same, to get good at any sort of art you have to dedicate your whole life to it, but if you do that you're not dedicating your time for things that get you a job to help you survive and have a decent life. I picked up drawing out of depression while not being able to get a job in coding, became obsessed with it because it was what I truly always wanted to do my whole life but slowly realized that I was just ruining my life even more because it doesn't have a future.
this AI shit ain't helping either, I was trying to pivot into motion graphics and 3D but it all seems like I'm just wasting time

>>7777382 (OP)
you're gonna burn out. 1-3 hrs is plenty.

He will never burn out because this is a bait thread and he doesn't actually draw.

>>7778166
Thanks, thats some great advise. I think I’ll put my current comic out there free just for publicity and then look into other forms of payment later.

Alot of big comics and most manga are online free in the west thanks to piracy, although they have an aura of importance thanks to being paid. If I had my comic free as well as published, thatll probably not come of the same as manga artists arent involved in the “free” online versions of their comics. They get advertising by it being free, and a level of importance due the only legitimate versions of it being paid.

I also wonder if a publisher would be less likely to publish a comic if it was online for free, I mean it’ll eventually be online free anyway, but they could think itll affect sales. So it might be a better idea for me to get a few chapters finished of my comic before sending it to publishers.

Either way my current comic is more of a test run for myself so whatever

>>7778193
Yep mangaks have dedicated themselves to art, these niggas are doing 20 pages a week (with assistants) problem we discovered is that its harder in the west

>>7778199
Sorta, but the best of the best draw all day. A few hours more is probably better than gaming or doomscrolling

>>7778200
Id post my comic, but im acting like a retard in this thread, sorta wanting to hear what people have to say against these points i dont fully believe in. Also cause my arts mid anyway, people like my story but the art isnt super great

>>7778125
Not sure, it's an extremely long shot, if not wishful thinking, and even then it requires someone prominent and influential and wealthy to want to pick it up and be inspired enough to want to adapt it. You'd be better off trying to make a movie as the end goal itself rather than the comic with the hopes of it becoming a movie. Or find funding and fund a movie, although industry animators are kinda shit now a days and extremely entitled nepo-baby creatives who make crazy union demands. If you look at Vivizie, and her fame, she went to college, then Goeblins in fucking Europe because her parents were loaded, and was heavily supported by said parents until she finally pushed out her sparkle dog hell show. I'll bring it up again, but I've done my own research on these successful types and there's two kinds of success in this world, high tier success and low tier success. High tier requires nepotism, and wealth and luck, this would be actors, Bill Gates, Elon, the tip of the top successful. Low tier success is just normie grinding, go to work type of shit and work your way up to regional manager or something. A lot of high tier successful creators had help and not simply their products. Sure, there are exceptions, but those shouldn't be relied upon. Vivzie came from an affluent family, and went to some decent animation schools, especially going to Goeblins in Paris for a summer. Normal people can't do that. I suggest you re-approach your idea of success, making it and how to get there. This coming from a faggot who read a lot of success books, podcasts, and did my own research to see the "special it" factor. And one thing I found is a lot of people had HUGE help as much as they want to be egomaniacs and go "it was ALL me". They infact had a lot of help. I suggest too you look up on Wikipedia and see successful people's backgrounds and where they came from, their fertile soil especially their parents and upbringing and you'll find they were not poor nor average.

>>7778206
>Alot of big comics and most manga are online free in the west thanks to piracy
A good middle ground is having people price what they think it is worth. I forget the concept, but you can offer to sell it, where the customer names their own price of "your" product and they pay what they "think" it's worth. I've actually bought what should be free comics doing that to show good will to the creator, since you as the customer can set the price tag to zero and get it free, but I've thrown creators who set this model up with anywhere as low as 1 dollar to 20.
>Yep mangaks have dedicated themselves to art, these niggas are doing 20 pages a week (with assistants) problem we discovered is that its harder in the west
Japanese work culture is extremely toxic and is why they can pump out 20 pages a week. And they have an old-school system in place of inkers, colorists, etc. to help the process of pumping out work quickly, where they break down every process. They did away with that in the west little by little. Also, the work culture like that is unheard of in the US and as much as artists in the west admire it, they also would never want to do that.
>Id post my comic, ~~~ Also cause my arts mid anyway, people like my story but the art isnt super great
I wouldn't mind seeing it, not gonna give you shit about it, would maybe try to give some pointers or critique for what it's worth.

>Sorta, but the best of the best draw all day. A few hours more is probably better than gaming or doomscrolling

I don't care what anyone says they do, the reality is it doesn't take much to reach the sustainable limit of your body. it is no solution to push yourself, if you push, you just burn out. if you want to increase your output, its not by spending yourself out, but by figuring out easy ways to make things, that way you can do it sustainably.

When you see something is hard, alarm bells need to go off in your head. You need to find an easy way, or you wont be able to do it sustainably without reaching your limits.

Those that settle for the hard way never find the easy way, and stay mediocre forever. the one that ignores his limits is only going to get humbled by reality, so don't be a fool. Embracing these limitations does not mean accepting mediocrity, or giving up. it means you only have a little strength, so you have to use it wisely if you want to win. It means you want to play by the cards you were dealt, not some other guys cards you don't have, or some "advised" cards that have literally never worked out for you. There is so much dogshit advice that has probably literally never worked for you even once, and yet you still let it have influence over you. Stop listening to these people, and do what you see works.

>>7778234
Might as well embarrass myself lol, talk all this big game about getting published and it looks like below. I’ve just sorta being playing a persona, just to hear and read all your interesting perspectives on this, just to ground myself in reality, while I rot at my 9-5, thinking about my comic and everything i gotta practice on to get better.

https://imgur.com/a/wealth-toil-work-progress-first-chapter-9ucpQ1J (Main comic, got another 10 pages i aint scanned yet)

https://imgur.com/a/ignorance-dtOwOf7 (Oneshot i did earlier this month)

I dont really know if its actually good enough to print, but i went to a portfolio review in june when i had just done the first 7 pages, and the guy who read it, said if the story was good, then it could be published, and that the art was just passable. Im inclined to believe him cause he was pretty critical to me and the other artists there, and works for a fairly big publishing studio.

Big problem is that my comic might be too boring for the first 50 pages, from there on, i think its alot more interesting. the main girl is gonna die, and the story will split between her boyfriend trying to survive and deceive some government cleaners from disappearing him, and the dead girl becoming a zombie and trying to find away to ressurect herself and live the life she always wanted, before her body rots too much, (theres more underneath that, but thats the basics without the character arcs and symbolism)

Love any critiques, I know theres alot wrong, but im just trying to improve, and basically just started this cause i figured that it was better than the endless studies and drawing videos i was following

>>7778281
Just my two cents. It's "okayish" visual wise, "decent" if we're talking webcomics quality, as the bottom of the barrel for that is really low. At points it is hard to tell what is happening and it's sometimes hard to tell what I am looking at. There is some definite room for improvement. I think working on your line strength, weight and line consistency would help immensely and doing some studies in those areas. The anatomy needs work too. "Framed Ink" book would help a lot I think, and then doing some master studies from your favorite works that are parallel to your current style you are trying to emulate or create. The story is the strongest point currently. I'd say just keep working on the comic and trying to improve as you go and ask for more critiques as well.

>>7778281
I read the oneshot, it's pretty boring, the plot is predictable and full of cliches.
The art is bad but serviceable.
But there are good points too: the pacing is decent and it flows well overall.
I'd focus on iterating more on your ideas before you commit: try to avoid the obvious first thing that comes to mind. Try making some short 4-panel stories, along with more one shots.

>>7777382 (OP)
your parents want you to get off your fucking ass and do something. Wouldn't matter if you were playing vidya or anything else. Nobody cares if the bum in the back room is really good at drawing big fat anime titties, but if you otherwise have your shit together people will shower you with adoration over the simplest drawings.

>>7778281
> https://imgur.com/a/ignorance-dtOwOf7
Follow the advice from your family.

>>7779120
Yeah, imma have to side with this anon. It's a big pipe-dream with even bigger dreams of hoping an angel-investor is gonna pick it up and make it into a movie. I'd still say they should work on it to improve.

>>7777382 (OP)
Why do you want to do comics for a living? That matters more than anything else in determining your future.

>>7778281
You have potential, but I think you should focus on comic techniques more than anything else. You genuinely can probably have a decent amount of success with this, but that requires getting involved with the furry community.

>>7778794
Thanks, and yeah Ive gotta work on the line art, Ive slowed down recently to focus more on master studies and generally improving but Ive probably also gotta slow down and not rush my inking. Picrel for example I fucked up the inking on the crocodile and the blood so thats probably half I page ill have to edit/redraw online

>>7778989
>>7779120
>>7779205
nah im a full time office wagie right now, and they want me to start a business, get random certificates they saw on facebook and socialize more. Im not gonna stop drawing and trying to improve cause realistically, if I cant get a career in this, the field im in has alot of WFH options, so I can just effectiely be a part time artist. Most of my coworkers are WFH 2 days a week (im a junior rn so not remote) and seeing as I usually get all my work done in a few hours, thatd give me alot of time to draw. I was getting 5 pages done a week for a while, while doing full time, although I was rushing, so just a few days more would be great

>>7779588
Comics are fun, few years ago I decided I wanted to stop being a consumer and make stuff, so I started studying, and havent stopped since.
>>7779590
Thanks, that one shot was just sorta to practice drawing anthros for this other comic series Im doing, did a practise scene back in Feb.

https://imgur.com/a/IsYbLxo

Basically just started a new comic series "Wealth for Toil" to improve my skills before doing the anthro one, cause I figured that it was better than just doing the endless studies I was doing. problem is that its ballooned out into a full story, so I probably wont be doing picrel for a while

>>7779616
That's fine, but I'm telling you, they are 100% justified in discouraging into pursuing this as your skills aren't anywhere close publishable level, imo.

You aren't a lost cause, but you are still 100% at /beg/ level, if you were indeed drawing a lot, let's say 10 hours a day, and you are still this low in your skill level, then that tells me you aren't studying anything that is actually benefiting you.

The problem with misguided studying, without knowing what you are lacking, is that you are simply hammering again and again all your bad habits. You might be hard at work, trying to improve, for 10-12 hours a day, but if you don't know what you are actually working for, in terms of style, anatomy, clothing, stylization, perspective, hatching, composition, gesture, then you are simply wasting 10 hours a day.

Also, are you into reading, watching movies, or anything like that? have you taken a writing course, if not then you should seriously consider investing a lot of your time into actually becoming a good writer, and reading good books.
People will read a badly drawn manga or comic if the story is good, but if it's both badly written and badly drawn then what are we even doing?