#A Digital Lifesaver

[deoidesign]

How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist

Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.

Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!

This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)

So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.

I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.

I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.

Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.

Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!

This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.

But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)

I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.

My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!

Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!

panels that look like this in scroll format...

can look like this in print!

because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!

Enjoy!

Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

thiqqq halison

for the art block requests

: )

thiqqq halsin be upon ye

[okscallion-4221]

Pretty boy

1.6 update winter outfit spoilers for Elliott btw

[akio-drawz]

So anyways fuck perspective

[guy-in-a-scarf]

My back sure couldn't afford the toll of dark academia

[objectshow-enjoyer]

pov: the guy you kidnapped isn’t very happy about it?!

took like 4 hours :')

[sam-from-solitude]

Some more Terraria Fanart, Recently completed my Journey World so I drew my Mage loudout real quick. I struggle with backgrounds so apologies if it’s a bit derivative from my other recent art.

[serenanymph]

it's been two weeks since I've touched my wip and I am still sick so naturally I am drawing

[transingthoseformers]

So, I've finished Wildcard's patterning, and here's her full 1.0 version for the RID-Adopter!

I'm actually really proud of the colors here, and playing around with the heterochromia was fun because in all likelihood it's for a much different reason than Dissent's (the reason Dissent has a red right optic when the right and literally every biolight being purple is because that one had to be replaced and only red was available), which in likelyhood is Wildcard being a chimera! We see split spark twins in several canons, so what's to say a spark split and then recombined?

[pastinawitheggs]

pet portrait in rebelle 5 pro (a holiday gift for our friend)

commissions open!

[kianlonart]

I hadn't done a group photo in a hot minute, so here's Them.

L to R (front): Stormy, Echo, Cora, Gourmy, Joyce

Back: Jer, Lari, Goldie, Mossflower

April 2024

[saeniia]

Ya know, my OCs Zero and Dos, being besties... Just friends ... Totally platonic ✨

Pose Reference by @kibbi

[strawberry-tuesdhays]

overstimulation is a nightmare 💅✨✨💅✨

[thewitchywitch]

Low Energy/Effort Witchcraft

Are you perpetually busy? Never have any spoons? This might be the post for you. Note that not everything here may be considered low energy or low effort to everyone, and that's okay :)

Carry a crystal around based on what you need. I have a black tourmaline bracelet that absorbs negative vibes throughout the day. I stick it on a selenite slab when I get home to cleanse overnight, then rinse and repeat in the morning.

Put a bay leaf in your wallet to attract money. If you have time, draw a sigil or a $/£/€ on it.

Dedicate anything you drink to your deities if you have any. I dedicate water and black tea to everyone and my favourite raspberry tea to Hathor. Coffee is for Caim.

Enchant your pill case so you remember to take them on time. Enchant your pills to work efficiently. ("Anxiety begone. Ye be banished" on all of my anxiety pills ✌️)

Draw a sigil on your body wash bottle to remove bad vibes or carve a sigil in a bar of soap.

Enchant your moisturizer to repel the evil eye. I fucking love this one.

Incorporate colour magic into the socks you wear (Goths who wear hot pink socks, I'm looking at you).

Enchant your charger so it doesn't break and so you don't lose it. Enchant your phone too while you're at it.

Sorry, I love enchantments--

Uhhhhh

Match those big ol jar candles to different intentions. Burn a cedar candle to cleanse/banish. Burn a cinnamon candle to draw in prosperity. Burn a citrus candle to uplift mood. This one is fantastic for broom closet witches.

Got a humidifier? Fill it up with moon water. You're welcome ;D

Politely ask the spirits of your plants to ward your space. Feed two birds with one scone this way.

Witchy social media. Scrolling on Tumblr and learning something new about witchcraft counts as witchcraft imo. Saving tarot spreads from Instagram for later counts too. Making Pinterest boards for literally anything also counts.

Keep a digital grimoire if doing it on paper costs too many spoons. I have used Google docs & drive in the past but I currently use Notion (You can copy and paste this way!)

If you still want a physical grimoire, print your stuff out and stick it in a binder or glue it in your journal. Boom. Physical grimoire

Listen to witchcraft related videos in the background while you do other tasks or chores in your home

Preparing a meal? Toss in spices that correspond with good health and drawing in positivity, or any other intention you have

Enchant your glasses to help you focus and "read between the lines" or see what wants to remain hidden (this one is a lifesaver at my job)

[reasonsforhope]

"A first-of-its-kind report has discovered that altering the ingredients list or manufacturing methods of widely used medication can really cut back on carbon emissions.

They found a reduction of 26 million tons, enough to cancel out the whole carbon footprint of the city of Geneva for a decade. Best of all, it’s already happening, and in fact, is almost done—those emissions were already saved.

The lifesaving HIV treatment dolutegravir (DTG) is used by 24 million people worldwide.

Today, over 110 low and middle-income countries have adopted DTG as the preferred treatment option. Rapid voluntary licensing of the medicine, including its pediatric version, to over a dozen generic manufacturers, significantly drove down prices, and it’s estimated that 1.1 million lives will be saved from HIV/AIDS-related deaths by 2027.

Its predecessor, efavirenz, contained 1200 milligrams of active ingredient across the three active compounds present, while DTG contains 650 milligrams of just one compound. This small difference—literally measurable in single digits of paper clips by weight—was enough to change the carbon emissions footprint of the medication by a factor of 2.6.

The incredible discovery was made in a recent report by Unitaid, a global public-private partnership that invests in new health products and solutions for low and middle-income countries, called Milligrams to Megatons, and is the first published research to compare carbon footprints between commonly used medications.

“This magnitude of carbon footprint reduction surpasses many hard-won achievements of climate mitigation in health and other sectors,” the authors of the report write.

At the rate at which DTG is produced, since it entered into production and treatment regime in 2017, 2.6 million fewer tons of CO2 have entered the atmosphere every year than if efavirenz was still the standard treatment option.

Health Policy Watch reports that the global medical sector’s carbon emissions stand at roughly 5% of the global carbon emissions and are larger than the emissions of many big countries, and 2.5 times as much as aviation.

“This report demonstrates that we can achieve significant health improvements while also making strides in reducing carbon emissions. By adopting innovative practices and prioritizing sustainability, we can ensure that medicines like DTG are not only effective but also environmentally responsible,” Vincent Bretin, Director of Unitaid’s Results and Climate Team told Health Policy Watch."

-via Good News Network, July 17, 2024

[overcastedsays]

[Image ID: First image of two. A digital drawing of Phighting characters Scythe (Left) and Ban Hammer (right) in pool-themed attire. Scythe is wearing a two-tone teal two-piece swimsuit, rose-gold goggles, and sandles. She is holding a teal pool noodle and making a smug expression. The Text above her reads “Noodle Scythe”. Ban Hammer is in lifeguard attire with indigo swim trunks and sunglasses, a lifesaver draped over his left horn, and a white tank top. He is holding a giant pool net and an orange inner tube. He has a neutral expression. The text above him reads “Nethammer”. /End ID] [Image ID: Second image of two. An “Rtx on. Rtx Off” meme. The first frame (RTX On) is a screenshot from the “Phighter 14” trailer of Banhammer and Scythe standing on opposite sides of a set of train tracks. The second frame (RTX OFF) is a digital doodle featuring Nethammer and Noodle Scythe yelling at eachother across a pool with similar composition as the first frame. Floatiegraft and Slingshot can be seen playing in the pool in the background. /End ID]

Introducing Noodle Scythe and Nethammer, two silly pool-themed Phighting skin concepts me n' my brother thought up of.

All I can imagine is an ""AU"" (i used this term loosely) where everything is the same except pool setting. Noodle Scythe's most notorious crime? Running on the deck.