#this started as webcomic style ideas

[anonspiceart]

Hey look, my comic!!

DStD on Patreon (2-4 pages ahead of public release, depending on tier!) DStD on Tumblr DStD on Webtoons DStD on Deviantart ---

Commissions and tip jar:

Ko-fi

---

This is my official management at tumblr sucks post ig lol. I won't be going anywhere, but if you are plz consider following me elsewhere!

You can find me on:

High-moderate activity:

Cohost (Most similar to the tumblr experience!)

Bluesky (Just getting it off the ground rn, plz stand by)

DeviantArt

Low activity:

Youtube

Toyhouse

[waitineedaname]

I wish I knew more about animation so I could properly wax poetic about mob psycho, but I really love that they didn't shy away from ONE's art style because it has so much charm, and I'm glad they used it to both comedic and emotional effect, while still making the action and psychic powers some of the coolest flashiest most dynamic shit I've ever seen

[ashofalltime]

i truly have no idea what to make my "art brand" other than Hot Boys With Thick Eyebrows :/

[spar-bunny]

Finally got hands down and made a dog boy with lightning powers. Not sure what his deal is, but he is freaking pissed at something.

[phantomarine]

Clam's Quick Tips for Starting Your Very First Webcomic

Howdy! Here are the three bits of advice I tend to give people who ask me about getting into webcomic-making. Maybe they can help you jump into the fray with a little less fear.

1) Make Your First Chapter a Pilot Episode

You will be told by webcomic veterans to start with a short, simple comic idea first - which is wise - but if all you can think about is your big magnum opus, then you might as well hop in, right? Otherwise you'll just be glancing back at the other cooler project forever.

But if you can't start with a small simple story, start on a small, simple part of that larger story. Your first chapter should be a snapshot of the main conflict - show us a simple scene with few characters, ease us in slowly, keep things clear and focus on emotion/impact/clarity. Get the audience to care by offering something easily digested, but full of promise.

Once you're done with that 'pilot' chapter, and you're feeling more comfortable with the whole comic process, you can open the gates and show us the larger world. At that point, you'll be way more ready.

2) Simplify Your Art Style For Your Own Sanity

Always try to make your webcomic's art style as simple as possible - the standard rule is to use only 75% of your artistic skill for every comic page you make. Otherwise you will burn out quickly and terribly.

But you also need to be PROUD of your art style. If you're really feeling itchy, add a couple bells and whistles to your style so you can look at the finished page and say "Yeah, looks cool." You'll find the right balance the more you draw.

Also, don't be afraid to change your art style as you go along. Ultimate consistency is often impossible in webcomics anyway - so embrace your desire to try new things, streamline your work, whatever you feel needs to happen to be happiest. Sometimes the coolest part of reading a webcomic is noticing that style change - so don't hesitate to embrace it!

3) Resist the Reboot! RESIST!

The curse/blessing of drawing the same things over and over is that you'll inevitably get better at drawing those things. The trouble comes when you look back at old stuff and start thinking "Damn, I could draw that way better now."

You must recognize that this feeling never goes away. Not after a hundred pages. Not after three hundred. Not after a thousand.

I think everyone should be allowed one soft reboot for their first webcomic. Redraw some panels that bother you. Change up some dialogue if it doesn't make sense with your new story ideas. Do maintenance, basically. One of the beauties of webcomics is that they can be easily edited, without reprinting a whole book or remaking a whole game.

But if the ultimate purpose of a webcomic is to tell a story, then constant reboots will just be retelling the same story - slightly better each time, but the same at its core. We've heard it before. Most audiences would rather you save your strength and just keep going, rather than circling back year after year and going "Wait wait wait! I'll do it better this time."

Reboot early, not often, and only when you absolutely must! You're a storyteller, and you're constantly getting better at telling your story. Don't be ashamed of it - look back how much ground you've covered, and keep walking!

---

That's a good start. Happy webcomicking - don't be afraid to jump in, but be prepared to learn a lot very quickly. And if this advice doesn't work for you or adhere to how you did it, that's absolutely fine - webcomics are diverse by nature, and so are their creation processes. Feel out what works best for you, and good luck!

[jayrockin]

Hey!

I'm enjoying your comic 😃 Talita is so cute and awkward 😊 If you don't mind me asking... What is your process like for making a webcomic? I have a graphic novel brewing in my head but I'm not sure how to go about making it!

Thank you! 😃

I talked a little about my process for drawing pages over here, but that doesn't go into writing. For writing I usually start with an idea of the broad overarching plot, and a collection of scenes I definitely want to happen in it. Then I organize those scenes (just written as single sentence descriptions) flowchart style, and add connective tissue scenes where the major ones need connection.

I had been using the Twine program to organize my book scenes, completely ignoring its intended function of game creation to arrange a bunch of connected digital post-its in space. Then I learned about Scapple, which is a program actually intended for that function. So I use that now.

Once I know what I need to write I start doing thumbnails and rough pages and scribbled scripts for them in no particular order. My script documents are kind of typed after the fact for the benefit of editors, I really prefer to do my writing while I draw characters and layouts. I also really prefer having all of the rough pages done before I commit to drawing finished pages. Like I already have a "finished" version of book 1 RttS with horrible art, I just have to make it look nice now. My workflow has been extremely all over the place except for that hard rule.

[kremlin]

@wikwalker hi sure yes anything to give me an excuse to procrastinate the post i should be writing right now. here are all teh drugs and how to manage them. you can trust me, a drug addict

first of all: https://www.erowid.org/ , erowid always

don't be afraid of drugs, if they're the right drugs, you should do them since they will be a blast regardless and overcoming fear is also good (but outside the scope here)

OK to do as much as you want: alcohol - social benefit greatly outweighs health effects, no reason to avoid if predisposed to abuse since that'll happen sooner or later. what can i say? don't be a fucking dork. when you start drinking, really overdo it as much as possible without dying and get a few real nasty hangovers under your belt so you know how much is the right amount to drink.

weed - innocuous enough to be fine but will make you stupid in the long term. make sure to only buy from a real drug dealer and never some legal institution. cut it out when you're a "real adult". don't smoke weed and watch TV routinely, go out and do things so you naturally grow to hate it. good to go through this as early as possible to minimize the time you spend as a cringe weed enthusiast

i guess those are the only two.

ok to do infrequently (annually): "lsd" - or whatever it is, probably not lsd, blah blah blah, if it works and is sold on blotter its fine and won't make you go nuts or whatever. opt for a better psychadelic imo. see psych rule at bottom of section

mushrooms - better than acid since you know what they are. rule of thumb is to always do more than you think you want. minimum 1/8oz. see psych rule at bottom of post

dmt - if you somehow have a dmt hookup you don't need to be reading any of this. lasts 10 minutes which leads to tendency to way overdo it, don't do this, my favorite webcomic artist is permanently crazy from exactly that. using a crack pipe is also not the uhhhh most dignifying-feeling thing to do either. it's harder than you think.

mdma - for use at electronic music event or rave. overuse causes brain lesions or something.

coke - wait until you're in your 20s, have maxed out your roth IRA for a couple of years in a row, and havent missed a car payment in a similar timeframe. better still if you've worked a very shitty low paying job and know the value of a dollar. if you still find yourself buying candy you're not ready. too expensive to be worth it to get hooked on. know that you are VERY ANNOYING to anyone who also isn't high. don't fuck around with the guy selling it to you. avoid discussing or thinking about business ideas. you can't afford to make it a habit + kinda turns you into a piece of shit after a while, but at least a very interesting one

ketamine - another sick drug that rules, but save it for a special occasion. don't try and go into the k-hole your first time

rule for psychedelics - you get one good strong trip a year and that's it, make it count, always opt for doing a bit more than a bit less. but don't make it a habit, otherwise you turn into a very stupid very annoying "hippy" style cliché and believe in ghosts, aliens, crap like that.

ok to try once prescription opiates/benzodiazepine (xanax), valium, this kind of shit - worth trying so you can go "holy shit, this stuff is way way way too good to ever use responsibly" and then never do again. especially if you're white. for some reason we just can't handle this shit. if a doctor prescribes it to you, idk, that's your call to make.

ayhuasca - this is just dmt in a different form. do some other psychadelics a number of times before you do this. once you realize the whole "substantial visual hallucinations" thing is made up, its time. do exactly this: -buy root online (legal). receive box of dirt -boil dirt into "tea" (read erowid for exact recipe) -take over-the-counter anti nausea medicine or anything that will give you a stronger stomach -drink tea (its nasty as fuck, get it down quick) -have someone bigger than you keep an eye on you for the next five hours. -have the experience, which is absurdly intense, has no bearing to the real world, etc etc. don't be a bitch and throw up, if you do it'll only last an hour or so. again there is no way to provide a consistent description of the experience except that you will meet god. you only ever need to do this once and never again. trust me

peyote/salvia/etc - try em if you want, you'll never ever want to again afterwords. these are drugs for idiot teenagers too lame to get real drugs. imagine being very very sick from poison and utterly terrified at the same time. No good

whippets/nitrous oxide - just find a dentist that uses it and don't bother creating hundreds of pounds of trash on your floor for this crap that lasts ten seconds. you have to understand the extremely short timeframe coupled with the cost makes zero sense. go to a phish concert parking lot and do some people watching -- you do not want to be these people. only use is as a motivator to get routine dental exam. also if you somehow manage to make it a heavy habit your fucking legs stop working, no shit, but they start working again once you quit.

don't ever do heroin/meth/pcp - is is truly a mystery why you should never do these 🙄

synthetic weed/k2/shit from the gas station - it is so funny that they sell this as "weed that won't pop you on a drug test". its not weed. it is some dubious chemical sprayed on yard waste. smoke it to have a terrible time and go nuts. only buy drugs from legitimate drug dealers!

kratom - anyone's guess as to why this is legal but it's heroin for pussies. its still heroin

dxm/cough syrup - do you ever wonder why it is exclusively teenagers robotripping? it's because it sucks ass. is like a cheesegrater on your brain in terms of health effects with repeated usage. you're better than this king

inhalants - these are at the bottom of the list for a reason. do not huff gas. don't huff paint. do not consume computer duster. not fun + fastest way to make yourself a complete, uh, (word i can't say anymore) and then dead

not listed quaaludes- unavailable due to no longer being manufactured. these ruled apparantly

sincis2c - unavailable due to not existing, i just made this up

amphetamines - cannot provide objective take here. they're my albatross, lifelong (posted 4:55am natch)

[bubsmiraculousau]

These are my OT5 brainstorm pages. Elaborations on how I got to these below! I reference concept pages so if you see any pictures you don't recognize that's why. <3

First up is Cat Noir who I think is already perfect lmao. For my version though I wanted to lean closer to his PV design because I love it, like his larger triangle nose (you can't really see it at the angle in my drawing but it's there I swear!), the bigger bell, the more elaborate belt, etc.... so basically everything ... just in my style instead.

With my designs I think that whenever someone transforms into their miraculous persona it's based on what they think a hero looks like or what they think is cool. I think Adrien reads a lot of comic books and is a fan of characters like Batman (relatable for him LOL), Catwoman, and Nightwing, so his suit reflects that kind of vibe.

Extra: I decided that Ladybug and Cat Noir's masks go all the way up their foreheads because it looks nicer in my 2D style with their bangs haha.

Next up is the one and only Ladybug! Unpopular opinion but I actually like the all red suit! My hypothetical series would be a webcomic, and I feel like in action scenes the red differentiates her from Cat Noir esp at a distance, and more red style keeps their color ratios even.

I like the ladybug designs with a bunch of black sections they're very cute! Just not for my au. (I think it's just me but I find drawing the ladybug designs with inverted red dots to feel sacrilegious in a way,,, just my neurodivergent brain lol)

And I am a long ribbons truther, I love them and they can be very expressive. Also I knew I wanted Marinette to have a more vertical circular eye shape because her shape vibe is definitely a circle (Adrien's is triangle) and it reminded me of the eyes for the main girl in princess jellyfish (I've never seen it, love the style tho)

Her hair is a more bright blue to contrast her hair against her suit, and make her look more cartoonish. I imagine her idea of a superhero comes from kids shows and some magical girl anime. So her hair has a plastic shiny texture to it because when she thinks 'superhero' she thinks of kids toys. Also I just like color! The blue kinda gives comic spiderman vibes imo (the version with the light blue instead of the navy)

Queen Bee definitely changed the most throughout the design process. I really like her in-show design so I just tweaked it to be more my vibe. Adding a crown because she's a Queen.

Something that I've noticed is that Alya and Chloe actually share a lot of traits (There's even some old concept notes where I believe Alya and Chloe either switch names or roles at some point?? The miraculous concept info rabbit hole is real y'all) and I think this comes through in their final designs.

Like they both share a middle part, which bothers me for some reason, so I decided to give Chloe a little Ariana Grande side part into a ponytail.

I wanted each character to have a cool little piece on their costume, so I tried these little hip things to make her more commanding and girlboss, but currently her weapon is similar to ladybug's (but more like one of those hair ties w the little disco balls on them) and it would sit on her hip and would clash w her hip thingies, so I just decided to make her weapon the hip things instead, combining the two.

Something else that bothered me a lot was that Rena was the only one with white on her costume. Everyone has black but she's the only one with white... my brain says that this cannot be. So I tried to give Bee some fun white fuzzy bits but the texture just was too different...

And then I had the mega-brain idea to make her hair white to tie in the white from Rena. Her and Cat Noir both having blonde hair irked me as well LOL so this hit two birds with one stone. I wanted her hair to be sharper and more aggressively drill shaped because of her abrasive personality haha.

After that, is Carapace. I had an idea for him from the start because I felt like his in-show design just doesn't match his personality... I couldn't make his outfit all loose because I wanted to stick generally to the miraculous suit formula, but I feel like 'skin tight suit' just isn't his vibe. So he has a kind of hammer pants situation.

I think they capture Carapace's b-boy ninja turtle vibe while still looking like a miraculous outfit. Though I decided later that I wanted the pants to be a lighter color for contrast and the visor to be white (to tie in that Rena Rouge white).

Lastly is Miss Rena! Something that bothered me (back on the similarities to Chloe) was that they both have ponytails (yes I know I'm crazy). Even though they have very different textures I just wanted each of them to be distinct from each other. So I put her hair down and just dramatized her regular hairstyle.

Also her and Queen Bee both have black gloves to their upper arms, which, you guessed it, bothered me. So I shortened Rena's to just reach her elbow.

I wanted her to look like a magic-man, her illusion powers evoke a showmanship energy to me. I imagine her and Cat Noir are quite the dramatic theater kid-esque duo.

So, for drama I tried some flowy arm bits, which I think ended up just looking a little strange, so I'll pocket that idea for something else. Then, I tried to add her coattail from the show, but it ended up looking a little frumpy, not the drama I wanted.

I ended up making her coat more triangular in the front, to give off the vibe of a magician's vest, and changed it to solider red/orange double coattails, which I think makes her more magic-man-ish. And I think the white ends made it too busy.

So those are my hero designs! I'm still working out Hawkmoth and Mayura, esp Hawkmoth because I am not good at drawing masculine older men...

If y'all want LESS of the artistic process let a girl know lol! I know some ppl like it but this is very long,,, all my drawings will not have text this long! thx for reading if you did tho xx

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @shencomix​​

Shen is a digital comic artist who mainly does short-form humor but also delves heavily into horror, action, and whatever he thinks is cool at the time.

Below is our interview with him!

How would you best describe your art style?

I try to draw cute and expressive. As a short-form comic artist, I don’t have a whole lot of space to work with, so I have to make use of what space I have by pushing poses and expressions and using eye-catching color compositions.

Do you prefer working with digital or traditional mediums? Why?

I work strictly digital. There’s something really cool about how easy it is to edit. I can change the entire color balance of a drawing in seconds, whereas with a physical medium, that would take hours—and even then, you might not be satisfied with it! The ability to separate things into layers also lets me move and resize everything however I want.

From idea to final piece, how long does it take for you to create something?

For a 4 panel comic, depending on complexity, it’s 1-4 hours. It’s really tough going under an hour with this stuff because you can’t really think at that point. You just have to go go go. For comics with more panels and more detail (like, say, a 12-panel horror comic), it can even take several full workdays. It can be stressful to bet all that time on just a single post!

Over the years as an artist, what were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

My inspiration to start my webcomic was Ronnie Filyaw’s Whomp!, which had a sort of raw humor that I had never seen in webcomics before. I binged it in just a couple of days and thought, “dang, I didn’t know webcomics could be this funny.” I also really love horror artists on Plastiboo​ and Trevor Henderson and of course, my comic friends like Sarah from Sarah’s Scribbles​, Zach from Extrafabulous, and Justin from Mr. Lovenstein.

What is your favorite thing to draw at the moment?

Really into scary doors lately.

Which 3 famous artists (dead or alive) would you invite to your dinner party?

Alan Moore, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Alan Moore.

Alan Moore would get into a fight with Alan Moore, and I could catch Leonardo up on all that stuff that’s happened since 1519 in the background.

What are your file name conventions?

series name > YY > MM.DD - Comic Name > page.png

I’m straight-up methodical. They call me “Database Shen,” and by “they,” I mean nobody, but maybe somebody will call me that someday.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@plastiboo​​, who I've already mentioned, has a pretty active tumblr and always makes amazing stuff.

Thanks for stopping by, Shen! For more of his amazing comics and fun illustrations, be sure to check out @shencomix​!

[spiders-around]

YOU MUST MAKE A WEBSITE

Oh wow, look at that! YET ANOTHER post urging you to make a webbed site! What a completely new thing that people haven't made a thousand masterposts for already!!

• Making a website might look scary. It is Not.

At first, I too thought making a website was too much work. It really isn't! It turns out that all you need is

an HTML file,

a web hosting service and

w3schools tutorials,

and that's about it!

This post will point you towards these resources, and others I found useful while figuring out how to make a website.

• VERY QUICK EXPLANATIONS:

What's HTML and CSS?

HTML is the content of your webpage, the skeleton of it. What shows up in a webpage is what's written in the HTML file!

CSS is the way the HTML is styled; the colour of the background and the letters, the size of elements, the font, all that!

Do I absolutely NEED JavaScript for a website?

Not at all! You don't need to worry about learning it before getting started.

• What do I make a website for? What do I put in there?

ANYTHING AND ALMOST EVERYTHING. Here's some ideas for pages from a post of mine were I was very normal about websites:

You can make a page that's only pictures of your pets.

You can make an interactive adventure.

You can make your own academic blog full of your own essays or articles.

You can just post a ton of art or make a full music page.

You can make a blog and infodump eternally, give book reccs and reviews. You can host a thousand virtual pets and nothing else.

Upload entire books in a single html file. Make a wikipedia for your ocs. Make a fake site for a random fictional place (restaurant, hotel, whatever). You can make a thousand fanpages/shrines about your favorite media. You can upload your own webcomic and make it all like a fancy website and shit.

I could keep going but, for the sake of "brevity", I won't.

• WEBSITE EXAMPLES!

If I started listing the websites I know, this post would be bottomless. Here's only seven:

https://publictransit.neocities.org/ - A webbed site, for sure

https://ribo.zone/ - A personal site

https://leusyth.neocities.org/ - An art archive

https://solaria.neocities.org/ - Personal website with A Lot of stuff (it'll come up in a bit, because it offers web making resources)

https://hog.neocities.org/ - The Hogsite

https://thegardenofmadeline.neocities.org/ - Another personal site! It also has a web resources page and has made another masterpost like this one (but better)

https://spiders.neocities.org/ - My own website, which must be weird to see in mobile . sorry

• You've convinced me. I want a webbed site. Where do I start?

https://neocities.org/

FIRST OF ALL: Neocities. It is a free web hosting service, and it's the one I and the sites I linked use!

When I first started, my website was a black page with red letters and a drawing, and nothing else! It was like that for a month, till i started picking up on how to do things.

Here's what helped me get an idea of how to make things work:

https://sadgrl.online/learn/articles/beginners-guide-neocities

An absolute beginners guide to neocities -- while when you make an account there you get a tutorial page from the site, this one's extra support for that.

https://www.w3schools.com/

Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and MANY other coding things for free. All the tutorial/reference pages have live testing windows for you to mess with!! helped me a LOT while figuring this stuff out!

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/css/

Cheatsheets for HTML and CSS, respectively. It includes a JavaScript one too!

https://sadgrl.online/webmastery/

Sadgrl's webmastery resources! Also includes the next resource listed here:

https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/

Sadgrl's layout builder; not a lot of customization at a first glance, but I've seen wildly different websites all using it as a base, plus it works using CSS Flexbox, so it generates a responsive layout!

(basically, a responsive layout is one that translates well in different sized screens)

https://www.tumblr.com/fysa/728086939730919424/wikitable-code?source=share

Tumblr user fysa made this layout imitating a wiki page!

https://brackets.io/

At some point, you might want to do things outside the Neocities code editor and get one outside the site. I recommend Brackets, because my old as fuck computer can run that and absolutely nothing else apparently, and it works wonderfully! Though I recommend either turning off the code autocomplete or using it after a good while of already using the Neocities code editor, so you get used to coding on your own.

http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/text-to-html/

Turn your text into HTML code! i use this kind of pages for my lengthy blog entries that I don't feel like formatting myself.

https://imagecompressor.com/

COMPRESS YOUR IMAGES.

The heavier an image is, the more your site weighs and the more time your page will spend loading. You don't want that, specially if your site is heavy on graphics. This might help!

https://solaria.neocities.org/guides

Some CSS, JavaScript and Accessibility guides! Worth checking out!

https://eloquentjavascript.net/

This is a free, interactive book for learning JavaScript! NOTE: It is very intuitive, but JavaScript is HARD!! I still haven't learned much of it, and my website does fine without so don't worry if you end up not doing much with it. It's still useful + the exercises are fun.

And now, accessories!

• Silly stuff for your page :]

https://gifypet.neocities.org/

Make a virtual pet, copy the code and paste it in your HTML file! You'll get a little guy in your webbed site :]

https://www.wikplayer.com/

Music player for your website!

http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/

JavaScript silly effects for your site :]

https://blinkies.neocities.org/geoblinkies

Blinkie search engine!

https://www.cbox.ws/

Add a chatbox to your site!!

https://momg.neocities.org/

Infinite gallery of gifs. i've spent hours in there looking at moving pictures and out of them all, the ONLY gif i actually ended up using on my site was a rotating tomato slice. it is still there. trapped.

https://wrender.neocities.org/tarotinstructions

A widget that gives you a random tarot card!

https://www.websudoku.com/widget.php

Sudoku widget!

That's about it for now! I don't know how to end this!!! Remember to have fun and google everything you don't know :]

[bigfatbreak]

If you were to ever give advice on how to make an AU of Ladybug (as someone who’s madly impressed with Feralnette and the Scarlet Lady webcomic) what would such advice be?

have as much fun as possible and dont stress the details. its a playground for your brain! if you WANT to go ham on all the little plot elements and potential plot holes, sure, dig it up and flesh it out, but have a concept you wanna PLAY WITH. it doesn't have to be profound or world altering. you can clearly see I have a bias towards the butterfly miraculous aus, i love nooroo and love hating gabriel, so i play with those.

that's how i tend to play with it. change a single element and see what would change, domino effect style going forward - change how someone responds to something, change their hairstyle. have a good time!

(though in scarlet lady's case my GOD that is well planned out. jesus christ. you guys should be on her patreon she is meticulous)

in my case im very much shooting from the hip going sicko mode 99% of the time. i have an idea and i put it on the stove and start throwing spices in. its one of the reasons i dont answer EVERY plot detail related question in my askbox. when everything else fails, go by mst3k's main theme

[homestuckreplay]

Do you remember when tumblr was overrun by kids in grey body paint and horns speculating over how their story would end, when browser extensions would ping almost every day alerting people to a webcomic update, when the anticipation of the next plot twist had people inventing chaotic AUs and sometimes other, completely fake webcomics?

Do you want to do it again?

On April 13, 2024, I will turn on New Reader Mode in the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, and I will not turn it off again until April 13, 2031. Every day, I will post to this blog which pages were originally posted on the corresponding day 15 years ago, and read those associated pages - and if anyone else wants to experience or re-experience Homestuck in real time, I invite you to read along.

A few months back I had the idea of 'what if Dracula Daily but for Homestuck' and I considered how to make Homestuck work in email format - I think it's possible, but would be a lot of work and still wouldn't be as good a reading experience as the Unofficial Collection. So I modified the idea and just made a big spreadsheet of which dates every Homestuck page was posted on, and I'll be scheduling the page ranges to post day by day for myself and anyone else to follow along with in the app.

I came to Homestuck towards the end of its original run, so I've never had to wait for updates on the main comic - which I've heard is a very different reading experience to getting a few pages a day and having to endure long pauses in the last few thousand pages. I can't turn back time and start reading in 2009, so this is the next best way to get the real time reading experience. I am really interested to see if this will change my opinion on any aspects of the comic, as I like a lot of the things I know other fans hate, and I am extremely committed to seeing this through, even when it means not looking at some incredible moments for many years.

Will this be a good way to experience Homestuck? Will anyone else think this is a cool idea? I have no fucking clue, but ai'm excited to see how it works out. If other people are interested, I have other ideas including a Discord server in the style of r/stuck10yearsbehind, otherwise, I'll brave the solo journey.

Happy Cascade Day, Homestucks grab your strife specibi, go forth and be cringe 😎

[abyssalzones]

What's your comic writing process like? I'm starting to get into making my own comics and I really admire your work!!! Any advice?

Ah, intrepid traveler, you've done well to journey to this secluded mountaintop spire, in search of the answers you seek. I indeed can provide such forbidden comicmancy knowledge... at the cost of your mortal soul...

coughs. anyway, I'm going to warn you immediately that what works for me does not work for everyone else, and in my experience the way I do things can prove very slow and discouraging for anyone who is more interested in the actual "drawing the damn comic" part of the process. I only do it this way because I enjoy weaving a narrative web that feels not only fully contained but re-readable, but my projects are often so long and my memory so shitty that I can't just keep all of it in my head! It would spill all over the place and make a really embarrassing mess of brain-juice. Not ideal.

but as for my own process, uhh... I suppose a comic would be fitting, right?

a little choppy but you get the idea.

as for turning words into art, I've been experimenting with figuring out the best way to do that for a little while now. Originally what I was doing for something like Ad Astra Per Aspera was to take my "script" and sketch it out on paper very loosely, before transposing that onto my canvas and working from there:

...but, I've found that can make it kind of difficult to space everything around on your standard page-size, and the thing I'm having the most problems with currently seems to be finding the sweet spot of panel-size proportions. So, I've taken to printing out standard thumbnail templates (you can just find these on google) and sketching very tiny panels in those, which seems to give me a slightly better sense of scale... (mild chapter 5 spoilers, sorry ad astra fans)

but I have yet to totally pull through on this, so who knows, maybe I'll try something else in the future!

As for advice, this is probably most applicable to me, but as a disabled artist I have a very hard time managing my workload without literally working myself into injury. I don't think I talked about this publicly but when I was working on that ten year anniversary comic I was literally drawing every single day for 3 solid months. Sometimes, in my case, I really can't bring myself to stop once I've latched onto an idea, and sometimes I find the most rewarding thing I can do with my time is to draw- but I seriously cannot overstate: Do not fucking do this.

You will fuck up your wrist, your back, your neck, your eyes, and probably your mental health. It's a well-known fact that mangaka have a lower life expectancy than the average japanese person due to the intense workload imposed on them by deadlines and personal expectations. Comics are a very demanding artform, and even though I'm not on any sort of mandated schedule there are times where I've toiled away at something when I likely should have been exercising or taking vision-breaks. Therefore the best advice I can give you is to chill the hell out.

Namely, find parts of the process you can be lazy about, and embrace the laziness! You don't like digitally sketching? Don't do it! Skip it, or maybe find a way to traditionally sketch things out in advance like I do. Hate lineart? Don't fucking do it. You really don't feel like wasting your time writing 72k words of comic scripts? ...then, don't be like me. skip that part. I'm a flawed human being and what works for me might not work for you.

The second most important piece of advice I could give is to read comics. Of all kinds. The reason for this is pretty self explanatory: In order to figure out your own comic-making style, you should first pick out bits and pieces from the artist's buffet to add to your plate. Manga, graphic novels, american comics, european comics, weird niche little webcomics, funny papers, anything and everything. This advice rings true of pretty much any art form, but I find it to be essential to honing comic-making skills because so many things you feel will just come intuitively often don't. and that's okay! nobody is born knowing how to leave space for speech bubbles or shape their panels in a way that imitates stretches of time. The best way to figure out stuff like this, in my experience, is to study the "masters", and then after becoming well accustomed to the basics, figure out what rules you want to bend or break to create your own style.

I consider myself to be in equal parts a writer and an artist, which lends itself well to making narrative comics, but maybe you're a bit more of an artist and want to focus on panel-by-panel visual storytelling. Or, conversely, maybe your talents lean closer towards writing, and the art itself is more of a secondary skill. Regardless of your unique blend of talents you can and should make a comic, you should just also be aware of your strengths and try to hone in on those- there will always be opportunities to build up skills you lack, but focusing on what you do best will always lead you in the right direction.

Anyway, that being said, here are some recommendations in no particular order:

Monster, Naoki Urasawa (!!)

Bone, Jeff Smith

Witch Hat Atelier, Kamome Shirahama

The first IDW run of Transformers comics (namely More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light)

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (!!)

Through the Woods, Emily Carroll (really any Emily Carroll comics)

Kill Six Billion Demons (webcomic) (!!)

Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo

The Third Person, Emma Grove

Tintin, Hergé (can be super racist please be wary)

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson

Maus, Art Spiegelman

Cucumber Quest (webcomic)

Jellyfish Princess, Akiko Higashimura

Golden Kamuy, Satoru Noda (!!)

Note that I did not grow up with manga so I am seriously behind on a lot of extremely influential japanese comics such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, basically any of the original Shonen Jump comics, but they're widely considered building blocks of the genre so if you love the artform I think you should give them a try! Same goes for classic non-shonen manga genres like various Shoujo, Josei, Yuri, Gekiga, ETC.

same as above applies to a lot of classic DC and Marvel works, I unfortunately am just not a big fan of superhero comics... but I'm sure there's good stuff in there. a couple of my mutuals talk about booster gold and the blue beetle all the time so I'm assuming there has to be something worthwhile.

...and many, many, many more that I'm forgetting! I noticed as I made this list that, to my knowledge, hardly any of these are made by black or just non-japanese-mangaka BIPOC artists, which makes me sad about the gaps in my own comic collection. Therefore, anyone is welcome to add their own recommendations in the replies!

now go forth, and combine images with text!!!!!!!!!!!

[chocostrwberry]

Since in your AU there's less seasons, plot changes, and some different akumas than canon, do you have an idea of what the order of the episodes would be? Or how many episodes are in each season?

Speaking of episodes, are you also planning on writing your AU and posting it as well? Or are you just drawing it out?

I love your art style and your AU (especially as a huge fan of the reverse crush and a marichat stan HAHA)

I have a semi-idea,, Not too much on filler episodes, but it’s paced like Gravity Falls and Danny Phantom in my head; there are fillers, but most of the episodes are plot driven. So maybe 20 episodes each season? Hypothetically?

AND TO BE DEAD HONEST… I DONT KNOW WHAT IM DOING ABAHAHAH

I hadn’t expected so many people to be interested in my au?? I’m sure the art helped tons but I expected people to be more into my illustrations than actually asking about the concept behind it WHICH I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL FOR BTW!! 🥹🫶

So,, once I completely flush out my AU (create the masterpost list, make sure everything you could ever know about it is on my blog, etc.) I think I’ll start making more mini-comics!! My dream is to turn it into a webtoon of some sort, but I have little experience with webcomic-making.

Even though all the spoilers for it will be on here and probably already common knowledge, that’s most likely the path I’ll be going down!!

(DW FELLOW MARICHAT STAN, IM WORKING ON MORE INFO ON THEM TOO!! I’m not very good at creating romantic dynamics 👉👈 so I’m struggling a bit on how I want to portray Marichat, since they’re so in love in my AU AHSJWH curse my limited knowledge in romance-)

[serendipnpipity]

Paper Faces on Parade (1/?)

Extra sketches & story details under the cut!

I don't know what came over me, but it is now 12:30am on June 1st and I've accidentally started a webcomic phanfic. "Love Story" popped into my head earlier today, and then that turned into "But Daddy I Love Him", and then that turned into the idea for a little story!

The general gist goes as follows:

High society, Victorian-era-ish AU. I don't know time periods well, but that's the vibe.

18-year-old Dan secretly attends a masquerade party, careful to keep his identity completely anonymous until... he meets Phil.

The two hit it off, and when Phil drags him out to the secluded gardens further into the night, they end up revealing their identities to each other.

But Dan slips away Cinderella-style by the end of the night, scared of harboring an attachment like this. (Is it period-typical homophobia? Is it commitment issues? Is it Romeo-and-Juliet-style family feuding because that's my actual source material inspiration? Who knows, cuz I don't.)

Unfortunately for Dan, however, they meet again soon after at another social function. Phil approaches Dan, only for Dan to push him away at first, scared of the reactions if anyone finds out.

They still circle each other throughout the night, though, and to be honest, it's quite ridiculous how many times two people can bump into each other at a sweets table without truly, directly talking.

I'm still figuring it out after that, honestly, hence the question mark...

But I do have some fluffly extra scenes! Dunno if they'll be *canon* eventually, but they're fun nonetheless...

@phanniemasquerade

**I PHORGOT TO ADD THE FREAKING LINKS**

Ser's Oufits (bedsheets, phouseplant)

danisnotonfire & red-hot-phil

Phire & Ice Outfits

Paper Faces on Parade (Chapter 1)

[shadowcaststudio]

So I'm on of those people who enjoys a good "art style challenge" videos. Looking through a lot of different "styles" of art, I've noticed a sort of spectrum that slides between two points.

Stylization and Rendering.

I've made this handy blob to to visualize this spectrum.

Stylization to me is the design of something using shape language, proportions, details vs simplicity, and exaggeration or lack thereof. It slides between Semi Realism: being more based on reality, Semi Abstract : based more on shape and exaggeration, and Stylized: having a basis in reality but takes artistic liberties to emphasize on certain aspects/feelings.

Rendering to me is the application of form or lack of on a design. Lighting (shade, highlights, rim light), textures, patterns, and lines (there or not). Leaning more graphic or more form based.

No or Low Rendering leans into being graphic. Stylized being some lighting to get an idea of form but not too much to clutter the scene or slow down production. Hight Render leaning on form.

Here are some examples of how different visual stories fit on the scale.

Here you can have stylized character designs with different scales of rendering. Stylization is mostly seen in Japanese Anime and those inspired by Disney.

Same with Semi Abstract designs with different rendering styles. Semi Abstract comes from the UPA shorts from the 50s that really pushed into exaggerated shape language.

Semi Realistic designs can change with how you render them. Semi Realism is based more on reality.

Works the other way around with Rendering.

You can have the same amount of rendering but take in a story way different with how a character is designed. Most high rendering is seen in high budget 3D animated features because it would take forever to ask an artist to render this much detail at 24 frames per second. And we already torture animators as is.

Gradient rendering is seen mostly in webcomics, Korean comics, and illustrated books. Though with Klaus we are starting to see it more in animation.

Cel Shading is most common in 2D animated series and movies. Gives it more form and gets the point across.

Low or No Rendering becomes more graphic and emphasizes on color and design.

I will use Donna from my comic Legend Catcher as an example.

Same design, different ways to render.

Same amount of rendering, different ways to stylize.

This was just some things to think about when looking at and creating art.

If you wanna check out the process in how I drew all these, check out my Ko-Fi for the video at https://www.ko-fi.com/tessshadowcast

Just some fun thoughts I had. If there are other points to make, let me know!