Creating Webcomics: Styling and Posting Your First Webcomic for Beginners

1. Introduction | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome to your web comic creation course. This is a course about creating your first web comic. The steps that you must go through finding your software, your hard, we, deciding where you want to post your web comic and even what kind of web comic you want to create. Hi, my name is Matthew Dewey, and I am a writer. Recently I took it upon myself to branch out into a new form of medium where I combine my writing was my drawing in creating a web comic. After some experimentation and creating my first chapter, I published it to some popular services. I think created a second web comic series. With that for months and months and months, until I learned quite a few lessons that I would like to share with you in order to give you the best chance of creating a popular web comic. Now this is a course aimed at beginner writers and artists out there who are looking to create a web comic that they can be proud of. And for those beginners out there, I'll be talking about the different formats for web comics, the types of web comics you can create. I'll go into the details. I'm talking about resolutions and pixels per inch. I'll be talking about the best places you can publish your web comic. We're on web comic services on your own website. And the benefits of each. While this isn't a course where I'll be teaching you how to draw or how to write. I will be teaching you some methods for creating web comic formats that best fits your style and how to get the most out of it. I'll even show you my process step by step in creating a web comic and how are published my works. So if you are an artist or writer or both, looking to create your own web comic, this is the course for you. And one of the benefits of this course is that I am an active instructor. Which means if you have any questions or suggestions that you want to leave in the comments, you'll receive a response as soon as possible. So get a head start in creating our very first web comic with this course. I'll see you in the first lesson. Bye for now. 2. Hardware and Software | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome to the very first lesson in you're creating a web comic series. In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about the hardware and software of creating a web comic. Now there's a lot to talk about. I think the very first thing that we should be talking about is the hard way that you'll be using. So here's some much needed direction on where to begin. So let's talk about tablets. There are two tabs, specifically, simple drawing tablets, which have no screen. And it's kind of like drawing with a mouse, but you have a stylus on the pad. The location of where you draw on the pad, as well as its sensitivity or measured and translated to the screen or monitor in front of you. You can use drawing tablets with a desktop PC or with a laptop. The second type of tablet is a display tablet, which is much like a monitor or like an iPad. We have this screen and you draw on the screen with a stylus. The screen is sensitive to touch and it translates exactly where you place your stylus. So it is the ideal option as it's much closer to that, of actually drawing on a page when I started my first web comic hours using a simple stylus, this one, to be exact, it is a welcome Intuit. Intuit. I'm not sure how to pronounce that is the tablet I've been using for my teaching for many years. And eventually I got into drawing with it as well. I even taught a course on a odd software that works well if the tablet, you can also find out on my profile. But specifically this tablet was enough for me to get started. It's not as comfortable as working with hand-eye coordination on a page in front of you. But you get used to it over time. I feel that after using it for about a month, you get as comfortable with the tablet as you do with a mouse and keyboard. You can translate your movements that you don't see easily onto the screen. I've also tried various other WorldCom tablets before, but this one is my personal tablet, which I've used a lot more often. Found them all to be pretty much the same. You are translating what you do on a desktop to the monitor and you mainly tracking it on the monitor. You can track anything when you're staring down at what looks like a blank slate in front of you. And then there's the display tablet, which as I said earlier, there's a lot more comfortable as it is a lot closer to join on a page with a pen. The only problem is a display tablet is much larger to work with, and it's also a lot more expensive. That's why the different brands come in. Now I won't go into comparing all the different tablets out there and the different brands of say, tablets. But I will tell you what the majority opinion is. The most popular brand out there today, and probably the most high-quality is why com, you'll find welcome displayed tablets might come stylus tablets to be some other base templates for drawing out thing. Then there are brands which come as a close second, such as helium or XP pen. These are great tablet brands and you'll find that they have all the features you could ever need and you'll work quite happily with them as well. The major difference between these brands is the price where I can't be in the highest quality tablet that you can find out the is also charging the highest prices for the tablets. However, as I said earlier, who we are on tablets and XP pen tablets work just as well as welcome tablets, especially if you're buying a pro series without a month, you can get either brand when it comes to a stylus tablet and you'll be just fun when it comes to the Display tab. But I recommend for those who don't have such disposable income to not invest into a whack home unless they are very sure about what they're doing. If they plan to take this to a professional level. For those who want to do it as a more of a hobby, it will be quite happy with a Boolean or XP pen tablet or something. But let's say you want to start drawing your web comic without investing into display tablet or even a stylus tablet. Well, you can start your web comic, but you'll be using most likely traditional mediums. And you'll be copying and scanning your artworks into the computer to edit them, most likely with a mouse, then to publish them online. This is quite a lengthy process to take your comics and put them online. But it is still possible, and they are artists doing that An effective degree. Of course, you would still need to do a major investment if you are working with traditional mediums. And that'll be into a scanner. Unless you know, someone with a scanner, scanner is still going to sit your back quite a few bucks. But if you have a camera that's also have high-quality, you can get away with that as well and some clever editing. However, if you're determined to draw digitally, you can get comfortable with the mouse and see where that takes you with your artist software. And I've encountered that subject. Let's discuss the many different odd software out there. Now the odd software that I have had the most experience with is ART rage and Krita. Art rage is a paid for our software which provides a lot of features and is constantly being updated. Although the major downside about outrage is that the release newer versions which you would have to pay poll again, that early benefit are seeing is paid for art software, is that you can pay a lifetime fee. So that way you don't have to pay a recurring fee like you can with other artists software like Photoshop. The other pros about ART rage is it's a very simple user interface. If you don't want to get bogged down with so many tools and options. This is the art software for you. You'll find it has a very simplified user interface. So you'll be able to find the tools that work for you based your able to customize them. You'll be able to have all the other features that other odd software has, all the ones that at least most used in art software and that was using outrage for long term. The next software I attempted to use was Blender. Blender, even though it's primarily used for 3D projects, it can be used for 2D projects as well. And while experimenting with it, I found that I was comfortable with drawing with it. And the tablet is able to create the first, initial pages of my comics in Blender. Of course, creating a 2D comic in a 3D program becomes needlessly difficult and the options are vastly limited depending on your time with that tomorrow, I'm not going to be recommending blender as a drawing program, but I should note that it is possible. And that's how I literally created the first pages in my comic series and the program I'm using today and we'll be using throughout this course is Krita. It is a free program and it has all the features that I could ever need when it comes to drawing. And I'm pretty sure you will either need as well. It has a very customizable palettes system as a variety of tools as well as plugins that you can download if you want even more. And it has a very useful layer system which allows you to separate your colors and your inking. As I said in the introduction of this course, this isn't a bad drawing, but about starting your web comic series. So I won't go into the details of this program. But I will say that it has basically everything you could ever need when it comes to creating a web comic. Whether you decide to create a comic book strip or full graphic novel, Krita fund has everything. What's more is it is constantly being updated. It is free and available. So if you're running on a tight budget, it is highly recommended while we're talking about tools of the trade, let's talk about some other services that you may use in addition to your software and your hardware, the services are mainly be talking about our image compression services. Depending on the resolution that you create your images, it may not fit the parameters that certain web comic sites will require a view. Which case you'll need to resize your image and then compressor to make sure that it isn't too heavy for the website to be uploaded. Luckily, there are some websites which will compress your image or have it fit into the website itself. But other websites are very picky and you'll have to do it yourself. Otherwise, they would let you upload. Now know that there are a lot of great image compression services out there that aren't for free. But the one I typically use, and I find that it's still maintains the quality of the image when I'm uploading them is compressed png.com. It's simple, it's free, and it allows me to do bulk uploads and downloads. So that way I can do an entire comic in just a few minutes, once more. If you are running on a tight budget, this is just another service to remember, should you have some difficulties and uploading your works. So to conclude, what's my final recommendation to artists out there? For those who are new to digital art or drawing in general, I recommend lowering your costs as much as possible. Getting a simple stylus pad is enough. It doesn't even have to be welcome. There are plenty of other great brands out there. And as for software, I recommend getting a free software such as Krita. Again, it will give you all that you need. So you don't need to invest in a painful service such as Photoshop, unless you really show about what you're doing. Only once you have become a lot more comfortable with your software and your tablet, to our recommend, investing into a higher-quality servers or into a higher-quality tablet. More than anything, I recommend a high-quality tablet and a display tablet if you can afford it. And that's that for this lesson. And the very next lesson we'll be talking about the different websites you can publish your works too, as well as the format of your artworks in order to fit those wipes out perimeters. But if you have any other questions in regards to the tools of the trade when it comes to web comics, be shorted, leave it in the comments below. I am an active instructor, which means when I see your question, I will answer it as soon as possible. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next lesson. 3. Where to Post Your Webcomic | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome to The writing your first web comic course. In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about the different websites that you can post your comics, as well as the formats that you need to fit an order to publish them. Now there are several major wave Comic Sans and a lot more if you include social media. But first let me talk about the option of creating your own website and posting your comic V. By doing that, you'll be able to attract more fans who are dedicated to you and not find someone else who is simply browsing. This means that you have more opportunity to get dedicated fans. Fans you always interested and will keep up-to-date with all your comic book releases. Of course, this does mean managing your fans with a subscriber list. But it is well-worth it, especially if you plan to create different web comics over the years. Of course, you can still publish your comics to other places, such as the different websites I'm gonna be talking about now, or social media. By having them first on your own website. They all go to you first whenever they want to read your comic. With that said, let's talk about the two most popular web comics services and the ones I personally use, because I feel that the other ones out there, while good in their own respect, have dated websites or the audience simply isn't large enough to be worth the trouble. With that in mind, the two primary web comic sites that I would recommend, web tune and to pass or to plastic as some cool it. The first point I must talk about when talking about both these websites is that they cater to a more mobile audience than those who are reading web comics on a desktop or laptop. With that Amanda format that is arranged is a long vertical format. Meaning you won't really have panels next to each other unless you plan to have some very simplistic panels with large littering, was that amount you most likely have square panels that fit in the center of the screen. So that way it's more readable to a mobile audience. If you're interested in a more traditional web comic format, that's where the suggestion of creating your website comes in. By having your own website. As I said earlier, you can decide the format that you want and are most comfortable with. If you are inspired by classic superhero comics or graphic novels, this might benefit your tastes. But since this is a format that caters to a larger audience, those who read web comics on the phone, you will get a lot more attention by simply adjusting your format to fit this larger market. The major benefits about web tune and to plastic is that you will have a very easy to use website servers. You'll be able to upload different web comics. You'll be able to upload different episodes of those web comics. You be able to edit them whenever you like. You can adjust other settings. You can create thumbnails. It's a great way to manage your web comic as a whole. And if you're new to web comics are highly recommend trying out. It'll give you a good idea how to present your web comic. Should you try to do something independent? Now these are the current resolutions for web turns into plastic when you are uploading your comics. For every separate image, web tunes, you will have to have an 800 by 12 80 pixel resolution. Likely width tool will automatically slice it, shouldn't be too tall. The major thing that you need to worry about is the width of this web comic, 800 pixels. So if you're working at a higher resolution, you may need to resize it in order to fit that ratio. We're good thing again about web tune is it does its own automatic compressions. So you will have an easy upload time when it comes to web turn onto plastic. It's a similar story. There is no height limit. You can upload any image you want of any height. But the width is very specific at 09:40 pixels. Both these websites have a 20-megabyte capacity limit when it comes to each episode. So there's also that you need to manage. But when working at these resolutions and making sure you properly compress your images, you will have no problem uploading lengthier stories and web comics to these websites. The other smaller benefit when it comes to these formats is that it makes your comic a bit easier to crop when you want to post images to social media in order to get more attention. Another important factor to consider before starting web comic is to look at which audience that the different sides K22. Now web tune enter plastic early to web comic Sans. You can publish your works, but there are many out there. When it comes to all these websites, many of them cater to a certain audience. So if you want to get more views and attention, it might be best to create a web comic that fits a certain genre. You will still get plenty of attention. However, for the business oriented web comic book artist out there, this is a very important factor to consider, especially if you are interested in building an audience before you start creating works that you are really interested in. Personally, I like the old comic book style format. The reason I like this format is because it's something I'm grown a lot more comfortable with seeing when it comes to graphic novels and comic books at us, it gives me the opportunity to one day turn my webcam make into a physical print copy of the company within a month, the resolution I use is 3,440, 800 pixels with 600 pixels per inch. This is something that a lot of more in-depth software out there use such as Krita, which one's more I do recommend as a free software, pixels per square inch doesn't really matter when it comes to digital artworks, as you always have a certain pixel resolution when establishing your resolution. But it does matter if you plan to print your works. So with that in mind, that's why you might want to consider software such as Krita or the high end art software, they'll give you this option to adjust. However, the most major thing that needs to be considered before you even decide the format is the top of web comic you're planning to create. Of course, the format can easily be adjusted depending on the top of webcam mike you want to create. So let's talk about that in the very next lesson. We'll be discussing the different types of web comics, RT, choosing a theme, the colors, the characters that you might want to be drawing and posting. And let's talk about that in the very next lesson. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 4. Popular Webcomic Styles | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome back to your web comic course. In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about the different styles and formats of web comics anti. Now the styles and formats can entirely depend on the genre and of course, your own personal style when it comes to drawing. Was that a month? These are some of the most popular types of comic book style is that you may see out there. The very first one I'll be talking about is the simple three panel comic strip. Three panel comic strips have been appearing in newspapers all over the world. And you can also find them online as their own web comics. These three panel comics are very popular and easy to make. You set up a joke. You deliver punchline and all with a simplistic cartoon style. Most commonly. Of course, you have the full panel comic strip, which is another way to deliver and tell a story. It gives you an extra panel to add a few more details and really hammer home that punchline in the final panel. Both these styles work well with the format of web tune and to pass stick, as you can have one panel follow the other. As the story goes on. It is common, of course, for those who are creating comic strips to create these larger informal comics. This is commonplace when it comes to the Sunday issue of some newspapers who will give a larger amount of space on a page for cartoonists to create a larger comic. And then we move on to comic books and graphic novels. Comic books and graphic novels have no real format. Although that there are many times when a format is applied, obviously everybody likes to have a formula to work with. You can easily create a web comic and graphic novel with little to no structure to its panel system. You can have entire pages where there are no panels and it's just a large image. You can have a panel on the upper corner or panel on the bottom corner with a larger image in the middle. You can do whatever you wish. Of course, it does help to have some sort of format to work with, to establish some sort of structure. So is that a month? It's very important to look at other comic book artists and see their own style. If you already have one a month, then you have an idea of what kind of web comic you'll be comfortable with drawing. The one important detail that I do want to get across if you are new to web comics or comics in general, is that dialogue is usually read from the highest bubble to the lowest bubble. So if there's a conversation between your characters and you went to establish order to the conversation, you would do this probably placing their conversations one above the other. In western comics, you'll also be reading from the left to the right. And in manga, you'll be reading from the right to the left. However, whether it'd be western comics or manga, you'll be reading again from top to bottom. So the highest speech bubble will we need to be read before the one below it. Now it comes down to choosing which style best suits you. Now, I'm working with two styles, so I can tell you a bit about both when it comes to the comic-strip style, be a three panel or full panel, it's a lot easier to work with. You can set out a different palette with you be using black and white like me or any other simple colors as well. So we'll be working with a more cartoony style, which allows you to draw panels a lot faster. The only real negative of working with a smaller comic strip is that you'll need to make room for your dialogue and you'll have little space to show detail. So your characters need to also be simplified if you want them to work. However, if details aren't really your focus, if you are interested in more simplistic style and if the idea of creating web comics Faster appeals to you, then comic strips might be the perfect style. Comic books and graphic novels star will appeal to those artists out there who would like to spend more time creating these scenes. Have a lot more room to work with and want to tell a more interesting and in-depth story. Of course, you will be accepting that you'll be creating artworks that a reader will simply glance over before they move on to the next page. There's also the fact that you won't be releasing so many finished web comics so quickly. However, you'll still be able to create the web comics that you enjoy. And these higher-quality web comics will also receive a lot more attention. It all comes down to consistency and maintaining that quality throughout. If you are creating higher-quality works and releasing them and lengthier intervals at might also benefit to you to create a website to post your web comics. After all, if you are creating something of high quality, you want to make sure you also get the quality attention that you work deserves. Of course, that doesn't mean you won't be happy with the other web comics services out there. And there are plenty of others which also cater to this classic style of web comic. As a little side note, I also recommend experimenting with both styles. You never know which one might appeal to you more and also which one might get more attention. You might be a talented artist. You can create these wonderful detailed graphic novels. But you also might have an incredible talent for creating comic strips. And that gets you a lot of attention as well. By catering to these different types of audiences, you'll be able to build up more fans. And who knows? Some might go over to read your comic strips. And those who read your comic strips might go over to radio graphic novel. This is what I've discovered in my experience. I originally started with a graphic novel, but I also found that my audience wanted to see more work come out. So I created a comic strip on the side and the tube feed into each other. One gets some attention, that it gets more attention. But the audience wants more follows me. So they could just see both my works when they are released. With that said, that brings us to the end of this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll be talking about the themes, the palate and the characters that you create in your web comics. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 5. Themes, Characters and Colors | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Welcome back to your web comic course. In this episode, we're going to be talking about themes, characters, and colors. Now this video is gonna be more of an ideas based lesson because we're gonna be talking about the different types of comics which are doing well today on land. We'll be talking mainly about the tubs, palettes, characters, and story, aka theme that tends to work well. Now since this lesson is based on finding ideas, top of webcam mic you want to create. If you already have an idea, you can feel free to skip this lesson. In the next lesson, we will be talking about my recommended resolutions and formats for your webcam x. However, for those who are interested in deciding which theme, top of character and palate to use. Stick around. First, let's discuss the theme or genre of your web comic. You don't have to do much research into the web comic field to realize what genres almost popular, as well as the style of drawing. The most popular style when it comes to web comics nowadays, is a manga style. As four genres are the most popular. The two most popular genres, or romance and horror. People are very interested in reading a romance based web comic today, or high-risk web comic. However, if you are a web comic artist who is interested in the classic comic style and you want to create something that is more adventure. You are still going to find a large audience. While many sites build upon this idea of selling more romance and horror, a squib comics. Today, there are a lot of sites which are also a bit more neutral to the top of genre that they put in front of the audience. Meaning you have an equal chance of being discovered by other readers. So if you're still deciding which theme or genre you want to work with, you now know which is most popular. Of course, when it comes to comic strips. Comic strips tend to be more comedy based and those are still popular. But if you're looking into the web comic world, you'll find that larger comics are even more popular than that. You also find you'll have a more dedicated fan base creating larger comics than creating smaller comic strips. Although comic strips are much more easily consumed, you will have a lot more people reading them. But of those people, you wouldn't have a dedicated following. At least not as large as if you were to create larger web comics. If you want to create a web comic that is more like a graphic novel, we have focused on story, then the art style really doesn't matter. There are many graphic novels out there for unique art style or quirky way of drawing characters. A lot of these graphic novels do really well because it's more centered around the story than it is about the art style. Although in many cases, the art style is also quite interesting. So you don't have to settle into having a very formal art style beer to manga art style or Western comic art style. You can develop your own type of style when drawing your characters, your backgrounds, and so on. With My first web comic, malice, I decided to use a very small palette as using mainly gray scale with brains. This is because the rage stood out against the black and white as well as the black and white and red work. You work together with the theme that I was using. I was going for a dark fantasy vibe. So having the gray scale and the Sharp reads really exemplifies that grim trade fulfilling. However, there was the additional complication of simply including these colors because as I said earlier, I was using a very difficult program to work with when it came to web comics. Now that I'm using an appropriate program, it's much easier for me to adjust these great skills. But I still find myself sticking with the same small set of colors. For my short-term comic strip, I decided to simply use black and white and then using other brushes and tools to get the different grays in-between. The reason I made the pallets are simplified is because I'm working with a simplified coming. It is on a smaller scale. The characters are more cartoonish stick. So there isn't that much room for detail. And that comes with the colors as well. So I was able to create shorter comic strips a lot faster. And the limited palette fits the styles are coming. Of course, I wanted to use a lot more colors than black and white. So for my third comic series, hours using colors, I was using different blues and greens in the beginning and getting a good idea of how to balance this out and in Filter colors over them. So everything felt a bit more uniform. But it's very important that I make the process easy and enjoyable for me. So I still use a limited palette. While I do is select my colors. Initially when McGrady new objects and characters and worlds spaces. I'm also making sure that I can call back to these colors and reuse them in later panels. The reason I do all of this is I want a palette that as well associated my style. And at the same time making my style that much more enjoyable for me when I'm drawing it. And that's what you need to do when you are creating your own palette. You needed to decide which colors appeal to you. And do they fit the kind of story and style that you're working with? If you are working with a smaller scale web comic, such as a comic strip, then it might be better to use a simplified palette to match the style. Especially if you are creating more cartoonish characters. Of course, you can never go wrong with just using black and white and using hatching to show the in-between areas in your drawings. Back and watch is a very standard way of creating web comics. Because all web comics are initially created using black and white before colors are added. So when you want them working on your web comic and you're doing the line work in inking. Before you add colors, you'll be able to look at your work and decide for yourself. Do you want to keep it that way? Chances are that even if you do, you will still receive the same amount of attention. Colors are great to read when you're browsing a web comic on your phone, on your desktop. But at the same time, majority of mango works and western comics out they are doing things in black who want. The one reason is because it's such a recognizable palate, it is a comfortable palette and people can still understand what's going on. And to is it makes the process a lot easier and faster, which allows you to release more web comics at a fast rate. Of course, it also helps to look at other web comic artists out there and decide for yourself which palettes, themes and characters appeal to you. With that said, if you do have a web comic artist in mind who has influenced your style or inspired you. Let me know who they are and what they've done. In the comments below. I'm very interested to see which artists are having a great impact on the next-generation of comic book artists. And that brings us to the end of the lesson. And the next one, I'll be talking about my recommended resolutions and formats for creating your web comics. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 6. My Recommended Formats and Resolutions | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome back to your web comic course. In this lesson, I'm going to be talking about looking ahead when it comes to your web comics. Specifically, I'm gonna be talking about the format that you'll be using with your web comics, the resolution, and so on. When I first started, I created a standard resolution that would fit the websites that I'll be posting too. As I didn't see anything beyond creating web comics for those websites. But there are many reasons that you should consider looking beyond those websites. Form. You'll never know if a website will be lasting a long period of time and how long you plan to be doing this. Secondly, there are other places where you can market your web comic if you are interested in building a bigger following. All making this into a career. With that said, here's some advice that I recommend you take, especially if you plan to physically print your webcam x. First of all, I want you to consider the resolution and quality of your image. A high-quality image, meaning a greater resolution of pixels per square inch, will result in a heavier program to run on your desktop or laptop. But at the end of the day, the amount of effort you put into it is very much the same. The only difference being is that by having a higher resolution image, you can scale things down to better fit the services and websites that you plan to use, but still have those higher resolution images. Should you decide to use them for more high-quality websites? Or should you decide to print your coin books? Said, when it comes to the resolutions that I recommend, I'm currently working with the resolution from our main graphic novels of 3,440, 800. Now this isn't extreme at all. In fact, a bog standard when it comes to the resolution for graphic novel or comic book, 1,720, 400 as simply double the resolution to allow me more space and pixel depth. Because when smoothing out these images, it's better to have higher resolutions. When it comes to pixels per square inch. I've gone with 600. Not because it's the bare minimum that I would recommend. That because when I'm working with higher pixels per square inch, it tends to affect the lettering with creatures lettering system. So when it comes to working with the literary and I'd have to do some other scaling to get it to work. But 600 pixels per square inch is plenty. However, when it comes to the resolution, that is something I think would apply to any of the projects that you are grading. Try creating your projects at at least double the recommended resolution, knowing that you can scale it down to fit the websites that you plan to post it to, all the social media and so on. The reason you do this is because it's better to scale down than it is to scale up when it comes to images. When you try to scale down a higher resolution image, look more or less the same. Very hard to tell the difference. However, if you try to scale an image from a lower-quality resolution to a high-quality one. You will see the difference, the clarity of the image is lost and the pixels begin to show. And that's my very pretty. Now let's talk about the formats that I recommend, especially if you are a beginner when it comes to web comics. If you're new to the web comic genre, you want to give yourself room and simplicity. So when you're creating a graphic novel style comic, you want to create spaces between your panels. It's very common for more modern comics to have a simple line to separate their panels. But having a thicker space will help separate the images for both you and your reader. By having these very clear separations, you can have similar panels that still stand out amongst each other when it comes to having a simple Finland to separate your comic panels and becomes a bit more difficult as you didn't have to look at the way that you're structuring your scene, characters involved and even the colors in order to better separate them. If you plan to dedicate yourself as well to the web services, web tune or to pass tick. And I recommend also placing single panels, one above the other than rather panels alongside each other. When it comes to my graphic novel project such as malice, I tend to ignore this rule sometimes for the sake of my own story because I would like to print my comics one day. And I don't want to have it specifically on web tool to pass the cornea, the service. With that, Amanda, if I did, I would definitely create my web comics and central way that would better fit the mobile devices that the large majority of the audience is using. And this is still very easy to do. You can decide on the shape of your panels. It's simply has to be one panel above each other. Sometimes you don't even need to have separate panels and you could just have images that flow from one into the next. For those of you who want to dedicate yourselves to websites like we have two spastic, I recommend you look at the top comics that they are showing and see how those professionals lay out their web comics. And that brings us to the end of this lesson. If you are unexperienced webcam a greater yourself, what advice would you give to begin a web comic creators like me know in the comments below. And with that, I'll see you in the next lesson. Bye for now. 7. My Webcomic Process | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome back to your web comic course. In this lesson, I'm going to be giving you a brief overview of my methods for creating a wave coming from the very beginning when I'm creating land works and how I lay things out to how I export my works. What's that, Amanda or so then end up talking a bit about the program that I'm using. But this isn't a tutorial on Krita. You can find many of those were free on YouTube. However, this will show you how a lay things out and how I use the program to be a bit more efficient when crazy my web comics sediment, let's capture the computer so you can see exactly how I do things. And here we are in creature. The very first thing I want to show you when it comes to greeter is creating a document. When I'm creating a graphic novel, I choose my resolution of 3,400 by 4,800, 600 pixels per inch. The maximum that one could use for pixels per inch. It's not the maximum resolution either. But I feel that when it comes to my work, all of these numbers were quite well with each other. From the resolution and the way it works with the text and creature. Once I'm happy with that, I'll click Create. So I have a blank document of the right size and quality, and I need only begin. The very first thing I wanna do when I create a new web comic is establish a format template that I can call back on whenever I'm creating a new page in the web comic. Very first thing I do is I create a box where I'll be placing all of my panels, make sure it's properly centered. I'm just going to take you to a template that I normally use, e.g. this is a template that I use when it comes to creating my malice comic. I have standard layers and whenever I want to select a palette, I've even saved a palette specifically for a manuscript book, which includes all 12 colors. The reason that the 12 cars is important right now is because I also include a separate layer go to Filter, which I tend to put over the colors when I want to create uniformity. But when it comes to malice, that it's an exception because everything is in gray scale and a one-third rate to stand out. But whatever I want to create a certain lighting in a notebook seen, it helps to have a slight filter of the colors to get that uniformity. With that said, let's talk about the separate layers and what they mean. First of all, for those who are not familiar with the layer system, I think of it much like a cake. You place down a layer of sponge cake. You add arsine on top of that, which will cover the sponge cake. You then add another layer on top of that, which will cover the icing and the bottom layer. And it works much the same here. The bottom layer will be at the bottom of the cake, and the top layer will be at the top. What you see at the top is what you will be overlaying everything else. Any gaps in-between. Obviously it will show the layer below it. In any gaps in that layer will show the layer below that. Without a month. Most of these layers are blank right now. The only ones that have anything on the background fill which is created by default, which is a background white layer. It's a good to always have that when starting, especially when you get to the inking stage and helps to spot your line work. But first let's talk actually about the border that I created here. This helps me figure out exactly where I want all my panels to be situated with a nice border around them. The next layer I have is border adjustments, which allows me to create a exact spaces and panels for a specific page. I'll have the inking where I'll be doing a character work. And then I have the background inking for obviously the background itself. Once the land works are done, I can then turn to the colors and the filter. As I said, I don't use a filter for MELAS, but I'll definitely add the colors. And again, there'll be underneath the layers. So I can even overlap underneath the line work, but it won't show thanks to the layer system. I guess the best way to show this off is to have a look at one of my previous settings. So here is a malice page. Now, our first show, the border layer, which is obviously the exact same as the template itself. And then have the adjustments which helped me separate my panels. Then have the inking, which is mainly my character work, and some late adjustments that I might make. Near the end of the process, and then have the background inking itself. The background is very minimal on this page, but when it comes to my larger pages, it tends to be more prevalent. It's still helps to separate these things. Mixed. I have the colors which again appears underneath it, and I have what is close to a finished page. Now this is when I add new layers. These layers pertain to the dialogue and texts that appear on a comic page. Sometimes there won't be any. Text on a page are mainly just be an image, not work for the reader to see. I don't include these layers in the template. Just make them manually when I'm working on that specific page. For this one, let's just turn off the colors so it's easier to spot. So then I would add my texts using creatures take system. And then I would use a another layer beneath that to create a border to separate it and point to who is speaking. And finally, another layer to create a whitespace beneath the text. Because I don't do that. Then when I add colors, it's harder to spot certain text. So that as you can see from the specific page, I've created thick the separators. So actually these panels stand out a bit better because it is including the same character on a similar vaccine. So I want to make sure each panel stands out. What's also good about working with a simple palette like this is that I can finish these pages much quicker and it's much easier process for me. Of course, if I wanted to make it much easier, I could just not include colors at all and leave it as black and white land work. Of course, I probably have to include more line work to make it even more interesting. But in this case, it's not necessary. And since everything is of uniform colors from the gray scale to the raids that I wanted to stand out. We'll be using a filter. Let's go to one of my color comic pages so you can see how everything works together when I'm using a wider range of colors. So as you can see from the start, I already have more colors in my palette here. I'm using a default palette provided by Krita, which is just the gradient palette. I have much of the same layer system. I have the border, the border adjustments. I can add my inking on some satisfied the inking, I can add background inking when necessary. The sketch layer is left blank now because I'd finished the sketching and had done the final inking. Next I add a filter. This will give all my colors below Much more uniformity. And as I said earlier, in this case, I use it also when it comes to lighting. So when this character here is looking at the phone, I can adjust with a Latino go. So it works with the figure itself, the clothing, and with the stars here on the Nazca. And when I add the colors, the colors have a uniform shade of blue over it. Again, giving that unity, it makes it a lot better to look at. Then if it didn't have the filter. Looks that said once I'm satisfied with what I have, I then start to add text. Around the text, I create the border, and beneath that border I create a background. So that takes stands out a lot better. There you have it. That is my process from beginning to end. Whenever I want to create a new page, I save this template separately without adjusting it to my folder. Once I've done that, I can then start my work. And once I'm finished, I can go to File export and export it as a PNG ready for upload. Once I've made my final adjustments. And this is something I recommend you do, even if it does get a bit cumbersome to work with having so many files, but having every one of your pages as a separate save file, rather than overwriting the same every time you finish your page is always a good idea. Should you want to go back and make an adjustment to a page? You don't want to take that PNG and edited. You were to go back to the save and properly edited. Especially if you have a problem on an underlying layer. It's all about thinking ahead and making the process as easy as possible for yourself as you can. And so now that you've seen the process that I work with when I'm creating content in our need to only make your own. The only problem is it's sometimes difficult to start when it comes to creative projects. Sometimes the task seems a lot more daunting than it really is. Lot easier to do something that is simple and relaxing than to pursue a creative project. And the way you overcome this is by being consistent and organized. Whenever you have an opportunity to work, you should. Whenever you have everything organized, it's a lot easier to begin. That's why having templates is so important and that's why having a format that you're comfortable with is so important. To find a place to save your work, to see the progress you're making. And this is advice that I give to all my students, no matter which create a project, I'm talking about. Whether it'd be an artistic project like creating a painting or drawing web coming. Even when it comes down to creating a simple program, it's very difficult to get your ideas together and all the energy in willpower to finally sit down and do it. But once you do, once you just start, it gets a lot easier and you'll wonder why you've been putting it off. You don't want to figure out your system much later and then start from scratch or go all the way back to the beginning to adjust your pages to match the ones that you are comfortable with now. So taking the time, no matter how long it may be, such as a Dale week, to figure this out, will help you in the long run. If you are an experienced web comic creator, what advice would you give beginners when it comes to creating content? If you are begin to create, what questions do you have when it comes to creating a web comic content? What aspects of the process confuse you or do you struggle with? Let me know in the comments below. As I am an active instructor and I'll answer your question as soon as possible. In the next lesson, we will be talking about posting your web comics and social media. Found out what I did right and what I did wrong when it comes to the side of marketing your web comic. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 8. Posting Your Webcomic | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome back to your web comic creation course. In this lesson, we are going to be talking about the posting of your content. Now, more specifically, I'll be going through the posting processes for the two main sides, which I've mentioned, we've tuned and to plastic. But when it comes to the posting process for your web comic on your website, It's entirely up to you. The process depends on the web service provider using. So you might have options which are better than others for when it comes to web tune into plastic, there are some specific requirements, which I've already mentioned many recently. But I'm also going to be going through the process of creating a new series on these platforms, the steps are fairly simple, so I'm gonna be giving you a quick overview when it comes to each web servers and how to set up your web comics. So that way, whenever you want to write a new chapter or create a new comic strip, I'll show you how to do that in the most efficient way. That said, let's start with web two. So to begin, you'll open up the web turns.com website. You will create a profile. Once you have done that, will get straight into publishing our very first web comic. Go to the homepage and you will see your login details over here. And you'll see next to it the button that says Publish. Clicking on that will take you to this page where you get to select which series you want to continue by adding episodes to. Or you can create a new series by clicking this button over here. So let's just assume you are creating a new series on this platform. You can click here. And it'll take you to this page where you'll be adding the thumbnails. Add pictures and other details about your series. With each of these thumbnails, you be able to add promotional images for your comic. Thumbnail is gonna be probably the most common one that readers are going to encounter on web tune. That a vertical thumbnail is also not that uncommon either. For these thumbnails, I do recommend a very basic image that includes the title of your comic. So that way the reader gets a good idea of what to expect and also what your comic is called. Taking the square root thumbnail, you can also add it to a vertical thumbnail, just simplify or stretch it so that way it fits this new format. Once you fulfill these parameters, you'll be choosing two genres. Genre, genre one will be what readers will notice that for most likely. So if you're creating a community-based web comic, you would select committee on this list, although there are many others to choose from, you simply select the one that fits your web comic the most. The one thing that I would focus on is exactly the goal element of your comic rather than the theme itself. So e.g. I. Created a short comic strip called the Sheriff of know-how, which is more comedic than anything else, even though it is also set in the past. So it's also more historical theme. With that said, I selected comedy is my main genre. And as for my second genre, which I do recommend you select once you've picked your first, I picked historical. Over again. I gave it a series title and a very short summary of what it is about. This is normally two to three sentences to really get the idea across, you can create a longer summary. It depends on the complexity of your coming. You will also get given a warning before you continue, which asks you if you series contains any more dramatic themes. As you can see here. If your comic does contain any of these themes, you can click this checkbox here. This won't lower you and the algorithm. You will still be able to create a very popular web comic, even if your webcam, it contains mature themes. Once you have created a series, you should see it on your select series here when publishing. This should make it very easy for you to create episodes. Episodes are segments of your web comic series. So if you want to break things up with your web comic rather than upload an entire web comic, as is, this is how you would do it. In fact, this is the most recommended way to do it. As a reader can then figure out exactly where they are in your web comic series. It makes your web comics easier to navigate. So with that amount, you can click Add episode to any of your series. And it will take you to this page. This page will simply tell you the details of the series you post into. In this case, it'd be the Sheriff of know-how? As I've selected here, I would add a thumbnail. This thumbnail can be a short segment that is taken out of your web comic. It could be the face of one of your characters. It could be larger scene. It really doesn't matter as this thumbnail is going to be a smaller image. So I would take something out of it that is unique to that chapter. If you're creating like a short comic strip series, than a unique title would work well. Once that's done, you'll upload your episodes by clicking Select to upload. If you're using Clip Studio Paint, you can upload directly from that platform. Although I recommend, as I said before, to save all of your work, to export it to PNGs, jpegs, keep them in separate folders and stay organized. And if you are doing that, you can just upload the file by selecting File to upload here. Once that's done, you can scroll down and you'll see these options before publishing. You can leave a creators note which is a short comment on your work process so far, there could be a comment about the particular chapter or could be a comment about when the next chapter should be released. It also gives you an option to preview your comics out on a PC or mobile. As you can see here, you can enable disable comments. And finally, you can choose to publish your web comic immediately once it's finished uploading and processing. Or you can schedule it for later date. This is a great way to get things out of the way. Should you finish your web comic early? Web turned does provide a comprehensive dashboard that tells you about the amount of views and attention that you are getting to your web comic, as well as an update system that lets you know whenever publishes a episode, I would recommend getting the whip tunes app on your phone should you be away from your laptop or your PC. So that way it will notify you when your episodes are being published. It's also a great way to keep up with the comments as well. With that said, let's move on to to pass deck. We will be talking about how to create a county. So here we are at the homepage. After creating an account, once you've gone through that process, we simply going to talk about how to create a web comic series. Now, you'll go to your dashboard. It'll take you to Dashboard similar to this, where you will be kept up-to-date with all the statistics regarding your web comics. So it's a year where you can create a new series. You may choose whether you're going to create a comic or novel. If you are a writer, you'll then be presented with this page. It's quite a comprehensive page as compared to whip tunes is a lot of different ads and links that they make use of onto plastic. Without a month, many of the things are still the same. You will create a title. You choose a unique URL, simply just adding the title after the URL is based. You then move on to creating your thumbnail. That's no different nowadays the description, what is different is the book cover. It's much like the vertical thumbnail when it comes to web tunes. But I think this is a little bit more different. It's, you're imagining of a book cover for your comic. I recommend if you are using a traditional comic format like the ones I've described, that you create a front cover page and simplify to only include the title of your web comic series. And place it here. If you're creating a short comic strip series. And I still recommend you create such a page where you just have larger image of, let's say your characters or the theme, along with the title of your web comic series. There is also a series Banner option. This is again something I do recommend you create. Having a series Banner means when your readers go checkout an overview of your web comic series, they can have this larger image rather than a solid color. It's a lot more appealing to readers, especially if they interested in following your work. You can also have a link on the series Banner. This could link to anywhere you want, including your website. Should you want readers to be directed to see your work on your own website rather than on this platform. One small, you have to select your genres. You could choose up to three when it comes to, to pass take. But once more, you have to select a main genre of the three that you select. You also include tags. The tags work much like the optional tags on an Instagram post or Twitter post. An entirely depends on what your comic is about. A recommend including a tag that is the name of your series or at least something referencing the series, perhaps the star character. And also tags that work with your series is theme. So e.g. if the genres selection yet doesn't exactly encapsulate what your story is about. You can create tags that do. Once you have created your series, you can return to your dashboard to select your series and add episodes by clicking the green plus icon on each one. It'll take you to a similar page to that one on web tunes. You will have your title, your scheduling, you will upload your comic, your thumbnail. And also there will be a option to share Thumbnail select. Once your comic is uploaded. This means that you'll be able to take a small segment from your webcam mic and showed off when people are sharing your webcam mic, you'll get to create a description or message to the reader reading this particular episode. Unlike web turns to past, it allows you to choose whether a episode specifically has mature content. This means that if your episode does not contain any mature content, you can select it for everyone and they won't get a warning message about that particular episode. As you can see when it comes to posting content on these two services, it's not too dissimilar from posting content on any social media. It requires you to upload the content, to title the content, give descriptions and details. Perhaps even add a few more images. If you want to get a bit more attention, then it comes down to tags and comments as well. Once your episode is published, you need not look at it again. But should you want to change something or replace the images? You can do that as well. It will still remain in that particular timeline which you have placed it. The only things that will ever change, of course, are the edits that you want to make. Sure you make a typo new web comic. You can go back and swap it out. And it will still remain there with the same amount of views and lags as it was before you editing it. It keeps track of all the attention that you're getting. So you'll be able to see if someone likes your work, leaves a comment or shares at. And this is a great way to have validation about your work if that's important to you as an artist. And that's how you post content on these two platforms. All that matters from now on is quality and consistency. When you have set a regular schedule for yourself to create your web comics, as well as regular days when you are posting. It's one way to get attention as a web comic creator to have such a scheduling a routine. That way readers can expect a new comic from you on certain days. And that's a great security to a lot of readers as they like to know that the people they are following, that they subscribing to continuing the work having received their support. So in the next lesson, I'll be giving you a few more tips and advice that I've learned along the way. And we'll leave it there. Thank you for joining me and I'll see you in the last lesson. Bye for now. 9. Final Advice and Course Project | Creating Your First Webcomic for Beginners: Hello and welcome back to your web comic cos. In this lesson, I'm gonna be giving you some advice and tips that I learned along the way when creating a web comic. This is more of an overview of some of the tips of OSA talked about throughout this course. So there might be some repeats here and there, but all the same. There'll be a lot ball which I haven't talked about. So if you're looking for some pointers on how to get the best out of creating your first web comic. Stick around. Very first bit of advice I want to give you is about pacing yourself when creating your comic. If, especially if you are creating a comic series that's a lot more like classic comics. When you are creating larger characters, more detailed artworks, are you working with a broader palette? It is a very lengthy process to create a single page, let alone an entire series of pages, chapters in a web comic series. With that in mind, it can be very stressful if you decide to push yourself to create a regular series when you don't really have the time to do so. It's all about giving yourself enough space between your posts in order to create your comic book chapters. Now you might think that you're giving yourself enough space by simply doubling the time that it takes for you to create a web comic. E.g. let's say you decide to create a web comic series and you've can finish an entire chapter in about a week. You have plenty of time. You can draw as many pages as you like and you'll finish comfortably in a week. So you decide to give yourself a leeway of two weeks. That way, if you do fall behind, you still have enough time to catch up. But it's simply doesn't work like that sometimes. Especially if this is something you are doing on the side and you have a lot of other responsibilities that need your attention. If you want to make sure that this is a comfortable hobby and that it isn't a work process for you. I recommend not just doubling your time but quadrupling it. If it takes you a week to finish something, make sure you publish it once a month. If you push yourself too hard, and this isn't something that you want to do around the clock. You will find that in the event that something important happens, you will miss a lot of those deadlines. And if you're not ready to accept missing those deadlines, then it's probably best that you give yourself. Not just WO Tom, but quadruple your tongue. You can create your web comics comfortably that way. And as I said in a previous video, you can schedule your works to be posted, let's say three weeks ahead of time, and then you get stuck into the next chapter. And if you've finished that on time, then you can publish that three to four weeks after your next post and so on. It's better to build up a broader gap between your creations and you're posting dates than to have a tata scheduled to work with is that a month? My very first piece, as I said earlier, is just not pressuring yourself and making sure you have enough time to create your web comics. Should you want to post a webcam mic regularly? My next piece of advice is one that I haven't mentioned earlier in this course. And that's to get organized. And that's bomb making several saves your work. That's about having all your work saved as well as PNGs. And I'll just save files for your drawing program. It's about making sure you have backups, both physically on a USB stick or hard drive, but it also online in case something happens to them. This is a lot of work that you're doing if you are creating a lengthier comic series or more detailed one. So the last thing you wanna do is lose those files. It's very easy for one to get corrupted. But let's say an entire folder gets corrupted or something gets damaged. You don't want to start from scratch. You can avoid these troubles by simply staying organized and making those backups. My third piece of advice is other comics that are being shown today. If you are creating a web comic in a similar genre, it might help to see who is doing very well in that genre and how they are building their audience. It could be perhaps that this is a famous comic book artist, but it also could be that they understand their market a little bit better than you. Which if you are new to the web comic world, is very likely. There are many times when I'm looking at very popular web comic creators and how they do their work. It's very different from what I would expect when I'm posting a regular base. Understanding your market is very important on a business side of creating a web comic series. But if you simply just want to grow an audience because you want more and more people to see your work and you're not really interested in building a business. This is still something very important. The way you go about seeing how these other creators build the audience is to look at the art works and see how they structure things on the way the characters look to the dialogue, to the way that the comic is structured. You can also look at their social media as other links that in no doubt provide on their profile. And see how they share their work on other social media, how they get attention name. My next piece of advice is to not be afraid on branching out. I've already mentioned two different platforms which I use, as well as bone website if you want to include that. But as a webcam or greater, if this is something you want to do full-time, you gotta be willing to do the research and finding other places where you can showcase your work. For me, this is more of a gray, visually creative outlet. I am a writer by trade, so most of my creative outlet is writing novels, books, having just words on paper. Creating images to go with those words is just another way of telling the story for me. But for you this might be something you wanna do full time. But if we use this might be something you want to do full time. So looking for other places to showcase your work is essential with creating physical print books that you are selling on online bookstores. Or if you're looking at other platforms which showcase similar works, the web comic reader services. You can look to them and see how you can go about making your web comic appear on the platform. My last piece of advice is again, a bit more business oriented. But let's say you want to build a larger audience or you want to turn this into a full-time business, then I have to say to you that your target market will most likely be on a mobile phone or mobile device such as a tablet. So creating a web comic that fits those platforms more than it fits desktops or physical print books might be ideal. A lot of the top webcam and greatest out there, or creating web comics for funds. The print is much larger and the structure of the comic is fitting a vertical frame of a phone. So if you do the same thing, you will also reach a broader audience. Because if a fun web comic reader comes across a comic that is structured more for physical print than it is for a fund. They'll struggle to follow the story and also the print size might be a bit too small. These frustrations can easily lose your readers. But let's say a reader comes across your comic on a PC or desktop if it still has the format for a firm rather than a classic web comic format, that's still fine. A person on a laptop or desktop PC will still be able to read your web comic and it won't be frustrating for them. And you will still appeal to the mobile audience. So that's something really to keep in mind. Should you want to build a large following? And there you have it. This is the final video in this web comic course. And I do hope you enjoyed if you unexperienced web comic creator yourself and you're looking for a refresher. And it brought you here. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the web comic industry. What have you learned on your journey to create a web comic series? As for the beginner web comic creators, if you still have any questions that you want answered, I do recommend you leave them in the comments below. I am an active instructor, which means when you join me on this course, you're not just joining me for this small time that these videos take you. You're joining me for as long as you wish. If you have any questions, I do recommend you leave them and I'll give you an answer as soon as possible. Especially if I'm currently online. When you send me such a question, you'll get it within an hour or two at the very most. This is also a great way to showcase your work if you are beginner web comic creator. So your project for this course is to create a web comic series on other of these services, on other services which I haven't mentioned or even on your website and share it below. Let other begin a web comic creators CO2 we're doing, this is a great way to build an audience a bit fast in the beginning as well. I'm also very interested to see what you create. And I really hope that you found this course useful in starting your web comic series. And that brings us to the end of this course. And I really hope you enjoyed. I am a writing instructor as well. So if you're looking to write a story or practically any genre, I've created a cause for it. You can find it all my profile on my website, the paint swift.com. Well, as I have my courses available, thank you all for watching and I wish you the best. Bye for now.