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Post by varentai on Aug 30, 2013 12:48:50 GMT
Tom -
Somehow, you update a page 3x/week and your art looks great. I *know* how long it takes to do good art, and I am wondering what your secret is. Lots of other webcomics can only put up a page 1/week or even 1/month because the art takes them so long.
Are you really the Flash, so you can draw SUPAH FAST ZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! ?
Or is Robot doing the coloring?
Perhaps Coyote gave you a pen from one of his claws?
Inquiring minds gotta know, yo.
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Post by legion on Aug 30, 2013 13:12:57 GMT
His secret is he has 30 pages drawn in advance.
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Post by oglokoog on Aug 30, 2013 13:31:54 GMT
His secret is he has 30 pages drawn in advance. He still has to keep producing them at a certain pace. |
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Post by varentai on Aug 30, 2013 13:53:57 GMT
His secret is he has 30 pages drawn in advance. He still has to keep producing them at a certain pace. Exactly. A buffer can get eaten up really fast if you aren't producing at the same (or faster) rate than you are posting. |
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Post by GK Sierra on Aug 30, 2013 14:55:28 GMT
His secret is Cadbury Chocolate Eggs.
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Post by philman on Aug 30, 2013 16:26:08 GMT
Given the fact he has the large buffer, I have always assumed he draws entire chapters at a time or something, allowing himself quite a coherent run of steam per chapter. That would mean he has the odd week of loads of work, interspersed with more peaceful weeks he can get other things, such as real jobs, done.
I could be entirely wrong on the matter though.
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Post by varentai on Aug 30, 2013 16:32:07 GMT
Given the fact he has the large buffer, I have always assumed he draws entire chapters at a time or something, allowing himself quite a coherent run of steam per chapter. That would mean he has the odd week of loads of work, interspersed with more peaceful weeks he can get other things, such as real jobs, done. I could be entirely wrong on the matter though. See, here's the problem - doing a full page with coloring (coloring alone accounts for about 90% of the time requirement), etc, could easily take 2 solid days. Each page. Meaning he would get 1 day off/week. Every week. That doesn't take into account storywriting, dialogue, etc, not to mention other life necessities, like, you know, having a LIFE. This is why I am asking. He's doing something right that other webcomic writer/artists would kill to know so they can replicate it. So, hints?  |
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Post by philman on Aug 30, 2013 16:40:50 GMT
I'm no artist, so no real idea. But surely batching up and drawing/colouring lots of pages with a similar colour scheme at the same time would make it go faster per page? i.e. if he writes whole chapters at a time. (unlike other webcomics, which I know, do only draw and colour one page at a time, and frequently get erratic and post uncoloured pages during Con' season).
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Post by snipertom on Aug 30, 2013 17:12:58 GMT
I think he spends a fuckload of time working on the comic. Which he loves? And then goes on holiday a few weeks a year but not that often
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Post by nero on Aug 30, 2013 17:51:44 GMT
He has stated that he knows how it ends so he should have a pretty clear storyline.
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Post by Eversist on Aug 30, 2013 18:07:05 GMT
See, here's the problem - doing a full page with coloring (coloring alone accounts for about 90% of the time requirement), etc, could easily take 2 solid days. Each page. Considering he used to get three pages done in a weekend, he's certainly gotten the process down. I know he now spends more time per page now that he has the time, but I somehow doubt a page now takes him two full days (in addition to the fact that I know he's working on other side-projects). He has stated that he knows how it ends so he should have a pretty clear storyline. Yeah, but I think it's more general than we probably think. Besides, he still has to write dialogue for each page. |
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Post by varentai on Aug 30, 2013 20:29:31 GMT
Considering he used to get three pages done in a weekend, he's certainly gotten the process down. I know he now spends more time per page now that he has the time, but I somehow doubt a page now takes him two full days (in addition to the fact that I know he's working on other side-projects). But see? That's what I'm talking about! 3 pages of full color over a weekend? That's crazy fast, especially because his art not only isn't crap, it's really good. How does he do it? I've talked to a lot of artists, and the only guys who have been able to pull off that kind of speed have more than one person doing the art. But since Tom is a solo act, I'd love to know any tips or tricks on how he does it so fast and so well. |
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Post by Mezzaphor on Aug 30, 2013 21:24:04 GMT
Working off my memory of stuff Tom's said on this forum and formspring: Back when Tom worked a full-time job outside making the comic, he would use the weekdays to script the pages and plan out future stuff, then draw and ink the pages on the weekends. Aside from maybe watching a movie on Sunday night, after the pages were finished, that was all Tom did the entire weekend. I recall him saying that this schedule left him with very little social life. And he had to carefully budget his time if he wanted to deviate from the schedule by, say, playing a videogame.
Now, of course, the comic is Tom's only job, so he's free to spend more hours making it—and still maybe have a life outside that.
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Post by doobiedoobiedoo on Aug 30, 2013 21:40:24 GMT
Word of warning: I am not, have never been and never will be anything close to an artist. Feel free to shoot this down in flames (softly please).
My opinion is that Tom puts a huge amount of thought into the overall look of the page but has made the actual drawing as streamlined as possible. I think that the time spent drawing the major characters means that he's found ways of drawing them that shows them as he wants without having excess lines/detail. Could he have shown all the threads and creases on Ysengrin's tunic in this page (1243)? Probably, but it'd take a lot of time and force that amount of detail across the entire comic; an hours drawing suddenly takes half a day. Similarly, I think that the main colouring style (using a couple of additional tones on a base colour) is the simplest way to get the look of the comic.
What I have essentially written is "Mozart manages to put the right notes in the right order". No doubt it takes a lot of time to do this, but I think that by being smart with some choices (and with a lot of practice) he's saved a lot of time on the repetitive parts of the strip. That time can then be used on coming up with the ideas (such as the "camera angles" used in some of the pictures) and fine tuning the strip. It also means that the occasional strip that is far more time intensive is just about doable without leading to burn out.
Honestly, I am impressed with the amount that Tom manages to do and the loveliness of the artwork. There is a reason that I have followed this comic for a few years.
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Rymdljus
Full Member
Beautiful songbird
Posts: 207
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Post by Rymdljus on Aug 31, 2013 7:47:32 GMT
Tom's speed and consistency and dedication is really mindblowing. Consider this: My webcomic What Birds Know, which started around the same time as Gunnerkrigg, and is somewhat similar art wise, have at the time of this writing reached 772 pages, compared to Gunnerkrigg's 1243. WBK has less panels per page, has taken several long hiatuses, and has no books published and no merchandise. WBK is made by two people, and we're working as fast as we can. For most of WBK:s run, I did not have a day job. And to be honest, it's not like I have the greatest social life either. Some people just seem to have what it takes, and Tom is one of them. |
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Post by maxptc on Aug 31, 2013 9:04:25 GMT
He was bitten by a radioactive Alpaca. After a painful montage he gained the powers of super time management and super work ethic. Also he can spit really well, which is pretty much useless in regards to comic making.
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Post by November on Aug 31, 2013 9:42:30 GMT
The guys over at Least I Could Do have new updates every day. On the other hand, they are two people and they're using a comic strip style 6 out of 7 days. Their style of drawing is a lot simpler as well.
I think Tom has improved a lot over the span of the comic, and that it's only natural that he's that good. If you do something thousands of times, you'll be pretty damn good at it after a while.
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Post by Per on Sept 1, 2013 18:22:06 GMT
Also he can spit really well, which is pretty much useless in regards to comic making. He draws the comics on the computer in black and white, prints them out, spits colour onto them, and then scans them back into the computer. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Sept 2, 2013 7:11:58 GMT
Given the fact he has the large buffer, I have always assumed he draws entire chapters at a time or something, allowing himself quite a coherent run of steam per chapter. That would mean he has the odd week of loads of work, interspersed with more peaceful weeks he can get other things, such as real jobs, done. I could be entirely wrong on the matter though. See, here's the problem - doing a full page with coloring (coloring alone accounts for about 90% of the time requirement), etc, could easily take 2 solid days. Each page. Meaning he would get 1 day off/week. Every week. That doesn't take into account storywriting, dialogue, etc, not to mention other life necessities, like, you know, having a LIFE. This is why I am asking. He's doing something right that other webcomic writer/artists would kill to know so they can replicate it. So, hints? He gives us only some fast scrawls during summer - or is it summer? - so he could use that time to build that buffer. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Sept 2, 2013 7:14:38 GMT
Tom's speed and consistency and dedication is really mindblowing. Consider this: My webcomic What Birds Know, which started around the same time as Gunnerkrigg, and is somewhat similar art wise, have at the time of this writing reached 772 pages, compared to Gunnerkrigg's 1243. WBK has less panels per page, has taken several long hiatuses, and has no books published and no merchandise. WBK is made by two people, and we're working as fast as we can. For most of WBK:s run, I did not have a day job. And to be honest, it's not like I have the greatest social life either. Some people just seem to have what it takes, and Tom is one of them. When speed is mindblowing, use of doping is to be expected.  ...that was a joke, but when I said that, I got an image of an amphetamine-driven artist working day and night on a webcomic with an out of hands speed in my head, and it actually feels pretty plausible scenario of what could be happening. |
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Post by csj on Sept 2, 2013 7:32:13 GMT
HE IS A WIZARD.
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Post by GK Sierra on Sept 2, 2013 8:06:03 GMT
I am now abandoning the Cadbury Egg Theory for this one. |
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Post by warrl on Sept 2, 2013 17:26:59 GMT
Well, it does make sense that if a scene is spread across three pages, he can save time and effort - and improve consistency - by coloring all three pages simultaneously. Make a certain spot a certain color, go to the next page and make the same spot the same color, ditto on the third page, *now* switch to a different color.
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Post by jombra on Sept 3, 2013 1:49:39 GMT
I thought Tom was the only one until I read A Redtail's Dream, which manages to update everyday except Sunday, excluding chapter breaks, which are never more than a month. She claims in her FAQ that it takes 8 hours per page, and she's finished drawing the comic now, but the update schedule has been the same since long before then. They're both crazy, that's what I say.  I'd love to see one of these for Tom's process, but Minna Sundberg has her inking process here and her colouring process here if anyone is interested. |
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Post by legion on Sept 3, 2013 15:55:30 GMT
Speaking of A Redtail's Dream, the print drive started today! |
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Post by varentai on Sept 3, 2013 22:57:40 GMT
I'd love to see one of these for Tom's process, but Minna Sundberg has her inking process here and her colouring process here if anyone is interested. YES! THAT! I would love to see one of these. Tom? Any chance of you posting up your inking and coloring process? |
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Post by zimmyzims on Sept 4, 2013 6:43:43 GMT
I'd love to see one of these for Tom's process, but Minna Sundberg has her inking process here and her colouring process here if anyone is interested. Thanks, I got their secret now: they're insanely good in this. |
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Post by warrl on Sept 4, 2013 21:16:35 GMT
Thanks, I got their secret now: they're insanely good in this. That wasn't a secret. |
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Post by aaroncampbell on Sept 5, 2013 2:40:13 GMT
I am now abandoning the Cadbury Egg Theory for this one. No no no -- you're both right! He's a wizard who requires Cadbury Eggs as the key element of his wizardry. The only thing I can't figure out is, does he eat them and magically spit out the color for the comics, or does he do alchemy on the Cadbury Eggs and turn them directly into individual pages? |
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Post by GK Sierra on Sept 5, 2013 7:34:57 GMT
I am now abandoning the Cadbury Egg Theory for this one. No no no -- you're both right! He's a wizard who requires Cadbury Eggs as the key element of his wizardry. The only thing I can't figure out is, does he eat them and magically spit out the color for the comics, or does he do alchemy on the Cadbury Eggs and turn them directly into individual pages? Some type of proprietary Cadbury fission I expect. Her Majesty's Government has doubtless sworn him to secrecy. |
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