Webcomics take so long, and while the perfectionist in our brains might tell us that we MUST do everything the long way, I think we've all pretty quickly learned that the easier you make the journey for yourself, the better. So this is going to be some quick lessons we've learned that changed our process and made life easier.

In this Episode:

• Our hosts share their favorite art and page-making short cuts they've used in webcomics!
• Our hosts share their favorite writing short cuts they've used in webcomics!
• What is your advice to someone who feels like taking shortcuts is "cheating"?

----

Episode Release Date: July 30, 2025

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (Delphina) - she/her, sombulus.com

Phineas Klier - they/them, https://heirsoftheveil.fervorcraft.de

Bob Appavu - any, https://intothesmokecomic.com https://www.demonoftheunderground.com

----

The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.

Transcription

This transcript is auto generated by our recording software.

00:00:01.40

Delphina

Hello and welcome to Screen Tones, where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're going to be talking about our favorite shortcuts and time-saving tips and tricks. I'm Delphina, I use she/her pronouns, and I make the webcomic Sombulus.

00:00:19.94

Bob

I'm Bob, I use any pronouns and I make the web comics Into The Smoke and Demon of the Underground.

00:00:36.33

Phin

And I'm Phin. I use they/them pronouns and I make the webcomic Heirs of the Veil.

00:00:46.61

Delphina

Excellent. Okay. So web comics take so long. And while the perfectionists in our brains might tell us that we must do everything the long way, I think we've all pretty quickly learned that the easier you make this journey for yourself, the better.

00:01:04.87

Delphina

So this is going to be some quick lessons that we've learned along the way that have changed our process and made life easier just across the board. Yeah, I mean, I just think there's just this impulse, especially if you're coming from an illustration background where you want to make everything perfect and beautiful and especially art wise. I don't always think that's necessary. What do you guys think? Like, what is the, what are your art tips?

00:01:37.81

Bob

So I am really a sucker for trying to make everything beautiful. It's definitely a weak spot for me, but I also 100% agree. It's not the best thing to fall into if you're trying and aiming for longevity in web comics, because it's just not practical.

00:01:56.51

Bob

You may have up to like seven or eight panels in a page. And if you treat every single one of them as if it's a full illustration that needs to have a full amount of detail, it needs to be beautiful from top to bottom.

00:02:08.97

Bob

I mean, I'm using the word beautiful a little lightly because you can make it beautiful and simple at the same time. And I think that's the end goal is figuring out the ways, the shortcuts where you can adjust your style and adjust your technique so that you are getting a beautiful result.

00:02:28.63

Bob

But it's just not as time consuming.

00:02:32.08

Delphina

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like just being able to, ah like maybe you start with with longer things and just see like as you go, okay, well, what if I change this little thing? And what if I change this little thing? Like it doesn't have to be all at once because I do feel like there can be a a lessening in quality or just even clarity in readability. And you don't want to sacrifice clarity, but you can sacrifice some of the details if you practice at it.

00:03:05.02

Phin

Yeah, I think it also kind of depends on how you approach it. Like for me, before I started Heirs of the Veil, I did like a lot of pre pre-work. I was working on textures. I was working on references for backgrounds. And now I'm of the mindset. And I think like me, backgrounds are always the things that take the longest time because they're pretty detailed.

00:03:30.04

Phin

So for me, I always take some time aside to make one background especially nice, but then have it be different sections so I can possibly use some of these sections for other backgrounds later so I can reuse stuff. So there's like these phases where I spend little more time and then you go,

00:03:56.12

Phin

okay but I can spend a little less time at other parts and those will then go much quicker. So I guess it's like a little bit of prep work can lead to a lot of possible shortcuts later down the line.

00:04:18.09

Bob

Yeah, I love the tip of reusing backgrounds and yeah reusing different sections of them for different panels. And I mean, that's such a great time saver. It's one of those things that I, you know, have heard and don't do as much as I wish I did.

00:04:35.73

Bob

But when I do it, it's really helpful. And even if you're using the same section of background again, you can make little tweaks to it. Like you can adjust the lighting. You can make it look a little washed out.

00:04:47.01

Bob

And also, I want to emphasize the value of panels that don't have backgrounds in them because you don't actually have to include a background in every panel. I think this is something that a lot of, you know, a lot of beginner webcomic creators or comic creators, they feel that,

00:05:05.75

Bob

You know, they're warned not to have a lot of talking head panels. And that's true. But when you have some of those interspersed in between other detail panels, it can be really great for giving you some breathing room.

00:05:18.94

Bob

And then, you know, those empty, emptier backgrounds can balance out and emphasize the panels that have more detail in the background. So that's like one of the little tricks that I like to do. And the bonus is that it also saves time.

00:05:34.19

Delphina

Yeah, 100 percent, because I feel like the clarity is about clarity for me, because I feel like you can go overboard on lots of different panels and lots of different backgrounds. But you're if it's a quieter moment or you're trying to draw emphasis to the emotional reaction of a character,

00:05:54.89

Delphina

Lighter backgrounds and a lighter touch with that will actually be more effective than trying to put a lot of stuff in there because the reader will see this very busy background and they won't really know what to focus on necessarily. They won't know if they're supposed to be focusing on all the little details in the back.

00:06:15.14

Delphina

or the character. So establishing shots, those kinds of things where you're trying to give the reader a sense of environment, a sense of place, for sure, that's when you go heavier on the backgrounds.

00:06:28.12

Delphina

But then there is the benefit of it's going to save you time. And it's also going to be a better result if you pull back on the backgrounds a little more.

00:06:40.58

Delphina

And I know one of the problems I kind of have sometimes is that if I'm trying to reuse a background that I've already drawn, sometimes the line weight is a little different between panels. Sometimes I have a little bit of trouble like reusing the exact same background art in a lot of different panels.

00:06:59.79

Delphina

But what I found that I can do is I can still copy the art that I've done. I can... retrace it basically I can I can throw it in the background of the thing and I can retrace what I've already drawn and it'll be a little bit different by virtue of the fact that I'm just tracing it again with the line weight that I'm using for that current panel but I don't have to rethink about every single thing that I'm drawing because I can I'm just tracing and that goes a little quicker for me

00:07:37.09

Bob

Yeah, that's something that I like to do a lot, even with character art, not even just with backgrounds, where if a character is in the same position in the next panel, it's really handy to just be able to duplicate the pencils and just re-ink or, you know, just make duplicate the inks and make a few minor changes.

00:07:56.29

Bob

I do also want to mention a few quick ah fixes for those. You mentioned when the line art is too heavy. i know ah Clip Studio has some features that let you edit the line weight of an existing image. And actually Photoshop does too. If you go into filters, maximize and minimize.

00:08:18.34

Bob

if you're As long as your line art is black, those two features, they're not as fine-tuned as Clip Studios, but you can actually bump up and bump down your line art with those little filters.

00:08:31.64

Bob

So that might also speed things up.

00:08:34.60

Delphina

Oh my gosh. This is so cool. Oh, I'm going to have to use this.

00:08:39.79

Bob

We're learning today.

00:08:41.98

Phin

i've been abusing that feature in clip studios so much yeah but that's that's a very good point

00:08:50.46

Bob

It sounds amazing. Like I am a Photoshop based ah creator. I do have clip studio. I just don't use it as much because I have so much mileage in Photoshop. I can already do everything very fast in it, but sometimes it's worth jumping over to another program. If it has one of those features, that's just really a big time safer. Like I will jump into clip studio for perspective rulers sometimes.

00:09:16.23

Bob

And, you know, it does take a little extra time to switch programs. But if it's the type of thing that will save you time in the long run, sometimes it's worth it.

00:09:27.34

Phin

Yeah, absolutely. I actually started as a Photoshop user, too, and then I tried out Clip Studio and it saved me so much time in my work that I basically stuck with it.

00:09:40.61

Phin

But I just remembered one really, really cool tip that Delphie gave me once because one other thing I've started doing after we talked about that was sometimes I would draw an expression or a character or a panel and it wouldn't really feel quite right in the moment. And this is like the tip just don't destroy it, save it somewhere somewhere, and then you can reuse that later because you have already drawn something that's useful for you.

00:10:16.85

Phin

And I've honestly done this with expressions so much and it made my life 100% easier because there are so many times where you draw something, you don't feel quite happy with it. It doesn't really fit the mood, but maybe it will fit another mood later down the line in the comics. So keeping the things and maybe not just ah scrapping everything you do when you're not happy with it right away might also be a shortcut and a time saver in the long run.

00:10:52.54

Delphina

Yes, I have so many files. I like, because a lot of times when I'm writing something, I have the script, and then I draw it. And then I don't like what I've drawn, or I want to go in a different direction.

00:11:08.86

Delphina

So you can always save those, you can always just put those in a separate file. and and grab them later and i i feel like i maybe have been doing it too much because now i have this like giant file of like all these things that i'm like it's hard to parse all of the the things that i've saved i need a better organization system or tagging system and i think that but there's a There's a limit to right like you can do all this prep you can do all have all these resources and stuff.

00:11:41.64

Delphina

But if you spend more time hunting for the right brush or hunting for the right thing every single time sometimes that's not a time saver at all. So that's just a little pitfall that you have to think about sometimes too.

00:11:57.17

Bob

Yeah, that is exactly the point that I was just thinking of, that sometimes it's faster to just draw the thing than to search through 2,000 brushes for just the right little thing that's going to give you... you know like searching for a leaf brush.

00:12:14.17

Bob

you could You could have drawn the leaf in the time it took you to search for that brush. But... One thing that helps in that area is keeping your brushes and keeping your assets and keeping your files organized, which is, you know, organization can be a dirty word in some circles. But I find especially for brushes,

00:12:35.90

Bob

I organize my brushes by project instead of just by the type of brush it is. So a lot of times, you know, I want to be able to toggle between brushes with a shortcut.

00:12:51.13

Bob

So if I have two brushes that I use frequently or three brushes or whatever, I'll keep them next to each other in my folder. Because then I can just switch to the next brush with a keyboard shortcut.

00:13:04.68

Bob

And, you know, I like if I organize them, both Clip Studio and Photoshop allow you to organize your brushes into folders. And so I will just drop them in like, here's my effects brushes. Here's my architectural brushes. And it's just, you know, it saves you from having to search quite as much.

00:13:30.36

Delphina

I need that. I need a better system because I do. And I forget what I have or like what I'm doing. But like you could sort it by by project. You could sort it by scene, I suppose.

00:13:45.49

Delphina

And that probably goes for 3D assets and stuff too. Just whatever makes sense. All of these different things so you don't get overwhelmed because...

00:13:56.35

Delphina

sometimes it easier to draw the leaf but but yeah i mean these are all great tips anybody else have any other art tips they want to share

00:14:07.19

Phin

Yeah, maybe not art tips, but sometimes it also is. Well, it is an art tip. Sometimes it's really helpful because Delphie, you mentioned visual clarity.

00:14:17.67

Phin

And sometimes we put tiny little things in the comic that might not help clarity or that are kind of neutral. We don't actually need them.

00:14:28.61

Phin

And when I started with my comic, I had different colors for every part of the character I wanted to shade, a different color for the face, for different clothing items.

00:14:44.85

Phin

And that obviously, like, took a thousand years but to be done with just shading characters. And I kind of simplified it.

00:14:55.72

Phin

more and more and then i was basically like okay my comic most of the time is really dark and the characters are also wearing like very dark clothes will will it actually be super visible if i stop shading darker parts in the clothes and just go with the faces and light areas and i kind of tried that out and i stopped shading basically everything that's dark on the clothes, on the characters here.

00:15:27.03

Phin

And it basically visually didn't really make a difference because the shading wasn't super readable on all the dark colors to begin with.

00:15:39.47

Phin

So that saved a lot of time and it didn't really impact the look or the style of the comic. So sometimes it's worth experimenting, especially with visuals.

00:15:53.51

Phin

What do you actually need? What is actually necessary? and if you leave something out especially if you have like a lot of steps in your process the stuff you leave out will they actually if you leave them out negatively impact the final product or will you be fine and maybe you can see okay what what can I basically leave on the table without sacrificing the look of the comic

00:16:24.71

Bob

Yeah, that is such an important tip because you can have a character design or, you know, like an environment that's super complex. It doesn't mean you have to draw it with that level of complexity every time it appears.

00:16:41.11

Bob

So I love the idea personally of you know, kind of having a showcase panel where maybe something is a little more detailed and then having different versions of your designs with things like that lower level of detail or that lower amount of shading, that lower amount of differentiation between colors.

00:16:58.72

Bob

I think that's such a good tip.

00:17:02.37

Delphina

Yeah, I have to tell you about my layer hell that I used to have because I used to make a different layer for the hair, a different layer for the skin, a different layer for the shirt, a different layer for the pants, like all of these different layers because I thought it was going to be a time saver to...

00:17:21.79

Delphina

be able to like oh well if all of these things are separate i'll be able to change the colors easily and like it was not it was not a time saver it kind of made my files a little more bloated and i it it was just it was unnecessary so having those questions like Phin said like sit down with yourself and say If i remove this one thing, let me try doing that for a couple panels or a couple pages and see if there's a difference. See if like that actually is necessary for my process or if you know, I could go without it and it would go a little quicker.

00:18:02.89

Phin

yeah and especially with like the the problem where you are like okay but what if i need to do color correcting later because that's actually an important point and for me i found out if my flat if my flat colors are like solid enough then i can just basically select the color I want to edit maybe and then put an overlay, no not an overlay layer, a correction layer on top of it and adjust the color in the way that I want.

00:18:36.57

Phin

And I think my ultimate time saver in that regard is like radiant maps. because just color correcting at the end and being able to tweak the colors and have it look nice and cohesive without actually having to go back in and take a lot of time to to edit the colors is great and love it and i'm so happy for having discovered gradient maps in 2016.

00:19:08.64

Bob

Oh my God. I love gradient maps so much. I want to marry gradient maps. Like I, one of my hacks that I love is that I will usually just do my backgrounds, even at my full color comic, I'll do my backgrounds in grayscale and then just do a gradient map for them to color them. It's so quick. And actually,

00:19:30.10

Bob

On that subject, I wanted, you know, while we're talking about shortcuts, I wanted to bring up literal shortcuts like keyboard shortcuts because I've actually, you know, taken, you know, created an automatic action.

00:19:46.36

Bob

but Like in Photoshop and Clip Studio, you can record yourself doing various functions and then replay it. So it's called an action or an auto action. So I have recorded myself doing a lot of stuff, but just as an example, creating a gradient map and setting the layer mode to color.

00:20:04.28

Bob

And I have bound that to a keyboard shortcut. So now I can just create so many gradient maps whenever I want, just with a keyboard shortcut. And so, yeah, the moral to this story is that you can create custom shortcuts.

00:20:16.80

Bob

You can, you know, apply them to whatever it is that you do the most frequently or just record an auto action. You can customize shortcuts. Like if you're, for me, one of my traps was I was always accidentally hitting the Z button because I was doing Command Z, Control Z.

00:20:35.76

Bob

And so I kept accidentally switching to the Zoom tool. So I just disabled Z as the Zoom tool and now that doesn't derail me anymore. So yeah, I just, I love customizing shortcuts. I love recording automatic actions. These are all just very kind of practical admin stuff that can, you know, I use to set up my layer templates. So I create my inks layer, I create my pencil layer, I create my shading layers all through automatic actions.

00:21:04.64

Delphina

Actions are so good. Yeah, I also use them when I'm resizing the page because I don't like to put the full resolution art on my website because it's slower to load and it's not necessary. So you can also set yourself to say, OK, save a copy of this, whatever this file is, at 72 dpi at these dimensions.

00:21:25.73

Delphina

And then you don't have to do that like ever again. You just push the save button and it does it. And same for print resolution things when you're setting up things for books. Yeah actions are so much time saver, especially if you're making a lot of changes throughout your archive.

00:21:46.36

Phin

I love that I've been meaning to get into auto actions. I have like a few set up with gradient maps, but I actually didn't know that you can just have like basically an auto action to save as in a certain size.

00:22:01.85

Phin

I always feel it's so slow to save every page individually for that. So that's really cool. I really need to do that.

00:22:12.02

Delphina

It's so good. Yeah. and Like, especially if you work in batches, because I know some people like they don't work one page at a time, they'll do like a whole section of pages, and then save them all out and and get them together. So I recommend it for sure.

00:22:27.41

Bob

Yeah, I'm a batch person and it is a big help to do it that way.

00:22:32.95

Delphina

I mean, on that note, like batches as a concept is a time saver for some people. I don't work that way. So you're going to have to tell me about that.

00:22:44.79

Bob

I could tell you about that. I mean, well, one of the biggest things for me that I struggle with is that I get very rusty with my pencils. So if I do them in batches, then, you know, by the time I'm on page two, I'm not rusty anymore.

00:23:02.71

Bob

And so then, you know, I start getting into the zone and getting like the flow and all of that stuff. And then by the time I'm sick of it, I can be like, OK, now time for inks and I can do all the inks at a time. And actually for colors, I will simultaneously color colors.

00:23:19.33

Bob

like an entire background or like an entire scene's worth of backgrounds all at once. So I'll have like, I do vertical scroll. I should mention that for my newest comic. So the files are very narrow and I have them split up so I can see the entire scene very easily.

00:23:36.41

Bob

And I'll just go across all the open files and like just do all the backgrounds at once and then like do all the color harmonizing at once. And it is a really handy way to just kind of,

00:23:48.24

Bob

Do things assembly line style. And this is just really a matter of does it work for your brain? Like, does it make your brain happy? Because, you know, if it doesn't, then it's not a valid shortcut.

00:23:59.46

Bob

But if it does, I mean, I personally love batches.

00:24:04.44

Phin

Yeah, I think some brains just need the immediate validation of having something done. And I get some people get, I think, anxious if they have so many to do so to speak, even though it is a full batch.

00:24:19.17

Phin

But personally, I also like working in batches. It just comes more naturally to me than just working one page at a time but my process there is like super simple i basically just i sketch a ton and then i ink it on and then i color everything which yeah is probably like the the simplest way of of doing batches but i think like having like the batches in single scenes and then working on everything that has to be done. And that is basically cohesive between all these pages is like really smart.

00:25:04.04

Delphina

Yeah, I feel like it helps cohesion. It helps. Yeah, if you do feel rusty or something, I just sometimes feel like I'm in an inking mood and I'm not in a penciling mood. So I want to be able to have the freedom to switch between them. And and if if I don't have like things pencils ready to ink then I can't jump into inking but it it does de depend it's it's very much about how your brain works it so these are all things like you should try them they've had success with us but if it doesn't make you happy I mean this is you know the point of what making web comics is to to enjoy the process as much as possible so

00:25:50.21

Delphina

Like to that end, like, I don't feel like you necessarily need to shortcut everything that you could possibly shortcut.

00:25:59.50

Phin

Yeah, and I think to that, we also like, we're all doing our comics in a digital format, but there's also people who do their comics entirely traditionally.

00:26:11.74

Phin

And so, of course, this is not 100% applicable, but I've been thinking about that. And I had a time where I've also drawn comics or at least inked my comics traditionally. And what saved me a bunch of time was the first thing was a drawing with like these ah colored pencils and like blue and pink, which you can just like, if you scan your pages, which you can just remove the colors after you've inked it. So you don't have to use the eraser. And then later on I turn to a light board so I could just do my sketches and then trace them. And does that save like a ton of time because I was also able to basically then trace backgrounds or details of backgrounds.

00:27:14.59

Phin

So even if you work like traditionally and you don't have like digital shortcuts, there's there's also a ton of shortcuts that you can use with working traditionally like also whiteout or like tons of whiteout it's it's at some stages

00:27:37.08

Delphina

I knew someone who was working traditionally and like if they messed up on a panel, but they didn't want to redraw the whole page, they would like to put a sticky note over it and just like redraw the panel on the sticky note.

00:27:49.83

Delphina

So like you could, you can correct that digitally once, once you scan it in to put it on the web. So that's always an option, but I do feel like batches again, like they're going to come in super handy if you're working traditionally because you don't want to get out like different tools every single time. It's not a matter of just pushing a different button.

00:28:09.75

Delphina

So being able to do all your inks at once or do all your pencils or at once and stuff is probably going to be even more applicable if you're working traditionally.

00:28:20.37

Phin

yeah I was I was basically like batches was my entire life when I worked traditionally and when I like messed up a panel i would basically I would get a piece of paper I would redraw the panel on that piece of paper and then I would like cut it out and just glue it onto the page so and in most cases if you like you can basically get rid of everything that makes it look weird then digitally.

00:28:49.49

Phin

Yeah, so basically everything works, even if you don't want to edit a ton digitally afterwards.

00:29:01.61

Bob

I just love hearing about traditional comics workflows. I have never done a traditional comic. My first comic I started out, you know, I did pencils in batches traditionally, but every other part of it was digital. So this is just such a cool thing to hear about all of these like little tricks.

00:29:20.96

Delphina

Yeah, it's fun. I don't know that I would do it again. You know, there was a time before I had very good drawing software. So we have a lot of better digital options now than maybe we did before. And that has made a difference for me.

00:29:39.38

Bob

That is definitely true.

00:29:54.06

Delphina

Okay. What about writing? Does anybody have any writing tips for the writers out there?

00:30:03.13

Bob

Okay, yeah, I don't have anywhere near as many writing tips as I do art tips because for me, at least by nature, the writing is so much faster for me than the art. So I haven't felt as much a need to shorten it or take shortcuts. But one area where I really do take shortcuts is in the way I format my script.

00:30:31.42

Bob

So I ah don't have, I don't work with an editor ah get the script stage. I usually only get outside feedback at the thumbnail stage.

00:30:42.84

Bob

And so my scripts are for my eyes only. And when something is for your eyes only, You can be as sloppy with it as you want. I don't even type my characters full names. I just put in the first letter of their name because who cares? It's just for me. I know who B is. I know who A is.

00:30:58.52

Bob

You i You don't have to write out full length panel descriptions if you're writing just for yourself. ah you know, you don't have to even number your pages if you're going to figure that out at thumbnail stage.

00:31:11.54

Bob

So I just say you know, don't put too much pressure on yourself to make your script beautiful and perfect if the people who are seeing it don't need it beautiful and perfect.

00:31:22.87

Delphina

Yeah, I think this was a real problem for me starting out because I felt like there must be a right way to do things. There must be a proper way to format your scripts that is the best way to do this. And that's not true. That's really not true, especially if you're a solo creator.

00:31:42.90

Delphina

Like, obviously, if you're working at as as a team, you want to make sure that whatever you're doing is something that your your co-creator can understand for sure but like you can work that out for yourself there's no wrong way to do this so if scripting like in a word document is easier for you do that i do feel like there's some people who use scrivener or or some other kinds of ah more novel oriented software out there and that helps them organize their notes and stuff i was using a website called world builder and it was kind of intended for whatchamacallit the tabletop rpgs so you have like sections for magic systems and sections for your characters and your sections for locations and stuff like that.

00:32:42.66

Delphina

And you could put them all in there and put all the information you wanted to basically build yourself a little wiki to be able to show like all the different places and you could link around and stuff.

00:32:55.17

Delphina

That was a fun exercise. And I put a lot of notes in there and then I never looked at it again. So I feel for me, at least.

00:33:04.28

Bob

That's wonderful.

00:33:05.23

Delphina

Yeah, it for me, at least it was just, it was not long term helpful. And I feel like especially with world building, some of us won't even start our comics until we have everything sorted out from the currency system to the magic system to everything.

00:33:24.97

Delphina

every point on the map and that's not necessary like that's that's my biggest like writing thing like just don't go overboard with the world building if you haven't even started one page of comic you don't need it yet you'll have the opportunity to come up with this stuff as you go but sometimes it it can be a very big time sink that i see people fall into

00:33:53.10

Phin

Yeah, I think like if your main points are cohesive, you can just add a little bit of flavor later on. You were actually reminding me of

00:34:07.01

Phin

And like it hurts to say that, but 15 years ago, ah was using software for screenwriters where you could actually have shortcuts for character names, stuff like there's this establishing shot now, et cetera. So you could basically, when you were writing your script, you didn't have to type in everything at once, but you could have like shortcuts.

00:34:32.44

Phin

But for the life of me, I cannot remember how the thing was called. because I've lost it and then I forgot what it was. But I think one of my main tips for writing, especially for the script writing, is like don't be scared to just if you get stuck in the scripting process, be like and then this thing happens and then you move on to the next scene. And later on, when your brain works a little bit more properly again,

00:35:01.78

Phin

or you had some time to think it over or another scene might have triggered the right course of action in the prior scene. You can always go back and then fill in that blank.

00:35:15.04

Phin

If you basically know what is happening, you don't have to get stuck on that one scene, but you can move on and get to that later on because Something that I had like a really big problem with with script writing was that I got stuck on a scene. I didn't know how to proceed and I would like just stay there, not move on and would waste a lot of time in in that process before i was basically just like fuck it this and that happens and now i move on to the next scene until i can figure out what the characters are going to say or what they're going to do exactly

00:35:59.52

Bob

That is such a good tip, especially and for you know keeping yourself from getting stuck or derailed on something that isn't working out in script format. Another element of this is you don't even really have to script at all. I mean, you don't have to script every scene. You don't have to script at all. Some people go straight to thumbnails for me.

00:36:21.13

Bob

I find it really a lot easier to just go straight to thumbnails for action scenes. I find them really difficult to script. So I will just forego the script entirely for those.

00:36:33.86

Bob

And ah like ah I kind of call it improvising. But I am a heavy scripter. And so it took me a long time to give myself permission to do that.

00:36:44.63

Bob

And once I did, I was like, oh, my God, this is so much easier. ah One thing I do like, though, even if I do have to, if I improvise something and, you know, go straight to thumbnails with it, I do still like to go back and type out the dialogue in a word processor or some sort of program that has an actual good spell check and auto formatting, because that will help you when you're putting putting it into your final files and doing your lettering.

00:37:16.92

Delphina

Yeah, 100%. Just adjust the process to make sure that you like it if it's hard to script certain things, if it's very much visual, because I think we're all visual creators if you're drawing the comic.

00:37:30.83

Delphina

And so if you think better visually, sometimes it just is easier to scribble out even a rough idea of what's going to happen. And then you can work from there.

00:37:42.55

Delphina

I know Thane isn't in the episode, but Thane has like oh notebooks and notebooks of all of this stuff. And I don't think she actually scripts things. I think it's just all thumbnails, all like rough dialogue in there. And that works. So like, if it works, just go for it.

00:38:06.30

Bob

Yeah, 100%. And I will say, like I like, I am typically someone who likes to write everything out in advance. But, ah you know, it's about flexibility. It's about, you know, doing what works right for you.

00:38:20.92

Bob

And on that note of writing things out, one thing that helps me a lot with ah just ah story development is that I just keep a little text document. And whenever a notion comes to me, like it might, like I might be in the shower and like just hear a dialogue back and forth between some of my characters.

00:38:40.31

Bob

And then like, once I dry off, I'm like, okay, I got to drop that dialogue into my text document. And it's great because then I can reference it back later and I don't have to try so hard to remember every little thing.

00:38:52.16

Bob

And, yeah, I just recommend taking little notes just throughout your day. ah Do it. You don't have to have a fancy program like I like some people just do note cards. I just do a text document. You can do it on your phone just and, you know, worry about organizing it later.

00:39:14.00

Phin

Yeah, I think that's like really great advice. i've This goes like as well if you do not write your script or you're like more visual person, because something that I have been doing is sometimes I get like ideas for scenes or for a moment in the comic and then I try to like sketch it out like

00:39:39.14

Phin

as rough as possible because it's easier for me if I like the visual and if I get this picture flashing in my brain, I'm like, okay, and I need to put it down now.

00:39:52.31

Phin

And I had so many moments in the comic process where I then went back to the thing I had already done and could basically reference it or just put it in the comic because i knew the scene would happen at some point and i saved myself a lot of time by making a little doodle or as you said making some notes for these scenes right when they basically came to me and inspiration was fresh

00:40:28.79

Delphina

One thing for me, too, because I have a comic and it's over a thousand pages and I forget what I've done before. And sometimes that can hold me up because i i have to make the story continuous. I don't want to contradict myself or something like that.

00:40:46.58

Delphina

So what I've been doing, too, is I go into Adobe Bridge, which is a thing that I used to open by mistake in Photoshop because yeah, there's like this little, like it's, it's like three or four options down, like open in bridge and like you open it up and it bogs down your computer.

00:41:00.00

Bob

Same.

00:41:09.98

Delphina

But what Adobe Bridge does, it's kind of like a more robust file manager program. And so you can actually print off contact sheets for yourself from Adobe Bridge.

00:41:24.42

Delphina

And so I've got a little template that I do. It's, I do four pages per sheet of paper and I can export a PDF and I can print out all of my finished comic files into one big long document. And I have some little portfolio folders that I slip them all into.

00:41:48.76

Delphina

And then I just have a very easy way of flipping around back and forth through my archive to figure out, oh, where did this happen? Where did, know I need to reference this scene? What happened back there?

00:42:01.96

Delphina

And the longer your archive gets, the more of a lifesaver this is because flipping through hundreds and hundreds of digital files takes so much time.

00:42:20.86

Delphina

I'm sure there's other ways to do it, but Adobe Bridge is what I use just to do that. And I think it's actually not part of Adobe's subscription stuff. You can get it for free.

00:42:31.80

Delphina

So even if you're using Clip Studio, it's something you can utilize.

00:42:37.82

Bob

I didn't know that it was free and not part of the subscription. I mean, I have the subscription, so you know but that's great to know in case I ever need to cancel it. But no, I love that so much ah you know because having to go back and remind yourself what you did in a long story, that is such a real thing.

00:42:57.37

Bob

And my technique, if I hadn't figured out a way to do it visually. So I will probably look into that. But my thing is that I do transcripts for my comic just for accessibility.

00:43:11.54

Bob

But you could also do this with the script like, I will have my computer just read, read the text, read the transcript back to me or read the script back to me while I'm cleaning or like sweeping the floor, you know?

00:43:26.20

Bob

And so then when I'm doing chores, I'm just having my own work read back to me to remind me of what I've done before. So that's my little thing.

00:43:36.90

Delphina

Oh my gosh, I love that. Just like vacuuming and listening to like, wow, this is a pretty good audio book. Who wrote this? I'm like, oh, it's me.

00:43:46.09

Bob

Yeah, exactly.

00:43:49.81

Phin

I think these are like such great tips to basically save yourself time later from flipping through your comic because I have this so, so many times. And even if it's just not just story beats, but maybe backgrounds. And I'm like, OK, how did I draw this before? Did I draw this background exactly like this before?

00:44:13.26

Phin

And then you basically go through 100 pages to find the panel because somewhere at the back of your mind, you're like, oh, my God, I did draw this before. Right. Where is it?

00:44:24.59

Phin

And I think this these are like like some really cool methods to basically keep these things in line what I kind of do with important story beats I basically do a little timeline and once the thing in the story has happened I make a note in the timeline to later on like quickly reference okay this did this happen what did the character say what is basically what is the foreshadowing that I put in to like keep myself in line and to keep myself from having to like go through so many pages to check out what I've done before

00:45:12.19

Bob

Oh, yeah. No, having a quick a visual reference is so helpful for that sort of thing. I actually use Scapple, which is by the same people who make Scrivener.

00:45:24.85

Bob

And it has the same super generous trial period where you get like 30 days of use instead of just 30 calendar days. And it's really nice to being able to.

00:45:37.30

Bob

like plot out ah just the broad strokes and ah be able to pinpoint, like I will break down my script beginning, middle and end and just like the major plot points. And so then it's really handy to just quickly take a glance at it and remind yourself.

00:45:54.18

Bob

No, I completely agree. That's such such a great way to remind yourself of things.

00:46:02.56

Delphina

Yeah, I love this conversation because I know we've all been doing comics for a decade or more at this point.

00:46:10.17

Bob

Oh yeah.

00:46:11.09

Delphina

Yeah, and it's like the struggle is real. Like even if you like, I think a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on to like, how do you format your first future pages?

00:46:21.23

Delphina

But like when you have a long form webcomic, this is going to be important to figure out for yourself. So whatever you can do.

00:46:33.69

Bob

Yeah, we're in it for the long run, for sure.

00:46:39.80

Delphina

Do we like writing or anything else? Just like, what do you do for social media and like posting on your website? Does anybody have any tips?

00:46:50.48

Phin

I copy paste the titles of my comic for tapas on my website and then just change out the numbers. I mean, that's like a super stupid shortcut, but it works and it saves me time.

00:47:06.49

Phin

And if. i also work in batches so i recently it hasn't been going so well but usually i will just schedule my pages and i think that is also a really great time saver time saver because you upload them all at once you schedule your updates and then you don't have to think about it anymore for a while yeah I kind of miss treat deck because there you could also like schedule your tweets and your update posts and I hope that blue sky will maybe get something similar so I can schedule just like my social media posts whenever the comic updates

00:47:51.48

Delphina

Well, Phin, I have to tell you about PostyBurb is a little application that you can use.

00:48:01.29

Phin

Thank

00:48:02.32

Delphina

It's like a desktop application. You download it and you can, it supports pretty much everything that it can. I don't think it can be like Facebook. I don't think I can do Facebook or Twitter anymore.

00:48:19.53

Delphina

And yeah, I'm not sponsored. This is not a sponsored post, but PostyBurb is great. It's got options for the alt text. It's got options for scheduling and If you have an update post that's like mostly the same, like ah my comic updated this week, my comic updated this week, you can copy posts that you've already done and put them back into your queue and just change out the image or like just make little tweaks and stuff. And it'll retain all of the places that you want to post it and everything like that.

00:48:58.47

Delphina

One thing I also like about PostyVerb is that it will have a breakdown for Blue Sky or Tumblr or Mastodon or wherever you're posting. And like, if you want to tweak whatever the default message is to format it properly,

00:49:14.57

Delphina

for that social media platform, you can do that. You don't have to do that. If it's a pretty simple message, you might not want to do that. But the option is there. And I just like that a lot because I can always tell when someone is using a cross poster and like the tags aren't in the tag section in Tumblr. So they're just hanging out there. And it's just like, great. You're not, you're not here. you Like this is, this very transparently put on there and I know we're all trying to save some time here but come on you have to pretend at least to be here but this is this is actually pretty solid i really love Posty Bird please check it out

00:49:53.27

Phin

Yeah, that sounds amazing. like I actually ah love that you can like edit it for the different sites because I totally agree. It's always a little bit obnoxious when you have like this reposter and you basically know, okay, this was originally an Instagram post or whatever.

00:50:17.13

Bob

That's the thing. And the other thing is, aside from it just being a little tacky, it's not effective. And the point is, why are we even posting on social media? It's like the only reason for it is, I mean, if when you're posting your art is because you want your post to reach people.

00:50:35.50

Bob

And if your hashtags aren't in the hashtag section, it's not going to help you. So that sounds like a really, really handy program. And I'm going to have to look into that because I am a big fan of scheduling things, but I've never actually used a scheduler for social media. Like I will just go in manually and schedule my posts for every ah platform that allows me to schedule in advance. And then I have to post live on the other sites. And it's just it's a hassle. And I mean, and yeah, so I'm definitely looking into that. I mean, I will just queue up my episodes on my home site and then on websites like Webtoon and Tapas, like those I will schedule in advance. And I have a checklist for like every part of the page that I need to address, like make sure that I have

00:51:24.72

Bob

you know, my news section covered, make sure that I'm covering like my latest Patreon extras, ah make sure that I'm mentioning everything I need to mention.

00:51:35.29

Bob

And then I also have a checklist for all the places that I need to post about it. And I will, you know, keep a list of hashtags in my file. This is a little bit, and it's not quite analog. It's not as fancy as PostyBurb, which also has an awesome name, I have to say.

00:51:53.50

Bob

But, you know, if you are not quite ready to dive into a scheduler, it's maybe a nice kind of in-between way to manage your social media. And, ah you know, ah again, same thing with writing notes for my script.

00:52:09.53

Bob

If I have an idea for a promo post that, you know, is kind of maybe in between episodes or if If I just have an idea for what I want to say, I'll just drop that in a notes doc too. So I have a list of potential social media posts I can make. And then, you know, I don't have to be as fresh on the day that I write it up and post it because I can just refer to my old notes.

00:52:35.29

Phin

Yeah, I think like the entirety, especially with marketing and social media also opens up a really interesting point because sometimes like I mean, we don't judge shortcuts in this household, but sometimes shortcuts can also be kind of bad. Like if we don't think about, for example, the repost that we're using and it's just basically formats, everything like an Instagram post or a Facebook post, then it will probably not look very good on other sites and people will be less inclined to check out your comic.

00:53:15.09

Phin

And I mean, it also depends on the person, but I'm also when it comes to shortcuts in general, what we see a lot, especially in like Webtoons, for example, the 3D models.

00:53:32.91

Phin

And I'm not opposed to 3D models. I also like to use them as reference points. But sometimes it can be kind of jarring to just have the 3D model plopped into the scene.

00:53:47.09

Phin

And it's so obvious. So I don't want to call that a bad shortcut, but I think you have to think about whether the shortcut you're using hurts the way your comic reads or your comic looks?

00:54:07.77

Phin

Because another shortcut, for example, could be that you're basically not proofreading your script anymore because it takes time. And I mean, that's like a very extreme example, but it takes time. So you might not do that. Or another shortcut could be that you're not formatting your speech bubbles and the text in your comic because that's not as important as the art. So I guess sometimes you should think about whether this shortcut that I'm using right now hurts how the comic reads, how the comic looks and how people might perceive the comic, its marketing and everything all around it.

00:54:56.48

Delphina

That's a really good point because yeah again, I'm going to come back to clarity. Like if you're not, if it's not clear, if it's not usable, like people will see that you're taking a shortcut and it's not working.

00:55:14.42

Delphina

And ah the way to combat that I feel like is just really get yourself an honest group of peers, really listen to them, Don't get defensive if somebody is saying, I don't know if this is working out for you.

00:55:31.86

Delphina

Because I see this with lettering a lot. Lettering is something that doesn't come intuitively to everybody, but it's... It's difficult for people to know and to plan where to put their letters and stuff like that or what fonts to use sometimes.

00:55:50.03

Delphina

And maybe you started out with a font that you thought was cool, but a lot of people can't read. And so you're thinking like, okay, well, I could go back and fix 50 pages worth of font, but like, that's going to take so much time. Why don't I just like to start it, ah start using the new font now and then we'll figure that out later.

00:56:11.10

Delphina

And it is important to know when you should invest the time when it's a, and especially with like, okay, it's only 50 pages. You can do this.

00:56:22.31

Delphina

You could do this in a weekend. Like if it's something that's going to improve the perception of your comic in the long run. you, and again, reaching out to peers and seeing like, do you think this is necessary? Do you not think this is necessary? And please be honest with me about that.

00:56:42.72

Delphina

And really listening to what they have to say. Because I know another time sink is reboot hell and going back and redoing all the noses on your comic. And like, sometimes that's not relevant.

00:56:55.21

Delphina

Sometimes you don't need to do that. But also like, If people can't read the beginning of your comic, if people can't understand what's going on, or if people are chased away because you feel like ah they're not really here, they're just a bot, then like, what's the point? Like you, you really need to kind of think about and budget your time accordingly, I would say.

00:57:23.50

Bob

Yeah, that's such a great way to sum it up because the way I feel is that most shortcuts, they're beneficial, but there are trade-offs. And so you kind of have to balance, like, what is this going to help you with? And then what are you going to sacrifice with this particular shortcut?

00:57:40.61

Bob

So it's a matter of evaluating, judging for yourself. What do you want out of your own style? What makes other people able to read it and understand it? My personal philosophy is that as long as you're not stealing, it's fair. It's just a matter of does it work with your style?

00:58:02.45

Bob

And you know, so yeah, use a 3D model if it's something that you bought or is a public domain or creative commons, just, you know, make it look good with your comic. And and yeah, it's,

00:58:19.00

Bob

It all comes down to what's going to give you longevity and what's going to make you be able to feel pride in your work in the end. Like the way I look at it basically is to prioritize the parts that carry your unique creative fingerprint, prioritize the parts that bring you joy, streamline the parts you hate, and indulge in the parts you love.

00:58:41.96

Bob

And I think that would be a good foundation to, you know, continue getting the best and the most out of your webcomic journey.

00:58:57.86

Delphina

Gosh, that's so well put. I love this.

00:59:00.35

Phin

Yeah, I love it too

00:59:02.02

Phin

I really feel that that's so good.

00:59:05.27

Delphina

Yeah. Streamlight the parts that you hate. Indulge in the parts that you love. I think that's the end of the game. That's what you want to do.

00:59:17.09

Delphina

All right. So I think that that covers it. It's just been so amazing talking to you. I've learned so much because I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to be doing that, like reading the audio version of my script to myself because I've run out of podcasts at this point. That's going to be great.

00:59:38.06

Delphina

But yeah, if you have any kinds of tips or tricks that you use, we'd love to see them in the comments or in our Discord community. So go ahead and share those and share your wisdom with the world.

00:59:51.40

Delphina

But for now, that's it. I have been Delphina and you can find my webcomic Sombulus at Sombulus.com.

01:00:02.37

Bob

And I've been Bob, and you can find my webcomics at intothesmokecomic.com and demonoftheunderground.com.

01:00:12.13

Phin

And I've been Phin and you can find my work at heirsofthevale.com

01:00:17.88

Delphina

All right, so I'm gonna just go ahead and start this audiobook now.

01:00:25.97

Bob

We have our plans for the day.

01:00:26.02

Delphina

All right.

01:00:27.77

Phin

Do we have a shortcut for the audiobook?

01:00:28.06

Delphina

Yes.

01:00:29.61

Phin

Just play it at three time speed?

01:00:31.71

Bob

I do. I do have a shortcut.

01:00:33.76

Delphina

Oh, you can play it at double speed. Oh my gosh.

01:00:36.53

Bob

ah

01:00:38.45

Delphina

Next brain, Phin. Next brain.