How many hours do you usually spend on one page/strip of your comic?

[Inisen]

Hi.
I'm sort of new to creating comics, and I was a bit curious about how much time it's normal to spend on one page/strip on a comic? I guess it varies a lot from person to person, but I'm just curious to know :3

As for me, I usually spend several hours on one strip (black and white) from sketch to 100% done (with the text bubbles and all) :0

[Rob]

4-5 hours but I'm really hoping to cut that down in the future. Since I can't draw anyway, I find shortcuts both appealing and morally ambiguous.  ;D

[Xade]

It depewnds on the content of my comic, and if I am building a new scene or using a previous scene. It can take from 2 hours to about 3 days if I dont watch it, sometimes more if PWtoon is being quirky.

[Funderbunk]

Depends on how distracted I get. I have the attention span of a gnat and it's probably why I never managed to actually finish a project.

[Dr. BlkKnight]

I have to agree with Funderbunk about the distractions. The time really is variable on the type of comic you do, your mind's layout of the comic, and if you have all your text known. Regardless, it's going to take a few hours no matter what.

[raerae]

It depends on my comic. My sketch comic? 2 hours, tops. My other comic, I can spend a good 5-8 hours on so far. But that's partially because I'm not used to inking digitally yet.

[Alectric]

*Sigh*  :-[

A couple hours to sketch...

Several hours to ink...

Several more hours to color...

So, maybe 10 hours?  And this is assuming I already know the exact script and layout for the page.  It's the reason I can only manage once-a-week updates.  I'm just not that good of an artist, and I can only make up for it by being horribly meticulous.

[Cebronix]

Going the traditional route, it takes me about 2 hours for layouts, pencils & inks. Then another 2-3 hours for coloring & dialog. But I recently got a Cintiq and now it takes me TWICE AS FREAKIN' LONG. for now. I'm hoping to get better and cut that time down.

[Nuke]

If I ace the sketching layer I'll just make it the inking layer. When I do that, the comic only takes a measly 4 hours. Usually, though, it takes closer to 5 or 7. If it's a rough comic, like the one I'm doing now, it can take 10. And that's faster than I used to do it, too. Once I settle down with the art style it'll hopefully go a lot faster.

I usually break my comic down into 2-3 hour sessions every day 6 days a week. That leaves one day for video games or other projects or catch-up for when I can't get my comic done between 4 hours of school and 8 hours of work.

[Mari]

my black and white comic: ~4 hrs
my full color comic ~8 hours

@_@ I know it's terrible... but I'm always watching TV or singing to terrible music while I'm doing it.

[Funderbunk]

A little offtopic, but if you enjoy the music it how can it be terrible music?

Though one of the great Disney animators was once asked 'what kind of music do you listen to while you draw' and he replied 'nothing, I'm not smart enough to do those things at the same time' or something like that. I forgot the actual quote - it's been a while since I read The Animator's Survival Kit.

[Rob]

A little offtopic, but if you enjoy the music it how can it be terrible music?

I have an author friend who always has movies playing when he writes. He has stated that there is a delicate balance between a movie being good enough to make him actually enjoy having it on and bad enough so that it doesn't suck him in and draw his attention away from his work. He does not consider these films "good." For the most part they are just background noise and I've found that a lot of creative people need that to focus on their work.

I play my favorite music while I'm writing, drawing, animating, whatever but I've found that when I do I rarely actually hear the music. As much as I love it it takes a rare gem that I haven't herd in a long time to pull me from the fugue state I'm in while being creative.

All of that said. It seems like everyone here spends a LOT of time on their comics. This could be an interesting topic to tackle. Time management I mean. I'll have to think about that.

[Yamino]

On average, a completed page like this one takes me 6-8 hours to complete.  I have 3 stages in creating a page:

1) Sketch in Photoshop - This is the longest process.  If it is a complex page with a detailed environment and many characters, this can take up to 4-5 hours.
2) Lineart in Illustrator -I basically just trace over the sketch with vector lineart.  Sometimes I notice errors at this stage and I have to go back and fix them. 2-3 hours
3) Color, resize, and add credits in Photoshop  My favorite part of the process!  Mostly because it's so nice to finally get something DONE. XD 1-2 hours

[Pete]

Normally it only takes me 3-4 hours for a strip, but I do so much in a day that I have to spread that out over the course of a couple days.  However, my current storyline has some crazy lighting in it, so it's been taking me an extra couple of hours (I spent about 8-10 hours yesterday doing today's strip).

[WilliamHuntJr]

It takes me about 90 min to do a b/w strip on a comic page I take about 6 to 8 hrs just to get everything right. on my posters It can be 3days to a week.