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

[Mari]

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

"So I want to kill this waitress.
She's been here a year longer than I.
If I did it fast,
You know that's an act of kindness."

:D I love this song, but please tell me that this phrase is not terrible in some small way.

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.

You know, this is going to sound really strange, but when I draw, I feel like my ability to listen actually increases. When I look at the image I made later on, and remember each stroke, I can often recall exactly what I was listening to at the time. It ended up being a really useful tool for me in college. When the professor was being really boring, I'd just start drawing whatever he was talking about (or sometimes something completely different... like doughnuts) and I could remember his/her entire lecture just by looking at the image for a while before the exam.

I don't have a terribly good visual or an outstanding audio memory, but when I put the two together it stimulates some fact-storing part of my brain it seems.

I've thought about making a book just of these little "mind drawings" I've done over the years, since I have thousands.... but then again, I doubt people will be riveted by a cluster of 10 bird skeletons and five glazed crullers scribbled about on lined notebook paper.

[Mutt]

I usually spent about 25-40 hrs per page. Yeaah, I know. insane.  :o

I'm working to cut that time down when I relaunch.  8)

[Miluette]

A Millennium page will take about 4-7 hours.
Lovefeast pages usually take 4-6 hours. Sometimes I'll get stuck on something and they take even longer.

The only thing that makes drawing pages take longer is if I have to draw a whole lot of figures or lots of background details -- but mostly figures.

Sometimes music helps, and background noise like TV almost always helps, but sometimes I prefer to work in complete silence.

I'm also starting to use the Pomodoro Technique to better time myself and make it so I don't get so worn out when doing things that need to be done on time.

[Rob]

I'm also starting to use the Pomodoro Technique to better time myself and make it so I don't get so worn out when doing things that need to be done on time.

I checked this out and I don't think it is something I could ever use. When I'm in the creative zone I lose all track of time and immerse myself in the process. An interruption every 25 minutes would be maddening for me.

When I'm writing it's like I'm possessed and when I finally come up for air it is often hungry, tired, dazed and usually having to go to the bathroom really badly.  :-\

[Miluette]

I am kind of the same way; however, it has incredibly negative effects on both my body and my mood. Taking breaks in the middle of things is necessary for my continued and timely productivity, I've found, and good artists (and people who are good at anything) won't have their creative completely thrown just by taking a short break.

Of course, THE ZONE is a little different for different people and things. Drawing can be kind of monotonous, though, depending on what you have to do, especially at a computer desk with a less-than-great chair...

[Funderbunk]

I think it depends. The more you draw the easier it is to stay in the zone. I have periods where I draw a lot and I get in the zone as the drop of a hat. Then I have periods where I barely draw at all (for example, I had a temporary internship for the last few months that involved 4 hours of commuting each day added to regular work hours that caused me to have almost no free time) and then I feel uninspired, out of practice. At those times I have to rely on random bouts of inspiration to get me in the zone and any interruption will break it.

[Rob]

if anything interrupts me while I'm in the zone I get really really pissy about it. And then I lament the fact that whatever I've been interrupted for is now keeping me from whatever it is I want to be doing creatively. If I actually have to stop and go do something else for awhile I can get really frustrated.

But that's life. My best work comes from those crazy hours when I surrender my consciousness to the universe though. So when I find the path there I really like to respect it and get as much as I can from it. Because it can be elusive.

[Swinsea]

I have movies and music going on in the background all the time when I work. I figure it's an extra bit of something going on that keeps the part of my mind occupied that usually gets distracted and derails me when I'm trying to concentrate.

I'd say it takes 3-4 hours per page: layouts in my sketchbook, which I do a bunch at a time, then ~30 minutes for the rough sketch in Photoshop, ~30 more for flat colors and darker final lines, then anywhere up to a couple hours for polishing the edges of my usually crazy-messy colors and getting the slightly painterly look. Lettering doesn't take much time, and usually I'm impatient at that point because I've just sat refining the same panel for an hour.

[Hobodan]

I spend 1-3 hours on a comic, depending on whether I need to make a second copy for scanning. If I scan the first copy, drawing and editing doesn't take me too long, since I draw more for textual content than artistic complexities.

[Vegarin]

I spend about 3-5 hours.  That's prominently due to the fact that I look at something, dislike it, then redo it about 4 times lol.  I do a really rough sketch in a book, then I do a panel layout on the computer and start the sketch.  Then I ink it, color it, then do a little something for the bg.  Then word bubble time, resize and save as. 

[teh hchano]

Oohhh yeah, movies on while drawing is the best. xDD I used
to do music, but it would distract me sometimes... like I'd wonder
about the lyrics, or the lyrics would make me think of something
and I'd have to look it up...

Now I turn on movies I've seen several times [on youtube or netflix].
It's weirdo, but it seems to keep my ADD in check... when I get the
urge to look up something while drawing, I'll look at the browser and
get distracted by the movie for a moment, then forget what I was
gonna look for after about 5 mins of watching and go back to art.
It ends up wasting much less time watching the movie for a few
mins than me looking up whatever I was going to look up...cos I'd
start browsing the web afterward and spend hours doing it lol. :<

Anyone else like that, or is it just me and my horrible ADD? XD


Actually, I took a pic of the setup I have to do this [tho this is from
3 pages back -- normally i am not looking up wedding stuff or ringworm lol]:


It's so squished lmao...

[SleepyKiks]

Artists, from start to finish what is the rough amount of time it takes you to make a page? I am curious to see if I am the only one who takes about 4-6 hours on a page.

Is it worth it to take your time or does taking your time just put more pressure on you as you get closer to a update and it feels like you have nothing done?

[jeffa]

I have two different comics.

http://funzietown.com takes me FOREVER to do. I try to do more elaborate backgrounds in it (my inspirations were Tin Tin, Buck Rogers, Lil Orphan Annie, etc.). It is story driven and long form. I'd say it takes me 4-6 hours to do. It is pretty much entirely done on the bristol. I scan and do a quick clean up, but that's all I do on the computer. The most recent one looks terrible by the way. I did it with PITT Pens instead of brush or nib. Turned out just awful.

http://galacticbeacon.com are single panel, gag comics. I'd guess it takes me around an hour to do each one on average. I figure the writing on those (well the gag) is the important thing, not the art. I do the art as well as I am capable, mind you, but I do it in far less detail. I'm also doing those in a larger original format and using a brush. I'm doing the lettering on the computer for those, as well as the baloons, so that saves me a ton of time.

As much as I like Funzietown, I've never gotten any traction with it in terms of attracting readers.

I only launched Galactic Beacon over the past weekend, so I don't know how it will be received. It's primary existance is as an eBook Science Fiction and Fantasy Anthology that includes the comics. We'll see how it goes.

[amanda]

Oh my goodness, I merged two topics successfully!  I feel kind of like a rockstar.

[Rob]

Oh my goodness, I merged two topics successfully!  I feel kind of like a rockstar.

I was wondering if this was going to happen. Well done you. You earn your rockstar cred.  8)