Alright.
I've had this problem ever since I started making comics of any and every kind.

It seems like I make some, sometimes making it somewhat far, and then either get bored, or quit because I don't like the direction the story is headed.

And for any of you fellow Photoshop users out there, is trying to make about a page per day asking too much?

The reason I ask that is, I finished the first page on the 6th right? I'm on the 4th page now.

I think I should maybe slow down a bit.

But what keeps you guys (and girls) going?
Is it inspiration?

Thank you.

-Ryu-

Ok, I'll try to answer you...
1-First of all, I never plan my comis too far ahead, 'cause ideas that look great now can become stale later and I like to put new stuff as an exercise for creativeness.
2-People work in different speeds. What's too much for me can be almost nothing to you. Perhaps you should try to know how many pages you can do in a certain amount of time without losing quality.
3-Two things keep me going: the pleasure of drawing and developing stories/characters and the people's reactions to my stuff.
Well, this is what I think of this things... This is a cool topic, nice idea for discussion.

I agree with a lot of what freakenburger said.

I'd add this: a page a day is great if you have a huge backlog and time to make the comics at that rate. But the rate may very well be contributing to your boredom and burnout.

Ask yourself what you're trying to get out of your comic.

For me, with Due East, I'm trying to tell a specific story with my wife and build some interesting characters. With Off Hours, we're experimenting in both art and story as a collaboration and having a lot of fun with it as a comedy.

The way I see my predicament is this.

I'd like to be farther ahead.
And Photoshop is really boring.

So. I guess we've all learned a lesson here...

Don't stress yourself out on a comic. Just do it on your pace, and your own time.

Yeah. I need to take it easy.

Ryuthehedgewolf
Alright.
I've had this problem ever since I started making comics of any and every kind.

It seems like I make some, sometimes making it somewhat far, and then either get bored, or quit because I don't like the direction the story is headed.

And for any of you fellow Photoshop users out there, is trying to make about a page per day asking too much?

The reason I ask that is, I finished the first page on the 6th right? I'm on the 4th page now.

I think I should maybe slow down a bit.

But what keeps you guys (and girls) going?
Is it inspiration?

Thank you.

-Ryu-

If you wanna stick to a comic, pick something that rings close to home. A subject matter that you either KNOW or are INTERESTED in.

In my case for instance, I'm interested in the following subject matters: politics, religion, philosophy, history, fight scenes, psychology, dysfunctional relationships (a good source of drama), the idea of the underdog kicking ass, and all things that fall into the occult/paranormal.


For more info though, here is the DD tutorial I wrote a long time ago:

http://www.drunkduck.com/tutorials/view.php?id=79

Hope that helps.

A good way to keep a comic going is through habit. If you get into the flow of doing a comic, it gets easy to do it to every week. It helps if the comic is about something you are interested in. (That is actually fairly key.)

But I find the best way to keep your comic going to get to know the characters. As soon as you want to get the audience to get to know the characters, it is easy to update on time. But getting into the habit of updating on time is a really good way of keeping a comic going,

Depends on what sort of person you are.

If you feel the comic is growing stale, you might want to change something, spice it up. Planning too far ahead, and sticking to this strict plan, can definitely work against you. I like knowing where I'm going, but getting there should be half the fun.

Here's another tip that may sound a tad crazy: Stop thinking of your characters as mere characters. Try looking at them as real people and see what can happen. I bet you learn things about them you never knew, and that might just be what you need to keep going.

If you truly love something, then you'll want to ride it through to the end regardless of what you have to do to get there.

See FreakenBurgers post, great job man. :)

What also keeps me going is my fans. I'll just be honest now, I'm creating this comic mostly for them-to please them. And it's working!

Also when I first started out I did a page-per-day too. (sometimes a TRIPLE update!) It amassed me a good fan-base early on- But then i slowed to 3 a day and it's much better to improve my art quality and receive motivating comments.


If you're getting bored or think the story of a comic is bad, I think you should move on then. Grow and learn in this process-you don't have to succeed every time. ;)

I know this definately isn't the way to go about it, but I have never actually written a story out before hand. I write it, as I draw it, allowing the characters to kind of tell the story. This helps me with burn-out, because I am just as interested in finding out what happens, as the readers.
I have a basic idea of where I want the story to go, but then, it just creates itself. I rarely have written myself into trouble. It works for me. :-)

Devotion is one of the best factors to get you going. You should have faith in what you're doing even though, sometimes, you don't get readers.

Your comic should be something personal but by putting it online, is that you want to show your comics and stuff. When people knows that you're devoted and working hard, there's a chance you'll get a reader that'll follow you.

Storywise... you should write something you enjoy doing just like Kyupol said. Keep on thinking ahead on how your story should progress in an interesting way.

Try thinking of a main character as a biography of this character where other characters will follow him/her or something.

All in all, you need patience when you're working on your comic and be happy you're doing it.

Ever since i read Penny Arcade I became inspired to become an artist that is why i keep drawing to eventually reach the status quo of popular webcomics.

Pace is quite a key factor to making them as well. If you rush too fast you will suffer fatigue, keep to like once a week and then build on that.

Either you do it, or you don't. It really is that simple. Either you dedicated to you craft, or you're just playing around. If your serious, you push through the tough times. If you're just having fun, you'll eventually get bored.

There are more ways to tell a story than there are people on DD. Any method works, provided you're a committed storyteller.

And it isn't your tools that are boring. You either find interesting ways to use them or find a tool that works for you. I've used Photoshop professionally for 20 years now. I use it at work, on freelance, & to greyscale all my pages. It may be a challenging tool from time to time, but it's never boring. I think you're bored with psd because you're just bored. whether you were using psd, illustrator, painter, or oils, I'll be you'd still be bored.

A true storyteller, someone hardcore dedicated to the craft doesn't get bored. They have to be invested because there isn't a solid story ever that didn't have it's slow points. Because they're serious, they even find joy and intrigue in the quiet moments.

Either you're serious, or you're just playin'. Which is it?

Comics are definitely my life.
Ask anyone I know. I'm practically always workin on it.
I do enjoy it. It's just constantly doing it is quite tiring.

Then do comics less "constantly" If you're doing a page a day, do a page every 3 day, or once a week.

Me? I'm lucky to finish a page a week, what with family, my day job, & freelance.

If one page a day is what's wearing you out, slow down. It's that simple.

Also, when inspiration/enthusiasm wanes, try to push through it. What you create while being bored won't by any means be as great as what you do when you're really inspired, but it will get done, and maybe you'll find that inspiration returns.

For me, at least, creating a comic - or, indeed, writing a short story/novel - is a series of ups and downs. Sometimes, I'm just bursting with enthusiasm and can crank out a page every two days. Other times, I slow down so much that doing one page every week is a chore. But I keep at it, because I know it'll pick up again. And mostly, it's a whole lot of fun.

I've been doing a webcomic for six years now, pretty much keeping to a MWF schedule...BUT I always take a "week off" between storylines, which helps. (I'm on my 22nd storyline.) I also have a main character that lends herself to a lot of different situations.

I couldn't do a finished page a day, and still do my job, take care of my family, etc.

I also keep a much-less-constantly-updated webcomic at webcomicsnation which I do less frequently (weekly, at best) for a change of pace.

And the new team book we're allows a round-robin approach, so although coordinating things is a little bit of a hassle, might ask an additional page a month, since we're doing THAT on a weekly basis too. ---Al

Yeah, a page a day seems like a lot, so you might want to slow down a bit. I know I couldn't do that, I only do two pages a week and I still get burned out sometimes.

I think what's been keeping me going is

a) The fact that I can see that I'm getting better, so the hard work is paying off both in terms of the actual product and a marked improvement of my skills because I'm drawing a lot

b) The feedback from people here on DD and other places that enjoy what I do.

c) Seeing the pages pile up. The more I've produced, the less daunting one individual page seems. When I started, I felt like I'd climbed Mount Everest after I'd finished ONE page... that seems silly now, but I remember I was all excited over that one page, and it didn't even look good. Heh.

When it gets tedious, I just slow down and remind myself that I have to take it one baby step at time, and fussing over the way a character's hand looks in one panel on one page for half an hour until I get frustrated will be worth it in the end.

I'm one for drama, so don't mind me too much, but what you really need is to love your comic. Seriously; it's a bit narcissistic, but you need to love your characters. Now, the difference between "loving" a character and "liking" it is hard to define. When you "like" a character, you want to see them do cool stuff, have some drama happen, etc.. When you love a character, you want them to become alive. You want every action they take to be a statement about who they are and why they do what they do, even if it's simply how they greet someone, or what they do if they get mud on their shoes. You can't just want to get something out because you enjoy entertaining people and it's a great way to pass the time; you have to need it to be out there, otherwise the characters don't exist, and that thought terrifies you.

So... yeah. If you really love your comic, little things like "time" and "skill" won't stop you from getting it done and frequently. Just be sure not to fall into the trap of loving yourself through the comic. When you love yourself, you'll refuse to see opportunities to improve, to change things, to make the comic better. When you really love something, you have to love it enough to be rough on it sometimes for the sake of making it better in the long run.

But, despite my regular decrying of artsy-fartsy types, I still tend to be a romantic when it comes to certain things. You may want to scale the drama of this post up or down in your head depending on your level of artsy and/or fartsy - ness.

Well, the problem is fixed now.
And just so everybody knows, since my comic just started, the only reason I was doing a page a day was to get ahead.
So I have this weeks' and next week's comic now.
I'm going at a good pace so.

Anyway, enough of my problem, talk about how you keep going on a comic!