Advice for New Writers here
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spoiled
Yeah, writers have this vision that "drawing" for comics include pencilling, inking, and lettering. What they don't realize is that inking and lettering are rather like "Not-drawing" in that they are separate skills, with only inking having any relation to drawing itself. Thankfully it seems easier to find an inker and letterer than it is an artist. A fair warning though, the larger the team the harder the hastle of keeping them together unless you're paying, since amateur collaborators always run the risk of bailing on a project due to real life and such.
True
Yeah, it does seem that most artists I end up with and see can ink. Still, there are a lot of dedicated inkers for a reason, artists can specialize. And the sense I get is that pencilling is a slightly more common skill, especially among artists just starting out. Inking would logically come later. Given that a lot of "free" jobs involve reaching out to amateurs I can many of them can not ink at the time of their collaboration.
-Ruyei
-Ruyei
And even if your artist does direct digital art, they do have to have a tablet and proper graphics software (I'm not sure what most comics artists use, but most decent graphics packages are $200 plus).
On the word processor front, I recommend not using a word processor. I recommend writers use CeltX.
CeltX is pretty full featured and does the layout for you - which saves a ton of time. And it doesn't cost anything. They make their money by charging for cloud space for collaborators, but you can get the basic software for free (or you can donate if you want to support them and have the cash).
You can then export the script as .txt, which anyone can read and edit. I really recommend it. It's not as good as the paid scriptwriting software out there, but good professional scriptwriting software also starts at about $200, so the price is definitely right.
On the word processor front, I recommend not using a word processor. I recommend writers use CeltX.
CeltX is pretty full featured and does the layout for you - which saves a ton of time. And it doesn't cost anything. They make their money by charging for cloud space for collaborators, but you can get the basic software for free (or you can donate if you want to support them and have the cash).
You can then export the script as .txt, which anyone can read and edit. I really recommend it. It's not as good as the paid scriptwriting software out there, but good professional scriptwriting software also starts at about $200, so the price is definitely right.
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Lite relief
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Lite relief
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I am an Artist ..or very nearly
Last edited by Lite relief on Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Aquillarus
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New writer
As a new writer who thought he was ready to find an artist, I have to say this thread has been extremely helpful. Look's like I have a little more work and research to do. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted advice in here, it has helped amazingly! 
Agreement. On multi-talents
I agree whole-heartedly. Writers often need to do the "legwork". Any writer of course can promote the comic by posting on forums with a banner of your comic, form relationships with other comic sites, and buy ads (Or manage free ones). It also helps if you as a writer can manage a website, letter, as well as do a little graphic design. For me the latter has been almost required, when creating banners for ads for my website I've needed to use the Gimp image manipulation program (Which is free) to crop images and paint to do simple color jobs for backgrounds. Who knows though what a skilled graphic artist could do with a comic!
Another thing you can build to a project is simply knowledge. A lot of comics have benefited for example from someone with encyclopedic knowledge of nerd culture for example. Knowing martial arts can help with fight scenes and historical knowledge can help with keeping things accurate if you use that sort of scenario. Here's one thing to mention too, for all you writers looking to do a comic that could use some extra knowledge post an opening for a specialized cowriter or correspondent for the field you are working with. Once I needed a historical consultant and actually found one so who knows what's the tip of the iceberg.
Happy superbowl Americans
Sincerely,
Ruyei
Another thing you can build to a project is simply knowledge. A lot of comics have benefited for example from someone with encyclopedic knowledge of nerd culture for example. Knowing martial arts can help with fight scenes and historical knowledge can help with keeping things accurate if you use that sort of scenario. Here's one thing to mention too, for all you writers looking to do a comic that could use some extra knowledge post an opening for a specialized cowriter or correspondent for the field you are working with. Once I needed a historical consultant and actually found one so who knows what's the tip of the iceberg.
Happy superbowl Americans
Sincerely,
Ruyei
I wish I could +1 what Ruyei just said.
I've spent MANY hours researching stuff for my writing projects - from science stuff, to martial arts, to religions, to history of clowns. Yes, it gets that varied.
I'm also getting pretty adept at creating logos/banners/flyers/etc. A little (self taught) graphic design skill will help you go far.
AAAAND now I'm teaching myself (with the help of a bunch of on-line tutorials) how to letter.
Being able to bring more tot he project that just a script will make you more appealing as a collaborator.
-Chris
I've spent MANY hours researching stuff for my writing projects - from science stuff, to martial arts, to religions, to history of clowns. Yes, it gets that varied.
I'm also getting pretty adept at creating logos/banners/flyers/etc. A little (self taught) graphic design skill will help you go far.
AAAAND now I'm teaching myself (with the help of a bunch of on-line tutorials) how to letter.
Being able to bring more tot he project that just a script will make you more appealing as a collaborator.
-Chris
when it comes to indie comic making, you need to be a 2 man (or even a 1 man) army. You wont be making a lot of profit, most likely you will lose money, hopefully just for a short time. the more work both people can do the better. keep your team to a maximum of 3 people. if you get a 3rd, make sure they are doing nothing but social media and marketing consistently every day, you need to do multiple posts everywhere each day.
A review of three artist/writer matching sites.
Something to mention, when searching for artists each site has its own personality.
I use three sites mainly to look for artists, often only two actually. I search here, Digital Webbing, and also Smackjeeves.com I've tried other sites but these three have become my mainstays.
Zwol- For those of you fresh off the google page Zwol's forum is quite the bustling place for comic making. It stems off a webcomic that never updates but for some reason has become a vibrant comic community! It's my core place to talk about comics and it has a fairly friendly fanbase. The place to go really for paid artists. I'm sure Digital Webbing has a good paid site as well but you get a good selection here. But lets consider that you're just starting to get into the game. Zwol in this way is a less robust version of Digital Webbing in that you on average get a lot less responses. But when you do get responses they are often quality. One thing to mention is that stuff leaning in the manga direction is rather rare here. Still worth a shot though
Digital Webbing- I haven't really explored the site but it appears to be a big place for talking about comics as well as launching them. By far the most populated comic site. It leans HEAVILY in American comic book stuff and although you'll get a lot more hits many of them will be low quality. However this is perfect if you're just starting out. Even so, Digital Webbing has become the site I count on due to a much higher level of people willing to do free work. I've found some of my most constant collaborators on here and would recommend the site for anyone looking for a good artist. However as I said you generally get artists of a lesser quality here, but that's just been my experience. Even more tough luck to get manga style here. One thing to mention, this site is pitch only if you're goign for freebies. So you can't post links to scripts here which is too bad. However this is still a great place to look.
Smackjeeves- Smackjeeves is a site where users can easily manage webcomic publishing, with more managable file sizes requiring paying quite a bit of cash per month. I actually almost hosted a comic here and would have too if a friend hadn't said at the last minute "Hey, I wanna build a site, you with me?" So I use it mostly for the artist/writer matching as well as to read Mokepon. Being a webcomic site you're going to get webcomic art. And remember how the other forums I mentioned have no manga style. Look no further than Smackjeeves! I don't think there's much of a paid market here but I have had people ask to be paid for gigs here, not much more to do if you're desperate and willing to pay an artist for manga. The art here is typically webcomic style which means things will be some sort of level between cartoonish and manga given the leaning in comics these days to cute funny things. You're not going to get pro quality here, these artists want to cut their teeth on webcomics and for an amateur that's what you need. For anyone looking to do something serious though I'd stay away from Smackjeeves as I often do when I want something publishable. I have a cute bunnygirl comic that somehow jumped into my head so for now I'll be lurking there.
There are many many other sites out there but...many of them are dead. Manga Magazine used to be a GREAT forum for manga but it died. Another good place worth mentioning is Ink Blazers. I'm very tempted to look there, it seems like a high volume site. For now though I'm quite satisfied with what's coming in for my comic.
I use three sites mainly to look for artists, often only two actually. I search here, Digital Webbing, and also Smackjeeves.com I've tried other sites but these three have become my mainstays.
Zwol- For those of you fresh off the google page Zwol's forum is quite the bustling place for comic making. It stems off a webcomic that never updates but for some reason has become a vibrant comic community! It's my core place to talk about comics and it has a fairly friendly fanbase. The place to go really for paid artists. I'm sure Digital Webbing has a good paid site as well but you get a good selection here. But lets consider that you're just starting to get into the game. Zwol in this way is a less robust version of Digital Webbing in that you on average get a lot less responses. But when you do get responses they are often quality. One thing to mention is that stuff leaning in the manga direction is rather rare here. Still worth a shot though
Digital Webbing- I haven't really explored the site but it appears to be a big place for talking about comics as well as launching them. By far the most populated comic site. It leans HEAVILY in American comic book stuff and although you'll get a lot more hits many of them will be low quality. However this is perfect if you're just starting out. Even so, Digital Webbing has become the site I count on due to a much higher level of people willing to do free work. I've found some of my most constant collaborators on here and would recommend the site for anyone looking for a good artist. However as I said you generally get artists of a lesser quality here, but that's just been my experience. Even more tough luck to get manga style here. One thing to mention, this site is pitch only if you're goign for freebies. So you can't post links to scripts here which is too bad. However this is still a great place to look.
Smackjeeves- Smackjeeves is a site where users can easily manage webcomic publishing, with more managable file sizes requiring paying quite a bit of cash per month. I actually almost hosted a comic here and would have too if a friend hadn't said at the last minute "Hey, I wanna build a site, you with me?" So I use it mostly for the artist/writer matching as well as to read Mokepon. Being a webcomic site you're going to get webcomic art. And remember how the other forums I mentioned have no manga style. Look no further than Smackjeeves! I don't think there's much of a paid market here but I have had people ask to be paid for gigs here, not much more to do if you're desperate and willing to pay an artist for manga. The art here is typically webcomic style which means things will be some sort of level between cartoonish and manga given the leaning in comics these days to cute funny things. You're not going to get pro quality here, these artists want to cut their teeth on webcomics and for an amateur that's what you need. For anyone looking to do something serious though I'd stay away from Smackjeeves as I often do when I want something publishable. I have a cute bunnygirl comic that somehow jumped into my head so for now I'll be lurking there.
There are many many other sites out there but...many of them are dead. Manga Magazine used to be a GREAT forum for manga but it died. Another good place worth mentioning is Ink Blazers. I'm very tempted to look there, it seems like a high volume site. For now though I'm quite satisfied with what's coming in for my comic.
Two things real fast.
Digital Webbingis a real good source for guides, how-tos, and tips for writing. The actually have a regular article series were you can submit a script and get feedback from comic editors.
Ink blazers is actually dead as of today. The site wasn't making money and they decided to shut down. Followed a link from reddit earlier and it was still up but had a banner announcing that it was being closed. When I saw your post I Googled and it seems it is down for good.
Digital Webbingis a real good source for guides, how-tos, and tips for writing. The actually have a regular article series were you can submit a script and get feedback from comic editors.
Ink blazers is actually dead as of today. The site wasn't making money and they decided to shut down. Followed a link from reddit earlier and it was still up but had a banner announcing that it was being closed. When I saw your post I Googled and it seems it is down for good.
aha
Dunno how I missed that, thanks so much!
Something also to mention, if you have a second language use it. I once advertised on a French site and got some of the best artists I've ever encountered. Turns out the European comics circles don't have the same pay environment as the English speaking ones. As much as I support paying artists I also understand that it's an impossibility for some people, and on foreign sites you would be offering a lot simply by being an English speaker. And yes, I met English speakers that way. But on the other hand when I posted google translated confirmed that a lot of people were saying "SPEAK OUR FORIEGN TONGUE"
Just a thought, sorry I didn't do my research on Inkblazers,
Sincerely
Ruyei
Something also to mention, if you have a second language use it. I once advertised on a French site and got some of the best artists I've ever encountered. Turns out the European comics circles don't have the same pay environment as the English speaking ones. As much as I support paying artists I also understand that it's an impossibility for some people, and on foreign sites you would be offering a lot simply by being an English speaker. And yes, I met English speakers that way. But on the other hand when I posted google translated confirmed that a lot of people were saying "SPEAK OUR FORIEGN TONGUE"
Just a thought, sorry I didn't do my research on Inkblazers,
Sincerely
Ruyei
artist looking for writer
Interesting to see a lot of artists looking for writers in this forum. Any advice on how to respond to those posts? I personally think one should use many of the rules in this thread, but most importantly express interest in the project, give good ideas on how to augment it while keeping within the artist's sensibilities, and if you don't have samples offer to create a sample script on the spot! Be proactive! Do not wait for artists to discover you, show the artists who you are!
-Ruyei
-Ruyei
I think writers here should consider learning to draw. there are a lot of "artists" here who want money for work that isnt that great and a lot of people are probably saying to themselves " i could do better then that!", so you should give drawing a go, you might like it. It doesnt take that long to learn, look at david finch, dude spent 2 years locked away in his basement (or was it his grandmothers?) and came out a fxxxxxx pro. Artists could do the same thing, either to learn how to draw better, orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, learn to write. The guy who does naruto did that, spent 2 years solid learning how to write and his storytelling is solid.