So, You’re an aspiring webtoon artist and you have a great story to tell as a comic
You have the dream to do a webcomic / webtoon as your full-time dream job. You just feel so inspired by the popular artists who say something like “omg I have the best job ever” and so on.
So you’re aspiring to start your own webtoon or webcomic, hoping to reach a big audience and get somewhere someday and make money from it.
The sad fact is that there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of webcomic / webtoon artists out there, and only an infinitesimally small number of them ever see any sort of money from their work.
This post is not to break your dreams about doing a webcomic or webtoon as a full-time job, but we need to start being realistic.
If you are an aspiring webtoon artist that wants to pursue your passion for drawing, then, by all means, go for it. But you have to have realistic goals. It’s not going to replace your current job from one day to another, and even if you do intend for it to do so in the future, it’s not something that will happen any time soon.
If you want you webtoon / webcomic to go somewhere, is not going to happen only with “good art”, you will have to work on more than one aspect to hopefuly get closer where ou want to be.
So If you want to start a webtoon / webcomic hoping to make money with it, you should go to the battle as prepared as you can to compete against the thousands of artists out there trying to get that “dream job as you do”.
Sounds hard and frustrating? I know, that’s why I wanted to share some advice with you, I know how it feels to be an invisible aspiring webtoon artist with no idea of how to start a webtoon / webcomic, so these tips are based on my experience as webtoon creator.
Here are 6 tips for an aspiring webtoon artist that I’ve wished to know when I started:
1. Your story is the most important part of your webtoon / comic, make sure to work hard on it before start drawing.
Write everything down. Every idea, every plot point. Make a plot map and a script. Really hammer out the depth of your characters. Make them believable and enjoyable.
I was an aspiring webtoon artist too and I know that sometimes you just want to skip this and just start drawing because is the fun part. You have to keep in mind that your story and your characters are the base for a successful comic, if you want to have a chance to make money from it, be sure to deliver a good story.
Every writer has his own process, if you don’t want to write your whole story first, at least be sure that your plot map is 100% done on paper. Remember, writing and drawing are creative processes and every artist has his own path.
Based on my personal experience recommend you to start drawing your comic / webtoon only when you feel 100% confident about your story and you think that maybe you can change only 5% on the go.
If you don’t believe what I’m saying just check this screenshot that I took from webtoons Twitter ->
You still don’t believe that your plot is that important?
then TAKE YOU PLOT SERIOUSLY!
2. Don’t take bad feedback seriously
Sometimes is hard to take bad feedback especially when people give their opinion on a project that has taken you a long time of work. Always remember that they’re talking about your comic, not about you, don’t take bad feedback personally.
As an aspiring webtoon artist, you have to learn to be professional enough to differentiate between just a hate comment and good criticism to improve your work. you have to be professional enough to recognize that your work may not be perfect and some else will spot flaws that you mist in the process.
have the humility to recognize your flaws and thank the person that has the courage to point you a flaw.
Webtoons are a whole world of genres and themes, not everyone is gonna like your story.
Remember that not everyone loves romance, BL, or horror, know your audience and respect the people who don’t like what you do.
3. It will take time to get an audience, so don't be discouraged
DO NOT COMPLAIN OR GET DISCOURAGED when it doesn’t go mega stellar famous number one comic on webtoon, tapastic, or any platform or your choice overnight. If it does, good for you! If it doesn’t, please, PLEASE, don’t be discouraged about it! Just keep working hard, give it your all, promote it on social media, communities, and forums, be positive!
I was an aspiring webtoon artist who was a ghost on the publishing platforms, believe me, I was less than 500 subs on my webtoon, and I know you can feel depressed about it because you just put a lot of effort into it, and is not fair to see that your webtoon / comic is not getting the attention that it deserves.
I’m here to tell you that subs don’t rate the quality of your work. If you are a small aspiring webtoon artist you will have to go out there and promote your work so people can know your webtoon / webcomic.
Join communities, ask for help, there’s nothing wrong to tell people that you have a webcomic and you need help to reach more audience. you have to start somewhere right!?
4. Look for communities to share your work
My fourth tip for starting a webcomic / webtoon is to network your butt off. Especially early on, connecting with other creators from webtoon or Tapastic on Facebook groups, Reddit, or Discord servers who are on the same page as you will help make getting subscribers for your comic that much easier.
Engage like you were a friend. Leave fun comments on their comic, offer them fan-art out of nowhere with no strings attached, and basically talk to them, not at them.
Being active on Twitter particularly on webtoon events, Webcomic Chat, Comic Book Hour which both host weekly questionnaires for all web cartoonists to answer can also help build your audience.
5. Don't worry about the art skills or software to use
The original one punch man art was just… ewww??
and even with that awful art, the story conquered a lot of hearts
One of the first questions that I see frequently on an aspiring webtoon artist is: “Which software should I use? ” or “what is a better program to draw?”
As I mentioned before, if you have a solid story, you won’t have to worry about your artistic skills to make a webtoon / comic. I want to give you an example: one punch man was one of the most popular webcomics in japan from 2010, the art from the original comic was awful! but the story and the characters were so engaging that naturally, one punch man got its own anime on the tv because the story was interesting enough to don’t depend on the artistic skills.
Webtoons with lacking art can sometimes be rescued by good writing though if the artist polished their craft more, they would have a much easier go with building an audience since inevitably, webcomics like any other medium are all based on first impressions.
As an aspiring webtoon artist always keeps in mind that great art isn’t always the factor for which comics sink and which ones win. Any comic could have pretty art, but a terrible, terrible story that repulses even those with tempered palettes.
And if you still worried about which software to use, I want to remember you that NOONE will recognize if you are using clip studio paint, paint tool sai, or photoshop in your webtoon / webcomic, work in the program that works for you!
EXTRA TIP:
In the end, what is the secret? Is it the fact he has important connections in the industry and you don’t? Is it the fact she has a bigger audience on social media than you? No and no.
The real secret behind your rival’s success has nothing to do with how much money he can dump on advertising his webtoon/webcomic or how much more she allegedly knows about his profession than you do yours.
The real secret behind why he’s doing better than you instead has everything to do with the quality of the story he’s offering. (and I won’t lie, sometimes is just luck, I’ve seen bad stories get popular just because they are “BL” and so on).
As an aspiring webtoon artist, most of the time you will see the success of comics like Penny Arcade or One Punch Man and you will want your own slice of that good dream job pie, but you will need more than good art to make it happen. always keep in mind that IS GONNA BE HARD BUT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO ARCHIEVE.
If you are looking for more info about who to start your webcomic, webtoon has a lot of resources on his page for beginners.
check out webtoon’s starter pack for an aspiring webtoon artist here
Tapastic also has its own resources for aspiring webcomic creators too!
Check out Tapastic’s starter pack for webcomic beginners
keep fighting for your dream job my fella aspiring webtoon artist! I know you will make it! I believe that you have the talent to achieve your goal
See you! 😀
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