Episodes
Commissions and Contract Work
One of the biggest questions about making comics is: what roads are available to make money off of making comics? One direction that many creators go is commissions or contract work. Contract work is specifically entering into some kind of agreement, where someone is paying you for your comic-related skills. It can be a simple illustration commission that you draw for someone in a day, or it can be something long-term that spans years and years.
Shortcuts and Time Savers
Webcomics take so long, and while the perfectionist in our brains might tell us that we MUST do everything the long way, I think we've all pretty quickly learned that the easier you make the journey for yourself, the better. So this is going to be some quick lessons we've learned that changed our process and made life easier.
Drawing from Photo Reference (with AdorkaStock!)
Drawing anatomy and poses can be tricky, but there's some excellent tools out there for referencing poses like the awesome stuff that Sarah makes at adorkastock.com. But how DO we do it in an effective way? Let's talk about it!
Coming Up With Names
Does your webcomic contain characters? Maybe even places? Perhaps it also needs.... a title? If any of these things are true, you've probably had to sit down and face the struggle of deciding names for the things in your comic, as well as for the comic itself. These things are important, giving vital information about tone, genre, details of setting, and all sorts of other cues to the reader... But why's it gotta be so hard? Anyway, today we're gonna talk about it!
Plotting a Webcomic
Coming up with characters and scenarios is one thing, but when you're working in a longform narrative comic, you're going to want to think about a plot. Planning out your plot in a webcomic is a unique challenge compared to some other mediums, so today we're going to talk about it!
Collaborative Projects
Webcomics can be a lonely road to walk if you're only ever sticking to your own story. But collaborative projects with other creators can really be worth your time! Sometimes these take the form of printed or digital releases of books or zines. Sometimes these are centered around a theme or fandom. Or sometimes they're just "your-character-here" style single graphics. Folks have done all kinds of things over the years as collaborations, and for webcomic artists, it can not only be a ton of fun, but also be a way to cross-promote to similar audiences. So let's talk about what you need to think about when starting your own collaborative projects.
3D Models
One tool that webcomic artists can take advantage of, to help save time and sanity, is 3D models. Whether tracing directly or using them for reference, they can help you visualize complex places, objects, or poses from different angles. So let's talk about them!
Getting Started (2025 Edition)
Whether it's your first and only webcomic or one of many that you're planning, preparing to launch a new comic can take a lot of thought! You'll be thinking about things like organizational aspects (which is getting your art and story plans ready), technical aspects (which includes hosting that works for the scope of your comic), the timing and how you get the word out once you're finally ready to launch.
Animation and Webcomics
A lot of creators in webcomics, including all of us here, have come from an animation education or a career path. It makes a lot of sense that many of us are drawn to it, because there's so much creativity and energy in the world of animation. And webcomics are very freeform, so if you have your own site or a platform that supports it, videos, GIFs, and CSS animation tricks are all on the table as tools we can integrate into the comic experience. So let's talk about it!
Power Levels
This episode of Screen Tones is OVER 9000!!! This episode of Screen Tones is all about controlling your power - your speed and level of detail to make comic pages at the speed you want to make them! Listen along as the gang talks about tips and tricks about preserving your energy for MAXIMUM IMPACT on those knockout pages!
Watercolors and Webcomics!
Today we're going to be talking about using watercolour as a medium, its strengths for comics and illustrations, and our personal recommendations.
Changing Process Over Time
Webcomics often evolve from a simple idea into a production that spans several years or even decades for some. It is inevitable that aspects of these projects will change as time goes on; often these changes are centered on the processes used to create them. Today we're talking with our hosts and hearing about how their creative processes have changed over time.
Webcomic Outlines
So, you’ve got a cool idea for a comic. You have some characters, maybe some fun designs, maybe some great worldbuilding, and a few cool ideas for scenes that you can’t wait to share with potential readers. But how do you put it all together? What does that process look like? This stage is an amorphous blob that fits whatever shape is needed by the creator, and can look like many different things, so we’re here to talk about it!
Managing Expectations
When you first start out in the world of webcomics, you might have ideas about how you want your launch and subsequent updates to go. You might look at the popular webcomics you follow, see their engagement, comments, and even fandoms and think to yourself “I want that too”, only to realize that your expectations don’t quite match what you’re receiving. The results can be disappointment, resentment and burn-out, so today we want to discuss how we manage our own expectations and find healthy ways to cope with setbacks!
Deadlines
If you’ve ever worked a formal job, you’re probably familiar with the concept of deadlines. Often a job will require you to complete X assignment by Y date, and this is agreed to via a formal contract of sorts. In the world of webcomics, these hard lines begin to get a bit fuzzy because the deadlines being imposed often come from yourself, outside events like Convention deadlines, or even your peers and readers. Today we’re going to discuss Deadlines and their role in the webcomic world!
The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/