To all the Comic Artists, how did you first start off?

[Asj]

I started reading a few comics online, and I got a fan-story idea for Fullmetal Alchemist that I didn't think was right for a fanfiction. I thought it would work well in comic form, and found this site (so I quickly joined and created the comic's account). But I didn't really know much at all about making comics. I had tried starting a few in the past, but didn't try very hard. After sketching out a few pages for the FMA fancomic idea, I tried doing the first page, and found it a lot harder than I'd thought. I hadn't done backgrounds very often, and I would need to know how to paint backgrounds for that idea (and there's stuff like, having people or vehicles on the streets and such). I ended up quitting work on the comic, and haven't yet started it back up. I thought I should make some simplier comics first, before doing that one (to get used to comicking and try building up speed or something). So right now, ...well... right now I'm not doing anything. :/ But I'm close to finished with a sketch fancomic, which had gotten sluggish over time (I'm not sure my pencil knows the meaning of "sketch" fancomic...).

[Cannetella]

Hmm, lemme see. o.o
I really love telling stories and drawing. I'm not spectacular at either of those things yet, but I'd like to be one day. I think the main reason I had for starting a webcomic was so that I could improve. It's also a lot of fun. With luck my art will have gotten better by the time I get into the meat of the story. xD

[xox1melly1xox]

I think the concept just popped up... At first it started off as a simple original art idea, which was later I decided my art for a wallpaper... Soon I felt slightly inspired to do a story on it. My art is probably quite amateurish, since I lack flexibility and understanding of anatomy. Still working on it, this comic will hopefully force me to improve more ^^'

[ApaFox]

With a story in my head and a song in my heart.

[Molly-sama]

I already liked making comics and had one going, and one of my friends told me to put it online so she could read it. TADA! lol

[Charil]

I loved telling stories as a kid, but I also loved drawing. I used to write stories in typical prose and then illustrate all the best scenes separately. This was like when I was 9, 10 years old, so no one really read them because I didn't show them to anyone. I just liked doing it.

Couple years later I somehow got the genius idea that "hey, I could make my own comics and combine the two together!". Real Captain-Obvious-like. So I started making comics (on lined paper lmao), my friends at school would read them, all was well.

Saw an ad on Deviantart once a couple more years later for a now-defunct comic host called Hyper Comix. Wow, I can put my comics online, that's a great idea! I didn't really know there was like a whole webcomics "culture" or anything lmao I was like fourteen and mostly hung out on Deviantart and AOL chatrooms fml. So I thought this was some revolutionary idea, signed up, and started making comics on blank paper "so they're more professional" because I didn't want the people on the site to think of me as a kid. It was like the best day ever for me when someone other than my friends at school read my comics and liked them lol. And that's basically how I started!

I didn't really "choose" webcomics, webcomics kind of chose me [/cheesy]. If I hadn't joined that particular site, I probably would've heard of webcomics somewhere later down the line and still hopped on the bandwagon.

I can't believe I've been doing these dumb comics for ten years.

[Sonic-ock]

To all the Comic Artists, how did you first start off?

Awful.

[robybang]

To all the Comic Artists, how did you first start off?

Awful.

[Froken Keke]

One day I thought "I should start a webcomic", and I did. It was horrible.

(I had done comics before that, when I was significantly younger, but I don't really count those.)

[C_You]

Many years ago, I read Megatokyo and thought "I could do that." And it was all downhill from there.

[JigokuNeko]

I would write a lot of stories and draw a lot of pictures...and while people would look at my pictures, I only ever got one person to read my stories--at near gunpoint. So I uploaded my first comic based on a story going in my head at the time to see how people would take it. Needless to say, having an audience is much better than just doodling away and all your stuff never seeing the light of day or just printing a dozen for conventions. Keeps one motivated to wow the audience. :3

[itsjustaar]

I had done comics in high school, but never thought or had the courage to bring them online. I've had sites in the past, with the best one owned by my friend closed down several years ago when the domain went bust. After years of being tired of myspace role-playing and trying to find a decent role-playing hub, I don't know what it was that drove me to say "I think I'm going to draw a webcomic"... I just simply did.

I was originally intending KUWT to be one of those comics where I'd show my old friends and make it really RP in-jokey, but when they all went missing and the friendship all kinda broke down in a bad way, I've made kinda a goal now to give it a new soul. As such, a lot of the RP references are all being thrown out now in favor of being more on it's own two feet, lol.

There's still more things I gotta do to do that, but I think within the next year KUWT will be it's own deity.

[Falconer]

I'd been reading comics my whole life, but it wasn't until after I read manga that I really got into them. BETTER PLOTS & CHARAS, YO! (At the time, the ONLY other option was superheroes or kids comics. Now there is a bit more variety :B)

I was then always coming up with new ideas and drawing them as comics, but I only shared them with my friends. I had read webcomics before and I liked them, but I wasn't really interested in putting my stuff online. I didn't think I was worthy. xD

The only reason I finally did was because one of my friends was going to college and he insisted I did so he could keep following the comic.

Aaand the rest went from there. I eventually grew some self-esteem. Next time you know, I absolutely fell in love in with comics/webcomics, and then it became slightly obsessive, aaand yeaaah.

[xkrazydog]

I started off not drawing comics assuming i was already amazing at it
until i discovered i was 17 and didnt draw a single comic page.
So i started.
and then it ate my life.
And so i cry.

[Kattlanna]

I started off awfully. Err... It was back in 8th grade when I became friends with some comic artists in an after school club; one of them posted her comics online too. I was inspired to draw comics too with my own story, thinking "Hey! I should start a webcomic too!" with obvious results; it was scrapped after 10 pages if even that, and later that year I took up spriting as I was a member of the serebii.net forums and was obsessed with pokemon.

The sprite comic I made was very short lived, lasting maybe 5 pages. I made some decent sprites, even some from scratch, but making a sprite comic was too time consuming for too little gain so I went back to drawing.

It took starting over multiple times to get where I am now.