30 days to become a better comic artist

Hi guys! I’m Sasha, a UX/UI designer from Ukraine, and also a web comics creator. And here I’m telling a story of how I actually started drawing comics daily and how my skills improved in a course of time.

My story starts in December 2017, when I somehow realized that I want to draw web comics for fun. I was already obsessed with comic culture for some time, and —

“Why not create my own comics?”

— I thought.

So I just took a fineliner, a sketchbook, and drew my very first web comic.

This one is in Russian, the text is as follows: ‘Regular people — Wow, it’s snowing! It’s so sweet! — vs Me drowning in the snow’. It was my attempt to make fun of my
short stature

Here it’s time to mention that I actually can’t draw. I mean I draw as it feels, but I have no education in the field. It’s just a hobby empowered by my addiction to art of any kind.

However, my comics creator way started that day.

Firstly it was not a serious or regular hobby, I just drew some comic strips now and than, when I had inspiration. Yet, my style was gradually developing and my skills improved. And in half a year my comic already looked like this:

Yep, I started adding colors and my characters became a bit more polished. But I still just made photos of my sketchbook and posted it to Instagramas is, without even adjusting lights and colors.

However, my following was growing (a bit — from zero to maybe 200 followers:) ), and I noticed that there is a (small) circle of people who even liked what I was doing…

I will not describe all the way as the story will come long and boring. there was no sudden insights or anything like that. But a month ago, in the end of January 2020 I just decided that I should elevate this hobby to the next level.

And here the real story begins -

I started challeging myself to create a comic every day

(without actually announcing the challenge).

And now, skipping further explanations, I just want to share my 30 day progress with you. Here are the 30 web comics I created during the last 30 days:

My #dollypartonchallenge

Always take a spoon out of the sink before you start washing dishes:

ME: “Nobody can stop me from sleeping this weekend all day long”
MY CAT: … “It’s 6 AM already, and I’m hungry!!!” 😾

Family always supports me

Me and my cat

Mondays be like:

Dark side of creativity:

Challenge of falling asleep😫 Mission’s impossible if there is even a slightest lightspot…

Introvert issues:

If you feel unconfident being among unfamiliar people, here is an easy recipr for you to become the party king😅

And even a comic with embedded frame-by-frame animation:

My reaction to compliments:

Whatever happens, it has to survive!

I’m really good in convincing reasoning:

A bit of philosophy:

Actually, I’ve got a couple more in a buffer, but I haven’t posted them yet, so I will not add ’em here as well.

It looks to me as the progress is obvious, though I still have a lot issues to work on. I’ve already started scanning my comic pages instead of photographing which added a lot to the quality. I also adjust images in Photoshop before posting.

And by the way, I even created my own fonts, and now I can easily translate my comics to other languages (I usually post in English, Russian, and Ukrainian).

If you read this story till here, I want to thank you a lot and share my font with you. Feel free to use it for any purpose, but I hope it will be used by someone who also want to master their comics drawing skills: download font.

And now, the challenge goes on.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be happy if you join me in this journey. I post comics daily:

• In English — Sasha’s comics on Instagram
• In Ukrainian — Sasha’s comics on Facebook
• and in Russian — Telegram channel for Sasha’s comics

Follow me here on Medium, too. I’ll keep updating my story and share my discoveries and insights.