Arist/Writer collaborations

Collaborations between artists and writers are not rare, in fact, they’re quite common among popular manga and comics. In order to make the work of creating a comic easier, separating tasks is crucial. Writing the script and drawing it is the simplest way of explaining this collaboration, however, there are instances where a team of artists and writers creates a single comic.

Let’s say you have an idea, but you can’t properly write that idea down in the correct format, that is where the writer comes in. But the writer can only write down your script in order for it to make sense, they can’t turn it into an illustration. That is when the artist is needed. Now, depending on the art style and its difficulty, someone can hire a single artist or multiples.

When it comes to illustrating a comic, there are multiple steps to get the final result. Just like when writing, for example, brainstorming, then writing the first draft, then editing it and looking for any grammar issues, and properly setting it up. Illustrating a comic is no different, if not harder.

First, it begins with storyboards. In this phase, the artist jolts down the character positions in a panel and an overview of the background. Barely any detail, but enough to understand what is happening (preferably, the writer should also understand this part)

Then comes the first draft, basically cleaning up the storyboards. And sometimes an artist might prefer several drafts before passing it down to the next phase.

Lineart, this is probably the most time-consuming, but also most important. Good lineart helps with the next phase, which is optional for some artists, such as manga artists who don’t use colors or screentones.

Coloring or screentones, depending on the style, when coloring, an artist might have already picked out a few colors that they might use throughout the whole comic. This is done in order to make the process easier since there are like infinite amounts of colors out there, and bringing that number down to a few can help with efficiency, but also uniformity.

Lettering, such as the SFX or text and speech bubbles. Speech bubbles should be positioned prior in the storyboard phase for easier placement.

These are a lot of steps, and depending on the project, one artist can be assigned a role to make the process a lot quicker. There are definitely artists that do all of them at once, but they can take much more time to finish.

A good management of the tasks among the artists is crucial to keep the pacing going.

When it comes to the prices of paying for a single page, it is hard to pinpoint an exact price, since usually the artist prices their rates based on the time it takes them to finish, location/ cost of living, quality, the amount of free editing they offer (important, discuss prior), etc.

Prices can range from $0-$1000 per page. $0 if you’re the creator, writer, and artist, or if you’re doing an unpaid collaboration, and $1000 if you want to be fancy and work with a very popular artist. (I don’t know how much they charge, I am not popular, so don’t take my word for it). But you get the gist. However, the price you want to invest in your comic should be about $60-$120 per page. You can find comic artists all over the place, in almost every social media. Like finding an artist to work with is like the easiest thing out there. The internet is flooded with artists, and even more with artists who don’t get paid, so the last thing they would want to do is turn down a paid offer, and an opportunity to get the best job out there.

If you want to do unpaid collaborations, I guess that changes then. It is hard to keep a project ongoing with another artist who isn’t getting paid for that project. The best thing you can do is assure them that you can earn from that project one way or another.

I would also talk about the writers getting paid from an artist to help them with their story however, I am not familiar with how that works since it is usually the other way around. Like 90% of the time, the writers hire artists to bring their novel into a comic, but it isn’t impossible for it to be the other way.

I have no experience with that, so I will leave that to someone else who has more knowledge on that part.

What you might want to look for when hiring an artist, however, is really important. An artist should be able to provide a portfolio and vouch for themselves. Look for these things in their portfolio:

Characters, preferably full bodies in different poses showing their capability to capture different moments in your novel.

Emotions, how well they can express the characters’ emotions through drawing.

Backgrounds, preferably each of the following: forest, mountains, cities, towns, indoors.

Important objects, depends a lot on the genre of your story. If you have a mecha character or a furry, or have a lot of weapons, then you have to look into that as well and ask the artist if they can or allow you to draw those things.

And also, discuss with the artist their way of payment, how many revisions they allow, how often to reach out, what type of script they prefer, if they’re comfortable drawing a specific genre, and how they go about giving the rights to their art.

Giving the rights to their art is an important aspect which we will discuss later on, and a clear discussion is important to preserve a long-lasting collaboration.