How long does it take you to finish one graphic novel page?

[idid]

Just curious how long does it take people to finish one graphic novel page that is not a personal project but has a client, from drafting to coloring, but not include the time it takes for lettering, since lettering is often handled separately.

Of course different people draw at different speeds, and I vaguely remember Jake said in a podcast he can draw up to 5-10 pages per day? Hopefully, I can get a bit more data here.

Thanks you for your inputs!

[NessIllustration]

@idid I wonder if he meant just the pencils. 5-10 pages from start to finish a day seems a bit impossible LOL... When I had my webcomic, it took me about... 8-10 hours from start to finish for one page. But then, it was in black and white and a pretty quick, loose style.

EDIT - Here's a page for reference:

[braden H]

I'm certain Jake didn't do 5-10 fully coloured pages a day from start to finish.
But then again I dunno!

It takes me between 4-6 hours for a cully coloured paged from start to finish. Depends on how many panels there are. More panels means more time.

This was aboot 4 hours or so?

Bear in mind, though, I cut what illustrative teeth I have on 400 pages or so of webcomic (so I'm kinda geared for it) and I'm using clip studio which streamlines a LOT of the irritating finicky layout stuff.

[K.Flagg]

Yeah I think Jake was just referring to penciling. I can probably pencil that many pages in a day but inking and coloring is a whole other story. It takes a few hours to ink a page sometimes even digitally and full colors probably 8-10 hours per page for me.

[jdubz]

Don't forget that your style is going to influence things a lot. Compare the above page examples with something like Catwad, and there's a pretty big detail gap between them as well. You'd be able to knock out twice as much with less detailed stuff like that.

[braden H]

@jdubz said in How long does it take you to finish one graphic novel page?:

Don't forget that your style is going to influence things a lot. Compare the above page examples with something like Catwad, and there's a pretty big detail gap between them as well. You'd be able to knock out twice as much with less detailed stuff like that.

Very true! Style plays a huge role.

Also the more pages you complete the faster you'll get. You'll find out where you can streamline things and what corners can be cut.

[StudioLooong]

In this episode of Graphic Novel TK they go into time estimating and scheduling, may be a helpful refrence: https://soundcloud.com/graphicnoveltk/episode-11-how-to-make-a-graphic-novel

[Jake Parker]

Good question! Here's my breakdown:

Layout: 1-2 hours (i'm usually also figuring out dialogue at this stage so that takes longer, but if I'm working from a script about an hour)

Pencils: 1-3 hours (all depends on how much detail in the page)

Inks: 1-2 hours

Colors: 2-5 hours (the longest part is the flatting. If I have the money I usually hire an assistant to do this for me, then I go in and adjust the coloring, lighting, shadow, and any special effects needed.

So a page can take me 5-12 hours from start to finish. On average I'm doing about 8 hours a page.

[Jake Parker]

One other idea to make things move faster:

Spend a lot of time on a character sheets for the heads. Draw them in a bunch of different angles like this:

Then once you've done your layouts place one of the heads you've already drawn in the spot so it matches the angle and trace over the top of it. Helps a lot if you're doing your layouts and pencils digitally.

[idid]

Thank you @NessIllustration @jdubz @K-Flagg and @Braden-Hallett for your inputs, you guys do gorgeous work! So on average 8-10 hours seems to be reasonable number, I would say, and a 200-page project is almost a whole year of hard work. I think I underestimated the workload of graphic novels before. and there's also the time back and forth between illustrators and editors. I am totally amazed!

Also thank you @Jake-Parker for clarifying and your tips. Never thought of it before , but it would be very helpful to prepare a character sheet like that.

[Kayla Groening]

@StudioLooong I was literally listening to this episode as I read your comment. Spooky.