How to Make a Webtoon: Vertical Scroll Format, Panel Pacing and Tools

To make a webtoon, write a short episode as a sequence of beats, draw it as one tall vertical strip with generous gaps between panels, letter it large enough to read on a phone, and publish it in regular episodes on a platform like WEBTOON Canvas or Tapas. The difference from a printed comic is not the art. It is that the reader's thumb, not a turning page, controls the pacing, and you design for that.

This guide covers the format itself (canvas, gutters, rhythm), the storytelling habits that work on a scrolling screen, colour versus black and white, how long an episode should be, lettering for phones, and the publishing options. It also answers the neighbouring question people search for, how to make a manga, and says plainly what ComicInk can and cannot do for a webtoon today.

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What a webtoon actually is

"Webtoon" is a Korean-born format: a comic built to be read by scrolling down a phone screen instead of flipping pages. The Korean word for comics is manhwa, and the vertical, full-colour look is what most people mean when they say webtoon. Japanese manga is traditionally printed, read right to left, and usually black and white. Our AI manga vs AI comics post covers that split in detail.

Three structural differences matter when you start:

• One continuous canvas. There are no page breaks. An episode is a single long image (or a stack of tall slices) and the reader moves through it at their own speed.
• Space is a storytelling tool. Because nothing forces the next panel into view, the empty gap between panels is how you control timing.
• Episodic release. Webtoons are serials. You are designing a chapter that has to end well and bring the reader back next week.

If you want the broader basics of making comics first, start with how to make a comic book, then come back here.

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Canvas size and format for vertical scroll

Platforms are strict about width and flexible about height, because height is the thing that scrolls.

WEBTOON's own creator materials specify episode images under 800 pixels wide, with taller images sliced automatically, and list JPG and PNG as accepted formats with limits on file size and image count per episode. Treat that as a starting point and check the current WEBTOON creator handbook before you export, because platforms change their limits. Other platforms publish their own specs, so read the upload guide for wherever you intend to post.

What to take from that, whichever platform you choose:

• Work at a fixed width and let the height grow. Pick the width your target platform accepts, keep it constant for every episode, and draw tall.
• Draw larger, export at the platform's size. Working above the published width keeps lines sharp when the image is downscaled for phones.
• Slice at natural pauses. Long episodes are uploaded as several stacked images. Cut where there is empty gutter space, never through a face, a speech bubble or an action beat, so a slice boundary is invisible.
• Keep a margin. Leave safe space at the left and right edges. Important faces and lettering should not hug the edge of a narrow phone screen.

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Panel pacing and gutters for scrolling

This is the craft part, and where most first webtoons go wrong. In a print comic, the page turn is your pause. In a webtoon, the gutter is.

Use gutter height as a clock. A small gap between two panels reads as "right after". A tall empty gap reads as time passing, a held breath or a change of place. A long stretch of blank space before a reveal makes the reader scroll with a little dread, and that is a tool you do not have on paper.

One idea per screen. A phone shows roughly a panel or two at a time. If a panel needs the reader to study three things, split it. Each scroll stop should deliver one beat: an expression, a line of dialogue, a reveal.

Vary the rhythm. A chain of identical panels at identical spacing turns into wallpaper. Mix them:

• Wide establishing panels to set a place.
• Narrow close-ups, often stacked quickly, for tension or fast exchanges.
• Tall panels that the eye drops through for falling, climbing or a long reveal.
• Full-width panels with no border for a splash moment.

Tell vertically, not across. Multi-panel grids with side-by-side panels shrink badly on a phone. Most webtoon layouts are a single column with the occasional two-up. Our comic panel layouts guide explains the print grid logic; for scroll, the useful lessons are the ones about emphasis and size rather than the grids themselves.

Put the big reveal at the bottom of a gap. The reader has to commit to a scroll to see it. That tiny delay is the whole effect.

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Colour versus black and white

Most webtoons are full colour, and readers on phone-first platforms tend to expect it. Colour does three jobs in a scrolling format: it separates characters from backgrounds on a small screen, it signals mood shifts without needing words, and it helps a long strip feel like a continuous place rather than a stack of drawings.

Black and white is still entirely valid, and much faster to produce. It suits horror, noir and manga-style stories that rely on contrast and screentone. If you are a solo creator working weekly, a limited palette (one or two accent colours over greyscale) is a common compromise that keeps production sane and still looks designed.

Whichever you choose, decide before episode one. Switching mid-series is jarring.

Consistent colour per character matters more than rich colour. If a protagonist's jacket drifts from green to teal over twelve episodes, readers notice. Keep a small palette sheet for each main character and each recurring location.

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Episode length and cliffhangers

There is no universal rule, but there are working ranges. Many serialised webtoons run a few dozen panels per episode, which scrolls in a couple of minutes. Shorter is easier to sustain weekly; longer gives you room for a full scene. Pick a length you can produce on a schedule for months, not one you can manage once.

Plan each episode as a unit with its own shape:

1. Hook in the first screen. The opening panels should already contain a question, an image or a line that makes someone keep scrolling. Do not open with a recap.
2. One goal, one obstacle. A single clear thing the character wants in this episode, and something in the way.
3. A turn near the end. A reversal, a reveal or a decision.
4. End on the cliffhanger. The last panel is the most important, because it is what makes the "next episode" tap feel necessary. It does not have to be an explosion. A question, an arrival or a line of dialogue that changes the meaning of the episode all work.
5. Leave a clean stopping gap. A tall empty space or a simple end card, so the cliffhanger lands before the platform's navigation appears.

Write the cliffhanger first, then work backwards. It is much easier to build an episode toward a known last panel.

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Lettering for phones

Text that looks fine on a monitor can be unreadable on a six-inch screen.

• Go larger than you think. Dialogue should be comfortably legible at the width the platform displays, which is much narrower than your canvas.
• Fewer words per bubble. Two or three short bubbles read faster than one paragraph.
• Reading order is top to bottom. In a single column this is simple, but make sure bubbles within one panel still step downward in speaking order.
• Keep bubbles off the slice lines. Text cut by an image boundary breaks on some devices.
• Contrast. Dark text on a clean light bubble. Reserve coloured or textured text for sound effects and emphasis.
• Sound effects as art. Draw them into the scene and size them to the beat, as in print.

A good test: shrink your export to the size it will appear on a phone and check whether you can still read the dialogue without squinting.

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Where to publish

Neutral options, since the right one depends on your goal:

Platform	What it is	Good for
WEBTOON Canvas	The open, self-publishing side of WEBTOON, where creators can post their own series	Reaching a large vertical-scroll audience; learning the format
Tapas	A comics and serial-fiction platform with its own creator programme	Serial comics with a community
Your own site	Full control, no built-in audience	Portfolios and long-term ownership
Social media	Single panels, short vertical clips or carousels	Finding readers and sending them to episodes
ComicInk Creator Store	Publish and optionally sell your comic from a Creator Store	Direct readers and paid issues

Read each platform's current terms, content rules and upload specs before you commit. Programmes and revenue rules change, so we do not describe them here.

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Making a manhwa-style comic with ComicInk

ComicInk is an AI comic maker. You describe a story, it writes a script, designs your cast and renders the pages, and you edit them. For a webtoon-style project, this is how it maps, and where its limits are.

What it does well for this format:

• A Manhwa art style. ComicInk has a Manhwa style, the full-colour, smooth-shaded Korean webcomic look, one of its 12 art styles. You can also pick Manga for the black and white look.
• A tall 9:16 webcomic page size. Alongside the standard, manga and graphic-novel print sizes, ComicInk has a webcomic page size with a 9:16 portrait ratio, which is the tall, phone-friendly shape.
• Consistent characters. The same character keeps the same look across pages, which is the hardest thing about a long colour serial.
• Lettering from your script. Dialogue and captions are placed on the page for you, with 22 dialogue languages supported.

What it does not do: ComicInk pages are page-format, not a single endless vertical canvas. You get a series of tall 9:16 pages rather than one continuous scrolling strip with variable gutter heights. If you want the gutter-as-clock technique described above, you would compose the final strip yourself, for instance by stacking exported pages in an image editor and adding spacing. ComicInk is best used here to draft the story, cast and look quickly, and to produce finished tall pages.

A workable path:

1. Open the manga and manhwa maker and describe your premise in a sentence or two.
2. Choose the Manhwa style for full colour, or Manga for black and white.
3. Choose the webcomic page size for the tall format.
4. Review the script and cast, then render. A free account comes with 100 credits to start.
5. Edit panels and lettering, then export the pages.
6. If you would rather plan by hand first, print the free manga panel template and thumbnail your episode on paper.

Then stack or slice the exported pages to the width and slice height your publishing platform wants.

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How to make a manga

People searching "how to make a manga" usually want the print version of the same process, so here is the short version:

1. Write a one-shot first. Eight to twenty pages with a complete beginning, middle and end. Finishing one story teaches more than abandoning a series.
2. Thumbnail the whole thing. Tiny rough sketches of every page, in reading order (right to left for traditional manga), before any inking.
3. Design characters with a model sheet. Front, side and back, plus two or three expressions.
4. Pencil, then ink, then tone. Screentone replaces colour: patterns of dots and lines for shading.
5. Letter last. Fit bubbles to the artwork, not the other way round.
6. Publish. Online platforms, print-on-demand, or a Creator Store.

If you would rather not draw every page by hand, the same steps work with an AI tool doing the rendering. Our turn a story into manga guide walks through that approach.

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Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating a webtoon like a shrunk print page. Multi-panel grids that work at print size turn to mush on a phone.
• Starting too ambitious. Plan a first season of ten episodes, not sixty.
• No schedule. Readers subscribe to rhythm. A monthly release you keep beats a weekly one you drop.
• Skipping the cliffhanger. The last panel is the retention mechanism.
• Tiny text. Check on a real phone.

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FAQ

How do I make a webtoon from scratch?

Write a short episode, thumbnail it as a vertical strip, draw or generate the panels at the width your platform accepts, add generous gutters, letter it large, and publish on a platform such as WEBTOON Canvas or Tapas. Plan the last panel as a cliffhanger.

What size should a webtoon be?

Fix a width your platform accepts, keep it constant, and let the height grow. WEBTOON's creator handbook lists episode images under 800 pixels wide, but check the current specs of the platform you post to.

Can I make a webtoon with AI?

For drafting and rendering, yes. ComicInk can produce a script, characters and tall 9:16 colour pages in the Manhwa style. It produces page-format images rather than one continuous scroll, so assembling the final vertical strip is a manual step.

Should a webtoon be in colour?

Most are, and colour helps on small screens. Black and white works for horror, noir and manga-style stories, and is faster to produce.

How long should a webtoon episode be?

Long enough to complete one scene with a turn and a cliffhanger, short enough to produce on schedule. Many run a few dozen panels.

What is the difference between manga, manhwa and webtoon?

Manga is Japanese comics, traditionally printed, read right to left and often black and white. Manhwa is the Korean term for comics. Webtoon usually means manhwa-style comics designed for vertical scrolling on phones, typically in full colour.

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Ready to try it? Make a manga or manhwa-style comic, or start from a prompt.