Oh cool!! Thank you very much!

Alas, not this year! Thanks for thinking of me though! Hopefully I'll be able to go back in the future.

Okay! I'll do my best!! :") THIS MIGHT BE LONG I TALK A LOT.

1) I say, don't even worry about an audience until you've finished at least 5-10 pages. At least, especially if you want to do a story-based comic! When I first started posting TNH, the only people who knew about it were my friends, and I just posted it for them. If you're a member of any forums, add the webcomic to your signature. Add a link to the webcomic on your DeviantArt signature! Post updates on Deviantart, or at least post teaser links like I do on tumblr. Just share it with people you're already connected to when you're first starting out! With TNH, I didn't even join TopWebComics until comic #33, which, even at 3x a week, is 11 weeks in!
You can buy Project Wonderful advertising, and you can join groups that'll have an interest in whatever your comic is, you can try to find a webcomic group to join and promote each other's comics, do guest art for other comics you love that you think are similar in interest to yours and try to find audiences that would overlap... but all of these things should wait until you've really gotten into the story and have something there that people could get super hooked on. I cannot tell you the number of times I've gone looking for a comic, found a nice-looking one, but when there were only 3 or 4 pages there, not enough to get me interested in the story, I never remembered to come back.

TL;DR the best way to drum up interest is to not worry about drumming up interest, and just post good pages! Webcomics build slowly, and that's okay! Take that time to settle into your update schedule. Runewriters looks like it came in with an audience, but that's only because I started with TNH and AWW!

To answer the actual question, though, the best attention I've received for my comics has been from making friends with webcartoonists. I put one popular wecomicker in TNH, she linked to the cameo on her website, and I got lots of new readers! It was like my big break! But other cartoonists I've drawn in TNH have just thanked me for the cameo, and that was nice too. Meanwhile Runewriters was featured on DA once because I asked ~mleiv for a banner to link to her gorgeous webcomic in my links page -- she checked out the comic, liked it, and suggested it as a DD!
The thing that makes these all good (and non-pesky) is that I was never asking someone to feature me or look at my comic, nor was that ever the intent. I just wanted to spread the love! If you do that, love will come back to you in some small way. :")

2) I think really the important thing is that it matches the style of the rest of the art! If that's the style you're using for everything else, then SUDDENLY HAVING A REALISTIC SHADING STYLE FOR THICK FUR would be quite jarring! In the style of art you linked, I'd probably use the lineart to indicate the fur's texture moreso than shading it a different way? That'd be my guess, anyway!

3) If you do not think you'll be able to keep to a consistent schedule then do not promise a consistent schedule! I've seen some webcomics that say they "update whenever, so follow on twitter or RSS for updates," I've seen some artists with health issues who update once a week, but don't specify the update day, so that they can update whenever in the week they're feeling most up to it. Updating less often makes the going slower, though! TNH seemed to climb in popularity much more quickly than Runewriters is now, and I would chalk that up largely to the fact that TNH updated 3x a week and RW is only 1x. If you're okay with that, then go for it! Just don't be discouraged that it'll be a little slower. ;u;
The thing that will turn people away is if you SAY you'll update, say, once a week, and then over and over have to renege on that promise. People will resent a comic that says it updates weekly and then doesn't! Just make your update schedule one that you HONESTLY BELIEVE YOU CAN MEET, barring disaster, and the occasional missed update is okay. :")

4) I usually use Ka-Blam's templates as reference! [link] If you ever want to print your comic, it's good to be sure that it's pretty close to a standard size. :") You could probably get away with working a little smaller than A3 if you need to (most standard comic pages end up being close to 6x9 plus trim) -- just make sure you have a copy at 300dpi if you hope to print it later!



I think that's everything? Hope it helps! Lemme know if you have any questions or need me to explain anything better! :"D