Just wondering because I see the artwork is just on a higher level. Specifically Tower of God. The art is amazing and its coloring is beautiful. Its a weekly release, so I wonder how Tower of God manages to never miss a release or author getting sick like authors of Jump. To do good art, many pages, and add color seems impossible in a weekly release schedule.
Depends. They don't have a large team usually, maybe 2-3 assistants or so for webtoons like Tower of God or Noblesse. Some webtoons like Kubera are the work of a single person (though sometimes her familly helps out). You haven't been reading Tower of God long enough by the way, the author most certainly got sick and took leaves before, he notably has developped wrist problems from drawing so much.
Colouring and simple tone jobs are done by assistants. But not a large team AFAIK. Webtoon artists employ at most two assistants. However, most webtoon artists don't have any assistants at all.
I can't recall which webtoon but there was one that had 1 author and 1 artist, and they would go on hiatus because the artist would often get sick... so I doubt they have assistants
The battles have only been WHOOOOSH!! and BAAANG!! with light fx and stuff. I dont think he need large teams for that
Its depend. Some artists work alone. and get a rest every so often. Some that are more popular have assistants. Anyway its depend on artist.
You should also keep in mind that if you break it down then most webtoons are like 10-15 pages while proper mangas have 18+ pages
The author does take breaks. There was once a longer break for some reason or another and I believe there were a few shorter ones as well.
And does coloring not take time? Its isn't a cheap coloring either and well done. Also Tower of God is very long. More so than say The Gamer in recent arcs.
He's taken a lot more breaks than that, and longer ones too. I should know, I followed Tower of God from nearly the beginning. Once, he had to take a decently long break because he was supposed to get wrist surgery, though it seems he didn't get the surgery in the end and just rested (not sure if he got surgery since). However, he Did take on his first assistant after that. As for the coloring, actually, depending on the style, black & white with tones can take longer than coloring. In particular, manga lines tend to be finer, and it takes time to add those individual shading lines etc. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google up a few images of series like Berserk or Vagabond (Berserk isn't weekly, but it'll give you an idea of how black and white can also be very time consuming).
Colouring can be done quickly and cheaply. Nowadays, a lot of artists draw digitally using softwares like Manga Studio. I personally use Manga Studio 5 and it can really cut down on the time you need. Well, if you can draw in the first place, of course. Unlike Japanese manga artist who mostly still use the old manual method of drawing, cutting and the such due to being traditionally inclined, the Koreans had no such qualms. With digital softwares, colouring can take anywhere between 10 minutes to 30 minutes per panel, even those seemingly complicated by manga standards. Considering that webtoons rarely go past 20 pages mark (if you break them down), that's not even one day's job. You got 6 days to work on the rest, 5 days if you celebrate weekends or 4 days if you celebrate both weekends. With digital software, if you make a mistake with something, you can just edit that layer or redo that layer.