100 days of art

[Lensing]

What skills did it force you learn and what is the difference for you compared to normal practice?
Has it changed your system or your thinking about sequential art?

[Leyelle]

For one thing, it forced me to be more consistent. It also forced me to practice specific weakness over and over again (like drawing tall characters and male characters, because one of the two MCs is both tall and male) and drawing positions outside of my comfort zone. I normally just draw people standing and not doing much of anything lol. Because a comic is dynamic, I stumble across each of my weaknesses and have to draw them time and time again.

My comic is about someone learning to draw as well, so I have the male lead bring up my OWN weaknesses in the script so that I have to practice them. The one where he mentions the fact that the female lead needs to draw hands and stop copping out is coming soon XD

[Lensing]

When you write "practice specific weakness", do you mean practice it while you create the comic
or after you created the comic?

I ask because I often get distracted while making the comic and then stop making the comic
because I start practicing again and in the end I only practice instead of finishing the comic

[Leyelle]

the comic is my practice. I allow my art to improve as I draw each episode because my art is allegedly the main character's art and the story is about her learning to draw. that takes the pressure off my shoulders about making every episode perfect, and then I can just use the story to learn

[Lensing]

But do you sit down after finishing a panel / page and practice or look up specific things?
Like getting better reference or looking up how to draw things that you were not happy with

[Leyelle]

Yep. I find videos tutorials and reference images for the things that the comic makes me realize that I can't draw, and compiled a list so that i can practice and improve at them. The list is pretty long at this point, so I still have a LOT of them to work on. Basically the comic help me find my weaknesses. The main thing I've done a lot of research on is actually one I've used more in my secondary comic than my main one, which is drawing dark skin tones. But doing practice lessons on drawing 3D shapes (because I realized I'm lacking a lot of the basics) has helped me a lot with the main comic as well.

[Lensing]

Thanks for the detailed answer, that´s exactly what I wanted to know and I think it´s
very smart to do it that way.

I was only drawing when I was younger, no sketches, I always started with the final
outlines. That´s how my brother still draws today and he is publishing books in that
style. Then I had a long training and theory period and I didn´t draw many comics
in that years. This is a save way to burn out because I took all the fun out of drawing.

Now I´m slowly trying to get back into drawing pages regular again and I´m trying to find a similiar
way like you are doing it, but so far I have no idea how I will do that

[Leyelle]

yeah, different methods probably work differently for different people, but when I start specifically drawing what I want to draw, then I realize all the things I need to improve at, which is what the comic i about. It helps me practice them. For instance, in the comic episode I'm illustrating right now, the male lead comments that the female lead needs to start drawing from reference, and so from that episode forward, the panels will actually be drawn using reference. When he comments that she needs to practice more dynamic poses, the whole panel will have dynamic poses (instead of my "just standing" bad habit), etc. I'm basically calling myself out and holding myself accountable using the comic. I've not worked on this comic as much as I'd like to recently, but I had to go get a reference just a week or so ago to figure out how to draw the cartoon "double face" that trips me up. Like they use in "Calvin and Hobbes."

[Lensing]

It´s great because you are working on a goal and give your practice purpose.
Learning theory like for example "composition" only makes sense when you
can try it out directly and see what you want to improve on.

The same with everything else, figure drawing can burn you out when you do it
without purpose. But it´s fun when you do it in the context of a story that you love

[Lensing]

Day 3 of finishing a page every day and I finished page 3. I can´t upload it
online because it would put too much mental pressure on me to upload it.
I feel like I´m learning a lot by doing this

I did a lot of sketches today and then I tried to draw something with a drawing
technique I never tried before. I drew a very quick sketch, then filled the whole
figure with one color and then drew the details over the silhouette. It was kind
of fun but I don´t know if I would use it in a comic. It also feels weird to draw
like this but it came out kind of retro looking

[simplykit]

@Leyelle

My comic is about someone learning to draw as well

ooh kinda like bakuman the anime! cool, well done on the art work, keep up the good work!

@Lensing
nice work buddeh! your character is looking sharp! keep it up

[Lensing]

I did some figure drawing warm up.
I´m looking forward to january and to start my next comic project

[Leyelle]

I was frustrated by the fat characters I saw being posted on IG, so I decided to draw my own fat AND beautiful pinoy queen

I used to draw lots of plus-sized characters analog and i only used one colored pencil for those drawings, so i thought i'd do this drawing all in different shades of blue. I never gave my old drawings faces, so that's an improvement/change I've made now. Otherwise, the concept is the same: Gorgeous monochromatic fat/plus-sized fashionistas

[Lensing]

Well done, I like the pose

[Lensing]

I´m drawing one pose per hour today and I try to make 10.
I work with a timer

[Leyelle]

Cool! I like these so far.

[Leyelle]

Thanks, I'm trying to stop drawing all my characters just standing there not doing anything XD

[Lensing]

It´s really hard to give them something to do though

[Leyelle]

It definitely is. My brain has lots of fashion and hairstyle ideas but very few pose ideas lol

[Lensing]

It only works for me when I tell a specific story and even then posing is hard.
I think it´s easier for people who drew superheros because there is a lot of
fighting, runnng, flying or general posing and harder for people who draw
comics where the people are talking a lot. My characters mostly stand around
and talk to each other. That´s also something I have to consider when I make a
comic because I can´t have them standing around talking to each other for 3 pages