Art consistancy

[dylangandune]

hi,
anyone have any tips on how to be consistant in art style?
sometimes I like to try a lot of different techniques and styles...especially when working digitally...maybe I just get bored with sameness...
anyway some tips would be great...

tapastic.com/series/penniless
tapastic.com/series/drawing-moments

[AngieVX]

I think once you find an art style that you enjoy it'll be pretty easy to you. It's about expressing yourself through art style, does your current style allow you to express your thoughts and emotions?

[gateofselidor]

In terms of just general drawing, you don't need a specific technique. It's fine to just experiment and be as inconsistent as you like. You'll develop a "style" that is recognisable across your work naturally, even if you switch between different looks.

For a comic, you do need a consistent visual style (unless it's part of the comic that you switch between different styles). There's no real trick to that. Keep experimenting with your concept illustrations and sketches until you hit something that you like and can reproduce without too much trouble, and then just draw it. The more pages you draw, the more consistent it will become (although it will probably evolve over time as well).

[R.n.P]

I like it as someone shows inconsistency in art as long as it shows improvement
THE LAST SAMURAI

[zetina]

The only thing I thought of was dedicating some time to messing with techniques and experimenting while using the same ones for the comic. Staying completely the same isn't good either. So the stuff you learn while experimenting can gradually seep into your comic and it'll continue to evolve visually. That's what I think.

[RewindLabs]

*consistEnt

I guess you just need to plan out on the kind of style you wish to use for each idea.

[demthorshie]

I had an issue with being consistent in my work and I think the best advice for this is to find a style and stick to your guns with it! It's always going to be a little difficult to stay consistent at times but there are some things that I do to help me stay on the right track in my comic.

Since I seem to have the most trouble staying consistent with character and background colors, I create color templates for each character so I can refer back to them when I need to. It's really helped a lot.

All in all, I personally don't mind reading comics where the art eventually evolves to be something greater! I think it's awesome to look back and see the progress someone has made with their work sometimes, it means you are growing as an artist.

[SeraphicMayin]

I find that everything an artist draws will have the same Style, simply because the same artist has made it .
However in terms of comics, a consistent visual style would be using the same set of techniques each time. For example, if you want the comic to be just lineart then make sure you choose a method of linearting that you like, and stick with it. Or if you want to use screentones or color, be sure to use the same process or method you started with.
The process and method will always improve even if it doesn't necessarily change style.
In the end, for me, consistency is just trusting my hand and sticking to the process that I know will give me similar results.

[joannekwan]

Have a set way of drawing things and stick to it, is the simplest advice I can give. And by "set way" I mean by using the same medium, brushes, etc. and general proportions— the process in your work.

Example: Right now I have three series, each with their own style.

Erie Waters uses my most simplest style. Thick-ass lines and strict black and white. Character features are reduced and exaggerated in some instances.

Demon House is more traditionally cartoony, expressions can be stretched/exaggerated depending on the character. I mostly use a 15pt round brush for it.

Heavy Horns is the most detailed with more realistic proportions with less exaggeration. I use a 10pt round brush and four shades of gray to tone it.

Every series has a style and the techniques employed for each stays within that style. It would be quite jarring if they switched around.

[sorrelma]

my personal view here is biased because, for me, the issue of consistency has been prominent in my development as an artist so i have strong feelings about it

comics involve a lot of work and, often, a lot of time. for most people, it's inevitable that the style of art will slowly change. you're probably going to grow as an artist while you're working on your comic (and probably BECAUSE OF your comic) but sometimes it's hard to settle into a consistent style, esp if you're updating less than once a week. if your style is changing or improving quickly, it's going to make for a wild ride from one page to the next
that said, i don't think that's BAD. i started doing webcomics in middle school as a way to improve my art and FORCE it to be more consistent. but since i was going through a period of rapid improvement(i was 12 and drawing this really crappy manga style) my comic reflected that. looking back, it's very obvious that the pages were made months apart and that i was experimenting a lot. some of the pages are so different from one to the next(one in black and white, one in color, one in HEAVILY STYLIZED TECHNICOLOR]
i really don't think this is a bad thing, though. experimenting is good! i'm willing to go out on a limb and say, on some level, that's why you made a comic in the first place. experimenting is what allows you to improve
ultimately, your readers will be more bothered by an inconsistent schedule than an inconsistent style. i wouldn't worry about the style. try to maintain similar colors and a consistent story
and just trust yourself with your art

[shazzbaa]

My advice would be: draw a heck of a lot. Like, once you draw the same character 100 times, you'll kind of have a rhythm. Once you've drawn 200 chairs, you'll have a pretty good feel for How You Draw Chairs.

I will say that there's one kind of consistency that is important, and that's, when you're drawing a comic or a series of illustrations, that a character looks like the same character in each panel, that you draw his hair more or less the same way and don't change it randomly each time, that you use roughly the same style of proportions throughout the comic, etc. There's another kind of consistency that isn't really important, and that's Having A Personal Style that's consistent across every drawing you make. That's nice if you have it and like it, but it's by no means necessary. I've seen artists who pride themselves on being able to switch styles to suit the illustration they're working on, and it works for them. If you like working in many different styles, it's not a bad thing to not have One Art Style -- it can be an asset!

[Kamikaze]

On the comic I work on, my team and I come from a background of animation, so, while we have our moments of deviating from style in extreme cases, we use animation techniques to keep our work 'on model'.

Namely by creating turnarounds, expression sheets, and establishing a set style early on. When drawing, cleaning, or working on ink and paint, we're constantly referencing the model sheets we've created. Stuff like

Color guides:

Character turn arounds (nothing super formal just figuring out what they look like from different angles):

Building models for reoccurring backgrounds and props like the Razor compound

or guns!

We also double check ourselves by having our teammates go through and look for any needed revisions or inconsistencies. While we definitely notice over time our work gets better, I think that just comes with knowing we have the set limits of our style, and within those limits we can explore and play. That's why the best page of our very first action scene here:

Looks a lot weaker in comparison to one of our newest scenes here:

Additionally knowing your chocies for thematic color can REALLY help your work feel consistent too. We have direct areas of coolness, heat, saturation and hue that we've stuck to for not only different areas of our world, but also different characters, and even going as far as what colors stand for thematic elements like, 'good' and 'bad'. Using your color choices in consistency with certain thematic traits can be...frankly very fun, and pull your artwork together, without your reader really realizing it. :3

I hope this helped a bit!

[kkitty]

Just change it when you feel like it. Art consistency is something that's basically impossible if you're someone who isn't used to pumping out like 30-40 drawings in a week. I started off drawing like 1 think a month or every two months and now i'm drawing 4 panels daily.

I have a larger fanbase on webtoons and no one really complains about the art style changing, so like I said, there's no harm in just going with it. An important thing to keep in mind is that you're gonna want to think about how you WANT your style to look like. If you don't have a goal, then you can't reach it. And the painful thing is, I started out wanting to do thick lines and a really pop art style, but in the end...I sucked at it. Someday though, maybe I'll be good enough for it.

Now I'm the queen of inconsistency (fight me). I just found the style I know and I'm confident I want to be the permanent art style for my comic and very possibly just the art style I stick with in my whole career. After 8 chapters (two months) of my comic, I started out with

and I'm currently coloring my new chapter like

Which is the goal I wanted to reach (after I failed at the first one)
So just go along with it. It's not like you're working with Marvel, so just do whatever you want until you strike the gold mine. As a final note, trying to keep one art style is what killed my first attempt at a comic, so I highly don't recommend forcing yourself to stay with one style.

[sincerely]

So to sum up, it seems like the consensus is "don't bother" and also "you'll get there with time and practice" and I think that's absolutely true. My artist and I have been working on our comic for three years now and we had basic turnarounds for most of our major characters from the start but what it took to get them looking consistent was just drawing them each a hundred times, so the first two or three chapters of the comic are really wonky and we outright hate some of the early art (as most people do), but it kind of evened out after about a hundred pages.

BUT she's still getting better and better at drawing with each chapter and I think that once you get the basics and your characters are identifiable then striving for improvement really is more important than stylistic consistency.

[Robosaur]

I find that art "inconsistency" is just the product of an artist trying to figure out what style works for them. It doesn't bother me when a comic's art fluctuates a bit as long as it doesn't distract from the overall story. But these experiments almost ALWAYS help artist improve so i believe it's A-Okay to try different things every once in a while!

[dylangandune]

thank you so much for the replies...this is interesting...some things for sure to keep an eye on...thank you all

[dylangandune]

awesome reply as always...i am experimenting with many mediums and supplies...i even flip-flop between digital and traditional...esthetically, i'll always prefer traditional...i'm learning digital and still use the traditional/scan it in method as a crutch...nothing i do is 100% digital or 100% traditional...i like to think of myself as a Prius as far as art goes...(hopefully not as ugly)
i get what you say about using the same brushes or fonts and things like that...i actually gravitate towards just a handful of brushes (hey, just like real life) thank you for the kind words and advice...and based off some of yours and other folks' advice, i had some pretty good months for views and new subscribers in the last few months...someone suggested a flashier logo for the comic...i think that really helped...i made a font from my writing, it's not the most beautiful thing, but it's my writing and it's neat and consistant...legible anyway...
so, as always...keep the lookout...i have all kinds of stuff coming over the horizon
pieces,
dylan