Attention to detail in your art :3

[quakeulf]

I always like elaborate drawings, but of course it's within reason. It shouldn't be impossible to read or follow, but I like a certain richness in the art.

I've also noticed that I am probably the only one who has gone to this extent of doing background art for my own comics throughout the years. As, you can see here in this top panel:

I created every building from scratch in Blender 3D and assembled them on a grid in Blender afterwards and used particles to render a chaotic city scene where there are too many people and too few vehicles to allow for any but a few roads which are covered by moon sand. It's probably a good few weeks worth of work behind that one panel, but to me it is all worth it. Here are some of the buildings up close.

It's not the first time I have done this. I've done this for almost all of my longer comics in the past, including this (as you can tell I wasn't that well-versed with comic lettering and making speech bubbles then): http://quakeulf.suxos.org/tegneserier/lemon3/02.jpg

However, as mentioned earlier this does take a lot of time and in print all the little details get lost, but I am satisfied just knowing that I put them in there and that they're accounted for, however uninteresting they could be.

What I could improve though is to make things a bit more coherent style-wise, but unfortunately when doing things without money and little time there are certain limitations I have to take into account, and I don't want to sacrifice the world I have spent so much time building.

So how about you, how do you add that little extra to your art? :3

[thekampe]

Oh my gosh, well first I would like to thank you for the impressive amount of work and love you put into your art, wow. It's really amazing. Great job!

For me, I can't say that I go to that extent, just because I don't have the patience, but I do take of lot of care when making my characters. Each of them usually has a detail that I keep consistent, like the hair lines never cross, or they have a dent in their design. It's not much, but it keeps me happy.

[quakeulf]

Consistency is a nice thing to have. That's why I like to work in 3D as everything remains the same from any angle and I don't have to redraw.

However, organic things like folds in clothing and hair I redraw from page to page, as well as freckles. This also gets very inconsistent, but I just have to roll with it for now.

[apocryphagraphics]

You're not totally alone. There are a few of us doing some pretty crazy detailed artwork in our stories. I find it's just a matter of patience and budgeting your time correctly. You just figure out how much time your going to give yourself for each update and let trial and error decide how much detail you can get away with. Or you can do the reverse and figure out how long it takes you to do the detail level you desire for your comic and schedule your updates accordingly. Either way I think if you put as much effort into your story people will be willing to wait a bit longer for high quality work. Here's a page from my comic Heroes for Ghosts. I update one page once a week. Slow, but hopefully worth it!

[Niles]

I've always thought of the little things, even secrets. I'm not an environment artist, more of a character designer - But when I started getting into comics and such I made it a mission to learn more. Lucky enough, environments are now - almost - a breeze for me and have improved. For me it's all about character detail, you see them and they interact the most out of the whole comic. When characters get into a fight, that wound would still be visible on the characters body for a few chapters, such as a black eye or a patch on the body. But at the moment, which is my favourite detailed piece, is this one.

[AnnaLandin]

So how about you, how do you add that little extra to your art? :3

I don't use 3D-tools, but when it comes to buildings that the characters will be spending more than one or two pages hanging around, I draw up a sketch of the whole building in a separate document, so I know what it looks like from all important angles.

I've also drawn minor interior design stuff in separate documents - like carpet-patterns, banners and symbols, etc. - so that I know what stuff like that looks like, when it's going to appear in more than one panel.

It's a bit time-consuming, but it does make for a more cohesive look in the end.

[carloswebcomic]

I once did an experiment by making rooms and buildings in Skecthup then using them as guides to ink over.
They came out pretty damn good, the problem was that it took sooooooooooooooo long and when you're doing a self contained joke-per-page format, you can't afford to take too long. So I had to go back to my old, simpler method.

[phen]

With regards to details, I don't have super spectacular technical details in my pages but I like to have fully illustrated panels even behind the speech balloons. I know with some media, it's kinda cool to have high-res versions of art WITHOUT speech balloons, title blocks, textual info, etc. eating the details! At first, with my pages, it was simply incidental -- I'd forget to unhide the balloon layer while I worked on inking and painting. Then, it was such a habit, I decided it was worth the extra time spent to fully flesh out the scenes, oblivious of balloon placement.

So now, I have the option, if need ever arises, to offer balloon-less pages! I LIKE IT.

[Michelle]

I love putting careful detail into my comic page environments and really appreciate seeing it in other people's comics. I've seen your comic before and I really enjoy the artwork! I can tell a lot of care was put into it.

I also use 3D models for my environments starting with chapter 2 of my comic. Chapter 1 didn't use models, and it took a reeaally long time to finish a page. Now that I'm using models, it really frees up time that would have been spent plotting out perspective drawings. Though I don't build models quite as intricate as yours, which look really cool btw. I use just a blocky base model for things like cityscapes and then draw over/adjust them to add details like doors, signs, textures etc. .

[iddqd]

I've also noticed that I am probably the only one who has gone to this extent of doing background art for my own comics throughout the years.

I find that most people I know who do comics do so because they're obsessed with drawing people, but rarely the environments they live in. Which is a shame, because the two can and probably should interact in the story.

I tend to go an extra mile, like maybe here and the first page here. I do find that economy of details and "sniping" details becomes more important as there are fewer and fewer hours in a day I can devote to drawing. There's a balance there somewhere, but I can't find it yet.

And speaking of things few people do, you have a very nice use of solid blacks.

[gateofselidor]

I tend to add a lot of detail when I colour by adding lots of texture to the backgrounds. My lineart isn't exactly minimalist either. Unlike most webcomic artists, I actually like backgrounds more than people (at least, when I really get to go to town with them - plainer backgrounds serve their purpose, but are pretty boring).

All of my backgrounds are drawn traditionally with pencil on paper, often with manual perspective grids when I need them. I then ink and colour them digitally. I can model in 3D, but I really like doing my pencils with an actual pencil, so I've never used 3D to help me with my backgrounds. I've spent a lot of time either being around or working with architectural drawings, both modern digital ones and the old pen and ink stuff, because my father is an architect and I've worked a little in the industry myself, and it probably influences the way I draw and observe buildings, and helped me a lot with perspective.

Here's a panel from my latest page:

[Shanny8]

I try to make my backgrounds look detailed, but also try to keep the balance between them not looking too busy. A lot of my time is spent trying to create a balance on my page, so as to keep the reader's eye interested.

And yeah, Clip Studio has made it a LOT easier for me to render out some of the backgrounds/scenes. I've rendered out entire panels with it, coz I could.

@gateofselidor LOVE the detail in the wood paneling...I wouldnt go that far myself. My current page that I'm working on, I'm drawing cars that have been destroyed from a battle- lots of broken glass, torn metal, wood paneliing, plastic, auto parts, and destroyed asphalt...loads of fun..!

[Kayke]

I think since my art style is a little looser than some other comics people don't realize how much time I put into world building, which is fine by me because I like my art to feel fun. But I do floor layouts for every location in the comic and I always try to think of what a place would actually look like if the characters were using it. I hate when I'm reading a comic (or watching a TV show or a movie) and the character goes into their bedroom and there's like nothing in it? That's a pet peeve of mine.

So while my style itself is not super detailed, I like to add objects as details to make my backgrounds more interesting!

[Thesleepypencil]

I don't really do much for my current comic because i wanted to use it as a beginner comic where i can test myself. BUT my wip comic oh boy. I want to shove as many little details into it as possible.


I have a archive of background characters that i bring back from tine to time with little joke stories. I have patterns i hand draw. And golden embellishments here and there for a pretty old book embelished feel. I was highly inspired by the book of kells when it comics to this comic

[mappypaint]

Since my comic is racing themed. I give the cars more details than anything else.

I know alot of people hates drawing cars, but I like drawing them in detail up to the point that you can tell the make and model of it. But for this concept race car, I plan of building a scale model of it so I can view it in 3D from all angles. That way I can draw it in different views and add more details to it. ^u^

[quakeulf]

Textyuurs are a good thing to have if it can be made to fit. :3c

[Marton]

I like to put secrets and details hinting to future characters. Also there are few secret references to movies and video games.

[sarrowsmith10]

I love the embellishments! It really adds charm!

[sarrowsmith10]

I personally really like drawing backgrounds, albeit I wasn't very good at it, when I started making comics. It's an acquired skill for sure. I really like this page from Goblins of Razard:

and this one:

Like the little designs on the chair/bed. I try to make the details not stand out too much or be too overwhelming.

I also think that little details on buildings, like imperfections in the walls, or rocks on the ground adds a bit of depth and makes scenes look less like a flat rendering. Here is an example from our comic VSEPR:

[donathinfrye]

First off, your devotion to detail is pretty cool! If you're going to be spending a lot of time in that city, I can see the value in taking the time to model the entire city. Of course, if that city's just a small part of the world of your comic, then the time spent is still valuable, but it'd be more than what I'd want to spend.

Background detail can be a great tool. With it, you can set hints to foreshadow future plot elements or re-enforce theme and atmosphere. It can help immerse the reader in the world of your story. Of course, sometimes, you have to let the background go to emphasize some important emotional or physical movement in the foreground. Our art's pretty detailed in Atonement.

We take a lot of time painting the characters, most of all. But there are also little details, like the effects on the floating screen in panel 1 above, or the reflection in the broken visor on panel 2.

But sometimes it's nice to really develop the background of a page, whether that's a sprawling cityscape or a bar full of diverse characters each with their own story. There are a lot of ways to <3 detail, from the story specifics, to little clues in your art (showing vs telling), to doing what you've done and designing an entire city!

I think there are some important things to ask yourself when considering details for your comic, too! Like, "Okay, cool. I've imagined this incredible, rich world. How to I communicate that depth to my readers? How do I make it matter to the story? How do I do those things in a way that's immersive and not forced or confusion?"

If you've gone far enough to develop this amazing mythology in your mind, make sure you go a step further and think about how you want to effectively share that with your readers! It sounds like a no-brainer, but I hear from folks all the time who develop a mythology and then pretty much skimp over any opportunities to express the depth of their world through their storytelling.