Comics drawn with a sketchy/unpolished style?

[Jelw]

...what are your opinions about the manner?

I'm posting this as an individual who has always had a ton of difficulty refining their art past a sketching stage- and as an individual who has always had a terrible time finding the fun in coloring that most people seem to get. I know black and white webcomics get plenty of audience, as well as grey-scaled and screen-toned series so a lack of color in a webcomic doesn't seem to be an issue. However, most of the black-and-white series I see tend to have clean beautiful line art. For a while I've been contemplating on whether I need to refine my art to a stage I would be satisfied with in lineart, or if maybe I should just go for a comic in a sketchy form since it has always been what my art looks best as.

So what I'm wondering is:
Are there any comics you keep up with that have a consistently sketchy style? (For both colored and uncolored is fine.)
Specifically- are there story comics you follow that do this?
Do you think a sketchy comic would work- and if so do you feel like it would only work for certain genres and/or types of art styles?

...and feel free to add any more feedback relevant!

[noctuidae]

I have neither the patience nor the steadiness for clean lines so my art's pretty firmly in the sketchy domain, haha. and i do have a slight preference for "messy" looking art, as long as it's not to the point where I can't tell how many limbs/mouths/etc a character has.

Right off the top of my head I can reccommend to you Prague Race. It's somewhere in the middle of sketchy and clean. The early pages of Helvetica sorta count, too, I think -- although it's probably because of some custom brushes that they achieved that effect.

I think sketchiness can work for a variety of art styles and genres. It usually indicates a sort of liveliness, movement, or chaos (but of course you can make it calm as well) so whether you've got a comedy or adventure or horror you can make the sketchiness enhance the atmosphere.

[Iron]

When the art is good, it doesn't matter if it's sketchy or not, at least for me : ) (I'm actually a big fan of sketches)
And if you ever read Shingeki no Kyojin, then you will see that even super sketchy style can be very popular (especially when it adds to the grimmness of the story)
My Dog Tag is also sketchy-style, and noone seems to care xD

[bluefairy]

What I am looking in a comic is the story... My opinion is that sometimes the sketches look much better and when you have not refined your skills enough to make the inking, some of the goodness of the sketch may disappear! I personally have had such desire to just make a comic with my sketches. I like them more then the inked and colored version and it would be so much faster to make the pages and the updates! But I never managed to escape from my sense of perfection... So instead I try to develop a skill in inking, so that the sketch doesn't loose anything when I refine it. Nevertheless I've read a marvellous comics in sketchy style that made me feel that my style is too clean and boring. I just couldn't do it myself for some reason. So I think inking and colouring, and shading is not mandatory at all when making comics. The story, the pacing, the way the panels flow do much more to the good experience. The sketchy style may only do good to a comic, if it is done with ease and express the content well enough!

[keii4ii]

Let me start by saying most of the stuff I read is story-driven (i.e. not gag-a-days).

How sketchy is sketchy? The style I use for my comic is definitely loose, but not sure if it qualifies as sketchy.

The B&W comics at clone.manga are definitely sketchy, though, and they are, without exaggeration, some of the most beautifully drawn comics I have ever seen anywhere. Some of them are NSFW though, and the stories can be a hit or miss.

So there's nothing wrong with sketchiness in and of itself. Just make sure it's got enough contrast, and that it's easy to "read" the visuals.

[hierogriff]

I really like Led by a Mad Man, which has a limited palette (could be more interesting than doing grayscale?) and a sketchy style.

As long as the readers can identify what is happening in a panel without much effort, any style will do! Clarity is very important.

[elixiadragmire]

hmmm I would say my comic Silversong was sorta sketchy (not sure what others would say.

The inking is is janky (intentionally) and the colouring is rough.

For a b&w comic that does this well check out Alone

[iamABLE]

dude absolutely love the sketchy style nothing better than the pencil... trying to do that for my own style as well

so go for it

[talissacosta1]

Well, my comic strips are pretty sketchy, because... I don't know, comic strips just can be anything without much work on panneling or whatever (it is nice when you do more stuff, but ya, kno, if it is funny, it is already great)

But those adventure comics or whatever, I am not really good at loosing my style, I wish I was, I would care less about anatomy, etc, but... nah, I cares.

The ones I read I think are pretty sketchy... Pretty Mouth is the first that comes to my mind, and it is great. I read Silversong, but I never saw it as sketchy xDDDDD

But somehting I say about comics is that it is better to do something poorly than not do it. You are going to get better while you are doing it, so maybe... Just save your favorite story for when you are better at it o-o

And there are some easier ways to color or to line, Clip/Manga Studio are AMAZING for lining and scenarios, FireAlpaca, PaintTool SAI are pretty good to lineart too, because they all have a stabilizer thing that makes your lines... nicer (for digital art, at least). To color, for people like me, that do not like painting, Cell-shade ftw. But when you cell-shade it works pretty much the same for b&w or with colors.

[Caelestie]

hmmmmm Shingeki no kyojin is also not very well drawn and it sometimes impede the overall mood. Though it is true that it does add to the grimness of the story.

[Kura]

We used to get a whole bunch of comics like these on Inkblazers. Sometimes it would really add to the feel of the comic and would work well... sometimes it would just look lazy ^^;;; especially when the comic didn't start out sketchy and would progressively get sketchier and more poorly drawn as the pages progressed, until the point where it felt like they just didn't care anymore.

[Jelw]

Sometimes it would really add to the feel of the comic and would work well... sometimes it would just look lazy ^^;;; especially when the comic didn't start out sketchy and would progressively get sketchier and more poorly drawn as the pages progressed

Yeah that's why I was generally looking for comics that took the sketchy style from the get-go so it's evidently a stylistic choice less than a drop of quality. I've seen this often in gag-a-days too where one strip will be a lot lazier and more rushed than most of the standard quality- but gag a days can get away with it here and there more easily since they don't have to keep the continuity of style as much and can get away with more experimentation.

Style wise it's probably safer to start sketchy and gradually get cleaner and sharper art than the other way around, probably, aha.

[Jelw]

It's interesting looking at recommendations because some of you consider art sketchy that I wouldn't! (Then again in my head sketchy= not lineart-y as well.)
Thank you for all the recs- I've definitely got some reading material for my next lazy evening or long train ride. (As well as some more clarity on how I might draw my comic!)

The B&W comics at clone.manga are definitely sketchy, though, and they are, without exaggeration, some of the most beautifully drawn comics I have ever seen anywhere.

They're gorgeous! I'm definitely going to hold onto these for reference- thank you!

[melonramune]

Isn't it all about to what effect sketchy art can have? Telling a story with a sketchy style vs with a neatly drawn style give off completely different vibes. It depends on how the artist wants to express the story. There are things that sketchy art can portray and communicate better than neatly drawn art, but the reverse is also true.
Most webcomics I've seen have pretty neat art, and off the top of my head I can't think of any sketchy styles... Other than Est Em's stuff but she only has like 1 webcomic I believe. Tower of God used to be sketchy, but SIU got a couple assistants so everything's neat now.
As for printed comics, the only sketchy one I actively follow is Hayakawa Nojiko, though maybe Tokyo Ghoul if you count that as sketchy?? Though Sahara Mizu and Ono Natsume are also pretty good.
I know sketchy styles were really popular in '80-'90s shoujo/josei. Most notably Okazaki Kyoko and early Anno Moyoco drawings. Sketchy art is still more prevalent in shoujo, but a lot less now.

[skatuya]

I consider my comic to be sketchy too. But that's my style, I guess. A few years ago I was all about lineart and simple coloring and now... I don't even do lineart at all (I try to get back on that, actually) I just clean up the sketch and add the shades. I feel like the more I try to polish something the worse it looks to me. I draw the prologue in grey scale (plus a dash of red and blue) but I plan on making the comic in color starting the first chapter.
As for comics I've read and has a sketchy stile the fist one that comes to my mind is Pretty mouth. It's completely black and white and I think that style suits the story perfectly.
But I actually heart that, and I find it to be true (for me, at least) that people may tend to like the sketch version of an image than the finished one because when you look at the sketch, you use your imagination to make it a complete one, it's not well defined and you can see it as you like. While a finished, polished image can only be seen as it is. And I noticed that I always like the sketch versions of images better too.

[Doubtcent]

I love to keep my stuff in a sort of unpolished format, to allow others to see each line and mistake, and to give it a sense of human element to it. Have a look at English Project Shorts, now at its 20th episode with each 10th being a color page.

[VermillionWorks]

I wish I wasn't so obsessed with clean lines and could do a more rough line style with confidence, would probably make my life a lot easier since it feels like 80% percent of my drawing time is spent perfecting the freakin' inking. X__x;

[Doubtcent]

I say as long as you keep in style, it doesn't matter how clean or rough it looks. As long as the artwork knows what it's doing.

[Alli]

http://www.deviantart.com/art/GND-Speshul-Wet-n-Fluffy-105896633

This girl does a series based on movie references. I love it. Does the art look really polished? Not at all. But the facial expressions are great and the body language is easy to understand. Also it's funny if you've seen the movies, namely Phantom of the Opera and Labyrinth.

[jonufele]

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