Did your comic start with really crappy art?

[Dingbat1991]

This is in a span of a year. A couple of months ago my old tablet stopped working. I had to get a new one and it might've been a blessing in disguise because the pressure points are so much better than the old one. The character model for Lento back in 2015 is pretty much outdated.

[deceriacomics]

My comic is pretty new, but I still think the art in all my earlier episodes sucked. Such is the life of an artist – perpetually cringing at your older stuff haha. It's totally normal though, everybody has to start somewhere and it's impossible not to improve along the way. Don't worry about it!

I pretty much agree with what everyone else has already said here. I wouldn't bother redrawing your older stuff right now. You're better off focusing your time on improving your skills and moving forward with new episodes. As others have said, sometimes it's actually pretty cool to see the evolution of the characters as the comic style continues to develop.

[wandmagic27]

The art on my comic Illusions and Rabbits sucked at the beginning. For some reason I gave them ridicuously long ears at first and I had a hard time keeping their look consistent. It looks a lot better now after getting advice on how to improve their look. Like what a lot of people on the forum say, it's all a journey.

[Inspector_Spinda]

Depends on whether you are content with your number of readers, or you only have a handful and really want more. Either way you should probably wait a bit before doing anything. I did redraws for my first comic only months after a started (since I'd already improved a lot since I was just starting out) and by the time I finished, the first redraws were already outdated. Wait till you start improving more slowly or need more time to plan out the next chapter of your continuing comic.

[Zanreo]

Yep, my comic started terribly too... not just art-wise, but also generally comic-wise... paneling, dialogue (so much textwall and unnecessary rambling...), jokes/story flow ect. I don't really worry a lot about it, because my comic (on my main site) has the main page set at the last comic anyway (so first thing they see is where my art is at now, if they look further back in archives they'll know I have evolved from that). and my comic isn't a long-form where you have to read from start to end, but more gags and shorter 4-8-page stories you can read in any order (and for the news, well, I imagine many of them are less relevant at this point anyway...) Doesn't mean there aren't pages I want to redo at some point... especially ones where the joke is still good but the art is bleh. I actually redid a whole story a while back... because the old one was just bad, not just art-wise but also comic- and storytelling-wise.

For longform comics, they'll probably have to stick with the "bad" old art for a long time, but I imagine many webcomic readers will expect a comic, especially one that's been going on for a while, to constantly improve its art. If they see your newer update first, there might be a better chance they won't be discouraged by bad old art because then they KNOW this will get better after a while? For tapastic, maybe if you have an image in your "current style/level" in the comic banner, they'll at least see that and see what level they can expect and look forwards too later on. I really like to compare older pages to new ones and see just how much the artist has improved...

Plus, everyone is going to improve no matter what, meaning everyone will have "worse" art at the start. Unless you literally just copypaste the same character (ect.) bases over and over for years, you WILL improve, even if just slightly and slowly - and with that, your older pages will look worse in comparision either way.

[Mharz]

Oh yes my first pages are horrendous. I actually started drawing The Angel with Black Wings on 2013 then I hated how I drew it so I put it in the backburner. Did a remake on 2014 and the first couple of pages are still horrible despite the overhaul.

So just to show it.

2013 (old version)

Current version

Even this page makes me cringe a little.

Also here's my character's progress per chapter:

It's normal for the drawing style to change. I actually enjoy seeing progress of other artists. It's totally inspiring. So I won't worry about it too much if I were you.

[aspiderjonny]

God yes! I was just starting out with tablet-based drawing, so it was scratchy beyond belief. I really hate looking back at Book 1 of The J-Man Web Series and I'm afraid that a lot of people who like to start at the beginning will stop after the third page because of the art. All we can do is improve.

TJWS #1 p3 - 09/05/2014 (left)

TJWS #4 p17 - 06/21/2016 (right)

The ironic thing is that Books 1-3 of my webcomic are actually an improved reboot of the mini-series I made in high school. If you wanna see what I'm talking about.....

[Zanreo]

Oh, and another option could be to just redraw the first few pages of your comic, so new readers will know what level you're at now and "expect" it to get at least to this point later on. I've seen a few artists do this. Of course, when your art gets even better again you might be tempted to redraw them yet again...

[BlackMantaStudios]

My comic started out being drawn using my trusty computer mouse! I lucked out and got myself a drawing tablet, and it took a while before I got the hang of it, and it shows.

Here's the first strip:

The first one after I got my pentab:

And here's my current style (the gagstrips I've drawn in this style are yet to be published, so this is a strip from my longform series)

[Starfestival]

I started mine when I was 14. It looks.... drastically different now.

[Kayke]

Ooooh yeah. The left is from issue 1 and the right is from issue 5

[scullpanda]

TBH I'm still getting used to my digital formatting and the use of my iPad as a tablet (hadn't really don't much digital work prior) so I feel my comic Wait...What is still lacking in many areas, Its gonna take a lot of time using the tablet to get used to the new style of drawing and so for now my art isn't the best it can be but It has lost of time and love in it and hopefully will only get better from here on out.
BUT looking back my art was like this
AND IS NOW LIKE THIS

[Ambat]

So I drew like 40 pages of my comic all at once so I'd have a page upload buffer, and right now I only have about 10 pages uploaded, right? The bummer is, my art TOTALLY improves as the pages go on and it's painful for me to look at the older ones haha! I can't post full pages of the later stuff due to spoilers, but I can show screencaps:

I think more than anything I just got more comfortable with my art style/art direction!

[indagold]

well my comic I started when I was 16/17 and then did a sequel a full year later where it improves dramatically. I don't know if that counts.
first comic

second comic

although after doing 2 very long comics I feel it's easier to do shorter ones. Sometimes I hit artist blocks and pages might not be the best. Oh well it's a learning experience and hobby. I always see each new work as an opportunity to do better.

[marygold]

@indagold
Wow. The skill AND the mood excelled so quickly

[WakaXO]

I feel this! When I started my first comic in high school my style was very shoujo and I was trying to break away from drawing only kids/teens. The beginning of the first chapter was so different compared to the end of the second chapter it was amazing, but I was also really worried that people would be turned off by how bad the first few pages were so I went back and redid a bunch. Having done that then move forwards with the comic I can tell you it's a trap! By the end of the 3rd chapter my style had improved again and I wanted to redo the 1 chapter agian. ^^;
I have also read comics with shaky art that I knew the art got better later on.

[deceriacomics]

I can totally relate to this. I, too, made a small buffer before I uploaded my first comic, but I couldn't even use most of it after a certain point because my style changed so quickly! I ended up having to redraw lots of stuff haha.

[Ambat]

To be honest this is what I'm expecting will happen with me too haha!

[katverwho]

I knew there would be a jump between the first art and the final art when I started my comic, since it's going to be about 350 pages when complete...but I never planned for the long hiatus I had in the middle when I was working on a book! And my style has changed MASSIVELY, just look.

It worries me a lot because I'm planning to publish when it's complete, and I don't know what to do about the early pages. The writing AND art is bad.

[katverwho]

Yeah I don't see a HUGE difference here, though your line weight seems quite different? I bet in a 100 pages or so there'll be a huge jump, however.