Does my art look bad? What ways can I improve?

[Azureheim]

I've been drawing for a long time but I've always been a slow learner. I love working on my comic, but lately I've been so critical of my art. I know that there are so many amazing artists out there, many in this very forum. It's made me freeze up the past couple of days and my perfectionism blocks any progress. I'd really like to know what you guys think of my artwork and how I could really make it more professional.

I'm not going to link to my comic because this isn't a promotion thread, but I am going to put some image files here as examples. These are not in chronological order.

[Indigo-Child]

Heeya ,I am not a professional but here is what I think I could help you ^^

I find that the scripting level of the place of characters is not bad (it is varied, there is no repetition of the shot)

I think the first thing you could improve is the anatomy
(not much advice apart from practicing every day)
I really like the first page, it is well filled and complete in comparison I find the second a little "empty".
here I hope it will help you a little

[SagaHolmgaard]

I don't think your art is bad at all. You clearly have a sense of composition and the pages are easy to read, I understand what's going on in every panel and I can read the sequence.

You may want to to work on your speech bubbles and lettering. You generally want the words to fit the shape of the speech bubble, so no awkward 'waists' where one line in the middle of shorter than the ones above and below it. Here's a quite detailed guide on dos and don'ts of lettering.

I would also say to practice on drawing hands. You can simplify them into blobs if you want to, sometimes, but in other places they're a bit harder to read. For example, the fist in the panel with the man breathing fire, and the first panel on the page below that with the injured worried boy. Those are just a bit too hard to see and think "hand". The hands on the kneeling man in the first panel works, though, because it's at such a distance and the pose is so readable otherwise that I can understand it.

That's kinda nitpicky though, the overall look is pretty good!

[Ruthful]

I really love the simple, clean black and white artwork you have! I'm not a sequential artist so take all of this with a grain of salt!

There's just one panel that I'd like to give feedback on! The second to last, with the monsters. Those are so scary, and you did a great job with their design! Tilted, smiling heads, desiccated bodies...terrifying! I love it! However, I think the background does not do them justice. You could really punch up the effect of their moment by giving a little more attention to the detail and atmosphere.

Right now, they are "trees". Standard trees that don't say anything about the setting, the tone, etc. If they aren't communicating anything, why are they there at all? But we still need a background, right?

A teacher of mine once told us to draw a tree without looking at one, and the result was a lot of these "standard" trees. Then he had us all go outside to draw actual trees. The result was fantastic! They really don't take long to draw, and they are really fun detailing all the knots, texture of bark etc etc

After the tree exercise, you can play with the values, shadows, shapes...make it a spooky tree. Because the trees you find in a beautiful meadow full of friendly critters are going to look different from the ones you find those creatures lurking around!

Here is a very quick drawing of what I mean by all this:

In any medium, we have to be intentional in what we put on the page/screen. I can tell from the first panel that you're really good at shadow and pushing value patterns! Take advantage of that and those trees and use them to make those creatures even more scary!!

[Azureheim]

Thank you so much for the feedback guys! I really appreciate it. It's given me specific goals to work towards, and You've also boosted my confidence a bit. I'll definitely be reworking the hands ,lettering, backgrounds, trees, etc. Anatomy is gonna be the hardest part for me, but It will just take time and practice. Thank you very much|!

[jkb4753]

You deserve to be proud of the work you put into improving. Like, obviously we'll all congratulate you once you've grown your skill set. I just want to say good for you for putting in the work.