Drawing First Comic NEED ADVICE

[Orange_Tarp]

Hi there!.
So I'm currently in the midst of getting into drawing my first one-shot (going for 12 pages)
Still figuring out how to layout the pages, but bigger problem- should I be worried about the consistency of my lineart on these pages?

I'm much better at drawing faces than clothing, landscapes and like, arms or really anything else. (And that really nice section on the first page took SO MUCH TIME & WORK. Should all of the panels take that much work?) So if these problems are going to make it unreadable, should I give up on this project?

[TheLemmaLlama]

should I be worried about the consistency of my lineart on these pages?

I personally think your lineart looks consistent enough :]

that really nice section on the first page took SO MUCH TIME & WORK. Should all of the panels take that much work?

Comics do tend to take more time than 'normal' illustrations for some reason, or at least that's how it feels to me. That said, it's a good idea to simplify your style to make it less tedious to draw. For instance, I probably won't put in all the nice details like you did in the first page, but rather go for a level of detail similar to your last panel

if these problems are going to make it unreadable, should I give up on this project

I don't think any of the concerns you brought up would cause readability problems. Readability problems are usually caused by layout or font choices, which are pretty easy to fix and not worth giving up on a project over, especially if it's just a 12-page oneshot :] (Well okay, layout is hard, but I'm probably not the best person to give advice on that since my 'layout' is literally the same sized panel over and over again from top to bottom XD)

[liamnaughton7]

No, there is no reason at all to give up. It's your first comic so really your only goal is to try to do as much as you can and finish it.

The idea that the work we produce should be viewed as products that need to be consistent is largely harmful to our development as artists. Use those twelve pages to challenge yourself and adapt as you go. So just try your best and get to the finish line while learning as much as you can.

There is no better way to learn than doing!

[TedGravesArt]

Don't give up, that's art rule #1. Drawing comics takes a ton of time and dedication though, so you've got to be able to accept that. BUT the more you draw, the better and faster you get! Something that takes you ages now will take you a fraction of that time after enough comic work.
Personally I can see a difference between the stylistic elements of your faces and the rest of your anatomy, but the more you draw these other things, and the more you work on your art, the tighter everything will become, and eventually it'll all pull together to form a cohesive style. That's just a natural result of practicing, and comics are stellar practice! I've advanced faster since starting my comic than I ever have before. Trust me, it's shocking how fast the skills level up when you're grinding hard on it every single day. But you gotta remember art rule #1! It's the most important rule!
Something else that helps me on tough days is a phrase I repeat to myself sometimes: "I'm doing the best I can." You gotta stay hungry for progress, but remember to accept your work when you're doing your best. You can do it!

[smokesalty]

I think your lineart is pretty consistent. Usually you can resort to thinner lineart for more detailed shots and thicker for more simple art.

In terms of readability, I recommend doing thumbnail sketches in order to plan where the images, speech bubbles and sound effects will go in order to fix issues early on. As long as the reader knows where to look and can understand what the character is doing, you'll be just fine.

Biggest advice I can give you (as a person who started comics making a couple of short (5-10 page) comics) is to just keep going and get them done. Sometimes things won't look great (which is normal when you're making so much art.) You'll improve and get faster over time! Your comic is already looking great, I wouldn't worry about it.

[darthmongoose]

I wouldn't be worried about it exactly, and it's worth being aware that it's pretty normal to put more detail and polish into the drawing of the face than the rest of a character (because the face is where the reader will look the most) but perhaps particularly on that first page the difference in detail level between the face and body is a bit jarring.

That said, as everyone else has said, this is a short comic. Your aim is to learn here, and this is a great opportunity for that, so rather than stressing over it, just focus on getting the thing done and then you can write down all the stuff you learned and ask for advice on how you could make it better.

But for advice going forwards, the main thing I'm noticing here is that it looks like the faces are drawn very tightly, with a lot of care and really controlled lines, while the bodies look rushed and with the floppy, deflated quality of letting the line smoothing do its own bidding. As this is a learning comic, that's a habit I recommend not getting into. Even if the style is simple, or especially when the style is simple, try to make each line do something purposeful like defining tension or relaxation.

There's an excellent book that would really help you at this stage in your development called "Drawn to Life" by Walt Stanchfield. Its a collection of lecture notes a legendary Disney animator used to train the team of newbie animators who would work on The Little Mermaid, Aladdin etc. I think you'd really get a lot out of it if you can buy a copy or get one from your local library.

As another potentially useful resource (not a plug! No obligation to subscribe or anything, this is just to give you something to compare to) you're welcome to have a look at my comic:

Errant | Tapas

We have styles that aren't a million miles apart and I think some similar influences. I don't generally do incredible levels of detail, and you can see, my faces are less detailed than yours, but the bodies are a bit more detailed. It might help to use it as a measuring stick for what's a reasonable balance, especially looking at how I often only even draw backgrounds in panels once or twice on an average page.

Keep it up! Your comic is coming along great, so at least see it through to the finish and collect all that sweet comics experience to apply to future projects!

[libs]

You should start by drawing a story board before actually putting in time and effort to draw. You can use stick figures or just text boxes. Once you decide on the panels and layout and gesture etc you can start actually drawing.

Also you should read a lot of comics and manga to study how they use panels and pages. What I like to do is take photos or save images I like and get inspo from them.

[RedLenai]

I think you should probably ask yourself first what kind of format are you going to make
Is it the scrolling (Vertical) format or the classic comic book format? Because each one is different. As well, remember to work on a bigger canvas, be it longer in case you're going for the vertical format (Since everything seems a bit too squished together, unless, of course you're not aiming for the vertical format but the comic book one)

Once you solve that, you need to do the following: RESOURCE TIME
Basically, you have to sit down, and "read" a bunch of comics on your desired format. You won't be reading the stories per say, you'll be analyzing the space between panels, how comfortable you can read, how the actions are divided and how they feel, the mood, the pace and speed of the events shown, etc.

Webcomics, independently of the format take time, don't expect to have 12 pages or even 12 panels done in a single day, no one is pointing a gun at you that you have to have ready a chapter in less than a week either, take your time, don't put unrealistic expectations and goals because that way you're going to lose motivation, and you should be very aware of that as you yourself already are considering giving up.

Here are some small advice:

• Work in a bigger resolution than webtoon's (1600 width x any length for your episodes).
• Make a batch of 10 episodes before publishing, don't be anxious enough of publishing them in one go, use them to give you time to work on other episodes.
• Don't worry much about having perfect art or distract yourself with tiny details that will be scrolled up anyway.
• While promoting a new episode, use a panel from it to promote it. That way you won't have to make many "special illustrations" for your series.
• If you use assets / brushes / backgrounds / pngs try to make sure it matches your art style so it's less noticeable and doesn't look like a collage. (Make sure that these tools are free to use, non-copyrighted)
• Measure the time it takes you to make a chapter, and according to the type of story try to think if you can make a 20 panel episode or a 10 panel episode depending on the tempo and the ambiance of the story itself.

If you don't know how to do something remember: The internet is your biggest resource.
There are always going to be people with thousands of tutorials, art classes, videos, blogs, threads, explaining, detailing and showing on different ways how to do a certain thing or even different alternatives. Who doesn't search, won't find.

[Chaz]

If you're gonna make your lineart inconsistent, make it as it coincides with the story. For example, simple for funny moments and more detailed for significant moments.

[Mallory]

I found that consciously limiting myself to what brush size I use for lineart helps keep things more consistent (i.e. you'll feel tempted to shrink your brush to add more details to a small panel, but that looks bad. If you stick with the bigger brush, it gives the page more consistency between the panels, at the cost of not being able to cram that tiny panel full of detail (and in comics, that's a good thing!)) So for Engram I use a 13 pixel brush (sometimes I go up to 16-17 for dramatic shadows, but 13 is my starting place). For my other comic I went bigger and use 25-30 pixel-sized brush for the lines (on a same-sized canvas).

Also there's no shame in dropping the quality on panels where it's not as important. Over time you'll learn exactly where you can cut the corners, but in general consider that level of importance/emotional impact in a panel should correspond to how much time you spend on it.

[simplykit]

hi, how you doin?

first off let me congratulate you on making your first comic. you've just opened a whole new world of
endless possibilities my friend

my advice is...
- do it your way. be you, in comic form
- dont over think about people reaction, like how they want your comic to look, or if they like it or not
- if you make mistakes, no biggie, learn from them and improve
- "challenges" will be ahead of you, be strong and overcome it
- just have fun with it, dude

[system]

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